NYC Educator brought up a very important point in his article about cheating. Naively, most of us are against cheating. Isn't good teaching (and parenting) supposed to mean that students do their own honest work on tests and assignments?

As a parent I was willing to guide but not to do my children's schoolwork and home work for them. I had done my own, for good or bad grades, and I didn't need my kids' teachers to grade me. Not long ago at a wedding some stranger came up to me, looking for an English speaker to perfect his child's school paper. After a few minutes I refused and told him that he wasn't doing his kid a favor. The grade had to be for his kid's work, not for mine.

No wonder kids don't see what's so awful about cheating on a test when they're encouraged to bring in PERFECT assignments and papers.

Another problem is that a teacher's success is graded according to his/her students' grades. Those whose students get the highest grades, whether honest or cheated, are considered superior teachers.

Is that the education we want for the next generation?

Speaking of "next generations," and requests from friends and neighbors, I want to comment on the Visas, and how the USA plays hard to get.

Over the years, we've gotten calls from Israelis we know begging us to use our "influence" in the United States Consulate to help them get a tourist visa. There's no rhyme nor reason why some get it and some don't. One case recently, the person had gotten a ten year visa a few years before, but it was on his old passport. He had been told that even though he had more than half the ten years to go, the US Consulate couldn't or wouldn't transfer it nor give him a new one. So the guy missed his brother's wedding.

This morning, I read about a wife who can't get visas for her and her kids to live in the states with her new husband. They've been married over a year.

And bloggingheads of the New York Times is also talking about visas.

No wonder that "second class" United States Citizens, (Children born abroad of "first class" United States citizens get a United States Passport and "citizenship," but they can't transfer that citizenship to the next generation unless they spend a certain amount of years in the states.) My married daughter and her friends, are willing to fill out reams of forms and then schlep the kids to the states to get them the same status.

There are so many "illegals" in the USA. Some entered on valid visas and never left, and others got in "some how." They're in a crazy "twilight zone," because being illegal, it'll be discovered if they try to leave, and then they won't be let back in.

Americans try to be so careful about who can enter the states, but they want us, Israel, to accept Arab terrorists and to take down security check-points.

We ought to do what they do, not what they say.