Teaching From My Head, Or From The Book?

There's so much backstory to this post that I hesitate to start--I could spend days telling you how bad my school district has screwed up everything from switching from traditional to integrated math, to having no valuable textbook piloting/adoption process, to fashioning rules for (not) accelerating capable students, to creating odd classes to get around the other rules.  While convincing themselves that they use "a collaborative model" of management, it's a top-down style with little to no help to teachers.  I've said several times in frustration that it's obvious that the number one priority of my district is not the education of children; if it were, just about everything would be done differently.

So you'll just have to take my word for it that currently, the situation in my district is "less than optimal".  And in math, the bad decisions compound.  Again, it would take too much explanation, so I ask you to just believe me when I tell you that.  It's bad.  Very bad.

There.  Without any facts or anecdotes, I've tried to set the scene.  I hope I've done so adequately.

And now the story.

One of the classes I teach, new to our school this year, comes with a student textbook that is known in education parlance as a "consumable".  In other words, it's half book, half worksheet-book.  We'll buy new ones each year.  In theory, students would take classroom notes in these paperback books (which are inches thick), would do their homework assignments in the book, and would rip out the homework pages and turn them in.  The "notes" they would take are more like "filling in the missing words" in the book or on the example problems, and the homework has all the advantages of worksheets but without the copying!  The former might work if the book's methodology were clear, and the latter might be useful if I didn't have to spend more than one day on a lesson, and if the problems on the homework page lined up perfectly with what we'd cover in a day so that students would only have to rip out and turn in one day's assignment while leaving the next day's intact until the next day.

To channel John Kerry, "would that it were so."

Yesterday I needed to cover the section about transformation of functions (stretch, reflect, and translate), and today I needed to cover the section about inverses and composition of functions.  Looking at how the book covered the material, I just couldn't do it.  It's one thing to present in-depth instruction that makes kids think, it's another thing entirely to present the material in such an obtuse way as to allow someone to pretend that the material is in-depth.  The textbook authors charted the latter course.  Thus, my dilemma.

So yesterday, I just taught.  Off the top of my head.  Completely ignoring the convoluted way the material was present in the text.  Here's how you stretch a function, both vertically and horizontally.  Here's how you reflect over the x- and y-axes.  Here's how you translate vertically and horizontally.  Direct instruction, presented clearly.  Today's homework results indicate that my instruction was effective. 

And today I did the same thing with inverses and compositions of functions.  Clarity is one of my hallmarks.

So at the end of class I asked my students a question.  I told them that I'm not fishing for compliments or anything, that I genuinely want to know what works best for them.  Do they prefer that I follow the book, where they only have to write some of the things due to the text's fill-in-the-blank style, or do they prefer when I go rogue and teach my way?  I wasn't even done asking the question before the chorus arose, loudly and forcefully, "your way." 

They want to learn.  They're not afraid of hard work.  They just want the best opportunity to learn; they want clarity in their instruction. 

I feel like I'm doing them a disservice when I try to follow the book and have them fill in the missing words and numbers.  Yes, those pages can be thought-provoking when the material is written and presented well, but that presentation gives the impression that there's only one, or one best, way to solve a particular problem.  When I teach "freestyle" I can show students multiple ways to solve a problem.  There's plenty of room on their note papers for my multiple methods, there's no such room in the text.  One way, the book way, or the highway, I guess.

I'll use the book when it makes sense to me to do so.  Otherwise, I'll teach it my way.

Privilege

The Problem With "Privilege".  The author objects to the word "privilege", not to the idea that some people have advantages that others have.

So the title of that article could easily cause people of my political stripe to dismiss it.  I took the bullet for everyone and read it, it's not as bad as you'd think.  At all. 

I'll gently recommend that you read it yourself :)

Couldn't Happen To A Nicer Bunch Of Idiots

Administrators at The Evergreen State College have announced that the embattled school faces a massive $2.1 million budget shortfall due in part to a drop in enrollment, and the institution has already handed out some temporary layoff notices as officials grapple with balancing the books.

Imagine that.

Although the memo does not reference it, the drop in student enrollment can likely be traced back to the national uproar caused after a rowdy group of progressive students took over the school in May and June.

First they cornered white biology Professor Bret Weinstein and shouted him down over his choice not leave campus during a “Day of Absence,” in which white students and employees were asked to stay off campus for the day. The aggressive actions against the professor forced him to hold class off campus at a nearby park.

Next, students accused the university’s administration of racism during a contentious meeting, during which they yelled at and belittled President George Bridges. At this meeting, some white students were told to stand in the back of the room because of the color of their skin. The progressive student protesters also issued a string of demands to combat the alleged racism on campus, most of which the university agreed to implement at an unknown fiscal cost.

The college was also shut for multiple days in early June because of threats it received. Student vigilantes even took to patrolling campus with bats. Later reports about the school revealed that radicalism and anarchy had been pushed at Evergreen State College since at least 2008.

Normal people don't want to be around people who are so batcrap insane.

More here.

A Devilishly Handsome Fellow

My school pictures came in.  Here you go!

When Even The Atlantic Notices...

Some on the left are trying to equate speech with violence.  This tramples on the Constitution, specifically the Bill of Rights, and our American way of life.  I'm glad that others on the left are starting to take notice:

Of all the ideas percolating on college campuses these days, the most dangerous one might be that speech is sometimes violence. We’re not talking about verbal threats of violence, which are used to coerce and intimidate, and which are illegal and not protected by the First Amendment. We’re talking about speech that is deemed by members of an identity group to be critical of the group, or speech that is otherwise upsetting to members of the group. This is the kind of speech that many students today refer to as a form of violence. If Milo Yiannopoulos speaks on the University of California, Berkeley, campus, is that an act of violence?

...This is why the idea that speech is violence is so dangerous. It tells the members of a generation already beset by anxiety and depression that the world is a far more violent and threatening place than it really is. It tells them that words, ideas, and speakers can literally kill them. Even worse: At a time of rapidly rising political polarization in America, it helps a small subset of that generation justify political violence...

Free speech, properly understood, is not violence. It is a cure for violence.

Yes, the authors are Jonathan Haidt (self-identified leftie and author) and Greg Lukianoff (President and CEO of FIRE), who have spoken and written much on this topic.  But this was published in The Atlantic, which is a good start.

