WANTED Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You'll get paid when we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.
Canadian students’ math skills have been on a decade-long decline because rote learning was replaced by discovery-based methods that promoted multiple strategies and estimations, according to a new report that calls for a return to tradition.Yes, yes, yes!
“You know what’s the worst kind of instruction? The kind of instruction that makes kids feel stupid.
And that’s what a lot of that discovery stuff does; their working memory gets overloaded, they’re confused. That’s bad instruction,” said Anna Stokke, an associate professor in the University of Winnipeg’s department of mathematics and statistics, who wrote the C.D. Howe Institute report.
The report draws on results from national and provincial tests as well as an OECD assessment performed every three years in more than 60 countries that measures how well 15-year-olds can apply skills in reading, math and science to real life situations.
Canada fell out of the top 10 countries for math in 2012...
The report puts a good deal of the blame on discovery or experimental learning approaches that encourage students to explore different ways to solve math problems instead of using a single standard algorithm and often promote concrete tools such as drawing pictures, or using blocks or tiles to represent math concepts. The idea is students will gain a deeper understanding of math and be better equipped to apply it to a variety of situations.
What really happens, though, says the report, is students’ working memories get overwhelmed if they don’t know their times tables and can’t quickly put a standard algorithm to work to solve a more complex problem, both features of what’s known as “direct instruction.” Key operations, such as addition and subtraction of fractions, are overly delayed until the middle school years, just as students need that facility to tackle algebra.
Such concepts should be introduced earlier, says the report. And while it stops short of throwing discovery learning out completely, it says the curriculum balance should be tilted in favour of direct instructional methods, recommending an 80/20 split as a rule of thumb.
Gov. Chris Christie is backing away from the use of Common Core school standards, saying the system isn't working for students in New Jersey.
In a speech Thursday, the likely Republican presidential contender will make the case that the standards have brought confusion and frustration to parents and classrooms.
The Common Core standards spell out what academic skills students should master at each grade level. They have been adopted by most states and the federal government, through a grant program, encourages states to use them. But they are unpopular among many parents, teachers, and GOP voters nationwide.
"It's now been five years since Common Core was adopted. And the truth is that it's simply not working," Christie says in excerpts released by his office ahead of the speech at Burlington County College. "Instead of solving problems in our classrooms, it is creating new ones. And when we aren't getting the job done for our children, we need to do something different"...
Christie has been gradually backing away from the support he expressed for the standards less than two years ago, when he declared that "this is one of those areas where I've agreed more with the president than not."
A significant percentage of the Harvard University Class of 2015 graduated with an A- GPA or better, according to a new survey from student newspaper The Harvard Crimson.It's not the world's best sampling methodology, but that's still an awful lot of students getting A-'s.
For years, Harvard has been the subject of grade inflation suspicions, which this new survey seems to fuel.
"Over half the respondents reported a GPA of at least 3.67, the cutoff for an A- average," The Crimson reports. Around half of Harvard's Class of 2015 — 760 students — responded to The Crimson's survey.
However, 72% of respondents "think grade inflation is not much of a problem or not a problem at all at Harvard."
Jeremy Rawls is a student at Mississippi College. He’s also a Marine, having spent two combat tours in Iraq. Rawls suffers from PTSD, a condition which affects many veterans.Comments?
The college just suspended him for a reason many, including Rawls himself, are calling dubious.
Why did they suspend him? Rawls requested to see a non-Muslim counselor as part of his PTSD treatment.
He discussed the situation with Campus Reform, noting that he was paired with a female counselor who wore traditional Muslim dress:
“It’s not that I didn’t want to participate,” he said. “I didn’t want to traumatize her and it wasn’t a good environment to be talking about [my disabilities] with that specific person.”Rawls claims that his requests for transfer were continuously ignored, until he received a letter alerting him of the suspension:
“Their response was suspending me pending a mental evaluation which I provided and then they put me on further restriction and a reintegration program,” he said.The letter also labeled the two-tour Marine as a threat to campus safety.
Here's a good example of why so many of us disliked school even if we dig edumication.
Via the Twitter feed of Lizbuddie comes the story of Anthony Mazur, a 16-year-old student at Texas' Flower Mound High School. A photographer for the yearbook, Mazur took pictures of athletes and other students and then posted them on a Flickr account where he sold some of them to parents. As it happens, according to his school district's policy, there's no issue with that and Mazur apparently owns the the copyright to work he produces.
Cue administrative outrage:
Back in March, Mazur says he was called into FMHS Assistant Principal Jeffrey Brown’s office, where he saw that Brown had his website pulled up on a computer there. He said that Brown was angry at him, and told him that posting the pictures online was illegal, and violated copyright. According to Mazur, Brown also worked the angle (contrary to the policy listed above) that the camera belonged to the district. When Mazur argued that the copyright belonged to him, he says that Brown changed his tune and said that it violated student privacy. Brown allegedly told Mazur at the time that a parent had complained.
Ridiculous.Mazur alleged that Brown told him in a coercive tone “I’m just asking you to take the website down, I’m not asking you to return any money.” Mazur said he assumed Brown meant the school, with regards to returning money. Mazur said Brown told him that he “wouldn’t report [Mazur] to the IRS” over the money he earned from selling the photos. Brown told Mazur that he was issuing an “administrative directive” to take the photos down. At this point, Mazur said he requested that his parent be brought into the discussion.The school said that a student had complained and posting pictures violated privacy concerns. But that's not what the parents of Mazur were told:
After the meeting, the Mazurs said they received a written administrative directive ordering him to take the pictures down. Len Mazur said the reasoning listed on the directive was not related to privacy concerns, but “because he posted with the intention to profit”. The Mazur’s would not say how much money, even in general terms, that Anthony had earned from selling his photos. But Anthony said that his customers were all parents of the students in the photos, buying the digital photo for their own use. “It doesn’t matter whether he sold one or a million pictures,” said Len Mazur, who insisted that it was the principle of applying the law correctly that was important.It turns out that the school's "acceptable use policy" (AUP) doesn't clearly apply to the situation at hand. The Lewisville Texan Journal has a wide-ranging account of the mess (which is ongoing) and has posted damning documents of the school's bullying tactics. The school district's communications person hasn't gotten back to folks with pertinent information.
