In a recent cartoon, the artist depicts the difference between the 1950s and today. The first shows parents and a teacher telling the student that "these grades are terrible." In the modern panel, the student and parents are telling the teacher "these grades are terrible."

Brace yourself, because in the future, the student, parents, and teacher will tell a college "these grades are terrible."

The Obama Administration is taking standardized testing to the next level. Not only will teachers be evaluated by standardized test scores turned in by their students, but the college that teachers attended will be evaluated based upon those scores as well.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan pointed out that several states, mostly in the South, have already piloted a similar type of program to get the data the Education Department is looking for on teacher preparation and performance.

Supporters of the measure point to a study put forth by the National Council on Teacher Quality, which claimed that not all teachers were well-prepared and were paired with experts in their field on shadow visits. The group is funded by a slew of pro-business foundations, ranging from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Bradley Foundation and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, as well as several listed as "anonymous."

Though unions cautiously back the plant, the idea is not without its critics, as the Washington Post cited an award-winning principal who noted that such a plan would incentivize colleges sending their teachers to the best schools, not the ones with at-risk kids or struggling schools.

To counter such criticism, the administration rolled out the TEACH Grant Program, giving students funding up to $4,000 who will teach in a high-need field or a school with low-income schools for four academic years within eight years of completing the studies. Otherwise, the grant is converted into a loan to be paid back with interest.

Conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, and analysts like those at the American Statistical Association, criticized the plan for relying too much on standardized tests, showing evidence that such scores are not influenced much by who is the teacher. If anything, class size reductions were shown to be better than the impact of the last grant-for-high-need service: Teach for America.

But not all colleges are waiting for what's coming out of Washington to enact reforms. "We are moving towards a clinically-based program where seniors are in the schools with master teachers all year long," writes Don Livingston, Chair of the Education Department at LaGrange College. "We are moving away from College Faculty as evaluators towards a model where cooperating classroom teachers serve as clinical faculty." Sounds like the type of high-quality preparation and experience that teaching candidates are seeking.

 What does Russia, Cuba, China all have in common. The answer they are all socialist countries. Unfortunately America may be joining that gang. In 2008 America elected a socialist democrat named Barack Hussein Obama! Many are beginning to wonder why we elected him. Obama has a long history of being tied to the socialists.

President Obama’s own father wrote about Socialism in a paper entitled “Problems With Our Socialism” which calls for 100% taxation of the rich, communal ownership of land and forced confiscation of private lands. Obama’s mother was a “Communist Sympathizer”! President Obama was quoted as saying “The values she taught me continue to be my touchstone when it comes to how I go about the world of politics”. Obama’s brother Roy and one of his cousins are Marxist. Early in his presidency it was made aware that he had a very close relationship with ACORN! Fortunately that slowly unraveled.

President Obama has made America look like the next Socialist Russia. He has become the great and powerful Obama. He has controlled America in all aspects of life. We have experienced the transitions into socialism through reduction of wages, loss of freedoms and the Federal Reserve hiding the truth. What he has learned is starting to be forced onto the American people and most of America is just shrugging it off and thinking it will eventually get better. However without anyone standing up against it, America will crumble.

President Obama wants to control wages of the American society. His agenda is for people to become increasing dependent on the government. With his socialist control of our wages, we end up earning less; they pay less because of the benefits the federal government provides. We may earn more some days however with inflation and the minimum wage it devalues the dollar. President Obama has begun to take away our freedoms. He’s trying to take guns away from law-abiding citizens. Even Nanny Bloomberg is aiding President Obama by banning Big Gulp’s in New York. President Obama has begun forcing Americans to drop their healthcare providers and sign-up for Obamacare! Obama has killed the job market and therefore forced people onto welfare. Currently there are approximately 50 million people on food stamps; that’s 1/6th of our entire population. To qualify, a single person with no kids can make no more than $1800 per month gross for $189 a month in food assistance. This creates a dependence on government. If the government provides you with food, welfare, and healthcare, what is your incentive to work? Most of those who receive food stamps sell them. Recently some video footage came out that showed people selling $150 in food stamps for $60 cash. Nearly 43% of all food stamps are given to illegal immigrants, who shouldn’t be here in the first place.