I've written about Haidt plenty of times.

The Left Is A Mockery of Itself

Shamelessly lifted from Instapundit:

DENNIS PRAGER: THOSE WHO DON’T FIGHT EVIL FIGHT STATUES.

And, of course, it fights global warming. Leftists have convinced themselves that the real fight against evil in the world today is not against Islamism; it’s against carbon emissions.

And now, we can add statues to the list. The left was AWOL against communism, and it’s AWOL against Islamism. But it’s in the vanguard of fighting statues.

Found via Kathy Shaidle, who writes, “I’m so old, I remember when the Left said ‘Marriage was just a piece of paper’ and ‘Flags were just pieces of cloth.'”

Well, the left have always been able to cut their conscience to fit this year’s fashions.

They're pathetic. Yes, they can still cause a lot of trouble and do plenty of damage, but they're still pathetic. They'd merit pity if they weren't so dangerous.

Today's Weight

My scale is too erratic.  It's not even consistent.  When I can step on it 3 or 4 times and get different values each time, and those values can differ by a couple pounds, then it's not worth maintaining this listing any longer--at least until I can find a spring scale.

But for your reference, the most likely weight value from this morning was 198.6 (I didn't believe the 194 at all).

Do Racial Achievement Gaps Mean That America's Education System Is Racist?

Joanne has a great post on the achievement gap between white and black students in Minnesota, and she states the following:

Denise Specht, the state’s top teachers’ union boss, believes “grades, conferences with teachers and even talks with the children themselves” are better judges of how students are doing than test results, writes Stewart. That “terribly irresponsible response” is easier to say for someone who doesn’t “have Black children getting a raw deal in a kind, gentle, racist education system.”

Is the American education system--thousands of school districts in 50 states and 6 districts and territories--racist?  Is that even possible?  How big would that conspiracy have to be?  Are all those Democratic activists (teachers, especially teachers union members) really honestly truly racist?

Occam's Razor tells me that there's a different explanation, one that involves the cultural dysfunctionality of certain segments, including racial segments, of our society.  Yes, I'm saying that some cultures are "better" than others and some are more likely to allow students to achieve more in school than others do. That didn't used to be such a shocking conclusion.

Here's an example.  I teach in a relatively upscale area. In one of my classes, only 1 in 12 students has a step-parent.  I'm sure some of those kids are being raised by single parents, but as I scroll through the parent contacts in our student information system I see that a lot of them live with both their parents.  Any psych will tell you what an advantage that is.  In fact, in the year I was born, Moynihan released his report on "The Negro Family: The Case For National Action".  Despite the welfare state, affirmative action, and a focus on racial issues, the problems Moynihan identified decades ago have worsened.  I just don't accept that they've worsened because America's teachers have gotten more racist in the last fifty-plus years and are intentionally limiting the achievement of black students.

Some black and Hispanic students do succeed.

Interesting Upcoming Court Case

Lifted shamelessly from Instapundit:

BAKE MY CAKE OR SUFFER THE PENALTIES: As Ed Driscoll reported yesterday, the D. James Kennedy Ministry is suing SPLC, GuideStar, and Amazon over “Hate” labeling. I’ve had a chance to go through the Complaint, and my view is the defamation claims may have enough merit to proceed, the Trademark claims are weak, but the most interesting thing — and what may be the most impacting aspect of this suit — is the claim under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 4 2000(a), which the Plaintiffs point out:

“Because the Amazon Defendants are operating a public accommodation(s), it is a violation of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, specifically 42 U.S.C. § 2000(a), for the Amazon Defendants to deny the Ministry the privileges and advantages of the AmazonSmile program on the basis of the Ministry’s religion and the beliefs that are inherent to that religion.”

Now here’s where it gets interesting. If the Commerce Clause gives government the authority to trump a businessman’s personal beliefs, even if couched as a First Amendment expression, then the same logic that requires Christian fundamentalists to bake “gay” wedding cakes against their beliefs ought to mean that Amazon has no right to deprive the Ministry of a public accommodation because they “don’t like” that Church’s view on gay marriage.

I’m betting if Amazon doesn’t settle, that this issue is headed to the Eleventh Circuit, and maybe even SCOTUS. This is right in Justice Gorsuch‘s wheelhouse. Stay tuned.

What Kind Of Sick Crap Is This?

Who could possibly have thought this was reasonable?

Administrators and coaches at East High School in Denver, CO, have been put on leave for making their cheerleading girls practice painful splits. The horrifying video was released by local media, and it shows one cheerleader crying "please stop" as they seemingly force her to do the move. The American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators and USA Cheer released a joint statement saying they don't "condone the coach's actions, and reject them to the fullest extent. Stretching should never be taken to the level of causing pain."

Free Speech At Berkeley? Not Everyone Is Impressed.

I've written, most recently here, about the UC Berkeley chancellor's stated commitment to free speech on campus.  That should be a "duh"; that it's not shows how far Berkeley has fallen.  That the student body president openly challenges that commitment is sad indeed:

A University of California, Berkeley professor and the student body president recently condemned the school’s decision to allow right-wing speakers on campus.

UC-Berkeley will host conservative speakers Milo Yiannopoulos, Ben Shapiro, and Ann Coulter in September, and school administrators are preparing students by rededicating themselves to free speech after the same speakers were shut down by rioters earlier this year.

According to a letter sent out by Chancellor Carol Christ, “public institutions like UC Berkeley must permit speakers invited in accordance with campus policies to speak, without discrimination in regard to point of view.”

However, American and African American Studies Assistant Professor Michael Cohen took to Twitter on August 23 to demonstrate his outrage with the decision and chastise the administration for failing to ban the speakers from campus...

As of August 24, Cohen has taken down some of the tweets reported by Campus Reform, but Student Body President Zaynab Abdulqadir-Morris shared similar sentiments...

Abdulqadir-Morris further claims that the university is not bound to the constitution, but only to the “code of conduct which denounces hate speech.”

Zaynab has a few things to learn.

Pat Benatar and Toto Last Night

Toto opened, played for a little over an hour, and then the stage was readied for Pat Benatar.  She played for well over an hour and, three hours after the show began, it was over.

What a great time!  And only $50, including Ticketmaster's bloodsucking fee.