I THINK IT’S A SMART GOP MOVE: A half-dozen GOP Senators have signed onto a bill sponsored by Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) that would require drug companies that sell contraceptives to file an OTC (over-the-counter) request with the FDA. It’s a smart move to battle the inane #waronwomen accusation incessantly hurled at the GOP. But guess who opposes this move?
The Colorado Republican’s push to make birth control available over-the-counter is not winning him more allies among women’s reproductive health groups, however.Groups like Planned Parenthood have opposed the idea, which they argue could drive up contraception prices.The group has pointed to ObamaCare’s contraception mandate — requiring insurance plans to cover all FDA-approved forms of birth control — and said that insurers may no longer cover the medication if it’s not prescribed by a doctor.So let me get this straight: A coalition of GOP Senators is trying to make contraceptives more readily available to women by making them OTC, but liberal/progressive groups like Planned Parenthood oppose the idea, simply because women might actually have to pay for their contraceptives rather than get them free? Besides, I’m not convinced that merely making contraceptives OTC would alter Obamacare’s mandate that they be provided for free. Seems to me Planned Parenthood’s opposition is purely ideological: They can’t stand the idea that their #waronwomen narrative against Republicans could be proven patently false. Plus, far fewer women (especially young women) will need to go to Planned Parenthood if they can just go to the local drugstore and obtain contraceptives. That would leave Planned Parenthood mostly in the business of STD testing, pregnancy testing and abortions.
They are only four words in a 900-page law: “established by the state.”
But it is in the ambiguity of those four words in the Affordable Care Act that opponents found a path to challenge the law, all the way to the Supreme Court.
How those words became the most contentious part of President Obama’s signature domestic accomplishment has been a mystery. Who wrote them, and why? Were they really intended, as the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell claim, to make the tax subsidies in the law available only in states that established their own health insurance marketplaces, and not in the three dozen states with federal exchanges?
The answer, from interviews with more than two dozen Democrats and Republicans involved in writing the law, is that the words were a product of shifting politics and a sloppy merging of different versions. Some described the words as “inadvertent,” “inartful” or “a drafting error.” But none supported the contention of the plaintiffs, who are from Virginia.
Jonathan Gruber, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist who helped design the Massachusetts health law that was the model for Obamacare, was a key influence on the creation of the federal health law. He was widely quoted in the media. During the crafting of the law, the Obama administration brought him on for consultation because of his expertise. He was paid almost $400,000 to consult with the administration on the law. And he has claimed to have written part of the legislation, the section dealing with small business tax credits.
After the law passed, in 2011 and throughout 2012, multiple states sought his expertise to help them understand their options regarding the choice to set up their own exchanges. During that period of time, in January of 2012, Gruber told an audience at Noblis, a technical management support organization, that tax credits—the subsidies available for health insurance—were only available in states that set up their own exchanges.
A video of the presentation, posted on YouTube, was unearthed tonight by Ryan Radia at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank which has participated in the legal challenge to the IRS rule allowing subsidies in federal exchanges. Here’s what Gruber says.
What’s important to remember politically about this is if you're a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don't get their tax credits—but your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill. So you’re essentially saying [to] your citizens you’re going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country. I hope that that's a blatant enough political reality that states will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these exchanges. But, you know, once again the politics can get ugly around this. [emphasis added]Here’s the video, which according to YouTube's date stamp was uploaded by Noblis on January 20, 2012. The relevant passage starts around minute 31.
He doesn’t flinch over returning to the 90 percent personal income tax rates of the 1950s for top earners. And if reducing income inequality reduces economic growth, he says, that’s fine. “You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants,” he said, “when children are hungry in this country.”Do people work for the government, or does government work for the people? We know Comrade Bernie's answer to that question.
http://you.regettingold.com/xx/xx/19xx/World War I.
April 22nd, 1915:
The start of the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium
Nearer to your birth date than today!
UNEXPECTEDLY! Sticker Shock for Some Obamacare Customers. “So the proposed 2016 Obamacare rates have been filed in many states, and in many states, the numbers are eye-popping. Market leaders are requesting double-digit increases in a lot of places. Some of the biggest are really double-digit: 51 percent in New Mexico, 36 percent in Tennessee, 30 percent in Maryland, 25 percent in Oregon. The reason? They say that with a full year of claims data under their belt for the first time since Obamacare went into effect, they’re finding the insurance pool was considerably older and sicker than expected.”Sure is.
Gee, that’s bad luck.
Women Now Demanding To Be Treated As Eggshells, Not Equals
Camille Paglia gets it right on sexual harassment, from Playboy from 1995:Go read the whole thing.
"[You can't have] the Stalinist situation we have in America right now, where any neurotic woman can make any stupid charge and destroy a man's reputation. If there is evidence of false accusation, the accuser should be expelled. Similarly, a woman who falsely accuses a man of rape should be sent to jail. My definition of sexual harassment is specific. It is only sexual harassment-by a man or a woman-if it is quid pro quo. That is, if someone says, "You must do this or I'm going to do that"-for instance, fire you. And whereas touching is sexual harassment, speech is not. I am militant on this. Words must remain free. The solution to speech is that women must signal the level of their tolerance-women are all different. Some are very bawdy."
Actually, a law professor with an evolutionary orientation, Wayne State's Kingsley Browne, argues that men shove each other around with language; it's a form of exercising dominance.
And if women are actually men's equals, their response to language isn't filing suit -- or trying to bring down a man's career through social media because he makes a joke.
In fact, Browne points out, men using language to shove women around the same way they do to other men involves treating women equally.
It used to be that women marched around claiming that they weren't fragile little dollies; that they could handle what men could. Now just the opposite is the case. Women get men fired over jokes overheard at conferences.
