Education Initiatives by James Macdonald for Mayor
At James Macdonald for Mayor, we believe in the power of education to transform lives and communities. James Macdonald is committed to providing job training and educational opportunities that empower individuals to thrive and succeed in today's competitive world.
This idea about education people have to take a moment and realize it is the responsibility of the parent and the student. When it is an adult needing education looking for help in areas that will help them with employment our government needs to be able to offer a trade school or job placement training. If that person needs more education in basic education it needs to be made available at all levels. Streets to Prosperity. In the movie Goodwill Hunting, They were at a bar looking at girls they could meet. Ben Affleck was talking with a girl and a college student interrupted him showing everyone how smart he was trying to impress everybody quoting things he had learned in college while embarrassing Ben. Matt Damon stepped in and regurgitated what the student would say next embarrassing the student trying to make Ben look stupid and uneducated. Matt turned it back around and finished the quotes of the other kid and went even further adding in the next fifty years the kid would come to two certainties in life. One don't do that and two you dropped 150 grand on a education you could have got for 1.50 in late charges a local library.
I have had issues with our school system for a long time, some of the principles, some of the leaders hired to teach our children basic skills in English, Math and Reading fail each day. A teachers job is to find ways to inspire a child so much that the student wants to learn. Some parents fail their children also not teaching them to respect our underpaid teachers. They expect our children to be able to compete in a world market with low education standards. In 2007 I took my son out of Portland Public Schools when a principle expelled my son for fighting. The boy who started the fight was the principles child who he brought here from another country. I didn't blame the child for the principles short sided views that principle retired that next year. The next year I put my son in a brand new charter school which he excelled in that school scoring on the oaks test each year in grade school in the top 3% in our district. Then in 2014 they dropped the OAKS tests in Oregon switching to common core. Then in 2020 our Governer felt school education was to hard for your children to accomplish, our then GOVERNER made it easier to graduate. Her type of thinking is the thinking and other leaders who wish to make life easier for everybody not expecting any goals from anybody while taking away your child's future not expecting them to be able to Read, write, and count money or even be able think critically. It is a global world we live in today and education is our children's future. Governor Kate Brown signed into law our kids that are graduating do not have to show freshman and sophomore grade level skills in certain subjects to graduate from high school. Our Governer did a disservice to parents and all students. My whole life I have been working with children who need good guidance, education, and opportunities to be able to succeed at having a good life in America. When I would take into my home foster children most of them had needs you can only imagine. Most of them had parents that were into drugs, on them in them everywhere. Some of these kids had no clue what a good meal was but their lack of food became something that these children did not trust adults to provide. I had to teach them that adults are responsible for making sure that they have food to eat. Some of these kids when I received them were hoarders of food, hiding food in different places around our house. I at one point with one child I had to start slow. I took that child to the grocery store let that child pick out the foods the child liked. I made sure the child stayed up late so the child would fall asleep easy. I gave that child their own cupboard in our kitchen and asked the child to please put away their food locked it up and gave them the key assuring the child I would make sure to watch the cupboard while they slept. The child went to bed key in hand and woke up the next morning heading straight to the kitchen to see if their food was still there. Smiles. From that day forward the child trusted me on everything. I wish our leaders would demonstrate to the voters we can trust them, that they are leaders not a person filling a job on recruitment poster.