The Federal Reserve has QE expenditures of $85 billion dollars per month poured into stocks/bonds which artificially raise the stock market with fake money. They are just putting zeros on an accounting sheet and not even bothering to print the money; which allows President Obama to claim that the economy is so great. Just look at how well the stock market is doing, when our economy is still in the shitter, economy has gone so far down we can’t even see the end of the paper roll. Socialists are famously known for lying to themselves and everyone else about the real state of their own countries; just look at Russia. The only reason China has not gone belly up like other communist regimes is that it has a private business industry (contrary to communist ideology) that bolsters its' economy by selling cheaply made items / copied items to the United States, and other free market countries as well as we own a large chunk of money to China.

So thanks to Obama’s Presidential Agenda, we are rapidly declining into socialism. Now is the time not to sit on the sidelines. Get off the bench and let’s put a stop to Obama Socialism. We can get America out of this socialism mess. We must bring back the American ingenuity that made Detroit “The Motor City” and where are the Americans that lived off a farm; raised their own cattle and provided it to America instead of being forced to buy foreign meats. Where are the small business owners who help keep America Strong? Rise Up America, now is the time.

There is one certainty in the 2014 and 2016 elections; outside groups will determine the outcome.  They have become some of the most important players in campaign politics over the past four years, and brand new fundraising figures indicate that the influence of outside groups is not diminishing.  The numbers suggest that these big players are a force to be reckoned with in 2014 and 2016.  The Senate, House and gubernatorial elections are shaping up to be the most expensive midterms ever.

“Outside groups have become a dominate force in House and Senate elections, and there is no sign of them going away anytime soon,” adds Nathan Gonzales, deputy editor of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report. Tuesday was the deadline for congressional campaigns, party committees and super PACs to report their fundraising totals from the first three months of year to the Federal Election Commission. In addition, with less than seven months to go until Election Day, the latest numbers serve, as a barometer of the influence outside groups will have in deciding the outcome of some crucial contests.

American Crossroads is the super PAC co-founded by Karl Rove.  The group reports it brought in more than $5 million just in March alone.  That is more than they raised all of last year.  Rove’s organization spent heavily and was a key player in the 2010 and 2012 races but faded into the shadows in 2013 and turning the spotlight over to Americans for Prosperity.  Senate Majority PAC is the leading outside force trying to help the Democrats keep control of the Senate.  The group is reported as raising $11.1 million in January, February, and March, raking in their total to $20 million so far this cycle.

However, the Democrats are playing defense in the battle for the Senate; they are tasked with defending 21 of their 36 seats that are up for grabs in November, with half the seats in red states.  The group has spent nearly $9 million on vulnerable candidates including Mark Begich (D-AK).

House Majority PAC is the House version of the Pro-Democrat Senate Majority PAC.  The group recently announced that it raised a record $5.2 million during the first quarter. Add that to the more than $10 million the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee – the official House Democratic re-election arm – reported Wednesday and you’ve got one impressive haul. Nevertheless, regardless of their recent riches, Democrats still need a net gain of 17 seats this November to win back control of the Republican-led House, a feat political handicappers say is unlikely in part due to the shrinking number of competitive congressional districts.  The most important numbers are from non-profit groups and are not required to file quarterly figures.  One of those groups is AFP, which is being backed by the deep pockets of the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers. The organization has shelled out more than $30 million so far this election cycle to run ads – most of them focused on health care – that attack Democrats and praise Republicans in key Senate and House races.

The explosion in massive spending by outside groups has occurred in large part due to a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that changed the rules and opened the floodgates. Four years later, the money continues to pour in, and it continues to make a major impact on the campaign trail.

The Washington Post recently expressed astonishment about the "remarkable staying power" of Sarah Palin, former governor, former vice presidential candidate, TV star, wife, mother, and most powerful female politician on the planet.Palin has been a busy lady in the last few weeks, traveling the country to endorse and campaign for like-minded politicians and debuting her latest TV project, "Amazing America" on the hitherto obscure Sportsman Channel that features colorful Americans in the heartland.

"It's tempting to think of this spate of Sarah Palin appearances everywhere (on social media, too), as a comeback. But, thing is, Palin hasn't ever really gone anywhere since she went from being a complete unknown to an American obsession in 2008. Like no other figure in American pop and political culture (The Fix calls her a celebritician), Palin has shown a remarkable ability to stay top of mind, maintaining a role in the Beltway conversation while staying very far away."

For those who have followed Palin since her debut on the national scene in 2008, it is not secret why she has become such a force of nature. A woman who is as telegenic, articulate, funny, courageous, and intelligent as Palin cannot help but achieve the Oscar Wilde dictum of being talked about.