America must break its “addiction” to bachelor’s degrees and become better acquainted with the financial benefits of one- and two-year degrees and certificates, an education researcher argued at a recent panel discussion about what level of higher education it takes to break into the middle class.
“When you ask people what they think about postsecondary education, they say ‘bachelor’s,’” said Mark Schneider, Vice President and Institute Fellow of the Education Program at the American Institutes for Research, or AIR.
“I think of this as a bachelor’s addiction which has to be broken and has to be changed,” Schneider said. “The contemporary bachelor’s degree takes too long, it’s too expensive and it’s not for everyone.”
Schneider presented wage-earnings data that show various one- and two-year degrees and several certificates enable holders to command salaries that surpass those of some bachelor’s degree holders.
Technical careers are particularly rewarding, Schneider said as he presented figures that show plumbers and technicians in a variety of fields that only require a certificate all earn upward of $71,000 — several thousand dollars more per year than many bachelor’s degree holders — a decade after they complete their educational program.
“Where you learn how to fix things, you win,” Schneider said.
The growth in associate’s degrees and other sub-baccalaureate credentials awarded has also outpaced that of bachelor’s degrees, 39 percent versus 18 percent from 2008 to 2013, respectively, figures provided by Schneider show.
Schneider made his remarks Monday at AIR during a social mobility lecture series titled “Do You Need a Bachelor’s to Join the Middle Class?”
The WaPo’s Charles Lane looks at the economics of Bernie Sanders’s “free” college plan...
Lane goes on to examine how “free” college is working in Germany...
But these “free” college plans aren’t really about economics. They’re about anti-economics, the belief that incentives don’t matter, that somehow simply putting more money into higher education without any reform will somehow result in a better system. “Scarcity?” “Prices?” Feh. Just cut a check. How should education best deliver knowledge and credentials in the 21st century? “Free” college provides no answers. Makes for a catchy campaign idea, I guess.
Ethnic Minorities Deserve Safe Spaces Without White PeopleThe author is putting lipstick on a pig, trying to defend the indefensible.
Last week The Ryersonian reported on an incident that involved two first-year journalism students who were turned away from an event organized by Racialized Students' Collective because they are white. Since then there has been a lot of commentary on the piece and a lot of debate -- a lot of the criticism is valid.
There are two sides to the story: 1) the media has a right to attend public events and report on matters that are in the public interest. The student media needs to cover initiatives that are happening on campus so that we draw attention to them and in turn create awareness (The Ryersonian reported that one student said he was covering the meeting for an assignment). 2) Marginalized groups have a right to claim spaces in the public realm where they can share stories about the discrimination they have faced without judgment and intrusion from anyone else.
I am a person of colour and a journalist and so there are two conflicting voices inside my head. But in this case one voice, that of a person of colour, is louder and my conscience does not allow me to be impartial. I have to take a side.
The organizers of the event, the Racialized Students' Collective, should have done a better job of labelling this event as a safe space on the Ryerson Students' Union online calendar. They should label safe spaces clearly and maybe even host events that educate the public on what they mean. Doing so will help the public and the media have a better understanding of the purpose and value of these spaces.
However, the point to note is not that two white students were asked to leave the event, but rather that this was a safe space and that we as a newsroom, as a campus and as a society are not as knowledgeable as we should be about what these spaces mean.
MAYBE B.U. NEEDS TO RETHINK ITS HIRING PROCESS: BU hire set up sex profile for rival: Was ‘jealous’ coed when busted in 2008...Read more details at Instapundit.
Did BU know about all these problems when they hired her? If not, why not? And what characteristics did she possess that made her more appealing than the other 100+ candidates?
It's easy to spot overt calls for censorship from the commentariat. Those have become more common in the wake of both tumultuous events (like the violence questionably attributed to the "Innocence of Muslims" video, or Pamela Geller's "Draw Muhammad" contest) and mundane ones (like fraternity brothers recorded indulging in racist chants).How many of those have you heard recently? Read the whole piece to see how those are woven into the anti-free-speech web.
But it's harder to detect the subtle pro-censorship assumptions and rhetorical devices that permeate media coverage of free speech controversies. In discussing our First Amendment rights, the media routinely begs the question — it adopts stock phrases and concepts that presume that censorship is desirable or constitutional, and then tries to pass the result off as neutral analysis. This promotes civic ignorance and empowers deliberate censors.
Fortunately, this ain't rocket science. Americans can train themselves to detect and question the media's pro-censorship tropes. I've collected some of the most pervasive and familiar ones. This post is designed as a resource, and I'll add to it as people point out more examples and more tropes...
Trope One: "Hate Speech"...
Trope Two: "Like shouting fire in a crowded theater"...
Trope Three: "Not all speech is protected"...
Trope Four: "Line between free speech and [questioned expression]"...
Trope Five: "Balancing free speech and [social value]"...
Trope Six: "This isn't free speech, it's [category]"...
Trope Seven: "Fighting words"...
Trope Eight: "[Professor] explained . . . ."
Trope Nine: "This speech may be protected for now, but the law is always changing"...
A federal judge ruled late Tuesday that a lawsuit challenging mandatory union fees paid by government workers in Illinois can move forward. The judge’s ruling was in response to legal action taken in March by three state workers represented by attorneys at the Chicago-based Liberty Justice Center and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
“Government workers should not be forced to pay money to a government union to keep their jobs,” said Jacob Huebert, senior attorney at the Liberty Justice Center. ”With today’s ruling, the court recognized that these workers deserve to have their day in court.”
The U.S. Department of Education is poised to announce a limited exemption to the federal ban on prisoners receiving Pell Grants to attend college while they are incarcerated.
Correctional education experts and other sources said they expect the department to issue a waiver under the experimental sites program, which allows the feds to lift certain rules that govern aid programs in the spirit of experimentation. If the project is successful, it would add to momentum for the U.S. Congress to consider overturning the ban it passed on the use of Pell for prisoners in 1994...
