3 Blind Mice

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/03/20/pennsylvania.school.testing/index.html?hpt=T2

This article begins as a story concerning a woman in state college who refuses to allow her children to take the PSSA's. The issue concerns that the tests do nothing good for schools and should not exist at all. However, the article also points out the other side of the issue concerning the international plight, when children are being outclasses in every subject worldwide. The article also hints at no child left behind, but it doesn't fortitude itself with that information so I believe it isn't the focus of the piece. Personally, though, I dislike the no child left behind policy as well as the results that the test cause. No child left behind is not a very good policy, concerning schools with a higher special education tend to do poorer on the exams. Thus, those results also limit the funding for the schools that actually need better funding to hire more teachers to help educate the children. However, that isn't the focus of the article. The article takes a turn on the parents who just dislike the test more than anything, which I feel is a bit silly. I truthfully feel more inclined to believe that the tests are a good thing that try to make the children proceed and do better so that they can say they got a good score on it. I feel that the US is slowly falling behind other countries academically and so to try to enhance the education process and, in a sense, force growth may actually be a good thing.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/03/20/pennsylvania.school.testing/index.html?hpt=T2

This article references the issues concerning Japan and its nuclear power plant issues and focuses on the repercussions from the problems. Apparently, many countries are severely rethinking their nuclear programs for safety reasons. Also 7 in 10 Americans are even more fretful of a nuclear disaster happening here in the US. As much as this article elaborates, it really tries to point out that safety was always a concern with the nuclear energy, and that much of the fear is unfounded. Let alone Americans being fearful that the radiation would harm them from Japan, considering that Chernobyl was a disaster of much larger proportions and still didn't affect areas of shorter distances than Japan to the US. Personally I believe that there is nothing to fear, disaster can always strike, but the benefits of nuclear energy far outweigh the costs concerning the world and humanity.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/03/09/illinois.death.penalty/index.html

This article is very simply about Illinois and its vote to eliminate the death penalty. It noted in the article that the last death penalty actually occurred in 1999, and was then halted by the current governor at the time. The article is very philosophical, reference many different opinions on the subject, although it seems to be more heavily suited towards being against the death penalty. Personally I don't believe that the death penalty should be legal in any form, but I do see the points for having it. I know a bit of sociology, and that being said prisons are actually a miserably poor excuse for a correction facility. You are basically taught that you have to be tough to get around and get anywhere, which is not present in formal society. Although you have to have a good self-esteem, that doesn't mean that you have to show brute strength to get everything. So, as such, bringing the death penalty allows the state to reduce the funding for the massive amounts of inmates that are likely repeat offenders. The death penalty also limits severe incidents from happening more than once. However, the possibility to actually kill an innocent person is much too great a risk in my opinion to allow it to happen.