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Post by philunderwood on Jun 30, 2011 9:20:53 GMT -5
Progressivism Masquerading as Education By Arnold Ahlert www.JewishWorldReview.com | A couple of weeks ago the results of a nationwide history test given at various grade levels were released by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). To virtually no one's surprise, only 20 percent of fourth graders, 17 percent of eighth graders and 12 percent of high school seniors demonstrated "proficiency" on the exam. Most Americans, if we're being honest, are equally incompetent, if not more so, regarding basic economics. Throw in a lack of proficiency regarding the Constitution, and you get a trifecta of ignorance that ought to embarrass any First World nation. Yet if the Maryland public school system is any indication, we're beyond embarrassment: "environmental literacy" will now be required in order to graduate high school. Understand, no reasonable person has a problem with teaching children to be responsible stewards of the planet. But anyone who has watched the steady evolution of public schools from places of education into propaganda centers for the progressive worldview knows exactly what is going on here. The State Board of Education hides the truth by saying there are no specifics regarding what is to be taught, but Maryland Governor, Democrat Martin O'Malley, lets the cat out of the progressive bag when he notes the law with serve as "a foundation for green jobs." You know which country had a romance with green jobs? Spain. Know what they discovered? For every green job created, 2.1 non-green jobs were lost. Spain's unemployment rate is currently 22 percent. And then there's Great Britain. Three weeks ago, one of their largest utility companies, Scottish Electric, announced that the gas and electricity bills of five million customers would go up by a whopping 19 and 10 percent respectively, beginning August first. Six other major power providers expected to follow suit. Why is it happening? Part of the reason is higher wholesale costs for power, but the other reason is depressingly familiar. Raymond Jack, Scottish Power's chief executive: "The rising burden of non-energy costs faced by Britain's energy suppliers — including the cost of meeting government environmental and social programs and the cost of distributing electricity on the national grid — has also placed further upward pressure on energy bills." The result? In Britain, the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) points out that many of the country's poor will be faced with a choice between "heating and eating" next winter. Does anyone remember how many public schools made blowhard Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth" required watching? That would be the same movie in which a British court found eleven inaccuracies, even as it called the film "political propaganda." Did that stop the schools from pushing this crap of a movie on impressionable kids? Of course not. Now America is chock full of young kids who are completely convinced the "planet has a fever," even as they fail to notice the head fever-monger has a "carbon footprint" that would make Godzilla's imprint look ballerina-like by comparison. Once again I will say what I have said countless times before, and I will keep saying it, until enough Americans understand it. The battle for the nation's soul is not going in in state houses across the country, nor is it occurring in Washington, D.C. or Hollywood. It is occurring in the thousands of public schools around the nation, where the bankrupt ideology of progressivism is being foisting on impressionable children, masquerading itself as education. It is not education. It is indoctrination. It is an indoctrination so thorough that the same high school students who can already quote chapter and verse on environmentalism, don't know the century in which the Civil War was fought, and can't add or subtract without a calculator. It is an indoctrination so thorough that the concept of failure has been replaced by social promotion, grade inflation and self-esteem massage. It is an indoctrination so thorough that kids can get free condoms and directions to the nearest abortion clinic from the same school nurse who isn't allowed to offer moral guidance about either choice. It is one so thorough that 31 percent of Americans polled by the Gallup Organization think there are "too many rich people" in America. Too many rich people? The social mobility that forms the essence and beauty of America, the idea that anyone, regardless of background or circumstance, can elevate himself to wealth — is a problem? Make no mistake: when people are educated, the most critical aspect of which is the ability to think for oneself, Nanny State, wealth-redistributing progressivism is in serious trouble. Making environmental literacy a requirement for receiving a diploma is all about expanding the progressive agenda by stealth. The dead giveaway here is that what constitutes environmental literacy remains wholly undefined, even as it becomes an requirement. That is exactly backwards. An honest State Board of Education would define the parameters of such a program before making it part of the state's core curriculum. The parameters would then be subject to scrutiny and debate. Instead, the state is leaving it up to local school boards to "implement the requirement as they see fit," according to a state official. That's progressive code-speak for "we're going to get away with whatever we can get away with, wherever we can get away with it." Thus, if 40 school districts teach global warming is "settled science" and parents in one school district rebel, 39 others are still pushing the agenda. This country is in serious trouble. We are producing legions of semi-educated kids with marginal abilities in math, reading, history and Constitutionalism. We're being forced to import engineers and scientists because we don't graduate enough people with those abilities domestically. American students are getting clobbered on international tests, scoring below some students from Third World countries. Three-out-of-four high schools graduates from some states require remedial courses in reading and math before they can do college level work. Environmental literacy? How about literacy, period?
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Post by philunderwood on Jul 6, 2011 13:57:16 GMT -5
neoneocon.com/2011/07/06/the-atlanta-school-cheating-scandal/July 6th, 2011 The Atlanta school cheating scandal [See UPDATE below.] When I first saw the headline “Investigation Finds ‘Widespread Cheating’ in Atlanta Schools” I almost didn’t click on it, so ho-hum and ordinary that fact seemed to be. Cheating has probably always existed in schools, usually of a rather petty and impulsive sort such as copying from a nearby student, although sometimes it’s more premeditated and widespread. And I have little doubt it’s increased in recent years. But it turns out that this particular situation is different from the student cheating of time immemorial, because it’s the teachers and administrators who were doing the cheating, not the students. Now, that’s news, a “man bites dog” story, and a terrible one at that: The report found that teachers, principals and administrators were both helping students on the state’s standardized test, the Criterion-Reference Competency Test, and correcting incorrect answers after students had turned the tests in. Eighty-two educators confessed to the allegations detailed in the report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigations. Calling it a “dark day” for Atlanta Public Schools, Mayor Kasim Reed said the yearlong investigation “confirms our worst fears … There is no doubt that systemic cheating occurred on a widespread basis in the school system. Further, there is no question that a complete failure of leadership in the Atlanta Public School system hurt thousands of children who were promoted to the next grade without meeting basic academic standards.” Not only that, but the Atlanta cheating scandal occurred under the watch of a superintendent who had been much-lauded and honored for her success at boosting academic achievement in that beleaguered school system. But the results were bogus: The investigation tarnishes the record of Superintendent Beverly Hall, who was named national Superintendent of the Year in 2009, due in large part to reported gains in the district. The 800-page report shows some educators reported cheating in their schools, but Hall and other school officials ignored the claims, and in some cases, punished those who came forward. Hall stepped down at the end of her contract on June 30. “National Superintendent of the Year”—it has a real ring to it, doesn’t it? Hall is not alone, either. Earlier, a similar thing happened in Washington, DC. Both districts feature especially challenging populations, with high percentages of black students with families mired in poverty and disruption of many sorts. This report of cheating is just another example of breakdown in our society, not that we needed another example. The dire economic and cultural wasteland in which the students find themselves is the culmination of many decades of problems, some of them the legacy of discrimination but in recent years many of them the legacy of the welfare state. What excuse do the teachers and administrators have? Investigators appear to be blaming the cheating (at least in part) on high standards: … nvestigators cited the following as the key reasons that cheating flourished in Atlanta: “The district set unrealistic test-score goals, or “targets,” a culture of pressure and retaliation spread throughout the district, and Hall emphasized test results and public praise at the expense of ethics.”
A fish rots from the head, and I have no trouble believing that if it was widely known that Hall winked at such violations and encouraged results at the expense of all else, it would have encouraged the spread of cheating in order to boost the stats. But that couldn’t have happened unless many teachers were already morally compromised.