Here We Go Again With The Electoral College

I continue to marvel at the wisdom of our nation's Founders. The Electoral College, while a compromise, continues to pay dividends over 225 years after it was created.

The only people who believe this are those who don’t know and learn from history—you know, like the people who (pretend to) think that tearing down statues will solve problems:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Sunday gave a strong endorsement to the movement for removing monuments to leaders of the Confederacy and called for the electoral college to be abolished.

Nice Juxtaposition

‘All Republicans are racist scum,’ professor declares

It’s Official. Democrats Have Learned Nothing From Donald Trump’s Win

Free Speech In Berkeley

This cannot be said enough, especially in Berkeley:

This fall, the issue of free speech will once more engage our community in powerful and complex ways. Events in Charlottesville, with their racism, bigotry, violence and mayhem, make the issue of free speech even more tense. The law is very clear; public institutions like UC Berkeley must permit speakers invited in accordance with campus policies to speak, without discrimination in regard to point of view. The United States has the strongest free speech protections of any liberal democracy; the First Amendment protects even speech that most of us would find hateful, abhorrent and odious, and the courts have consistently upheld these protections.

But the most powerful argument for free speech is not one of legal constraint — that we’re required to allow it — but of value. The public expression of many sharply divergent points of view is fundamental both to our democracy and to our mission as a university. The philosophical justification underlying free speech, most powerfully articulated by John Stuart Mill in his book, On Liberty, rests on two basic assumptions. The first is that truth is of such power that it will always ultimately prevail; any abridgement of argument therefore compromises the opportunity of exchanging error for truth. The second is an extreme skepticism about the right of any authority to determine which opinions are noxious or abhorrent. Once you embark on the path to censorship, you make your own speech vulnerable to it. . . .

We all desire safe space, where we can be ourselves and find support for our identities. You have the right at Berkeley to expect the university to keep you physically safe. But we would be providing students with a less valuable education, preparing them less well for the world after graduation, if we tried to shelter them from ideas that many find wrong, even dangerous. We must show that we can choose what to listen to, that we can cultivate our own arguments and that we can develop inner resilience, which is the surest form of safe space.

As I've said before, I hope she succeeds in reinstilling the values of free speech for which Berkeley became nationally known.

This Is The Kind Of People The Left Have Become

Harper's Bazaar magazine came out with a highly offensive article called "If You Are Married To A Trump Supporter Divorce Them" and it wasn't click bait. That was their actual advice.

More here.

Six Months Ago, Six Months From Now

It's hard to believe that it's only been 6 months since I was in Iceland, in a failed attempt to see the Northern Lights.

The friend I went with--we've known each other since 1st grade--we've been planning a return in 6 months to give the lights another try.  But even after clearing out the cookies on my computer, each time I look at the cost of a flight and hotel and a couple of goodies, the cost keeps going up.  In May, the total cost was just under $2800, but by this past weekend the cost had gone up to over $3000.

That's a lot of shekels, even for a rich math-teacher-with-master's-degree like me.

So I got to thinking, what if I'm heading in the wrong direction, literally?  My friend ixnayed Cancun immediately--too touristy.  I like it there, but not enough to lobby for it.  We thought Aruba--it sounds so exotic--but discovered that on many message boards, Aruba is identified as being pretty much Americanized, so eh.

So I checked on my old fallback, cruises.  And what did I find?

Day

	Ports of Call	Arrival	Departure
1	San Juan, Puerto Rico	---	8:30 p.m.
2	Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S.V.I.	8:00 a.m.	5:00 p.m.
3	Basseterre, St. Kitts	8:00 a.m.	5:00 p.m.
4	At Sea	---	---
5	Willemstad, Curacao	8:00 a.m.	8:00 p.m.
6	Oranjestad, Aruba	8:00 a.m.	11:00 p.m.
7	At Sea	---	---
8	San Juan, Puerto Rico	6:00 a.m.	---

So there's still an opportunity to see Aruba, as well as some other very interesting islands.  I've been to the first 3 ports of call, but there's always more to see!  And there's so much to do on a cruise ship.

So we'll either bundle ourselves up and approach the Arctic Circle, or we'll don shorts and t-shirts and approach the equator.  Either way, a fun trip awaits!

Awesome Coincidence

My statistics students were working on a lab/project today, so while they worked I played music on Pandora.  One song was Hold The Line, by Toto.  The very next song--I don't remember which one it was, to be honest--was by Pat Benatar.

This Friday night, two friends and I are heading to the local Indian casino to see Pat Benatar and Toto in concert :-)

There's Nothing Educational About "Credit Recovery"

I what's considered "old fashioned". 

I don't think everyone deserves a high school diploma.  A diploma should signify some minimal level of education and competency.  If you don't earn a diploma, the problem is yours; the taxpayers shelled out a lot of money for you, and you either wasted it or weren't capable of meeting those minimum standards.  That's not a judgement, that's a recognition of fact.  The sky is blue.  The sun rises in the east.  Objects fall down.  You didn't earn a diploma.

Some people, however--and they work in education--think everyone is entitled to a diploma, whether they know anything or not.  It's bad enough when parents think that way, but we're doomed when teachers and district administrators think that way.

Which means we're doomed.

Credit recovery is a lie.  It's a sham.  It's a way to skirt requirements and give a diploma to people who haven't really earned a diploma.  And it's making a mockery of those who actually try to teach and learn:

Online credit recovery programs are used by 88 percent of U.S. school districts. They give high school credit for just a few weeks (sometimes a few days) of work, with little or no evidence that much is learned. School districts know they have a problem but often look the other way.

I can see why. Allowing students to cheat on the exams has helped raise high school graduation rates to a record 83 percent. In a recent column I suggested we overlook the problem, since restless students who hate high school are just going to drop out if we don’t give them some escape, like credit recovery.

Having thought more about the stories Jonnard, Davis and other teachers are telling me, I see I was wrong. Letting such dishonesty thrive poisons any respect teachers, students and parents have for our schools.

Integrity is important.  Accountability for taxpayer dollars is important.  Learning is important.