Even a limited experiment will provoke controversy. Spending government money on college programs for convicted criminals is an easy target for conservative pundits and for some lawmakers from both political parties...
The administration estimated that roughly 4,000 of the 60,000 incarcerated juvenile offenders would be eligible for federal aid. That investment makes sense, they said, given that it costs an average of $88,000 per year to lock up a juvenile offender. And inmates of all ages are half as likely to go back to jail if they take college courses.
A proposed change to state law that has advanced in Springfield could expand high school students' access to college credit through AP testing — but could also have a financial impact on state colleges and universities in Illinois, which could lose out on tuition revenue.
The AP testing program awards students whose knowledge has surpassed the high school level, and can save them time and money in college because they don't have to pay to take the equivalent courses.
But college standards for granting credit for AP tests vary widely. The tests are scored on a 5-point scale, but while some colleges and universities will award credit for scores as low as 2, others require the top score of 5 in certain subjects, according to the College Board, which administers the program. At some schools, the standards vary by subject, while the University of Illinois has different thresholds for different campuses.
To standardize the criteria, lawmakers are considering passing a law to require public universities and colleges in Illinois to give course credit for scores of 3 or better...
Last year in Illinois, nearly 116,000 AP tests were awarded scores of 3 or better, according to a coalition backing the legislation that includes state education groups and the College Board. At an average cost of $426 per credit hour, that would add up to $148 million in savings overall, proponents say.
AP credit could cost colleges and universities lost tuition from those students who can skip over classes, but officials say many AP students simply take other classes instead, to add depth or breadth to their education. Or they can use the lightened course load to improve their chances of graduating on time.
The bailout of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System enacted last year requires a 70 percent increase in pension contributions from school districts, a 20 percent increase from the state general fund and a 10 percent increase in teacher contributions. When the phased-in increases are complete in 2020-21, CalSTRS will get about $5 billion more a year than it now does, putting it on much firmer ground.
But even at a time when school funding has reached an all-time high, districts are apprehensive at having to spend so much more on pensions. This month, their strategy has become clear: establish separate, specific state funding for districts to cover their increased contributions.
Money doesn't grow on trees. If you had to bet who would get extra money, students who don't vote or teachers backed by powerful unions, on whom would you bet?[T]he education establishment expects to use the flexibility and extra dollars provided by the Local Control Funding Formula to pay for the higher pension costs. But that’s not what the change in how schools are funded was supposed to be about, according to its champion, Gov. Jerry Brown. The governor’s website contains a 800-word account of the signing of the LCFF law on July 1, 2013. It depicts the funding change as being solely about getting more help to struggling English-learners, the state’s “neediest students.”
GOVERNMENT DOESN’T “ASK” ANYTHING: Thomas Sowell rips apart President Obama’s recent remark opining that the way to reduce poverty is to “ask from society’s lottery winners” that they make a “modest investment” in government programs to help the poor.
[T]he federal government does not just “ask” for money. It takes the money it wants in taxes, usually before the people who have earned it see their paychecks. Despite pious rhetoric on the left about “asking” the more fortunate for more money, the government does not “ask” anything. It seizes what it wants by force. If you don’t pay up, it can take not only your paycheck, it can seize your bank account, put a lien on your home and/or put you in federal prison.
So please don’t insult our intelligence by talking piously about “asking.”As for referring to successful individuals as “society’s lottery winners,” Sowell observes:
And please don’t call the government’s pouring trillions of tax dollars down a bottomless pit “investment.”
Most people who want to redistribute wealth don’t want to talk about how that wealth was produced in the first place. They just want “the rich” to pay their undefined “fair share” of taxes. This “fair share” must remain undefined because all it really means is “more.”
, , , ,
Obama goes further than other income redistributionists. “You didn’t build that!” he declared to those who did. Why? Because those who created additions to the world’s wealth used government-built roads or other government-provided services to market their products.
And who paid for those roads and other government-provided services if not the taxpayers? Since all other taxpayers, as well as non-taxpayers, also use government facilities, why are those who created private wealth not to use them also, since they are taxpayers as well?
linkThe fact that most of the rhetorical ploys used by Barack Obama and other redistributionists will not stand up under scrutiny means very little politically. After all, how many people who come out of our schools and colleges today are capable of critical scrutiny?
At a middle school in California, the state testing in math was underway via the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) exam. A girl pointed to the problem on the computer screen and asked “What do I do?” The proctor read the instructions for the problem and told the student: “You need to explain how you got your answer.”
The girl threw her arms up in frustration and said, “Why can’t I just do the problem, enter the answer and be done with it?”
The answer to her question comes down to what the education establishment believes “understanding” to be, and how to measure it. K-12 mathematics instruction involves equal parts procedural skills and understanding. What “understanding” in mathematics means, however, has long been a topic of debate. One distinction popular with today’s math reform advocates is between “knowing” and “doing.” A student, reformers argue, might be able to “do” a problem (i.e., solve it mathematically), without understanding the concepts behind the problem solving procedure. Perhaps he has simply memorized the method without understanding it.I hear this silliness about "explaining" often. I assert that a student who can solve a multi-step algebraic problem and get the correct answer shouldn't then have to explain each step--their comprehension is demonstrated already by the systematic steps taken! If someone still disagrees with me, I give them this challenge: "Divide 100 by 6 using long division, and explain to me why that algorithm works." 99% of people can't explain why the algorithm works, but does that really matter if they know the algorithm and can execute it flawlessly? And why does it matter why the algorithm works? After all, no one does division for its own sake but rather to solve a problem; the division itself is only a tool, not a goal in and of itself. Yes, it would be nice if someone could explain it, but are they at all mathematically handicapped if they cannot? Is someone handicapped at driving a car because they cannot explain the 4 strokes of a "4 stroke engine"?
Despite the goal of solving a problem and explaining it in one fell swoop, in many cases observed at the middle school, students solved the problem first and then added the explanation in the required format and rubric. It was not evident that the process of explanation enhanced problem solving ability. In fact, in talking with students at the school, many found the process tedious and said they would rather just “do the math” without having to write about it.