Should this be surprising? Probably not. Teachers are just a macrocosm of what’s happening in society, and it seems that the end justifies the means more and more these days. If these are the mentors and role models for students, it does not bode well for our future. [UPDATE: Just a few minutes after writing this post, I discovered (hat tip: Althouse) a much more detailed article on the subject which is far more shocking than anything I'd read earlier. It makes it clear that the evidence supports a massive, systemic, and coordinated scam of long-standing duration under Hall's supervision:
Area superintendents silenced whistle-blowers and rewarded subordinates who met academic goals by any means possible. Superintendent Beverly Hall and her top aides ignored, buried, destroyed or altered complaints about misconduct, claimed ignorance of wrongdoing and accused naysayers of failing to believe in poor children’s ability to learn. For years — as long as a decade — this was how the Atlanta school district produced gains on state curriculum tests. The scores soared so dramatically they brought national acclaim to Hall and the district, according to an investigative report released Tuesday by Gov. Nathan Deal. In the report, the governor’s special investigators describe an enterprise where unethical — and potentially illegal — behavior pierced every level of the bureaucracy, allowing district staff to reap praise and sometimes bonuses by misleading the children, parents and community they served. The report accuses top district officials of wrongdoing that could lead to criminal charges in some cases. The decision whether to prosecute lies with three district attorneys — in Fulton, DeKalb and Douglas counties — who will consider potential offenses in their jurisdictions. For teachers, a culture of fear ensured the deception would continue. “APS is run like the mob,” one teacher told investigators, saying she cheated because she feared retaliation if she didn’t. This is not just a case of ethically-challenged teachers and an administration that created pressure for them to cheat, and winked at violations. This is a group of of deeply corrupt and even criminal thugs running a school system. If these allegations are true, prosecutions should follow.]
[NOTE: Ironically, it may have been the meeting of those high standards that was the cheaters' downfall. Results were so good that people became suspicious:
Among the achievements [Hall] cited: a 33 percent increase in graduation rates and one in three elementary students exceeding state standards… U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan praised Hall as recently as last month, noting that under her leadership Atlanta students made double-digit gains on national exams known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP. But over the last two years, APS has faced a series of reports and investigations questioning improbable test score gains at some city schools…Questions about the tests were first raised in December 2008, when the AJC [Atlanta Journal Constitution] published an analysis that showed improbable gains at some Georgia schools — including some in Atlanta — on tests taken first in spring and then in summer by students struggling to master core skills. Last fall, a second AJC analysis showed 12 Atlanta schools posted highly unlikely gains or drops on the spring 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, the state’s main academic measure for students in grades one through eight.]
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Post by Ritty77 on Jul 9, 2011 6:36:31 GMT -5
Selective ShamingBy Mark Steyn www.nationalreview.com/articles/271419/selective-shaming-mark-steynFrom the article: ...it was reported that the Atlanta Public Schools system has spent the last decade systemically cheating on its tests. Not the students, but the superintendent, and the union, and 38 principals, and at least 178 teachers — whoops, pardon me, “educators” — and some 44 of the 56 school districts. Teachers held “changing parties” at their homes at which they sat around with extra supplies of erasers correcting their students’ test answers in order to improve overall scores and qualify for “No Child Left Behind” federal funding that could be sluiced into maintaining their lavish remuneration. Let’s face it, it’s easier than teaching, right?
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Post by twinder on Jul 9, 2011 21:35:22 GMT -5
The federal department of education should be abolished. It is a sham and a fraud. It has done nothing to ensure that kids are better educated. The States should handle education on their own.
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Post by philunderwood on Aug 12, 2011 8:39:55 GMT -5
What They're Not Teaching, and What They Are By Greg Crosby www.JewishWorldReview.com | Remember going to school and learning the three R's? Readin' and writin' and 'rithmatic. Okay, so they weren't really three R's, but you get the idea. Welcome to the 21 Century where kids don't have to learn those useless three R's anymore, now it's the three T's - Tweeting and texting, and typing. That is if you live in Indiana. If you haven't already heard, Indiana state officials have announced that their schools will no longer be required to teach children to write in longhand. This is being done so that the kids can focus on their typing skills instead. Educators in Indiana have found teaching cursive writing deprived children of valuable time better spent staring at a screen. It will go into effect this fall. Cursive writing is sooo very 20th century. Actually it is so very pre-historic to today. But in the future if Indiana kids don't learn how to write in long hand, how will they be able to sign their names, you know, to marriage certificates, and other legal documents? No prob. They can hire a person from another state. If eventually this trend gets picked up by ALL the states, then people may have to hire illegals to sign for them, or they can out-source their handwriting tasks to other countries. Or maybe people of the future will just make an X or draw a smiley face if they ever have to "sign" a contract. Just think, no more penmanship. No more swirly lettered words. ( LOL.) "I think it's progressive of our state to be ahead on this," Denna Renbarger, assistant superintendent for Lawrence Township schools, told the Indianapolis Star. "There are a lot more important things than cursive writing." And I'm guessing Ms. Renbarger's statement was verbal, not hand written. Sure, who needs handwriting? Cursive is as out of date as talking to people face to face. It's just so uncool to communicate in person with another human being. Handwriting skills? Ha! You might as well be teaching hieroglyphics. Hell, you might as well be teaching social manners and public courtesy. While Indiana has stopped teaching handwriting, California will begin teaching something far more significant - the importance of homosexuality, lesbianism, and the transgendered in American history. This will be taught in pubic schools all across the state. The Fair Education Act passed out of the State Senate, the State Assembly, and Jerry Brown has signed it. Voila! It is now the law. Also known as SB 48, the bill was authored by state Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco). It will require that roles and contributions of LGBT Americans be included in school history curriculum in all history textbooks and in the classroom. This "teaching" will start as early as kindergarten, by the way. How great is that? Now historians can begin "outing" American historical characters. Instead of teaching what people did, what they accomplished, what they invented, isn't it much more interesting to focus on their personal sexuality and what they did in their bedroom? Finally, we'll find out who of the founding fathers were really founding transsexuals. Hey, I always thought those powdered wigs they wore were a bit suspect anyway. I'm glad we're finally going to start teaching the really important stuff in history classes since long ago we stopped teaching all those useless informational dates and events. Kids may not know why or when the American Revolution happened, but now at least they'll know what the lesbians and homosexuals were up to at that time. The subjects of history and social studies have been neglected for a long time in our public schools. The results of that neglect have been brought to light by a recent study conducted by National Assessment of Education Progress. The pitiful results showed that only 20 percent of fourth-graders, 17 percent of eighth-graders and 12 percent of high school seniors were proficient on a nationwide test of history knowledge. Few fourth-graders seemed to know why Abraham Lincoln was important, according to a story about the study in The New York Times. Less than a third of eighth-graders could say what advantages American soldiers had over the British during the American Revolution or why the United States entered World War I. And only 2 percent of the 12th-graders could say what social problem the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education sought to correct (many scholars consider this the Supreme Court's most important decision in 70 years). Sen. Lamar Alexander, R.-Tenn., a former U.S. education secretary, says the test results point to an urgent need for a renewed emphasis on history and civics instruction in public schools. "For middle school and high school students, U.S. history remains our students' worst subject and we must do better," he said. "We need to return U.S. history to its rightful place in the classroom so that our children grow up learning what it means to be an American." True, but the way things have been going in the California legislature, our children will learn not so much what it means to be an American as much as what it means to be transgendered, lesbian, or homosexual.
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Post by twinder on Aug 12, 2011 10:03:01 GMT -5
I just had this discussion with my staff at the firehouse today. Last year, my kids were taught that the Civil War had nothing to do with the abolition of slavery.
We spent many hours on-line showing the girls the facts behind the Civil War and this year we went to Gettysburg for a trip.
I am truly beginning to wonder what the Hell IS being taught at my old Alma Mater.
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Post by leisuresuitlarry on Aug 12, 2011 14:35:05 GMT -5
Definitely not the same Reading, Riting, and Rithmatic that was taught 20, 30 years ago.
