Occupy vs. Tea Partiers

This was sent to me today. Is it true? We know a lot of it is. Anyone want to defend the behavior of the animals in the 2nd column?

REPORTED	OCCUPY PARTY	TEA PARTY
ARRESTS	4149+	0
RAPES	12	0
DAMAGE	$10,000,000.00	$0
PUBLIC DEFECATION	YES	NO
ANTISEMITIC RANTS	12	0
COST TO TAXPAYERS ( by 11/9)	$19,327,487.00+	$0
PUBLIC MASTURBATION	3	0
MOLOTOV COCKTAILS THROWN	10	0
FIGHTS STARTED	YES	NO
CHILDREN EXPLOITED	YES	NO
POLICE CARS DAMAGED	2	0
PUBLIC DRUNKENNESS	YES	NO
DRUG POSSESSION ARREST	YES	NO
CONCEALED WEAPON ARREST	YES	NO
DRUG OVERDOSE	YES	NO
THEFTS	YES	NO
BURGLARIES	YES	NO
VANDALISM ARREST	YES	NO
TRESPASSING ARREST	YES	NO
NON FATAL SHOOTINGS	1	0
PUBLIC URINATION	YES	NO
URINATION ON OTHERS	YES	NO
ISRAELI FLAGS BURNED	2	0
AMERICAN FLAGS BURNED	1	0
AMERICAN FLAGS DANCED ON	1	0
AMERICAN FLAG DESECRATION	25	0
FELONY ASSAULT ON AN EMT	1	0
HEAD/BODY LICE OUTBREAKS	1	0
TUBERCULOSIS OUTBREAKS	1	0
MURDER	1	0
SUICIDE	1	0
SHOTS FIRED AT WHITE HOUSE	1	0
SCABIES OUTBREAKS	1	0
OBAMA ENDORSED IT	YES	NO
PELOSI ENDORSED IT	YES	NO
CAIR ENDORSED IT	YES	NO
SOCIALIST PARTY ENDORSED	YES	NO
NAZI PARTY ENDORSED	YES	NO
MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD ENDORSED	YES	NO
COMMUNIST PARTY ENDORSED	YES	NO
BIDEN ENDORSED	YES	NO
HUGO CHAVEZ ENDORSED	YES	NO
BLACK PANTHERS ENDORSED	YES	NO
HEZBOLLAH ENDORSED	YES	NO
MARXIST UNION ENDORSED	YES	NO
9/11 TRUTHER ENDORSED	YES	NO
BOLSHEVIK ENDORSED	YES	NO
IRAN GOVERNMENT ENDORSED	YES	NO
AYATOLLAH ENDORSED	YES	NO
NORTH KOREA ENDORSED	YES	NO
FARRAKHAN ENDORSED	YES	NO
NATION OF ISLAM ENDORSED	YES	NO

School Choice Video By Juan Williams

“A Tale of Two Missions” – a film by Juan Williams and Kyle Olson – tells the story of competing cultures in American education through examples from Chicago.

While the fight for school choice rages across the nation, perhaps no better example exists than that of the Windy City. Traditional alliances are breaking down. Both political parties are pushing for education reform and expanded school choice. The status quo is under attack, because most reasonable people understand that thousands of Chicago students are trapped in failing schools.

There's a clip at the link.

It Doesn't Fit The Narrative, So No One Will Care

And we'll continue to spend money making school food that kids not only don't want to eat, but food that we force them to take (when they get free school meals) which they then throw away:

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University tracked the body mass indexes of 19,450 students from fifth through eighth grade...

No matter how the researchers looked at the data, they could find no correlation at all between obesity and attending a school where sweets and salty snacks were available. link

A valuable study for my statistics classes.

What Lessons Are We Allowing These Students To Learn

If they're going to act like children, holding their breath until they get their own way, we should reinstate the principle of in loco parentis--and then swat them on the butt and send them to bed without dinner:

Following a noontime rally Tuesday, University of California, Davis, students spilled into an unused campus building, saying they intend to occupy it around the clock.