In general, there is no more evidence of “understanding” in the explained solution, even with pictures, than there would be in mathematical solutions presented in a clear and organized way. How do we know, for example, that a student isn’t simply repeating an explanation provided by the teacher or the textbook, thus exhibiting mere “rote learning” rather than “true understanding” of a problem-solving procedure?This is intuitively obvious. And Garelick and Beals point out the greatest flaw in the "explain your answer" pedagogy: requiring the types of explanations identified as good by Common Core undermines, and in fact is counter to, the conciseness of mathematics.
The idea that students who do not demonstrate their strategies in words and pictures must not understand the underlying concepts assumes away a significant subpopulation of students whose verbal skills lag far behind their mathematical skills, such as non-native English speakers or students with specific language delays or language disorders. These groups include children who can easily do math in their heads and solve complex problems, but often will be unable to explain – whether orally or in written words – how they arrived at their answers.
As Alfred North Whitehead famously put it about a century before the Common Core standards took hold:
It is a profoundly erroneous truism … that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.
Boston University had a weekend change of heart about a new professor's angry tweets about white people, after FoxNews.com and others reported on the racially-charged comments -- and Terrier alumni threatened to stop writing checks.
Saida Grundy, an incoming assistant professor of sociology and African-American studies at the school, tweeted in recent weeks that "white masculinity is THE problem for america’s (sic) colleges," white men are a "problem population,” and that she tries to avoid shopping at white-owned businesses. On Friday, her new employer's spokesman, Colin Riley, told FoxNews.com that the tweets came from Grundy's personal Twitter account and that she was "exercising her right to free speech and we respect her right to do so.”
Then, amid a deluge of angry emails from former students, the school sought to amend the comment.
“The University does not condone racism or bigotry in any form and we are deeply saddened when anyone makes such offensive statements,” Riley told FoxNews.com Saturday.You would think that after embarrassing, if not herself then at least Boston University, Ms. Grundy would tone it down a bit, or perhaps have been told by BU to keep a low profile. You might think that, but you would be wrong:
Boston University, which has already condemned the racist Tweets of an incoming faculty member, has now been sent an outrageous Facebook exchange in which a poster who identifies herself as the controversial sociology professor mercilessly ridicules a white rape victim.This woman will soon be teaching at Boston University.
Saida Grundy, a newly hired professor at Boston University who recently said she regrets tweeting that white males are a "problem population," and other racially charged comments, is now accused of Facebook posts in which she appeared to taunt a white rape victim...
Chamberlin, the rape survivor, responded: “No really. I got it. You can take your claws out, thanks.”
To which Grundy exploded:
“^^THIS IS THE S**T I AM TALKING ABOUT. WHY DO YOU GET TO PLAY THE VICTIM EVERY TIME PEOPLE OF COLOR AND OUR ALLIES WANT TO POINT OUT RACISM. my CLAWS?? Do you see how you just took an issue that WASNT about you, MADE it about you, and NOW want to play the victim when I take the time to explain to you some s**t that is literally $82,000 below my pay grade? And then you promote your #whitegirltears like that’s some badge you get to wear… YOU BENEFIT FROM RACISM. WE’RE EXPLAINING THAT TO YOU and you’re vilifying my act of intellectual altruism by saying i stuck my “claws” into you?”
Chamberlin responded by trying to leave the discussion. “I am choosing to “exit” this conversation,” she wrote.
But Grundy posted again, finishing with: “go cry somewhere. since that’s what you do.”
A Duke University professor was defiant after the school last week condemned his "noxious" and "offensive" words in a letter published in The New York Times in which he compared African-Americans unfavorably to Asian-Americans.Interesting, the two responses from the two schools regarding the two professors.
The school's rebuke came after a student backlash against Political Science Professor Jerry Hough, 80, whose May 9 letter sought to address racism and the Baltimore riots. Hough said African-Americans don't try to integrate into society, while Asians “worked doubly hard” to overcome racism instead of blaming it.
“Every Asian student has a very simple old American first name that symbolizes their desire for integration,” he wrote on May 10. “Virtually every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration.”
Duke students and faculty blast Hough last week, and the school told The News & Observer of Raleigh that he was placed on leave and that 2016 will be his last year at the school.
“The comments were noxious, offensive, and have no place in civil discourse,” said Duke spokesman Michael Schoenfeld. “Duke University has a deeply held commitment to inclusiveness grounded in respect for all, and we encourage our community to speak out when they feel that those ideals are challenged or undermined, as they were in this case.”
But Hough, in an e-mail to an ABC affiliate, said political correctness is getting in the way of thoughtful and frank debate.
“I am strongly against the obsession with ‘sensitivity,'" Hough wrote. "The more we have emphasized sensitivity in recent years, the worse race relations have become. I think that is not an accident. “I know that the 60 years since the Montgomery bus boycott is a long time, and things must be changed. The Japanese and other Asians did not obsess with the concentration camps and the fact they were linked with blacks as ‘colored.’"
The Obama administration on Monday moved to prohibit federal agencies from providing local cops with certain kinds of military equipment such as grenade launchers, high-caliber weapons and bayonets, in the wake of controversy over a "militarized" police response to unrest last summer in Ferguson, Missouri.
The new prohibitions are part of an executive order President Barack Obama issued for federal agencies to review the types of equipment they provide to local and state police..."We've seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people a feeling like there's an occupying force as opposed to a force that's part of the community that's protecting them and serving them," Obama said in Camden Monday. "It can alienate and intimidate local residents and send the wrong message."Agencies including the Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security departments help provide equipment to local police.The banned list includes: tank-like armored vehicles that move on tracks, certain types of camouflage uniforms, bayonets, firearms and ammunition of .50 caliber or higher, grenade launchers, and weaponized aircraft.
Update, 5/20/15: Here's the information at the bottom of the first link:
It's set to open on California but you can check whatever state you want. I notice the Sacramento County Sheriff got 5 bayonets and scabbards. US DHS CBP FORCE OPTIONS TRNG, which is listed in California, was given machetes. Ventura County was provided with "guns thru 30mm". Maybe they got a Vulcan!