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Post by philunderwood on Sept 7, 2011 8:34:17 GMT -5
Schools serving leftist Kool-Aid as curriculum By Marybeth Hicks www.JewishWorldReview.com | Backpack? Check. Transformers lunchbox? Check. Leftist political Kool-Aid? Check. Looks like the school year can begin. This week, millions of American children return to their classrooms. Unfortunately, the material some of them will be forced to study is controversial, to say the least. In keeping with their habit of using our educational system to impose their political agenda on a new generation, lawmakers and educators on the left have succeeded in expanding their use of curriculum to advance progressivism. For example, this summer, while California's kids were enjoying the sun and surf on the beautiful Left Coast, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a bill that will require, beginning in January, the specific inclusion of gay Americans in California's history and social studies curricula. This means, rather than teach from the perspective of historical significance, California now will seek out specific contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons for the sole purpose of noting that they were achieved by such people. Mandating test questions such as "Why is this event important?" with the answer "Because the person who did it was gay." And we wonder why we're lagging in worldwide educational rankings. The new law also requires that curricula include the contributions of other segments of society - African-Americans, Asian-Americans, American Indians - basically, any ethnicity you can hyphenate. It's multiculturalism in the extreme, framing history and social studies through the lens of "diversity." These lessons are meant to reinforce the leftist motto: Our strength is our diversity. Even if we have to rewrite our history books to make the point, and especially if our strength is actually our ability to ignore our differences and meld together into one American culture. Rewriting our history books is actually going to be necessary in order to achieve California's political indoctrination objectives. But this means the rest of the country can look forward to such lessons incorporated into their textbooks as well, because California is the nation's largest purchaser of textbooks. This falls under the heading: The Guy With the Ball Gets to Pick the Game. Across the fruited plain, New York City's children will this year be required to take so-called comprehensive sexuality education in middle school and high school (something California mandated years ago). The idea behind this movement is to equip children with graphic information about sex, contraception, sexual orientation, gender identity and transgenderism because, according to the zealots on the left, these lessons will prevent teen pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. In the terminology of the day, these courses are "evidence based," supposedly implying that they have been tested and determined to be effective. And they are, but it depends on what you aim to achieve. If the goal is to corrupt children's sexual innocence and undermine the authority of parents to introduce to their children such information as they see fit, then, yes, comprehensive sexuality education is certainly effective. Concerned parents on both coasts are mobilizing to respond to the aggressive use of the classroom to promote the values and political goals of the left. In California, an effort is under way to put a referendum on the ballot to overturn the "gay history" legislation, while New Yorkers are only beginning to realize that the edict of their superintendent means parents must assert their authority to opt out of sexuality education. It doesn't take a social scientist to note that the decline in American public education coincides with the expansion of social indoctrination in our classrooms. These two examples from the coasts are just the ones in today's headlines; the movement permeates every subject, from history and government to science and math. Yes, there is social justice math. Educators are quick to tell America that they can't be expected to "do it all." I couldn't agree more. They ought to stop using classrooms for political purposes and simply educate our kids.
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Post by philunderwood on Sept 13, 2011 8:47:51 GMT -5
Too Much Higher Education By Walter Williams www.JewishWorldReview.com | Too much of anything is just as much a misallocation of resources as it is too little, and that applies to higher education just as it applies to everything else. A recent study from The Center for College Affordability and Productivity titled "From Wall Street to Wal-Mart," by Richard Vedder, Christopher Denhart, Matthew Denhart, Christopher Matgouranis and Jonathan Robe, explains that college education for many is a waste of time and money. More than one-third of currently working college graduates are in jobs that do not require a degree. An essay by Vedder that complements the CCAP study reports that there are "one-third of a million waiters and waitresses with college degrees." The study says Vedder — distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University, an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and director of CCAP — "was startled a year ago when the person he hired to cut down a tree had a master's degree in history, the fellow who fixed his furnace was a mathematics graduate, and, more recently, a TSA airport inspector (whose job it was to ensure that we took our shoes off while going through security) was a recent college graduate." The nation's college problem is far deeper than the fact that people simply are overqualified for particular jobs. Citing the research of AEI scholar Charles Murray's book "Real Education" (2008), Vedder says: "The number going to college exceeds the number capable of mastering higher levels of intellectual inquiry. This leads colleges to alter their mission, watering down the intellectual content of what they do." In other words, colleges dumb down courses so that the students they admit can pass them. Murray argues that only a modest proportion of our population has the cognitive skills, work discipline, drive, maturity and integrity to master truly higher education. He says that educated people should be able to read and understand classic works, such as John Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" or William Shakespeare's "King Lear." These works are "insightful in many ways," he says, but a person of average intelligence "typically lacks both the motivation and ability to do so." Mastering complex forms of mathematics is challenging but necessary to develop rigorous thinking and is critical in some areas of science and engineering. Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, authors of "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses" (2011), report on their analysis of more than 2,300 undergraduates at 24 institutions. Forty-five percent of these students demonstrated no significant improvement in a range of skills — including critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing — during their first two years of college. According to an August 2006 issue brief by the Alliance for Excellent Education, student "lack of preparation is also apparent in multiple subject areas; of college freshmen taking remedial courses, 35 percent were enrolled in math, 23 percent in writing, and 20 percent in reading." Declining college admissions standards have contributed to the deterioration of the academic quality of our secondary schools. Colleges show high schools that they do not have to teach much in order for youngsters to be admitted. According to Education Next, an August Harvard University study titled "Globally Challenged: Are U.S. Students Ready to Compete?" found that only 32 percent of U.S. students achieved proficiency in math, compared with "75 percent of students in Shanghai, 58 percent in Korea, and 56 percent in Finland. Countries in which a majority — or near majority — of students performed at or above the proficiency level in math include Switzerland, Japan, Canada, and the Netherlands." Results from the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment international test show that U.S. students rank 32nd among industrialized nations in proficiency in math and 17th in reading. Much of American education is in shambles. Part of a solution is for colleges to refuse to admit students who are unprepared to do real college work. That would help to reveal the shoddy education provided at the primary and secondary school levels. Here I'm whistlin' "Dixie," because college administrators are more interested in numbers of students, which equal more money.