A graduation rate, when you think about it in detail, is a very difficult thing to measure.  Who counts?  What about people who move away?  How do you measure a school's "drop out rate" or "graduation rate"?  So we cobble together some convoluted formula, call it a "graduation rate"--and you know what?  It's just a marker.  It doesn't signify that anyone's learned anything, we just know, or think we know, that a higher number is better than a lower number.  In that way it's a lot like the "body count" statistic during the Vietnam War.  It didn't mean we were "winning" the war, whatever that would have looked like, we just knew that a higher number was better than a lower number.

And how did that turn out for us when all was said and done?

There is no value in credit recovery except for the school and district administrators who get to pretend that they're educating more children than they really are.

Weight

This morning's weight was 196.6 lbs, but who knows how accurate that is.  I can step on the scale 3 times and get three different values, sometimes with a range a 3 lbs!

Danged digital scale.  A spring scale might not be entirely accurate, but at least it would be consistent.

Good Guys

Remember, the press is trying to sell you on the story that these are good guys.

Just because you don't like fascists (even when you use their tactics) doesn't make you a good guy.

Have We Jumped The Shark With Bullying Yet?

The idea of "bullying" has gotten out of hand.

Before you bleeding hearts start squealing in mock outrage--no, I don't in general think people should exert physical or emotional control over others.  The issue is what constitutes bullying. 

I'm allowed not to like you.  I can even let you know I don't like you.  At what point does it become harassment or bullying?

How about this situation?

A former Los Altos High School student and baseball player is suing the school district and his former coach for hundreds of thousands of dollars because the coach repeatedly benched him.

According to the suit, the school’s head varsity baseball coach, Gabriel Lopez, repeatedly refused to let 17-year-old Robbie Lopez, no relation, play throughout his senior year. The suit claims this constituted a pattern of “harassment and bullying.”

The teenager and his parents are seeking $150,000 or more, according to the suit...

“It’s more of a targeted situation” than a standard case of a coach using his own judgement, Ponce said. “These are repeated actions by the coach, which we feel, my client and I, as well as his father, feel are intentional. They’re targeted against (my client) specifically.”


Ponce referred to a recent case in South Carolina in which a cheerleader claimed she was bullied by her coach, who made “derogatory comments about (the student’s) private body parts, causing other students to laugh at” her. The student and her father won a $100,000 judgment.

Ponce claimed what happened to his client was “more egregious” than the South Carolina example. But in a phone interview, Ponce did not give any examples of derogatory comments the coach made to the teenager. And no examples of insulting comments by the coach were presented in the lawsuit.

It's up for grabs whether the coach acted appropriately or not, but bullying?  Really?

What a wuss.

Why It's Becoming Increasingly Impossible To Negotiate With The Left

The American left is moving so far, so fast, to the left, that you can't even take them seriously anymore.  It was only 21 years ago, in 1996, that President Clinton, running for reelection, touted his welfare reform, celebrated putting "100,000 police officers on the streets", and correctly identified illegal immigration as a problem that had to be corrected for the country.  Less than half my life ago, those are things Democrats celebrated.  Today no Democrat would be caught dead cheering such words.

With leftists, though, it always comes down to violence.  Scratch a leftist, and a thug bleeds.  They've moved so far to the left, though, that some don't even think it necessary to hide their bloodthirsty tendencies anymore:

For anyone paying attention over the last 100 or so years, it was only a matter of time before America's establishment Left, meaning elected Democrats and the mainstream media, found themselves so frustrated they would finally come right out and validate violence, or what can only be described as political terrorism, against their ideological enemies.

Going back to the Bolsehviks straight through to Barry Obama's terrorist-pal Bill Ayers, violence is always the end result of an ideology that demands purity and conformity, even at the point of a gun. And now, probably because they have been unable to bully President Trump to its will, The Washington Post has finally revealed itself as an un-American and un-democratic monster.

In an editorial published Tuesday, N.D.B. Collins, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University, was handed the imprimatur of The Washington Post to call for "direct action," direct action in the form of actual political violence.

The editorial itself can be found here.

For too long conservatives have turned the other cheek, not fought back, let leftists define the terms of debate and set the agenda.  They're not going to like it when conservatives have had enough.  You want to riot, Mr. Collins?  Remember which side in this country's schism has more firearms and ammo, Mr. Collins.

Be careful what you wish for, Mr. Collins.

I'm As Surprised As I Am Hopeful

I hope her idea bears delicious fruit, I really do:

Carol T. Christ, UC Berkeley’s 11th chancellor and the first woman to lead the nation’s top public research university, unveiled plans Tuesday for a “Free Speech Year” as right-wing speakers prepare to come to campus.

Christ said the campus would hold “point-counterpoint” panels to demonstrate how to exchange opposing views in a respectful manner. Other events will explore constitutional questions, the history of Berkeley’s free speech movement and how that movement inspired acclaimed chef Alice Waters to create her Chez Panisse restaurant.

“Now what public speech is about is shouting, screaming your point of view in a public space rather than really thoughtfully engaging someone with a different point of view,” Christ said in an interview. “We have to build a deeper and richer shared public understanding.”

Not the kind of language I'd expect to come out of Berkeley.  I hope she's sincere and wish her luck.

Another Climatologist Explains the Global Warming Scam

Dr. Judith Curry conducted an interview with YouTube which was published on August 9, 2017 where she clearly lays out the many flaws and failures of “consensus” climate science and how this highly politicalized scheme tremendously misleads policy makers regarding the need for government directed climate actions.

Regarding the role that human greenhouse gas emissions play in driving the earth’s climate Dr. Curry concludes that:

“On balance, I don’t see any particular dangers from greenhouse warming. {Humans do} influence climate to some extent, what we do with land-use changes and what we put into the atmosphere. But I don’t think it’s a large enough impact to dominate over natural climate variability.”

The entire article, which includes the video below, is here.

Here's some info about Dr. Curry from the YouTube page:

Judith A. Curry is an American climatologist and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research interests include hurricanes, remote sensing, atmospheric modeling, polar climates, air-sea interactions, and the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for atmospheric research. She is a member of the National Research Council's Climate Research Committee. As of 2017, she has retired from academia.Curry is the co-author of Thermodynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans (1999), and co-editor of Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Sciences (2002), as well as over 140 scientific papers. Among her awards is the Henry G. Houghton Research Award from the American Meteorological Society in 1992.
Regarding climate change, she thinks that the IPCC reports typically neglect what she calls the "Uncertainty Monster" in projecting future climate trends, which she calls a "wicked problem." Curry also hosts a popular science blog in which she writes on topics related to climate science and the science-policy interface.