Update #2, 12/31/21: It's sad the link above is no longer active. I discovered that today when writing another post and wanted to link to the issue of my local city's police force having an MRAP.
The Obama administration is taking on banks and other financial firms with new rules that would ban certain fees they can charge college students as well as restrictions on how they market products on campuses.
The U.S. Department of Education on Friday unveiled draft regulations on debit cards and other financial products offered on campuses. Consumer advocates have long sought the rules, which have drawn the ire of the financial services industry.
The draft regulations target two categories of financial products. First, the department is seeking to place the most stringent restrictions on debit cards and prepaid cards that colleges use to directly disburse federal grants and loans to students. For those accounts, the department would prohibit point-of-service fees, overdraft or insufficient funds charges, and ATM withdrawal fees.
A second category includes checking accounts or other financial products that are offered on campus or marketed to students under an agreement with the college. For example, some banks offer debit cards that are co-branded with the logo or mascot of a college. Those types of products would be prohibited from charging account access fees or in-network ATM withdrawal fees.What is the point of having an account if you have to pay to access it?
California’s high school graduation rate has improved in recent years but is still mediocre compared to other states, a new national study reveals.
The study, entitled “Building a Grad Nation,” was done for America’s Promise Alliance, a consortium of civic and business groups headed by former Secretary of State Colin Powell and his wife, Alma. Its goal is to raise the national graduation rate, 81.4 percent in 2013, to 90 percent by 2020.
While citing progress in raising graduation rates, Powell says in an open letter accompanying the report that “we are running out of time to close large and lingering gaps in graduation rates among different student populations.”
California’s 2013 graduation rate, 80.4 percent, is a full point below average, although the state was cited in the report for adding 4.4 percentage points to its rate in two years. California’s superintendent of schools, Tom Torlakson, reported last month that the state graduation rate rose again to 80.8 percent last year.
Twenty-eight states had graduation rates higher than California’s in 2013, the study found, with Iowa, at 89.7 percent, Nebraska (88.5 percent), and Texas and Wisconsin (88 percent) coming closest to the 90 percent goal. Oregon had, by far, the lowest rate, 68.7 percent.I'll admit that I'm surprised that Oregon's rate is so low. Are all these percentages calculated the same way? If so, what is the explanation for Oregon, and for Texas?
More than 60 Asian American organizations filed a complaint (see below) with the federal government on Friday alleging that Harvard University discriminates against Asian Americans in the admissions process and calling for an investigation.Our colleges and universities, at least those who get taxpayer money, should focus on academics, and if I as a taxpayer have to pay for the education of others because somehow it's a public good that I do so, I should at least have the satisfaction of knowing that I'm paying for the best and brightest, those at the top end of the academic performance spectrum.
The Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper on campus, wrote in this story that 64 groups filed the complaint with the U.S. Education and Justice departments, arguing that the university makes an “unlawful use of race” in its decisions that hurts Asian Americans...
This is the second complaint against Harvard admissions practices on behalf of Asian Americans in a month. A legal defense group called Project on Fair Representation filed a lawsuit against Harvard about a month ago on behalf of a group called Students for Fair Admissions. It accuses Harvard of “employing racially and ethnically discriminatory policies” in its admissions practices. You can read that suit here.
Ninety-six percent of Americans say it is "somewhat" or "very" important for adults in the country to have a degree or certificate beyond high school. Clearly, the perceived importance of postsecondary education remains very high, especially considering the majority of American adults do not have a degree. But something very troubling lurks beneath the surface of this finding in the recently released fourth annual Gallup-Lumina Foundation poll.
Only 13% of Americans strongly agree college graduates in this country are well-prepared for success in the workplace. That's down from 14% two years ago and 19% three years ago. This is effectively a "no confidence" vote in college graduates' work readiness, and if we don't work to fix it, there will be catastrophic effects for the American education system and economy.
The no confidence vote gets worse: Americans with college degrees are much less likely to strongly agree college grads are ready for the workforce than Americans without college degrees -- 6% vs. 18%, respectively.Where is the disconnect?
Federal taxpayers dumped more than $205 million into Hawaii's ObamaCare insurance exchange, but after a steady downward spiral the once-highly praised Hawaii Health Connector is on life support.Remember, these people who can't maintain a web site insist they'll be able to handle your healthcare and insurance.
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has already restricted grant funds to the Hawaii Health Connector, after telling officials in March it was out of compliance with the Affordable Care Act because of fiscal instability and ongoing IT issues.
With state lawmakers also blocking additional funds, the system is struggling to stay afloat. The governor's office said it is doing what it can to salvage the situation, including approving $30 million to temporarily transition the local portal to the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov -- where residents could continue to enroll over the next year while problems with the local site are addressed.
The big bosses are taking all the money! USA Today dutifully reports: “CEOs in the AFL-CIO’s pay database released Wednesday earned an average of $13.5 million last year, which is 373 times more than the $36,000 per year paid to the average production and nonsupervisory worker, says the AFL-CIO. CEO pay in the AFL-CIO study increased 16% in 2014.”
According to the union, that CEO-to-worker pay ratio pay is “simply unconscionable. … It doesn’t have to be this way. Lawmakers should raise the minimum wage and protect U.S. workers by not engaging in bad trade deals. Corporations should pay their employees a living wage. And workers should have a collective voice on the job to demand their fair share.”
But before we do all that supposedly wonderful stuff that the AFL-CIO wants us to do, let’s take another look at those numbers. As my AEI colleague Mark Perry points out, you really shouldn’t compare — as the AFL-CIO does — the wages of the average worker to the compensation of CEOs at a few hundred, large companies, often multinationals. In 2014, the BLS reports that the average pay for America’s 250,000 chief executives was only $181,000. So the CEO-to-worker pay ratio for the average CEO compared to the average worker is only about 4, not nearly 400.