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Post by philunderwood on Sept 27, 2011 9:04:54 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?cat=17What would we do without the experts — teachers told to avoid white paper because it may cause racism Published September 27, 2011 | By Bruce McQuain No, honestly. That’s according to a story in the UK’s Telegraph. Additionally, witches should be dressed in pink, fairies should be in darker pastels and when a teacher is asked their favorite color, they should answer “black” or “brown”. All of this from experts who are “early years consultants”. The premise of course is changing all these colors changes the perception of everything among a bunch of kids who haven’t yet digested that the kid next to them is a different color: Instead, teachers should censor the toy box and replace the pointy black hat with a pink one, while dressing fairies, generally resplendent in pale pastels, in darker shades. Another staple of the classroom – white paper – has also been questioned by Anne O’Connor, an early years consultant who advises local authorities on equality and diversity. Children should be provided with paper other than white to drawn on and paints and crayons should come in "the full range of flesh tones", reflecting the diversity of the human race, according to the former teacher. Finally, staff should be prepared to be economical with the truth when asked by pupils what their favourite colour is and, in the interests of good race relations, answer "black" or "brown". Yes friends, white paper is racist because it doesn’t reflect the diversity of color out there, or something. And yes, witches, soften them up with pink pointy hats I guess. Otherwise you’re likely to get … witchism? Can’t wait to see if this takes hold by Halloween. If not, I suppose I ought to lecture the parents about the fact that they’re engaged in turning their little witches into racists. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Oh and before you start thinking “those stupid Brits”, pause and reflect: The advice is based on an “anti-bias” approach to education which developed in the United States as part of multiculturalism. It challenges prejudices such as racism, sexism and ageism through the whole curriculum and teaches children about tolerance and respect and to critically analyse what they are taught and think. Right. And what they’re taught to think is things like affirmative action is the cat’s meow. I have to laugh when I see claims such as this – they’re not taught to “critically analyze” what they’re taught, they’re taught what to think and regurgitate on command. They’re propagandized and introduced to group think. "This is an incredibly complex subject that can easily become simplified and inaccurately portrayed," she said. "There is a tendency in education to say ‘here are normal people and here are different people and we have to be kind to those different people’, whether it’s race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or faith. "People who are feeling defensive can say ‘well there’s nothing wrong with white paper’, but in reality there could be if you don’t see yourself reflected in the things around you. “As an early years teacher, the minute you start thinking, ‘well actually, if I give everyone green paper, what happens’, you have a teaching potential. “People might criticise this as political correctness gone mad. But it is because of political correctness we have moved on enormously. If you think that we now take it for granted that our buildings and public highways are adapted so people in wheelchairs and with pushchairs can move around. Years ago if you were in a wheelchair, then tough luck. We have completely moved and we wouldn’t have done that without the equality movement.” Actually it isn’t an “incredibly complex subject, but “experts” don’t get paid consulting fees unless they at least try to make it one. And I at least appreciate the fact that it is acknowledged as political correctness. Take a look at that load of pap above and then consider this: Margaret Morrissey, a spokeswoman for the Parents Outloud campaigning group disagrees. She said: “I’m sure these early years experts know their field but they seem to be obsessed about colour and determined to make everyone else obsessed about it too. “Not allowing toy witches to wear black seems to me nonsense and in the same vein as those people who have a problem with ‘Bar Bar Black Sheep’ or ‘The Three Little Pigs’. Children just see a sheep in a field, whether it be black, grey, white or beige. I have worked with children for 41 years and I don’t believe I have ever met a two year old who was in any way racist or prejudice.” But: However, recent research by Professor Lord Winston provides evidence that children as young as four can hold racist views. In an experiment carried out for the BBC’s Child of our Time series, children were presented with a series of images of faces of men, women, boys or girls. Only one of the faces in each sequence was white. Children were asked to pick out the face of the person they wanted as their friend and the person they thought would be most likely to get in to trouble. Almost all white children in the survey associated positive qualities exclusively with photographs of white children or adults. More than half of the black children made the same associations. In contrast, people with darker faces were viewed as troublemakers. Of course we have no idea of the experiences the children in question have had or what they’re home life teaches them. We just conclude that they associate dark with bad for no other reason than they’re inherently prejudiced. And apparently they assume they can change that by changing the color of their paper and claiming, whether true or not, that favorite colors are “black” and “brown”. It is, again, the state via the school system, attempting to dictate a certain type of behavior or belief. This is the same sort of model that is used with the environment – where children are taught (or propagandized if you prefer) that much of what supports their standard of living is bad and harmful to the environment. By the way, critical analysis requires what? That both sides of an argument be presented factually and objectively, right? Clearly in the case above and the environmental example (at least based on what I’ve seen), that’s not the case. And calling it that is simply the usual redefinition of a word or concept that is so prevalent (and insidious) these days . So put up your white paper, you racists. Don’t you know that your insistence on using it is just racism? Readability – phaa. Your clients will welcome your new orange stationary, I promise. ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on Nov 7, 2011 14:04:33 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?tag=higher-educationIs “Higher Education” more of a rip-off than a benefit today? Published November 7, 2011 | By Bruce McQuain Well you have to ask yourself what you get for the money when you purchase anything don’t you? I mean isn’t that how you make buying decisions for the most part? You weigh the advantage the purchase makes in your life and you figure out whether or not parting with your money justifies the supposed benefits. In the case of higher education in this country, it’s my guess we passed the point of diminishing returns eons ago. A college degree just isn’t what used to be a few decades ago, but it costs a hell of a lot more. Jack Kelly fills us in: Tuition and fees at colleges and universities rose 439 percent between 1982 and 2007. Median family income rose just 147 percent during that period. Median household income has fallen 6.7 percent since June 2009. The cost of attending the average public university rose 5.4 percent this year. Student loan debt recently passed $1 trillion. It’s now more than credit card debt. The average graduate of a four-year college owes $27,000. So you have a cost that has risen far and away faster than inflation and median family income for, well, no good reason that I know of. Oh wait, I said “good reason”. There is a reason. Can you say “subsidy”? That coupled with the myth that a college degree … any college degree … is worth its weight in future gold. But it appears that gold may be fool’s gold. I love this description of what many institutions of “higher learning” have become: College students don’t get much for their money. Nearly half learn next to nothing in their first two years; a third learn almost nothing in four, according to a report authored principally by Prof. Richard Arum of New York University. "Students who say that college has not prepared them for the real world are largely right," said Ann Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. "The fundamental problem here is not debt, but a broken educational system that no longer insists on excellence." Or even adequacy. "A college degree nowadays doesn’t necessarily signal that its holder has any useful work skills," said Charlotte Allen of the Manhattan Institute. "For decades our schools have abandoned the teaching of basic facts and foundational thinking skills, and replaced both with leftish received wisdom and stale mythologies, all the while they have anxiously monitored and puffed up students’ self esteem," said classics Prof. Bruce Thornton of California State University Fresno. I agree totally with Ms. Neal. There is no insistence on excellence. That’s not true of every institution out there, obviously. However a look at the various new degree programs provides a peek into the priorities of the schools. To broaden and accept as many students as they can to also broaden the revenue stream they’re provided. The unique offerings are most likely not made to produce anything meaningful in academia and certainly not in the real world, but they do attract a certain type of student to such a degree program that is fully willing to buy into the myth that somehow a degree in gender studies is going to be useful and are willing to pay the big bucks demanded (even if that means borrowing them). And, of course, government subsidizes the purchase, so there’s certainly no reason for the school to back off such a useless program or lower it’s price to something roughly equivalent to its utility in the real world. What happens? Precisely what you’d think would happen. Its much like the housing crisis. Loans are given to people who aren’t really capable of college work. They leave with nothing or some marginal degree and huge debt. Meanwhile: Others graduate to find there are no jobs for them. Roughly 60 percent of the increase in the number of college graduates since 1992 work in low-skill jobs, Prof. Richard Vedder of Ohio University discovered. In 2008, 318,000 waiters and waitresses had college degrees, as did 365,000 cashiers and 18,000 parking lot attendants. Because degrees have been so diluted and their worth so compromised over the years, they’re less and less of a guarantee of a good job and better wages. But because government subsidizes education and distorts the market, guess what? And, according to a study by the American Enterprise Institution and the Heritage Foundation, teachers are paid $120 billion over market value. There is fraud at every level of the education system, thanks mostly to politics, said Herbert London, professor emeritus at New York University. Teachers and professors go along to save their jobs. "They simply cannot say that college isn’t for everyone … or that rigorous exit requirements at any level do not exist," he said. "Hence, there is the clarion call for more money." Of course they can’t. The gravy train is just too rich to quit. And, you also need to understand what is actually happening in colleges and universities across the nation to appreciate the full impact of this market intrusion by government. Colleges, as mentioned, no longer demand excellence. Instead, they spend an enormous amount of time and effort teaching what a college student should have mastered before ever showing up at a university: We spend about $10,600 per pupil in public schools, 377 percent more, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than we spent in 1961. Yet among students who go to college, 75 percent require some remedial work. If you managed to catch some of the protests in WI that included teachers and caught the spelling on some of their signs, the stats above wouldn’t particularly surprise you. We spend more on education today and and get even less than in the past. What you have to remember is that at every level it is either run by or subsidized by government. Now at every level, we’re seeing the results of that sort of intrusion, aren’t we? A dismal record of extraordinarily expensive non-achievement. And nothing is going to change or improve in that regard as long as government stays in charge and subsidizes the growing bubble with your money. But you’ll never hear that said, will you? ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on Jan 2, 2012 10:07:45 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?tag=owsWhy college diplomas aren’t worth as much anymore Published January 2, 2012 | By Bruce McQuain Or at least one reason they’re not worth as much: Columbia University is offering a new course on Occupy Wall Street next semester — sending upperclassmen and grad students into the field for full course credit. The class is taught by Dr. Hannah Appel, who boasts about her nights camped out in Zuccotti Park. As many as 30 students will be expected to get involved in ongoing OWS projects outside the classroom, the syllabus says. The class will be in the anthropology department and called “Occupy the Field: Global Finance, Inequality, Social Movement.” It will be divided between seminars at the Morningside Heights campus and fieldwork. Columbia. Reduced to pap like this. And of course the moon pony “teaching” the course is a big fan of OWS: She said her allegiance won’t keep her from being an objective teacher. “Inevitably, my experience will color the way I teach, but I feel equipped to teach objectively,” Appel told The Post. “It’s best to be critical of the things we hold most sacred.” Or at least say we’ll be “critical”. Because, you know, that at least sounds right. ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on Jan 25, 2012 7:49:23 GMT -5
A Brass Age? By Thomas Sowell www.JewishWorldReview.com | This may be the golden age of presumptuous ignorance. The most recent demonstrations of that are the Occupy Wall Street mobs. It is doubtful how many of these semi-literate sloganizers could tell the difference between a stock and a bond. Yet there they are, mouthing off about Wall Street on television, cheered on by politicians and the media. If this is not a golden age of presumptuous ignorance, perhaps it should be called a brass age. No one has more brass than the President of the United States, though his brass may be more polished than that of the Occupy Wall Street mobs. When Barack Obama speaks loftily about "investing in the industries of the future," does anyone ask: What in the world would qualify him to know what are the industries of the future? Why would people who have spent their careers in politics know more about investing than people who have spent their careers as investors? Presumptuous ignorance is not confined to politicians or rowdy political activists, by any means. From time to time, I get a huffy letter or e-mail from a reader who begins, "You obviously don't know what you are talking about..." The particular subject may be one on which my research assistants and I have amassed piles of research material and official statistics. It may even be a subject on which I have written a few books, but somehow the presumptuously ignorant just know that I didn't really study that issue, because my conclusions don't agree with theirs or with what they have heard. At one time I was foolish enough to try to reason with such people. But one of the best New Year's resolutions I ever made, some years ago, was to stop trying to reason with unreasonable people. It has been good for my blood pressure and probably for my health in general. A recent column that mentioned the "indirect subsidies" from the government to the Postal Service brought the presumptuously ignorant out in force, fighting mad. Because the government does not directly subsidize the current operating expenses of the Postal Service, that is supposed to show that the Postal Service pays its own way and costs the taxpayers nothing. Politicians may be crooks but they are not fools. Easily observed direct subsidies can create a political problem. Far better to set up an arrangement that will allow government-sponsored enterprises — whether the Postal Service, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or the Tennessee Valley Authority — to operate in such a way that they can claim to be self-supporting and not costing the taxpayers anything, no matter how much indirect subsidy they get. As just one example, the Postal Service has a multi-billion dollar line of credit at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Hey, we could all use a few billions, every now and then, to get us over the rough spots. But we are not the Postal Service. Theoretically, the Postal Service is going to pay it all back some day, and that theoretical possibility keeps it from being called a direct subsidy. The Postal Service is also exempt from paying taxes, among other exemptions it has from costs that other businesses have to pay. Exemption from taxes, and from other requirements that apply to other businesses, are also not called subsidies. For people who mistake words for realities, that is enough for them to buy the political line — and to get huffy with those who don't. Loan guarantees are a favorite form of hidden subsidies for all sorts of special interests. At a given point in time, it can be said that these guarantees cost the taxpayers nothing. But when they suddenly do cost something — as with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — they can cost billions. One of the reasons for so much presumptuous ignorance flourishing in our time may be the emphasis on "self-esteem" in our schools and colleges. Children not yet a decade old have been encouraged, or even required, to write letters to public figures, sounding off on issues ranging from taxes to nuclear missiles. Our schools begin promoting presumptuous ignorance early on. It is apparently one of the few things they teach well. The end result is people without much knowledge, but with a lot of brass.
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Post by philunderwood on Feb 29, 2012 7:54:40 GMT -5
Do You Know What Kids Now Learn in College? By Dennis Prager www.JewishWorldReview.com | As high school seniors throughout America will be receiving acceptance letters to colleges within the next month, it would be nice for parents to meditate on what they are getting for the $20-$50,000 they will pay each year. The United States is no better than any other country, and in many areas worse than many. On the world stage, America is an imperialist country, and domestically it mistreats its minorities and neglects its poor, while discriminating against non-whites. There is no better and no worse in literature and the arts. The reason universities in the past taught Shakespeare, Michelangelo, and Bach rather than, let us say, Guatemalan poets, Sri Lankan musicians, and Native American storytellers was "Eurocentrism." G0d is at best a non-issue, and at worst, a foolish and dangerous belief. Christianity is largely a history of inquisitions, crusades, oppression, and anti-intellectualism. Islam, on the other hand, is "a religion of peace." Therefore, criticism of Christianity is enlightened, while criticism of Islam is Islamophobia. Israel is a racist state, morally no different from apartheid South Africa. Big government is the only humane way to govern a country. The South votes Republican because it is still racist and the Republican party caters to racists. Mothers and fathers are interchangeable. Claims that married mothers and fathers are the parental ideal and bring unique things to a child are heterosexist and homophobic. Whites can be racist; non-whites cannot be (because whites have power and the powerless cannot be racist). The great world and societal battles are not between good and evil, but between rich and poor and the powerful and the powerless. Patriotism is usually a euphemism for chauvinism. War is ignoble. Pacifism is noble. Human beings are animals. They differ from "other animals" primarily in having better brains. We live in a patriarchal society, which is injurious to women. Women are victims of men. Blacks are victims of whites. Latinos are victims of Anglos. Muslims are victims of non-Muslims. Gays are victims of straights. Big corporations are bad. Big unions are good. There is no objective meaning to a text. Every text only means what the reader perceives it to mean. The American Founders were sexist, racist slaveholders whose primary concern was preserving their wealthy status. The Constitution says what progressives think it should say. The American dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima was an act of racism and a war crime. The wealthy have stacked the capitalist system to maintain their power and economic benefits. The wealthy Western nations became wealthy by exploiting Third World nations through colonialism and imperialism. Defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman is as immoral as defining marriage as the union of a white and a white. Some conclusions: If this list is accurate - and that may be confirmed by visiting a college bookstore and seeing what books are assigned by any given instructor - most American parents and/or their child are going into debt in order to support an institution that for four years, during the most impressionable years of a person's life, instills values that are the opposite of those of their parents. And that is intentional. As Woodrow Wilson, progressive president of Princeton University before becoming president of the United States, said in a speech in 1914, "I have often said that the use of a university is to make young gentlemen as unlike their fathers as possible." In 1996, in his commencement address to the graduating seniors of Dartmouth College, the then president of the college, James O. Freedman, cited the Wilson quote favorably. And in 2002, in another commencement address, Freedman said that "the purpose of a college education is to question your father's values." For Wilson, Freedman, and countless other university presidents, the purpose of a college education is to question (actually, reject) one's father's values, not to seek truth. Fathers represented traditional American values. The university is there to undermine them. Still want to get into years of debt?