The students entered the building that formerly housed the Cross Cultural Center shortly before 1 p.m. The building will take the place of a tent encampment as the center of operations for the campus Occupy movement, said student Artem Rafkin.

"We are going to be permanently occupying it," Rafkin said.

Good lord, are there any adults in Davis?

I'm Officially Old Now

Some would say I've been old for a long time. Perhaps I could challenge that claim before, but now there's no way: two members of my West Point graduating class have just made general!

Teachers And Race

OK, so this article was somewhat interesting, but I found this little tidbit of information to be both interesting and counter-intuitive:

As you can see, Asian teachers, who presumably have a college degree, actually score lower than college bound Asians! This means they’re almost certainly drawn from a below average set of college graduates. For whites there is not so much discrepancy. And interestingly for blacks teachers seem to be drawn from the higher end of the distribution.

How does this statement, if true, relate to this post?

What Could Explain This?

How could this possibly be, with all the emphasis on multicultural education?

Educators are expressing alarm that the performance gap between minority and white high school students continues to expand across the United States, with minority teenagers performing at academic levels equal to or lower than those of 30 years ago.

Must be that all those liberal, union-loving teachers are closet racists. Yep, that's what I'm going with.

This Is How We Demonstrate Tolerance and Critical Thinking Skills

I wonder how many of us in the education community think this reaction, if it's accurately reported, is acceptable:

A 15-year-old Wisconsin boy who wrote an op-ed opposing gay adoptions was censored, threatened with suspension and called ignorant by the superintendent of the Shawano School District, according to an attorney representing the child.

I Wonder How Many Teachers Will Drive To This

I received this link at my school email address today. In case it disappears into the ether some day, here are the first two lines:

The annual Green California Summit will be held on April 26-27 at the Sacramento Convention Center, is the state's the largest annual event focused on green policy, practice and technology.

It's already a can't miss destination for many in the education community, but for 2012, it has more to offer educators than ever!

What Was Supposed To Have Happened Two Years Ago Yesterday?

One of President Obama's first acts as president was to sign an executive order closing the Guantanamo Bay prison within one year. Three years later, and two years after that deadline, Guantanamo Bay is as bustling as ever:

Obama campaigned on closing the facility in Cuba and, in one of his first actions as president, issued an executive order calling for it to be dismantled within one year. But as he enters the final year of his first term, human-rights groups are dismayed that the end of Guantánamo is nowhere in sight.

He was wrong to campaign on closing it, he was wrong to order it closed, and he's a loser for not being able to enforce his own orders.

Three strikes.

Become A Member of the Weather Stasi

In the former East Germany, the Stasi was the name of the secret police. There were everywhere and knew everything--mostly because they found ways to get people to spy and/or report on their neighbors.

This organization wants you to report on your weatherman:

“This is an important moment in the history of the AMS,” said Daniel Souweine, the campaign’s director. “It’s well known that large numbers of meteorologists are climate change deniers. It’s essential that the AMS Council resist pressure from these deniers and pass the strong statement currently under consideration.”

Interesting that they admit that large numbers of meteorologists are climate change "deniers". Why do you think that might be?

7th Blogiversary

Seven years ago I wrote my first blog post. This is my 7,449th post.

Wow!

My Evening With Diane Ravitch and a Couple Thousand of Her Closest Friends

On Friday night, January 20th, my friend and fellow conservative blogger Mr. Chandler of Buckhorn Road zipped down to the Sacramento Convention Center to hear a talk by noted "education historian" Diane Ravitch. I didn't realize it was sponsored by a bunch of teachers unions; I thought it was going to be an intellectual talk by someone who used to agree with me but now has switched sides. I thought I was going to get some really good information that would "challenge my assumptions" and make me think. Instead, what I got was, if you'll pardon the mixed metaphor, a liberal red-meat bacchanalia. As Mr. Chandler described it, we were "pilgrims in an unholy land".