And if you calculate the CEO-worker pay ratio at the 100 largest US companies — which I did using 2013 PayScale data — it works out to 79-to-1 — a fraction of what the exaggerated AFL-CIO analysis finds. Only five companies had a ratio of over 200-to-1, by the way, that year.
With the sand running out on the Obama presidency, it's finally dawning on the president's friends and fans that he can be a real jerk.
Consider the Washington Post's Dana Milbank. For the last six years, he's spent much of his time rolling his eyes and sneering at Republicans. His subspecialty is heaping ridicule on conservative complaints about, well, everything and anything. If it bothers conservatives, it must be irrational, partisan, churchy, fake, hypocritical -- or all of the above. Meanwhile, poor Barack Obama, while not always without fault in Milbank's eyes, is the grown-up, the good guy trying to do good things amidst a mob of malcontents and ideologues.
That is, until this month. President Obama wants to get a trade deal passed. He needs Democrats to do it. But, Milbank laments, Obama's blowing it.
"Let's suppose you are trying to bring a friend around to your point of view," Milbank writes. "Would you tell her she's emotional, illogical, outdated and not very smart? Would you complain that he's being dishonest, fabricating falsehoods and denying reality with his knee-jerk response?"
"Such a method of a persuasion is likelier to get you a black eye than a convert," Milbank notes. "Yet this is how President Obama treats his fellow Democrats on trade ..."
Yes, well, true enough. But lost on Milbank is the fact that this is precisely how Obama treats everyone who disagrees with him. When Obama -- who ran for office touting his ability to work with Republicans and vowing to cure the partisan dysfunction in Washington -- treated Republicans in a far ruder and shabbier way, Milbank celebrated.
Of course, he was hardly alone. The president has spent his entire presidency insisting that his political opponents are, to borrow a phrase from Milbank, "emotional, illogical, outdated and not very smart." Republicans, in Obama's view, are always dishonest, fabricating falsehoods and denying reality with their knee-jerk responses.
To pick just one of countless examples, there was a White House summit on health care in 2010. The president invited members of Congress to discuss the issue in good faith. He then proceeded to treat every concern, objection and argument from Republicans as dumb, dishonest or emotional. They were, according to a column by Milbank, "stepping into Prof. Obama's classroom." Milbank marveled at how the "teacher" treated them all "like his undisciplined pupils." Whenever someone said anything politically inconvenient, the president replied that those were just partisan "talking points."
When Sen. John McCain, his opponent in the previous election, noted that Obama had broken numerous promises and that the 2,400-page bill was a feeding trough for special interests, Obama eye-rolled. "Let me just make this point, John," Obama said. "We're not campaigning anymore. The election's over."
He responded to Sen. Lamar Alexander -- he called him "Lamar" -- "this is an example of where we've got to get our facts straight." When it was Rep. John Boehner's turn to speak, Obama reprimanded "John" for trotting out "the standard talking points" and, in the words of a palpably impressed Milbank, forced Boehner to "wear the dunce cap."
Again, this was all quintessential Obama then, and it's quintessential Obama now. All that has changed is that he's doing the exact same thing to Democrats, and it's making them sad. Specifically, he's accused Sen. Elizabeth Warren of not having her facts straight. He says she's just a politician following her partisan self-interest.
But here's the hilarious part: Liberals can't take it...
The inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security remains “deeply concerned” whether the agency charged with maintaining internal security is up to the task.Perhaps one of my statist friends or commenters can explain how the current situation is any better than what we had on September 11, 2001.
John Roth told the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee that the Transportation Security Administration, an arm of DHS responsible for ensuring airport safety and screening passengers before boarding, faces “significant challenges” in contracting for goods and services.
“Despite spending billions on aviation security technology, our testing of certain systems has revealed no resulting improvement,” Roth said...
Audits of the TSA workforce, Roth said, “repeatedly found that human error — often a simple failure to follow protocol — poses significant vulnerabilities.”
Peyton drove his pickup truck to school on Wednesday with Old Glory and the POW-MIA flag hoisted in the truck bed.As is often the case, the disinfecting power of sunlight prompted a change of heart:
He told television station WBTV that an administrator directed him to remove both flags – and leave them at home – never bring them back.
“He said we’re having some issues,” Peyton said. “Some people were complaining about the flags in your truck, possibly offend them. He asked me to take them down.”
Someone was offended by the American flag --- in South Carolina?
“I’d understand if it was the Confederate flag or something that might offend somebody,” the young man said. “I wouldn’t do that. But an American flag – that’s our country’s flag.”
The school administrator also told Peyton that the 4x6 flag posed a safety issue and therefore broke a pre-existing rule.
It’s unclear what the exact safety issue was – unless the high school is concerned about a spontaneous outbreak of patriotism.
At the end of the school day, Peyton discovered that a school official had removed the bolts that secured the flags and took them down. The flags were placed in the middle of the boy’s truck bed.
So Peyton decided to write a note about what happened on his Facebook page. And the following day, moms and dads and students and a handful of veterans staged a protest outside the high school.This is what is meant by having to "fight" for what's right. Sadly, people, especially martinets, won't always do what's right until they have to.
It wasn’t too long afterwards that the school district had a change of heart and reversed its flag ban.
Nestled between mountains 60 miles from the nearest city, students at Cuyama Valley High School use Internet connections about one-tenth the minimum speed recommended for the modern U.S. classroom.
So when it came time to administer the new Common Core-aligned tests online, the district of 240 students in a valley of California oil fields and sugar beet farms faced a challenge.
New Cuyama has no access to fiber optic cables. Some residents live entirely off the grid, relying on solar power and generators. The local telephone company provided a few extra lines, but that only bumped speeds a few megabits.
"We tripled our capacity but it's still woefully inadequate," said Paul Chounet, superintendent of the Cuyama Joint Unified School District.
Across the country, school districts in rural areas like New Cuyama and other pockets with low bandwidth are confronting a difficult task: Administering the new standardized tests to students online, laying bare a tech divide in the nation's classrooms...