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Post by philunderwood on Apr 3, 2012 7:00:28 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?tag=critical-thinkingHigher Education: Here’s a surprise Published April 2, 2012 | By Bruce McQuain OK, I’m being facetious in the title. Well, at least for those who’ve been paying attention. For the rest, this may actually come as a surprise: Political activism has drawn the University of California into an academic death spiral. Too many professors believe their job is to "advance social justice" rather than teach the subject they were hired to teach. Groupthink has replaced lively debate. Institutions that were designed to stir intellectual curiosity aren’t challenging young minds. They’re churning out "ignorance." So argues a new report, "A Crisis of Competence: The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California," from the conservative California Association of Scholars. My guess is, and I think this would be easily substantiated, that the U of C system is just an example of the problem, not the sole problem. (The study is here.) Of course the left has a ready answer for all of this: UC Berkeley political science Professor Wendy Brown rejected that argument. (Yes, she hails from the left, she said, but she doesn’t teach left.) The reason behind the unbalance, she told me, is that conservatives don’t go to grad school to study political science. When conservatives go to graduate school, she added, they tend to study business or law. "If the argument is that what is going on is some kind of systematic exclusion," then critics have to target "where the discouragement happens." So, other than “stereotypes are us”, Prof. Brown has no real explanation. Because, of course, unless all “conservatives” go to business and law and none to political science (which we know isn’t true), the problem isn’t about who does or doesn’t got into grad school, but who gets hired by universities, isn’t it? And most people with a modicum of common sense know that most people who hire have a tendency to hire people like what? Like them. And anyway, it appears its not really about learning or acquiring skills such as critical thinking: At the same time, grades have risen. "Students often report that all they must do to get a good grade is regurgitate what their activist professors believe," quoth the report. Hardly an atmosphere (akin to a “hostile workplace”, no?)in which a “conservative” would feel comfortable and certainly not one in which a critical thinker would be welcome. Peter Berkowitz took a look at the study and concluded that the result was much worse than imagined: The politicization of higher education by activist professors and compliant university administrators deprives students of the opportunity to acquire knowledge and refine their minds. It also erodes the nation’s civic cohesion and its ability to preserve the institutions that undergird democracy in America. […] The analysis begins from a nonpolitical fact: Numerous studies of both the UC system and of higher education nationwide demonstrate that students who graduate from college are increasingly ignorant of history and literature. They are unfamiliar with the principles of American constitutional government. And they are bereft of the skills necessary to comprehend serious books and effectively marshal evidence and argument in written work. In other words, they’re indoctrinated and not taught to think critically. And, per the study, they’re actually ignorant of “the institutions that undergird democracy in America”. That would, in part, explain their ‘shock’ at the validity of the arguments against ObamaCare (so there’s your example of the point). Granted, this is but one study, it’s by a conservative group and there may be a bit of confirmation bias concerned on my part, but I’d love to see the left really document an actual challenge to its substantive points instead of doing what they usually do – wave it away. While it may be one study by a conservative group, it does note that which Berkowitz points out – “numerous studies” of the system demonstrate the facts listed, i.e. an increasing ignorance of history and literature, unfamiliarity with the principles of American constitutional government, lacking skills necessary to comprehend serious writing, marshal evidence and argue their point effectively. Or, in other words, think critically. Wait, isn’t that what universities are supposed to teach? Start there. Explain. HT: Instapundit ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on Apr 6, 2012 8:16:20 GMT -5
drsanity.blogspot.com/Dr. Sanity Shining a psychological spotlight on a few of the insanities of life Thursday, April 05, 2012 AMERICA, THE INDOCTRI--NATION Two stories in the news recently illustrate precisely why American students are continually losing ground in knowledge, science, and logic; and why America is losing competitiveness in the global economy, as well as leadership in science. The first is a study reported on by the WSJ on how California universities indoctrinate students: The politicization of higher education by activist professors and compliant university administrators deprives students of the opportunity to acquire knowledge and refine their minds. It also erodes the nation's civic cohesion and its ability to preserve the institutions that undergird democracy in America. So argues "A Crisis of Competence: The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California," a new report by the California Association of Scholars, a division of the National Association of Scholars (NAS). The report is addressed to the Regents of the University of California, which has ultimate responsibility for governing the UC system, but the pathologies it diagnoses prevail throughout the country. The analysis begins from a nonpolitical fact: Numerous studies of both the UC system and of higher education nationwide demonstrate that students who graduate from college are increasingly ignorant of history and literature. They are unfamiliar with the principles of American constitutional government. And they are bereft of the skills necessary to comprehend serious books and effectively marshal evidence and argument in written work. Next we have a piece, written by Michael Barone and titled: "Colleges skimp on science, spend on diversity": How many times have you heard Barack Obama talk about "investing" in education? Quite a few, if you've been listening to the president at all. In fact Americans have been investing more and more in education over the years, led by presidents Democratic and Republican. But it's become glaringly clear that we're getting pretty lousy return on these investments. [...] On higher education Democrats and many Republicans as well have followed the same course as on public schools: Shovel in more money, in this case in the form of Pell Grants and subsidized student loans. College and university administrators have been happy to scoop up all the money by rapidly raising tuitions and fees. Higher-ed expenses have been rising much more rapidly than inflation for three decades. And what has the money been spent on? Some of it presumably goes to professors in the hard sciences and the great scholars who have made American universities the best in the world. Well and good. But many university administrators have other priorities. The University of California system has been raising tuitions and cutting departments. But, reports John Leo in the invaluable Minding the Campus blog, its San Diego campus found the money to create a new post of "vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion." That's in addition to what the Manhattan Institute's Heather Mac Donald calls its "already massive diversity apparatus." It takes Mac Donald 103 words just to list the titles of UCSD's diversitycrats. The money for the new vice chancellorship could have supported two of the three cancer researchers that the campus lost to Rice University in Houston, a private school that apparently takes the strange view that hard science is more important than diversity facilitators. American students are busily being marinated in postmodern progressive multicultural and diversity dogma even before they reach college. The indoctrination into the gospel of moral relativism and postmodernism begins in kindergarten and continues unabated until graduation from high school. By the time these students go to college, their minds are supple and pliant enough to be fully cooked by the tenured leftist activists on the university faculties around the country. Do you think it is just a coincidence that the Obama's connection with unrepentant terrorist and avowed leftist William Ayers had to do with an educational project in Chicago's schools? What do you imagine that project's real goals were, when the author of the grant that underwrote it was William Ayers, bomber, terrorist, and now university professor? Ayers was the one who wrote the grant in 1993, and hired Obama to administer it. This was Obama's only serious executive experience in his entire life, and it was a total disaster. Today, the unrestrained incorporation of postmodern, leftist/socialist, politically correct multiculturalism, diversity and radical environmental ideas into the curriculum continues unabated. These ideas are the foundation of the socialist and communist revival in America after the cold war (and we thought we won that one--hah!) Regarding that Chicago Annenberg Challenge-Ayers-Obama connection, Sol Stern wrote in 2008 an article titled "The Bomber as School Reformer": Ayers wrote the grant proposal[to the CAC] that secured seed money for the schools and ran the implementation arm of the project; Obama became chairman of the board that distributed the grants. Not only did the Times exonerate the Democratic presidential candidate of having anything like a “close” relationship with Ayers—their paths merely “crossed” while working on the Challenge, the paper said—but it also bestowed the honorific of “school reformer” on the ex-bomber. “Mr. Ayers has been a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the author or editor of 15 books, and an advocate of school reform,” the article maintained. On Meet the Press Sunday morning, Tom Brokaw—who will be moderating tomorrow’s debate between the presidential candidates—picked up this now conventional wisdom and described Ayers as “a school reformer.” Calling Bill Ayers a school reformer is a bit like calling Joseph Stalin an agricultural reformer. (If you find the metaphor strained, consider that Walter Duranty, the infamous New York Times reporter covering the Soviet Union in the 1930s, did, in fact, depict Stalin as a great land reformer who created happy, productive collective farms.) For instance, at a November 2006 education forum in Caracas, Venezuela, with President Hugo Chávez at his side, Ayers proclaimed his support for “the profound educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chávez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane.” Ayers concluded his speech by declaring that “Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education—a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation,” and