We entered the Convention Center, where a couple thousand seats had been set up. Interestingly enough, they were mostly filled by the time the talk started. Imagine, a couple thousand teachers coming to hear a talk by someone who used to support the No Child Left Behind Act! As we entered we were given the following playbill (click to enlarge):

Holy crap! Linda Darling-Hammond, one of the crazies of the "educational equity" movement, was going to be a speaker! At this point we had our first realization of what we were in for.

The first speaker didn't make it a minute into his speech without launching an attack on Michelle Rhee, about whom I've written glowingly several times on this blog (type Rhee into the search box at the bottom of this page). When he spoke later he mentioned the Sacramento Bee, Sacramento's only remaining newspaper and one that is widely recognized to be somewhat left-leaning. He attacked the Bee, saying, "Without the News and Review, where would we be?" The Sacramento News and Review is an alt-weekly paper; just to give you a sense of what it's like, the vast majority of the ads in the back of it are for massage parlors, so-called medical marijuana dispensaries (which the feds started going after a couple weeks ago), and 1-900-SEX phone numbers. It's sort of a counter-culture paper. I read it every once in awhile, but let's not pretend for a moment that it's "mainstream" or "balanced". Anyway, for whatever reason, the Bee isn't liberal enough or radical enough for this Knudson fellow! And to make matters worse, his question generated significant applause! I just cannot understand that. The Bee isn't supportive of public schools? Really? (Incidentally, here's the SN&R's interview with Ravitch. It's actually the type of reasonable, sober discussion that I expected at Friday's talk from someone with Ravitch's gravitas.)

The second speaker was Tom Torlakson, the CTA's hand-picked Superintendent of Public Instruction. The first thing you need to know about Torlakson is that he's a dork. Imagine a dork trying to be a cheerleader for the crowd: "Teaching is awesome, right? You guys love kids, right? These are some great speakers, right?" It seemed like he was just trying to generate applause and, like all the other speakers, slobbered all over himself to praise Ravitch--someone he and the others wouldn't have touched with a 10-foot pole just a couple years ago.

Torlakson attacked standardized testing several times, even throwing out the new pejorative "bubble testers" to describe people who support standardized testing. News flash: Torlakson runs the department responsible for our state standardized testing program! He and other speakers talked down NCLB, but our state testing regimen is far more rigorous than anything NCLB requires! Torlakson talks about the stress of teaching, but so much of that stress comes from his department! The crowd clapped and cheered--like sheep cheering the butcher.

Sac State University is a fairly liberal school, and the teacher education program there even more so, so when I saw that the Dean of the College of Education was a speaker, I expected lunacy. Instead, she delivered a lot of pablum but didn't say anything completely stupid. I will admit, I was suprised that while introducing Linda Darling-Hammond, Sheared mentioned that Linda was an advisor on President Obama's transition team, and that mention got only tepid response. From a bunch of teachers. Wow.

I went into full-on battle preparation mode for Darling-Hammond, and was rewarded for doing so when the first thing she talked about was "marching and rallying for education". She also blasted NCLB, which Ravitch at one time supported, but never mentioned who wrote that law (hint: he used to be known as the Lion of the Senate), a theme to which I'll return when discussing Ravitch's talk. Like the other speakers, she attacked NCLB without pointing out that if it went away tomorrow, our state testing regime would remain virtually untouched because of our state testing mandates, most of which predate NCLB, and that the person responsible for enforcing those mandates was sitting on the stage with her. Darling-Hammond came across as a "true believer", but tempered her words enough so as not to across as batcrap insane.

No, that was left to Ravitch.

"You have the only governor in the nation who gives a damn about education." Really, Diane? See, I expected a sober discussion from her, and she goes straight for the red meat. She followed that comment up with a dig at Michelle Rhee--not a discussion, not a "here's where I disagree" comment, but just a dig. She did the same thing with Governor Scott Walker, saying "Let's all hope that he is soon recalled." Ravitch, who admits in the SN&R link above that there definitely are problems in American public schools, didn't "go there" in her talk; no, she said that the only crisis in American education is that it's under attack! And it's under attack by "right wingers", a phrase she used over and over again, whose hidden purpose is to privatize public schools. One of her repeated phrases was about the "corporate reform movement".