Judith Curry has argued that climatologists should be more accommodating of those skeptical of the scientific consensus on climate change. Curry has stated she is troubled by what she calls the "tribal nature" of parts of the climate-science community, and what she sees as stonewalling over the release of data and its analysis for independent review.

My Fiefdom Is Gone

(read this song with The Pretenders' "My City Was Gone" playing in the back of your mind)

I started teaching statistics in 2010, I think.  Prior to that time we'd always had 2 sections of stats; starting with the year I taught it, we've always had 3 sections.  And sections are always filled to the brim.  The course has always been open only to seniors, but because of some initiatives being pursued by our district, we decided we might open it up to certain juniors this year.

But still so many seniors signed up that we couldn't fit in any juniors.

Just yesterday our vice principal decided to open a 4th section of stats (there's all sorts of this that goes on the 1st month of school each year--don't get me started why!).  Teaching 4 of the same course would be sort of boring for me, and to minimize the movement of kids to new teachers he gave that section to a teacher who has previously taught statistics but is new to our school this year.  This class starts tomorrow--we don't have a teacher's edition of the text book for him, or even any books for his students!

Fortunately the first few days of stats is all about definitions of terms, and he'll only be 3 days of instruction behind me, and with a few waves of the magic want he'll be caught up to me by a week from this Friday--our Chapter 1 test.

For 7 years I've been the stats guy, but not anymore.  Now I have to share that title.

My fiefdom is gone.

Weight

Forgot to post it yesterday, but the scale hit 198.2 lbs.

It Arrived Today

It was only a week ago that I went to the DMV and, for the first time in many years, past the eye exam without corrective lenses.  Well, that's not entirely accurate--I still wear a corrective lens, but I wear it at night.  It changes the shape of my eye while I sleep, and the next day I have 20/20 vision.  In the corrected eye I have better than that, because in the uncorrected eye I have 20/70 vision, but I have 20/20 when using both eyes together.  Monovision is working great for me.

So for the first time in a long time, after "RSTR" (restrictions) on my license the word "NONE" is listed.  And in what used to be the empty space below that, my license now says "VETERAN".

I was at DMV a week ago, and my new license arrived today.

Speech vs Action

I am of the opinion that the Supreme Court screwed up when it invented "symbolic speech".  Words, whether spoken or written or otherwise published, are very different from action.  We have free speech, we have free press (to publish our words), and we have the right to peaceably assemble.

That's how it was the first 230+ years of our Republic.  That this needs to be said shows have far we've fallen in the past decade or so:

You have the right to be angry. You do not have the right to attack people, no matter how angry you are.

Trump made a vague statement about this madness. It’s not enough. He needs to call out both the alt-right morons and the Antifa dummies by name. And if he refuses to, he deserves the criticism he’s getting for it.

Political violence is wrong. It doesn’t matter how you justify it to yourself. It doesn’t matter how many memes you post of cartoon characters punching Hitler. If you take the law into your own hands to silence people, no matter how repulsive you find the things they’re saying, then you’re no better than they are.

Not quite sure what I'm talking about? We can start with the woman in this video I posted yesterday.  We can continue through Antifa (anti-first amendment) and BLM and anarchists and assorted other leftists.  We can continue with the 20-yr-old who drove a car into protesters a couple days ago (BTW, Virginia has the death penalty--do you lefties like it now?  I do.).

We need to get back to the values we held that allowed this country to become a beacon of freedom in the world.  If we lose those values, if we commit violence against each other just because we disagree, we'll be no better than many of the crapholes from which immigrants saw our beacon.  And our beacon will burn out.

Update:  what I wrote above is exactly why this is entirely the wrong way to go:

Professors attending a recent academic conference were advised to treat racial microaggressions in the classroom like actual assaults, according to attendees’ tweets...

“Treating racism in our classrooms as we would an assault removes the burden from the victim and begins to create safe space,” one scholar in attendance, Professor Shawna Mefferd Kelty of SUNY Plattsburgh, tweeted out.

Another attendee, Penn State Professor Jeanmarie Higgins, also tweeted: “Faculty: Treat racist microaggressions in classroom as you wd assault. Overtalking puts burden on students of color. -K Papailler.”

Berkeley Teacher "Demands" Charges Against Her Be Dropped

How do you even discuss things with someone whose reality is as warped as this woman's is?  I mean, she makes every logical fallacy in the book.  Talk about cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs....

A Sad Situation All Around

Sue and Wil are my classmates from West Point.  West Point cadets at that time were divided into 36 companies of 100+ cadets who lived and ate together and roomed in the same barracks, and Sue and I were in the same company from the beginning of our sophomore year till her departure at the end of our junior year.  I knew of Wil, knew who he was, but didn't really know him at all.  Wil was not in our company.

I read Sue's 2013 blog posts accusing Wil of rape and was saddened by what I read.

Based on the details I read in those blog posts, I know whose story I found more credible.  I don't know if a rape occurred or not.  Almost thirty years after the fact I don't know how a determination could be made one way or the other.  This wasn't a rape case, though, it was a defamation case, and the jury decided fairly quickly whom they believed.

This is just a sad situation all around.  The last four years have been a black mark on our class.

And for a variety of reasons, I'm not going to say publicly which one of them I believed more.

Loch Ness Monster Sighted!

This story cannot be true, as I'm told that voter fraud is a myth:

A Virginia college student was sentenced this week to 100 days incarceration for submitting fraudulent voter registration forms listing the names of dead people and other faulty information for a political organization connected to the Democratic Party.

An Inauspicious Start

I went back to work on Tuesday.  Most of Tuesday was spent in meetings, but yesterday I had my computer on and connected all day. 

This morning, students showed up.  Yes, today was the first day of school!  So I turned on my computer, and what did I see?

Updating Windows.  Do not turn off your computer.  1/135 updates.

Are you freakin' kidding me???

It took well into 1st period before everything was done and I could take roll.