Besides, anyone who is as hated by the left as Palin has to be interesting, to say the least. From Bill Maher to David Letterman to a million semi-anonymous Internet trolls Palin elicits the sort of hate and fear that the ancient Romans must have felt for Boudicca, the Celtic queen who almost gave the Empire the boot from Britain. The left regards her like that line from "The Lord of the Rings." "Beautiful and terrible and all shall worship her and despair."

The Washington Post, by the way, may be correct in that Palin has eschewed ever running for elected office, though caution should be had in predicting any of her future moves. This writer, like many, was pretty sure she was going to run for president in 2012. Any predictions for 2016 should be subject to change.

In the meantime, Palin has settled in comfortable into the role of America's unofficial gray eminence, albeit not in the holy orders, one day giving the back of her hand to Paul Ryan's budget, the next riffing with Jimmy Fallon who was playing the role of Vladimir Putin. She will be with us for a long time to come.

The Rape of the Crimea is now complete with a sham referendum that has codified the transfer of that region from the Ukraine to Russia. President Obama has been reduced to sputtering impotently promising this or that vague consequences.

The American Spectator recalls a crucial part of President Ronald Reagan's strategy that won the Cold War and suggests that it become one of those consequences. That would be to bend every effort to lower the price of oil and gas. Russian depends on exports of these two commodities to fuel its war machine and lubricate its imperial pretensions.

The idea is that the Obama administration could reverse its five year plus policy and start drilling with abandon and then exporting the excess product to Europe in order to undercut Russian oil and gas. Putin is riding high with the price of a barrel of crude at about $100 or so a barrel. He would be in big trouble is the price were to be, instead, $20 a barrel.

The policy would have a number of happy side effects, cutting off a source of income to Islamist terrorists and rogue regimes like Venezuela as well as providing a boost to the American economy. Imagine paying around $2 a gallon for gasoline and having one's utility bills cut by a substantial amount. With energy costs declining, the American economy would finally start to recover.

The same sort of thing happened in the 1980s, as low energy prices helped to fuel the Reagan recovery while pinching off income to the Soviet Union. It could happen again.

Unfortunately the current president, captive as he is to his own ideology, is not likely to follow his predecessor's winning strategy. That is why the next two and a half years are likely to be long and depressing. That is why Reagan is a world historic figure and Obama will always be a warning of what happens when someone like that is given power.

The media is in a frenzy over the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Was it hijacked? Did it crash into the ocean? Did the captain or copilot take over the flight? According to CNN, the latest in a long string of theories is that the flight may have landed on a remote island chain in the Indian Ocean, based on data that the airliner's engines were still operating hours after communications from the cockpit ceased and that the big jet was unexpectedly changing course. As the investigation into the vanishing of Flight 370 continues many commentators have questioned why, in 2014, an expensive airliner could have simply gone missing.
With today's modern technology, why not simply have all cockpit data, especially audio, sent straight to computer servers and recorded? This would provide a real-time record of what flight crews were doing or experiencing. Pilots could be heard snoozing on the job, arguing, struggling with equipment, or behaving strangely, alerting airlines to the possibility that their ultra-expensive jets, and the safety of hundreds of passengers, were in jeopardy. Or, at the very least, if something bad did happen investigators wouldn't have to comb the ocean for a black box - they could pull up the audio files from the flight.

Sure, this technology might be expensive up front, but could save airlines millions by reducing the number of pilot-related accidents. Incompetent or unprofessional pilots could be detected early based on their cockpit audio and confusing or ineffective equipment or flight protocols could be discovered by hearing pilots' confusion or frustration. Constantly-recorded cockpit audio could help researchers and engineers discover ways to improve commercial flight and pilot training.

Pilots would likely chafe at the notion of being constantly recorded on the job but, given the enormity of their tasks, such surveillance is justified, especially if commonsense limits protecting pilots from abusive termination policies are implemented. To protect pilots, FAA regulations should limit the use of in-cockpit audio recordings for employment purposes and should only allow them to be used retroactively, as part of investigations into incidents, as part of independent flight research where pilot anonymity is protected, or as part of probationary pilot training and performance review.

Though we want to promote safety and professionalism in the air, we don't want good pilots to be fired or demoted for uttering untoward language occasionally, enjoying a joke with colleagues, or speaking heatedly during times of stress and inclement conditions.

With many other professions dealing with increased digital oversight, ranging from police officers and their in-dash cameras, office workers and Internet tracking software, and teachers constantly at risk of being recorded by students, pilots should expect, and accept, greater oversight in the cockpit.