At one point I leaned over to Mr. Chandler and said, "She's an angry old biddy, isn't she?" We weren't getting reason from her, we were getting vituperation.

I was very disappointed in the logical fallacies, and the boogeymen, that she kept bringing up. "We must improve them (schools), not lose them." She seems absolutely convinced that there is a movement afoot to destroy public schools and to privatize them. If you believe that's so, then her statements make sense. If you don't, and she offered no evidence that it's so, then she's insane. She piled on: There are two goals of the "corporate reform movement", privatization and deprofessionalism.

Does this sound sane, or like a conspiracy theory?

Her bad statistics and bad logic could have been picked out by my first-year statistics students. At one point, when talking about how charter schools in Milwaukee haven't improved education, she said that African-American charter students in Milwaukee score no better than African-American students in Mississippi. Uh, to determine if the schools are an improvement over Milwaukee's public schools, shouldn't those kids be compared to African-American students in Milwaukee public schools? She makes several of these types of errors. In another attack on Michelle Rhee she mentioned something, I didn't write down what, that good teachers do, and then said that "Michelle Rhee certainly didn't do that in DC." Great applause line, but Michelle Rhee never taught in DC, she was the chancellor (superintendent) of the public schools there.

These types of logical errors detract from Ravitch's credibility.

I had hoped to hear why she changed from being an NCLB supporter and school reformer to whatever it is she is today; I got that information from the SN&R article linked above, not from Ravitch's talk. Every attack was against "right wing" something-or-others. Bottom line, she's just another liberal hack. "Public schools are a public good." But as I always say, "Universal public education is sacred, but public schools are not." A convert is always the most zealous. She didn't explain why she changed her mind, but she's certainly a zealot now. She attacked US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan a lot, but dared not mention his boss.

Near the end of her speech she was railing against some measures of school performance, and said, "I am not an economist, I am a historian. I don't think these (measures) should ever be used!" I leaned over to Mr. Chandler and said, "That's why she's not an economist."

She confused "bonus pay" with "merit pay", and concluded that merit pay doesn't work. But Mike Miles in Colorado Springs shows that true merit pay does work, and the students in his district, not affluent by any measure, are better off because of it.

"Organize, agitate, demonstrate!" "Act up, silence equals complicity!" Do these sound like cries from a particular side of the political spectrum? Do they sound like the clarion call of a reasoned person, or of a zealot? To ask the questions is to answer them, and that's how Ravitch closed her talk--to thunderous applause.

I didn't expect a red meat feeding frenzy. From someone of Ravitch's stature I expected much more intelligence, decency, and evidence. It's not that I disagreed with her--I knew going in that that was the case--it's just that I expected better. I was truly disappointed at the intellectual shallowness of her talk. This was the great Diane Ravitch? Really?

Sigh.

Update, 1/23/12: This EdWeek article discusses how a review of charter school studies shows many to be "flawed,problematic".

College Financial Aid

Out of nowhere these two questions just popped into my mind this morning, on the subject of financial aid:
1. At what age do colleges stop looking at parent income?
2. Why do they do so at all for 18-year-olds, who are legal adults in all 50 states?

Where Was I This Evening?

Here:


It may take me a couple days to transcribe my notes and publish a post on the evenings speakers, but rest assured, it will get done!

I Don't Support Racial Discrimination

That makes me a bad guy in some circles, because it means I don't support affirmative action:

The San Francisco Chronicle noted Tuesday that Gov. Jerry Brown had joined a challenge to the portion of 1996′s Proposition 209 that prevented state universities from using race in college admission decisions, with his lawyers telling the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the provision of state law “imposes unique political burdens on minorities” and violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. But what the media almost never point out, and the Chronicle doesn’t, is that the UC admissions status quo before 1996 indisputably punished a minority. This is particularly insane when one realizes that affirmative action is meant to atone for white racism. In California, who paid the price for this historical sin? Asian-American students. Says who? Says The New York Times, quoting UC documents. link

Combine that story with this one (my previous post) and one has to wonder what's going on in higher ed.