The Common Core standards adopted in 43 states and the District of Columbia provide uniform benchmarks for what students should know in each grade in reading and math. To aid their adoption, two groups of states received grants from the U.S. Department of Education to develop new assessments required to be computer based.I myself was not happy with the practice test I took last year.
Last fall, we noted that UK Home Secretary Theresa May had made it clear that if her Conservative Party were re-elected, one of the first orders of business would be a new "Extremist Disruption Orders" plan that would outlaw any speech or events that the government declared "extremist." She wasn't kidding around. Following last week's election in the UK, David Cameron appears to be announcing just such a plan to basically wipe out anything resembling free expression in the UK...I can only shake my head, and then be thankful that the former Englishmen who founded the United States were much brighter than the current English leadership--which has had almost 230 years to learn the right way to do free speech but has utterly failed to learn the lesson.
Oh, and here's the really insane part. David Cameron is claiming that he's doing this in the name of free speech. No joke:
“For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. It’s often meant we have stood neutral between different values. And that’s helped foster a narrative of extremism and grievance.Did you hear that? That's the sound of actual free speech supporters having their collective jaws hit the floor. Here he is, saying that for too long we've been "tolerant" of free expression, and thus we have to ban it, in support of "free speech" and democracy. And he flat out admits that they no longer think "obeying the law" should keep you out of trouble. That's some incredibly Orwellian bullshit right there.
“This government will conclusively turn the page on this failed approach. As the party of one nation, we will govern as one nation and bring our country together. That means actively promoting certain values.
“Freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. Democracy. The rule of law. Equal rights regardless of race, gender or sexuality.
“We must say to our citizens: this is what defines us as a society.”
According to a new report released by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, just “walking into or sitting in” a classroom full of white people is a microaggression in itself.
“Students of color reported feeling uncomfortable and unwelcomed just walking into or sitting in the classroom, especially if they were the only person of color, or one of a few,” stated the report, which designated the experience a microaggression.I'm thinking this "micro-aggression" silliness has now officially jumped the shark. How do such people even look at themselves in the mirror?
I am with my fellow constitutional law professors, Glenn (Mr. InstaP himself) and Jonathan Adler on this one: I don’t see a principled constitutional basis for Congress to regulate abortions. It is a matter of state power–for state-by-state legislative consideration–and not within Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce.
For a Republican Congress to embrace such an expansive interpretation of the Commerce Clause is more than a bit ironic (and unprincipled), especially given Republicans’ more parsimonious view of the Clause during the Obamacare litigation. Why jettison this basic understanding of constitutional structure/federalism merely to score a cheap political victory?
It should be noted here that Erdely had done at least two rape stories prior to “Jackie’s”—one concerning the US Navy and the other a Catholic parish in Philadelphia. No one at Rolling Stone apparently found it curious that Erdely stumbled upon festering rape scandals at the three institutions that together comprise the trifecta of left-wing hate objects—organized religion, the US military, and that bastion of male privilege, fraternities.The "you raped someone" genie, already out of the bottle, cannot be put back in. The reputations of the accused men cannot be repaired near as easily as they were trashed, and with the assistance of UVa President Teresa Sullivan to boot!
Rolling Stone magazine retracted its article about a brutal gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity after the release of a report on Sunday that concluded the widely discredited piece was the result of failures at every stage of the process.
One would think that the fraternity brothers would sue Rolling Stone, Sabrina Erdely, and perhaps even Teresa Sullivan, but the first lawsuit against Rolling Stone is by an assistant dean:The report, published by the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and commissioned by Rolling Stone, said the magazine failed to engage in “basic, even routine journalistic practice” to verify details of the ordeal that the magazine’s source, identified only as Jackie, described to the article’s author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely.
Nicole P. Eramo, an associate dean of students at the University of Virginia who handles reports of sexual assault for the school, is suing Rolling Stone magazine over the way she was depicted in a now discredited story.
Eramo has filed suit against Rolling Stone LLC, parent company Wenner Media LLC, and Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the author of the article called "A Rape on Campus," which painted a harrowing picture of a rape and its coverup at U.Va. The complaint was filed in the Charlottesville, Va., circuit court. Eramo is seeking a total of $7.85 million.
In her complaint, Eramo says, "Defendants' purpose in publishing the article was to weave a narrative that depicted the University of Virginia ('UVA') as an institution that is indifferent to rape on campus, and more concerned with protecting its reputation than with assisting victims of sexual assault."One wonders why Associate Dean Eramo didn't include her own university's president in her lawsuit.
The First Amendment to the Constitution instead was designed to protect the obnoxious, the provocative, the uncouth, and the creepy — on the principle that if the foulmouths can say or express what they wish and the public can put up with it, then everyone else is assured of free speech.Every time the West has forgotten that fact — from putting on trial cranky Socrates or incendiary Jesus to routinely burning books in the Third Reich — we have come to regret what followed. Censorship, of course, is never branded as extreme and dangerous, but rather as a moderate and helpful means to curb the hate speech of a bald, barefooted crank philosopher who pollutes young minds and introduces wacky and dangerous cults, or a hatemonger who whips innocent people in front of a temple in between his faked and hokey miracles, or traitorous Jews who scribble and call their first-grade art the equivalent of Rembrandt or their perverted sexual fantasies the stuff of Hegel. Banning free expression is never presented as provocative, but always the final act of an aggrieved and understandably provoked society.Lately, the West in general and America in particular seems to have forgotten the free-speech pillar of Western constitutional government...Among those who attack free expression the most loudly are progressives who do not like politically incorrect speech that does not further their own agendas. The term “illegal alien,” an exact description of foreign nationals who entered and reside in the United States without legal sanction, is now nearly taboo. The effort to ban the phrase is not because it is hateful or inaccurate, but because it does not euphemistically advance the supposedly noble cause of amnesties and open borders. Of course, the politically correct restrictionists have no compunction about smearing their critics with slurs such as xenophobe, racist, or nativist.