Damned If You Do

In a recent post Joanne, freshly back from England, writes about freshman (freshperson?) orientation at Rutgers--and the crazy SJW stream that runs through it.  I'd recommend reading her entire (relatively short) post, but if you just want the denouement, here you go:

Imagine being an 18-year-old away from home for the first time. You’re told that a casual remark could harm another student and be reported as an act of bias. Would you talk to a student who’s not in your racial/ethnic group? The safest way to avoid giving offense — just about the only way — is to socialize only with your own kind.

But microaggressions also can be nonverbal, the Rutgers training states. They include “avoiding people.” So, you’re screwed.

Yep, pretty much.

I'm So Old (How Old Am I)?

I thought I recognized her name.

One of our new teachers at school, her name sounded familiar.  I didn't recognize her face, though.  At all.

Today I was refreshing some returning teachers, and teaching new teachers, how to set up the online attendance and grading system our district uses.  This lady was among the teachers new to our district.  I don't remember what prompted her comment, but she mentioned that she had been one of my students in perhaps her sophomore year.  I think she graduated 9 years ago.

I've had a former student say that he became a math teacher because of me.  I don't know if the reason is true or not, but it was a kind thing to say.  We've had one or two teachers at our school that were students during my time there, but not my students.  This is the first time a former student has become my colleague.

Trivia question: from what 70s game show does the "spirit" of the title of this post come from?  And who was the host of that show?

Weight

I was in Reno until yesterday afternoon.  This morning's weight was 199.6.

I Can See Clearly Now

Back in May I posted about the contact lens I wear at night that corrects my eye like a retainer does teeth. I just got home from the DMV.  Now, for the first time in I don't know how long, my drivers license will no longer have a "must wear corrective lenses" restriction on it. 

Monovision--correcting only one eye so that I have one eye to see up close and one eye to see distance, giving me fairly good vision overall--is really working out well for me.  No distance glasses, no reading glasses, nothing.

And while I was at DMV, I paid an additional $5 to have a "veteran" designation put on my license.  One never knows when that might come in handy!

How Much Is The Rich's "Fair Share" of Taxes

Liberals want to "tax the rich", but at some point you're just killing the goose that lays the golden egg.  Even the New York Times sees this, although they sugarcoat it a bit in this story:

Our top-heavy economy has come to this: One man can move out of New Jersey and put the entire state budget at risk. Other states are facing similar situations as a greater share of income — and tax revenue — becomes concentrated in the hands of a few.

Last month, during a routine review of New Jersey’s finances, one could sense the alarm. The state’s wealthiest resident had reportedly “shifted his personal and business domicile to another state,” Frank W. Haines III, New Jersey’s legislative budget and finance officer, told a State Senate committee. If the news were true, New Jersey would lose so much in tax revenue that “we may be facing an unusual degree of income tax forecast risk,” Mr. Haines said.

It isn't just New Jersey: 

In New York, California, Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey, the top 1 percent pay a third or more of total income taxes. Now a handful of billionaires or even a single individual like Mr. Tepper can have a noticeable impact on state revenues and budgets.

California had to account for a “Facebook effect” in 2012 and 2013 after that company’s 2012 initial public offering of stock. The offering generated more than $1 billion in revenue — much of that from the chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and a small group of company shareholders. Washington, D.C., had an unexpected $50 million gain in its 2012 fiscal year — which helped create a budget surplus — after the death of a local billionaire increased its estate tax receipts.

Some academic research shows that high taxes are chasing the rich to lower-tax states, and anecdotes of tax-fleeing billionaires abound. But other studies say there is little evidence showing that the rich move solely for tax purposes. Millionaires and billionaires who move from the high-tax states in the Northeast to Florida, for instance, may be drawn by the sunshine, lifestyle and retirement culture, in addition to lower taxes.

The NYT is a liberal paper, so you knew "income inequality" had to come up somehow:

“In a time of rising inequality, I’m not sure the right answer is lowering taxes or making them less progressive,” said Kim S. Rueben, senior fellow of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute. “It’s more about keeping an eye on people, seeing where they are and enforcing the tax rules.”

Don't let those rich people move!  And if they do, tax them to death! 

Seems to me that the states listed above can't afford to kill their golden goose.  I'd suggest that if their budgets are overly dependent on just a few people, they probably shouldn't chase those people away with confiscatory tax rates.

In California, 5,745 taxpayers earning $5 million or more generated more than $10 billion of income taxes in 2013, or about 19 percent of the state’s total, according to state officials.

“Any state that depends on income taxes is going to get sick whenever one of these guys gets a cold,” Mr. Sullivan said.

Liberals decry the rich--even though so many of them are rich themselves!--but can't fund a government without them.  Hey libs, you want to be the party of science?  Study some economics.

Guest Blogging

My guest blogging posts at Joanne's blog for yesterday and today are:
Justice Department To Address Affirmative Action at Universities, and
What Is The Proper Response To This?

Finally, An Official Press Release

I'd seen the pdf file of the orders identifying the senior cadet leadership positions at West Point, and I saw a blog post (from a blog I'd never before heard of) identifying that the brigade commander, known colloquially as the First Captain, will be a black woman for the first time.  Here's an army public affairs story containing the press release:

Cadet Simone Askew of Fairfax, Virginia, has been selected First Captain of the U.S. Military Academy's Corps of Cadets for the 2017-2018 academic year, achieving the highest position in the cadet chain of command. She will assume her duties on Aug. 14.

Askew, an International History major, currently leads 1,502 cadets as the Regimental Commander of Cadet Basic Training II.

As First Captain she is responsible for the overall performance of the approximately 4,400-member Corps of Cadets. Her duties also include implementing a class agenda and acting as a liaison between the Corps and the administration.

Askew is the first African-American woman to hold this esteemed position. 

The press release itself is here.

It's hard to tell from the unisex names on the press release of leadership positions but I read that three of the four regimental commanders are also women.

I wish good luck to all of them as they undertake their last year at West Point.

Another Well-Intentioned Step On The Road To Hell

I don't think too many people genuinely honestly truly want to destroy higher education.  There are plenty who are clueless, who don't think through the ramifications of their proposals, who naively or stupidly think they're genuinely helping people.  In other words, I'm inclined to think the best of people even when the idiocy of their ideas should be a trumpet call to battle.