then, as in days of old, raised his fist and chanted: “Viva Presidente Chávez! Viva la Revolucion Bolivariana! Hasta la Victoria Siempre!” Joseph Stalin once observed that, “Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” Right now, it is a weapon of indoctrination that is being aimed at the next generation of Americans who are growing up steeped in the garbage of leftist thought. The health of our educational system--from K-12 through college-- is absolutely essential to the long-term welfare and competitiveness of the United States. American education used to be the strongest on the globe, and to the extent that remains true, it is because the hard sciences in this country (e.g., math, engineering, computers etc.) have been largely resistant to the political taint that runs rampant in the humanities. The latter subject areas, which include literature, philosophy, and history, have become unabashedly ideological over the last two decades; and the "social justice" advocates of today's collectivists have taken over our K-12 education system and are determinedly undermining American values with their politically correct, multicultural and anti-capitalist curriculum. But even the hard sciences are beginning to be infected. Make no mistake about it, what many teachers today are doing is indoctrinating their students minds into an unquestioning obedience to the collective. This they cannot do unless they also can manage to corrupt even the hard sciences with their dogma. There can be no area where a child is allowed to think freely and without the proper political perspective. That is far too dangerous for the underly ideology they are promulgating. And, as an example of the critical non-thinking exhibited by today's college students indoctrinated into the dogma of the left, we have this egregiously mindless mantra: "No cuts, no fees, education should be free." Like obedient dogs, they have been trained to believe that "education" is some kind of dogfood that appears magically in their dish when the "master" deems it time to eat. Beyond that, they have no idea where it comes from. America is fast evolving from a free nation to an indoctri-nation. - Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity
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Post by philunderwood on Jun 27, 2012 7:35:55 GMT -5
Too Much College By Walter Williams www.JewishWorldReview.com | In President Barack Obama's 2012 State of the Union address, he said that "higher education can't be a luxury. It is an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford." Such talk makes for political points, but there's no evidence that a college education is an economic imperative. A good part of our higher education problem, explaining its spiraling cost, is that a large percentage of students currently attending college are ill-equipped and incapable of doing real college work. They shouldn't be there wasting their own resources and those of their families and taxpayers. Let's look at it. Robert Samuelson, in his Washington Post article "It's time to drop the college-for-all crusade" (5/27/2012), said that "the college-for-all crusade has outlived its usefulness. Time to ditch it. Like the crusade to make all Americans homeowners, it's now doing more harm than good." Richard Vedder — professor of economics at Ohio University, adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and director of The Center for College Affordability & Productivity, or CCAP — in his article "Ditch ... the College-for-All Crusade," published on The Chronicle of Higher Education's blog, "Innovations" (6/7/2012), points out that the "U.S. Labor Department says the majority of new American jobs over the next decade do not need a college degree. We have a six-digit number of college-educated janitors in the U.S." Another CCAP essay by Vedder and his colleagues, titled "From Wall Street to Wal-Mart," reports that there are "one-third of a million waiters and waitresses with college degrees." More than one-third of currently working college graduates are in jobs that do not require a degree, such as flight attendants, taxi drivers and salesmen. Was college attendance a wise use of these students' time and the resources of their parents and taxpayers? There's a recent study published by the Raleigh, N.C.-based Pope Center titled "Pell Grants: Where Does All the Money Go?" Authors Jenna Ashley Robinson and Duke Cheston report that about 60 percent of undergraduate students in the country are Pell Grant recipients, and at some schools, upward of 80 percent are. Pell Grants are the biggest expenditure of the Department of Education, totaling nearly $42 billion in 2012. The original focus of Pell Grants was to facilitate college access for low-income students. Since 1972, when the program began, the number of students from the lowest income quartile going to college has increased by more than 50 percent. However, Robinson and Cheston report that the percentage of low-income students who completed college by age 24 decreased from 21.9 percent in 1972 to 19.9 percent today. Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, authors of "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses" (2011), report on their analysis of more than 2,300 undergraduates at 24 institutions. Forty-five percent of these students demonstrated no significant improvement in a range of skills — including critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing — during their first two years of college. Citing the research of AEI scholar Charles Murray's book "Real Education" (2008), Professor Vedder says: "The number going to college exceeds the number capable of mastering higher levels of intellectual inquiry. This leads colleges to alter their mission, watering down the intellectual content of what they do." Up to 45 percent of incoming freshmen require remedial courses in math, writing or reading. That's despite the fact that colleges have dumbed down courses so that the students they admit can pass them. Let's face it; as Murray argues, only a modest proportion of our population has the cognitive skills, work discipline, drive, maturity and integrity to master truly higher education. Primary and secondary school education is in shambles. Colleges are increasingly in academic decline as they endeavor to make comfortable environments for the educationally incompetent. Colleges should refuse admission to students who are unprepared to do real college work. That would not only help reveal shoddy primary and secondary education but also reduce the number of young people making unwise career choices. Sadly, that won't happen. College administrators want warm bodies to bring in money.
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Post by philunderwood on Jul 4, 2012 7:41:14 GMT -5
The Education Blob By John Stossel www.JewishWorldReview.com | Since progressives want government to run health care, let's look at what government management did to K-12 education. While most every other service in life has gotten better and cheaper, American education remains stagnant. Spending has tripled! Why no improvement? Because K-12 education is a virtual government monopoly — and monopolies don't improve. In every other sector of the economy, market competition forces providers to improve constantly. It's why most things get better — often cheaper, too (except when government interferes, as in health care). Politicians claim that education and health care are different — too important to leave to market competition. Patients and parents aren't real consumers because they don't have the expertise to know which hospital or school is best. That's why they must be centrally planned by government "experts." Those experts have been in charge for years. School reformers call them the "Blob." Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform says that attempts to improve the government monopoly have run "smack into federations, alliances, departments, councils, boards, commissions, panels, herds, flocks and convoys that make up the education industrial complex, or the Blob. Taken individually, they were frustrating enough, each with its own bureaucracy, but taken as a whole they were (and are) maddening in their resistance to change. Not really a wall — they always talk about change — but more like quicksand, or a tar pit where ideas slowly sink." The Blob claims teachers are underpaid. But today American teachers average more than $50,000 a year. Teachers' hourly wages exceed what most architects, accountants and nurses make. The Blob constantly demands more money, but tripling spending and vastly increasing the ratio of staff to student have brought no improvement. When the Blob is in control, waste and indifference live on and on. The Blob claims that public education is "the great equalizer." Rich and poor and different races mix and learn together. It's a beautiful concept. But it is a lie. Rich parents buy homes in neighborhoods with better schools. As a result, public — I mean, government — schools are now more racially segregated than private schools. One survey found that public schools were significantly more likely to be almost entirely white or entirely minority. Another found that at private schools, students of different races were more likely to sit together. The Blob's most powerful argument is that poor people need government-run schools. How could poor people possibly afford tuition? Well, consider some truly destitute places. James Tooley spends most of his time in the poorest parts of Africa, India and China. Those countries copied America's "free public education," and Tooley wanted to see how that's worked out. What he learned is that in India and China, where kids outperform American kids on tests, it's not because they attend the government's free schools. Government schools are horrible. So even in the worst slums, parents try to send their kids to private, for-profit schools. How can the world's poorest people afford tuition? And why would they pay for what their governments offer for free? Tooley says parents with meager resources still sacrifice to send their kids to private schools because the private owner does something that's virtually impossible in government schools: replace teachers who do not teach. Government teachers in India and Africa have jobs for life, just like American teachers. Many sleep on the job. Some don't even show up for work. As a result, says Tooley, "the majority of (poor) schoolchildren are in private school." Even small villages have as many as six private schools, "and these schools outperform government schools at a fraction of the teacher cost." As in America, government officials in those countries scoff at private schools and parents who choose them. A woman who runs government schools in Nigeria calls such parents "ignoramuses." They aren't — and thanks to competition, their children won't be, either. Low-income Americans are far richer than the poor people of China, India and Africa. So if competitive private education can work in Beijing, Calcutta and Nairobi, it can work in the United States. We just need to get around the Blob.
