http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45094852/ns/us_news-life/?GT1=43001#.Tq4IS0M81e4

In a nut shell, the parents now have the say on what kind of bonus a teacher brings in.

Why is this awesome and noteworthy?

Because now parents there can officially have some form of leverage, to some small degree, on the quality of education their children get. There is still the small issue of the 'no child left behind' that needs to be shut down.

Other items in regards to this was the arguments about the Prizm being better than the Nspire in the Nspire group forum, where teachers didn't want games and said that students playing games were not an indication of their ability to teach, while anyone with common sense would say they are wrong.

What's your thought?

Sounds like a good idea. I would be concerned however with parents in isolated communities in certain areas, who don't believe in the same set of historical and scientific facts everyone else has come to accept, and would use this "leverage" to insure their children get taught the same fantasies they've chosen to believe in(like that creationism is just as valid if not more so than evolution).

There are valid arguments for and against both evolution and intelligent design (ID is not creationism, but the scientific theory that there is enough evidence to support some sort of intelligent design ... like if you find a digital device in an asteroid, it probably did not just assemble at random).

I feel the two ideas do not have to clash though. My microbiology teacher said two very interesting things throughout the course. (1) That cells are so complex that they cannot possibly have just fallen into place randomly, so if we find a cell, it came from other cells. This chain goes back and back, and thus it must have originated from (2) some cell that just somehow in the right conditions came together by chance ... wait, what?

I think it's ludicrous not to agree that there is evidence to support evolution etc. (I mean, it's right there); but I think it's equally valid to argue where it came from. It's not about religion, we're talking science; and if you please, a lot of theories are bizarre until it can be explained (e.g. the bizarre idea of a flat world, or that of a round one).

My one final point is that Darwin had nothing to do with "evolution" as it is defined/taught today. He just found evidence of natural selection (which has been proven), and the theory of macro-evolution has been tacked onto it. And because adaptation is proven, people say evolution is too. And it MUST be taught this way, as flat fact, or people get in big trouble. ... Though yes, there is plenty evidence to support it and it's stupid to reject such a strong point on no grounds. But I say (1) there are different theories that are equally valid, (2) nothing should be taught as flat fact if it's just a theory (that it is taught that way is political), otherwise it's very close to pushing a religion