I Don't Know Where To Begin In My Exasperation

What do these people want?

An unpublished study by Duke University researchers that says black students are more likely to switch to less difficult majors has upset some students, who say the research is emblematic of more entrenched racial problems.

The study, which opponents of affirmative action are using in a case they want the U.S. Supreme Court to consider, concludes black students match the GPA of whites over time partially because they switch to majors that require less study time and have less stringent grading standards. Opponents of affirmative action cite the study in a case they want the U.S. Supreme Court to consider.

About three dozen students held a silent protest Sunday outside a speech by black political strategist Donna Brazile that was part of the school's annual Martin Luther King Jr. observance. And members of the Black Student Alliance have met with the provost to express their unhappiness with the study and other issues on campus.

These protesters/complainers--do they think the report's methodology or data is flawed in some way, or, what seems more likely from the story, do they just not like what the data tell them?

First Day of Winter

Here in Northern California we recently had our 4th driest December on record. Temperatures lately have been almost spring-like.

For a few days now, we've been prepared for a big storm blowing in from the Pacific. This morning the sky was overcast and temperatures were in the low 40s instead of their usual 30s, and this afternoon the first sprinkles came. This isn't a heavy rain by any stretch, but it's expected to be persistent--continuing off and on for the next week.

Winter has finally started in the Sacramento Valley.

Costa Concordia

Here is a satellite view of the Costa Corcordia, and here is the Google Earth view:The Google Earth image is from 2005; I wonder if they'll update it to one that shows the ship.

Education Buzz

The first Education Buzz of the new year is here and includes my post about a bill that would allow "gender identity" to determine which team (boys or girls) that a student would try out for, and which locker room/bathrooms he/she would use.

CATFIGHT!!!!!

Oh, there could be scratching and hair-pulling in this one:

Gov. Cuomo will give New York’s teachers one month to agree to a statewide performance evaluation plan — or he’ll write his own educator-rating scheme into the budget for legislative approval, The Post has learned.

In the ultimatum — which Cuomo will level at the United Federation of Teachers and New York State United Teachers as he presents his budget today — the governor will also insist the state union drop its lawsuit challenging certain provisions of the evaluation system, a source close to the administration said.

From time to time I enjoy a little internecine warfare, but only when it takes place on the Left :-)

Another School Paper Steps Into The Line Of Fire

All opinions are valued and respected, unless we disagree with yours:

A Wisconsin high school is in the middle of a free speech debate after they apologized for publishing a student essay opposing gay families who adopt children. School officials called the essay a form of “bullying and disrespect.”

The column ran on the editorial page of the Shawano High School student newspaper. It was part of an op-ed featuring a student supporting gay families who adopt children and one opposed to the idea.

Makes you wonder why they published the essay in the first place, doesn't it?

And seriously, if expressing an opinion, even an unpopular opinion, is now "bullying", then the term no longer has any meaning or usefulness. Like a Top 40 song that's been played too many times in the last hour, it's just been run into the ground.

Obama Kisses 200,000 Potential Jobs Good-bye

What is the motivation behind not approving this Keystone XL pipeline? If the argument is "green", consider this: that oil is going to be drilled, transported, and refined, and it will be refined either in the United States or in China. It will be refined. If your argument is environmental, wouldn't you prefer to have the refining done in the United States, which has much stricter environmental standards than does China?

I just don't get this guy.

Update: Canadian Ezra Levant says that Obama chose Venezuela and Saudi Arabia over Canada, and notes that Venezuelan "heavy oil" has a higher carbon footprint than does Canadian oil sands oil.

And why should it matter that he chose Saudi Arabia over our closest ally and biggest trading partner?