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Post by philunderwood on Dec 5, 2012 10:20:03 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?tag=historyMangling history leads to mangling culture Published December 4, 2012. | By Bruce McQuain. Very interesting read today by David Gordon in “Minding the Campus” (via Insty). In his piece he talks about the subject of history being at present in the best of times and in the worst of times, to mangle Dickens. What am I talking about? Well, the blog in which Gordon’s article appears subs its title with “Reforming our Universities”. Why is that important? We’ve talked about it in the past. It is where liberal America has set up shop for decades. And the effect is never been stronger than now. In fact, a lot of what you see as the changing attitudes in America can, I think – at least in part – be traced to academia. Gordon notes its beginning: This extraordinary bias began in the late 1960s with the anti-Vietnam war protests. Many participants, at least those who subsequently went into academia, have never gotten over it. Their fossilized views have made their own disciplines largely museums of dead ideologies. Another of the remarkable changes within the historical profession has been the growth of women’s history. With only a negligible representation in 1975, almost 10% of all historians today identify themselves as historians of gender and women’s affairs. What bias is Gordon talking about? Well it’s a bias that he sees as “mangling history” to our detriment: The evolution of the historical profession in the United States in the last fifty years provides much reason for celebration. It provides even more reason for unhappiness and dread. Never before has the profession seemed so intellectually vibrant. An unprecedented amount of scholarship and teaching is being devoted to regions outside of the traditional American concentration on itself and Europe. New subjects of enquiry — gender, race and ethnicity — have developed. Never have historians been so influenced by the methodology and contributions of other disciplines, from anthropology to sociology. At the same time, never has the historical profession been so threatened. Political correctness has both narrowed and distorted enquiry. Traditional fields demanding intellectual rigor, such as economic and intellectual history, are in decline. Even worse, education about Western civilization and the Enlightenment, that font of American liberties, and the foundation of modern industrial, scientific and liberal world civilization, has come to be treated with increasing disdain at colleges and universities. Now call me crazy, but you can see easily the effect of what Gordon is talking about today in the last election. Increasingly students (and that includes further down the academic chain in high schools) know less and less about our history and traditions and more and more about, well, women’s studies, gender studies, things which have little bearing on economic and intellectual history – for instance: The problem with this is that it has helped force out many other kinds of historical enquiry. It is important to emphasize women’s role in society and in history. However, it is difficult to see how a feminist perspective could contribute very much to a purely economic history of the English industrial revolution (as opposed to its social consequences), or to a diplomatic history of Europe between the Napoleonic and the First World War. As a result, these kinds of studies are receiving ever less attention. We all understand that women and minorities were mistreated. Got it. And we all know that was wrong, with 21st Century hindsight. But what happened back when all that bad stuff was going on, in terms of economic and intellectual history, is still critically important today. Instead history’s “new focus” has helped bolster both the “victimization” and “entitlement” mentality: Worst of all, women’s history has contributed to the current holy trinity of race, gender and class that dominates the historical profession. Under normal circumstances, the tight focus on victimization would soon fade. Since oppression studies explain so little, they soon become boring. But, as a part of a political chorus demanding ever-more extravagant entitlements for key voting groups, an essential part of the identity politics that is so destructive of national unity, the trinity is ensured a long life. Historians can grow tired of an intellectual movement. Politicians of a useful political tool, never. There is also something else beyond the fanciful and fraudulent political and academic rhetoric of “equal opportunity – affirmative action.” That is jobs. Key voting groups designated as oppressed have been hired preferentially in the academy, most especially in the social sciences, including history. To justify these preferences, historians of gender and race must keep emphasizing oppression. How otherwise can their privileges be justified? Hence, the refiguring history to justify their positions in the professoriate. We used to hear people laugh derisively when someone mentioned “political correctness”. But what you’re reading here is an example of political correctness run amok. And it’s effect? Read James Taranto’s piece in the WSJ today. It’s an incredible example of political correctness gone nuts. I’m talking about Emily Yoffe’s answer to an obviously absurdly insensitive question addressed to her. However, her answer, among much of the left, is both appropriate and “correct”. It’s what they believe. It’s what they’ve been taught. Will it get worse? Well, Gordon seems to think it will: A remarkable generational change is also coming. Most of the historians in the declining fields, economic, intellectual and diplomatic history, earned their degrees more than 30 years ago. At the same time, more than 50% of the new PhDs are now trained in women and gender history, in cultural history (a watered-down version of social history), in world and African-American history. This is going to make an extraordinary difference in what kind of scholarship will continue to be undertaken, and how the past will be taught. The history profession, seemingly innovative and robust, is in fact intellectually debilitated, and sadly reduced in scope. If you think it is bad in the history department, you’ve seen what is going on in the science department (global warming climate change “science”). Many have been hinting for years that the culture battle – the battle between individualism and freedom v. collectivism and entitlement- is being lost in academia. Gordon manages to put an exclamation point to the claim. One of the reasons our population knows less and less about economic and our intellectual history is because it has been waylaid and replaced with “disciplines” which stress entitlement and victimization. Is it then a surprise when more and more of the population view themselves and this country through those lenses? And is it then any more surprising when they perceive government - more and more government – as the answer? Again, it’s what they’ve been taught. ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on Jan 8, 2013 9:34:38 GMT -5
The Role of 'Educators' By Thomas Sowell www.JewishWorldReview.com | Many years ago, as a young man, I read a very interesting book about the rise of the Communists to power in China. In the last chapter, the author tried to explain why and how this had happened. Among the factors he cited were the country's educators. That struck me as odd, and not very plausible, at the time. But the passing years have made that seem less and less odd, and more and more plausible. Today, I see our own educators playing a similar role in creating a mindset that undermines American society. Schools were once thought of as places where a society's knowledge and experience were passed on to the younger generation. But, about a hundred years ago, Professor John Dewey of Columbia University came up with a very different conception of education — one that has spread through American schools of education, and even influenced education in countries overseas. John Dewey saw the role of the teacher, not as a transmitter of a society's culture to the young, but as an agent of change — someone strategically placed, with an opportunity to condition students to want a different kind of society. A century later, we are seeing schools across America indoctrinating students to believe in all sorts of politically correct notions. The history that is taught in too many of our schools is a history that emphasizes everything that has gone bad, or can be made to look bad, in America — and that gives little, if any, attention to the great achievements of this country. If you think that is an exaggeration, get a copy of "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn and read it. As someone who used to read translations of official Communist newspapers in the days of the Soviet Union, I know that those papers' attempts to degrade the United States did not sink quite as low as Howard Zinn's book. That book has sold millions of copies, poisoning the minds of millions of students in schools and colleges against their own country. But this book is one of many things that enable teachers to think of themselves as "agents of change," without having the slightest accountability for whether that change turns out to be for the better or for the worse — or, indeed, utterly catastrophic. This misuse of schools to undermine one's own society is not something confined to the United States or even to our own time. It is common in Western countries for educators, the media and the intelligentsia in general, to single out Western civilization for special condemnation for sins that have been common to the human race, in all parts of the world, for thousands of years. Meanwhile, all sorts of fictitious virtues are attributed to non-Western societies, and their worst crimes are often passed over in silence, or at least shrugged off by saying some such thing as "Who are we to judge?" Even in the face of mortal dangers, political correctness forbids us to use words like "terrorist" when the approved euphemism is "militant." Milder terms such as "illegal alien" likewise cannot pass the political correctness test, so it must be replaced by another euphemism, "undocumented worker." Some think that we must tiptoe around in our own country, lest some foreigners living here or visiting here be offended by the sight of an American flag or a Christmas tree in some institutions. In France between the two World Wars, the teachers' union decided that schools should replace patriotism with internationalism and pacifism. Books that told the story of the heroic defense of French soldiers against the German invaders at Verdun in 1916, despite suffering massive casualties, were replaced by books that spoke impartially about the suffering of all soldiers — both French and German — at Verdun. Germany invaded France again in 1940, and this time the world was shocked when the French surrendered after just 6 weeks of fighting — especially since military experts expected France to win. But two decades of undermining French patriotism and morale had done their work. American schools today are similarly undermining American society as one unworthy of defending, either domestically or internationally. If there were nuclear attacks on American cities, how long would it take for us to surrender, even if we had nuclear superiority — but were not as willing to die as our enemies were?
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