But that positive view of people's motivations can be stretched to the limit sometimes, and I'm nearing that point with university math.  Recently the chancellor of California's community college system recommended eliminating the algebra requirement for college because too many minority students can't/don't pass it (link).  I'll take him at his word that he truly wants to help people earn an associate's degree; he and I would no doubt disagree on whether or not his proposal devalues the degree and hence the reason for earning it.

That proposal was bad enough.  That was a stick of dynamite.  Let's jack that up to bunker-busting-bomb level:

Cal State plans to drop placement exams in math and English as well as the noncredit remedial courses that more than 25,000 freshmen have been required to take each fall — a radical move away from the way public universities traditionally support students who come to college less prepared than their peers.

In an executive order issued late Wednesday, Chancellor Timothy P. White directed the nation’s largest public university system to revamp its approach to remedial education and assess new freshmen for college readiness and course placement by using high school grades, ACT and SAT scores, previous classroom performance and other measures that administrators say provide a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of students’ knowledge.

Cal State will no longer make those students who may need extra help take the standardized entry-level mathematics (ELM) exam and the English placement test (EPT).

The new protocol, which will go into effect in fall 2018, “facilitates equitable opportunity for first-year students to succeed through existing and redesigned education models,” White wrote in a memorandum to the system’s 23 campus presidents, who will be responsible for working with faculty to implement the changes. The hope is that these efforts will also help students obtain their degrees sooner — one of the public university system's priorities. Cal State has committed to doubling its four-year graduation rate, from 19% to 40%, by 2025.

When you see the words "equitable" or "equity" in an education context, run for the hills.  Those words don't mean what they mean in ordinary English; allow me to translate:

"Too many minority students have been placed in remedial classes, and that's not 'fair'.  To solve this problem we're going to get rid of the remedial classes."

Sure, they're spinning this as a wonderful positive:

Under the new system, all Cal State students will be allowed to take courses that count toward their degrees beginning on Day 1. Students who need additional support in math or English, for example, could be placed in “stretch” courses that simultaneously provide remedial help and allow them to complete the general math and English credits required for graduation.

Faculty are also being encouraged to explore other innovative ways to embed additional academic support in college-level courses. A few other states have experimented with these approaches, and the results so far are encouraging, administrators said.

This is a "social justice" action given the lightest veneer of academic respectability.  I'm not buying it. I want to see evidence of improved math ability. 

There is good commentary of the community college chancellor's idea in the comments on my three posts at Joanne Jacob's blog:

Here We Go Again With Algebra
Getting Rid of Algebra, Part 2
Getting Rid of Algebra, Part 3--The Empire Strikes Back

Such comments are even more applicable in the university setting.

Guest Blogging

My guest post over at Joanne's today is Whiny Misfit, Victim, or Both?

It's Not Heavy Statistics, But The Numbers Are Telling Us Something

When it comes to college admissions, it's hard to deny that Asians are the new Jews:

One microdrama this week came from a leaked document revealing that the Justice Department may staff up an investigation into “intentional race-based discrimination” in college admissions. The left is accusing Justice of dismantling racial preferences, though acceptance practices at elite universities deserve more scrutiny, particularly regarding Asian-American applicants.

In 2015 a coalition of more than 60 Asian-American groups filed a complaint with the Justice Department Civil Rights Division that alleges admissions discrimination at Harvard University, and the details are striking. In 1993 about 20% of Harvard students were Asian-American, and that figure has barely budged over two decades, even as the Asian-American share of the U.S. population has grown rapidly. Harvard’s admitted class of 2021 is 22% Asian-American, according to data on the university’s website, and the numbers are roughly consistent at Princeton, Yale and other Ivy League schools.

Compare that with California, where a 1990s referendum banned the state’s public universities from considering race as an admissions factor. The share at University of California campuses at Berkeley and Los Angeles tops 30%, as the complaint notes. At the private California Institute of Technology, which by choice does not consider race as a factor, more than 40% of students were Asian-American in 2013, up from 26% in 1993.

Also notable is research on how much more competitive Asian-Americans must be to win entry into Harvard or other hallowed progressive halls. All else being equal, Asian-American must score 140 points higher on the SAT than a white counterpart, 270 points higher than a Hispanic student, and 450 points higher than a black applicant, according to 2009 research from Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade and co-author Alexandria Walton Radford.

Schools are allowed to consider race as a “plus” factor, and Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in recent years has muddied the legal standards, most recently in Fisher v. University of Texas. But the Asian-American disparities look like evidence of de facto admissions quotas that the High Court has explicitly declared illegal.

Guest Blogging

My posts over at Joanne's today are
Cognitive Privilege, and
I Can Think Of Worse Pursuits for Teenagers

Culture Isn't Stagnant

That's one of the lesser reasons why the idea behind so-called cultural appropriation is not only wrong, but insidious.  And yes, immigrants to the United States should learn English and should integrate their former cultures into the greater American culture:

In fact, the only difference between the ctrl-left and the alt-right is how they envision the treatment of these “minority cultures.”

And I hate to say it, but if the innate nature of language and culture were correct, the alt-right would have the right idea. If a culture can’t be assimilated into your own, if the descendants of your immigrants will never understand your political system, your language, or be able to participate fully in the life of the nation, immigration amounts to a poison pill.

Which makes the left’s position that we should bring in these minorities, encourage them not to assimilate and give them all sorts of linguistic accommodations, like a lot of their other beliefs essentially suicidal. They hate themselves and have since the day they were born, but are too wussy to eat a bullet, and therefore they seek to destroy their homeland, their co-citizens, their own culture, in an ecstatic fit of oikophobia.

Note the if in the above sentence. If language and culture were innate, the alt-right would be at least self-preserving.

The problem, of course, is that the alt-right and the ctrl-left both ignore reality.

That Big Yellow Thing In The Sky

Do you think it has an influence on the earth's climate?  I do, and have for a long time.  Here's some more evidence for that belief:

In a just published study in The Open Atmospheric Science Journal here, German scientists Horst-Joachim Lüdecke and Carl-Otto Weiss have used a large number of temperature proxies worldwide to construct a global temperature mean over the last 2000 years, dubbed G7, in order to find out more about the sun’s role on climate change.

Their results drop a huge surprise on the laps of scientists who have long believed the earth is warming due to human-emitted CO2.