After improving with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, U.S. favorable ratings across the Arab world have plummeted. In most countries they are lower than at the end of the Bush Administration, and lower than Iran's favorable ratings (except in Saudi Arabia)...

While many Arabs were hopeful that the election of Barack Obama would improve U.S.-Arab relations, that hope has evaporated. Today, President Obama's favorable ratings across the Arab World are 10% or less.

Obama's performance ratings are lowest on the two issues to which he has devoted the most energy: Palestine and engagement with the Muslim world.

And that's not me saying that, boys and girls. It's from a Zogby poll taken for the Arab American Institute in 2011. Usually I wouldn't care if people in those countries love us or not, but if you're going to bash President Bush and say that as President you'd do a better job of getting them to love us, and as President one of the first things you do is go on the Great American Apology Tour, and then you fail and they hate us even more, your failure should count against you--and I'm happy to point it out.

This president is a buffoon.

Why Capitalism Is A Good Thing

From page 63 of the January 14th-20th 2012 issue of The Economist:

Strange to recall, Kodak was the Google of its day. Founded in 1880, it was known for its pioneering technology and innovative marketing. "You press the button, we do the rest," was its slogan in 1888.

By 1976 Kodak accounted for 90% of film and 85% of camera sales in America. Until the 1990s it was regularly rated one of the world's five most valuable brands.

Then came digital photography....

They didn't/couldn't compete, and now they're ready for bankruptcy. Other companies have stepped in to fill the breach.

Is this "bad"? Should we lament the loss of jobs? Should government somehow step in and "save" this company, like it did with Sears or Circuit City? Oh, wait....

Sometimes, companies need to close their doors. Times change, the market changes, and those that cannot compete will be replaced by those that can. Always remember that this is a good thing; sadly, that seems to be only a conservative viewpoint anymore, not a common sense viewpoint.

(Yes, it sucks when people don't have jobs anymore. Are we going to lament the loss of all those whale oil and/or buggy whip jobs, too, while we're at it?)

Income Disparity

Ah, the things you can do with statistics:

Inconvenient truth: the distribution of income in the U.S. is basically the same as it was a quarter-century ago—and the middle class has gained ground over the last decade...

In other words, most of the reported rise in income disparity since 1979 had already occurred by 1986, and there has been no significant trend since then.

There’s more. From 2000 to 2009, tax filers with adjusted gross income of at least $500,000, who represented the top 0.5 percent of all returns in both years (similar in spirit to the CBO report, which looks at the top 1 percent of households), saw their average adjusted gross income decline by 15 percent and their average after-tax income decline by 11 percent. All other filers—the 99.5 percent—saw average increases of 15 percent in AGI and 17 percent in after-tax income. The middle class has not “lost ground” over the last decade.

If this is true, why might some want to make claims about income disparity--claims that are unsupported by data? I wonder....

Spring Semester Starts Today

Monday was the Dr. King holiday, and yesterday was a teacher work day to grade all the final exams we gave late last week. Today, everything resets.

Oftentimes, Mockery Is Deserved

The TSA thinks a cupcake is a security threat? Well, behold the new "TSA-compliant" cupcake!

They are buffoons, and deserved to be mocked as such.

One Of My Favorite Commercials Of All Time

I don't know why, but I remember finding this commercial absolutely hilarious when it aired.

And no, I've never purchased the product.

Today's Holiday

Happy Dr. King Birthday (holiday). We're a better people for his having been among us.

A Social Media First For Me

At some ungodly hour last night or early this morning, I was checking "the Facebook" on my Kindle Fire and, since I've "liked" Carnival Cruise Lines, I saw a cryptic message expressing sympathy for those on the Costa Concordia. What the heck? So I came into my library and got on the "big screen"--gotta love my 24" swivel monitor!--and did a search. Holy crap! I'll be cruising off the coast of Italy for a few days this summer so I'm quite familiar with Costa, and to see a story of a modern cruise ship run aground is almost otherworldly.

This is the first time I can recall first learning about a major event from so-called social media.