The analysis by the German scientists shows the strongest climate cycle components as 1000, 460, and 190-year periods. The G7 global temperature extrema coincide with the Roman, Medieval, and present optima, as well as the well-known minimum of AD 1450 during the Little Ice Age.

Leftist Indoctrination Begins Before The First Class Starts

A very astute observation about college freshmen reading assignments:

The indoctrination is probably unnecessary. After all, studies show that today’s high school graduates – especially those who listened well, earned the best grades and gained admissions to top schools – are more likely to identify themselves as “liberal” or “far-left” than at any time since the early 1970s. They are more committed to “social justice” and increasingly support efforts to shut down speakers whose views they disagree with (no wonder the left fights so hard to preserve the public education status quo).

And during four, five or six years on campus – sorry mom and dad – students will be instructed by professors who support Democrats. In their book, “Passing on the Right,” Jon A. Shields and Joshua M. Dunn Sr. noted five major studies that “all placed the percentage of Republican professors between 7 percent and 9 percent in the social sciences and somewhere between 6 percent and 11 percent in the humanities.”

Nevertheless, North Carolina’s top schools make sure to signal the rules of the game from the get-go through the books they ask every incoming freshman to read...

As a classical liberal, I find the left-wing tilt of these books disturbing. Their underlying message is that American culture is cruel and close-minded, a problem to be overcome. Training our future leaders to see we the people as members of separate identity groups engaged in a Darwinian struggle is a form of national suicide.

I also see the sad logic of it. The elite culture these schools are training students to join is defined by a bundle of progressive attitudes. These include the idea that there are single right, unquestionable answers on a range of complex issues, from race, gender and identity to climate change and health care.

I do not deny that African-Americans, Muslims, LGBTQ Americans and others face special challenges.

My concern is that the books assigned do not leave room for the larger purpose of education: to question and challenge ideas, to truly engage in what the left calls “courageous conversations.” The three books selected by the North Carolina schools are, at bottom, personal stories. They are not collections of facts – which can be debated objectively – but of opinions, which, by their nature, are unassailable.

They are words to be heard, not scrutinized or challenged.  (boldface mine--Darren)

The only people who are supposed to challenge their own ideas and beliefs are those the left doesn't agree with.

I like the author's closing:

Indeed, the growing intolerance we see on campus reflects this failure. Such authoritarian behavior is the long-favored response of those who see the world in black and white, who insist that their opinion is Truth, and who lash out in frustration because they lack the words to form a cogent response.

Addressing that is higher education’s greatest challenge. 

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/j-peder-zane/article164863872.html#storylink=cpy

Guest Blogging

My post today at Joanne's is about Digital Natives and Multitasking.

Microsoft Office World Championship

When teaching statistics I use a variety of tools--small scientific calculators, TI-83's, Minitab on laptops.  I also use Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet software, as much to introduce its functionality to students as for its statistical analysis tools.  The vast majority of my students have never used a spreadsheet before taking my class.  Digital natives?  Outside of a few apps on their phones, I'm not so sure.

These kids, though?  They know what they're doing, and it looks like they're having fun doing it:

Like many teens, John Dumoulin passed the summer before his senior year of high school in front of a computer screen. But he wasn’t playing “League of Legends,” streaming “Game of Thrones” or watching hours on end of YouTube videos.

He was mastering the art of the pivot table.

The 17-year-old from Virginia spent several hours a day perfecting his technique in Microsoft Excel. He was training for what he calls the “Olympics,” after all.

This week, John was one of 150 students from 50 countries competing in the Microsoft Office World Championship at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim. At stake: cash, prizes and the clout that comes with being the best in the world at Excel, PowerPoint or Word.

Very cool!

My Kinda Feminist

While she holds many views that I don't, Camille Paglia is someone whose ideas about feminism are ones I often share:

Camille Paglia has been called the "anti-feminist feminist" for decades but she's not one to back down.

As a self-proclaimed "leader of the dissident wing of feminism," she maintains that her arguments with what she calls "mainstream feminists" are necessary to shake up a movement she sees as stuck in near-religious ideologies.

In Paglia's recent collection of writings from 1990 to today, Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism, she argues "[w]omen will never know who they are until they let men be men."

Her key message to feminists: "Stop blaming men."

I like this part, too:

Paglia's advice to young women wanting to succeed in today's world:

"They should model their persona on me and on fellow Amazon feminists of the 1960s," says Paglia, "which is that you are responsible for how people treat you."

Calexit Goal: To Eliminate the Middle Class

He said it, not me!  And he is a leader in the movement for California to secede from the union.

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson asked “Calexit” leader Shankar Singam how California could stand as its own nation given their current mismanagement has caused the middle class to move to other states.
Singam, who believes the Golden State is “not the U.S.,” argued that it is a “good thing” that the middle class is leaving California because it makes room for new immigrants.

“We need to open up for the new wave of immigrants to come up,” Singman said. “We’re exporting our middle class to the United States–you guys should be thanking us for that.”

link

At least we're going to get the socialist worker's paradise without the killing fields of Cambodia, the famines of Ukraine, the gulags of Siberia, the Cultural Revolution of China, or the walls and fences that keep people in instead of out of every communist country that's ever existed. No, this time we're just going to chase away the bourgeoisie and import our peasants!

Guest Blogging

My post over at Joanne's today is

Educated, Yes, But Smarter? Happier?

How Bad Is The Environment at Evergreen College

You've probably heard of the explosive, racially-charged events that took place earlier this year at Evergreen (State) College in Olympia, WA.  After getting plenty of well-deserved negative press, the school has pledged to "educate" its students about discriminating against students based on the color of their skin.  That would be straight out of 1964 were it not for the fact that white students were the ones being openly harassed, attacked, and threatened:

After a white Evergreen State College student filed a formal complaint citing claims of “racially driven violence and harassment” from peers of color, a campus official has pledged that future training topics for student leaders will include preventing bias based on race.

The complaint had been filed by student Steve Coffman*, a junior and history major at the embattled university, who stated that at a heated campus meeting in late May organized by students who claimed the campus is racist and attended by President George Bridges, Coffman was told to get out of the seat he was sitting in and move to the back of the room because he is white.

“I entered about 20 minutes before the meeting started and sat in one of the numerous provided chairs in the room. Subsequently I was approached twice about being a ‘white person’ sitting in chairs that were ‘reserved for people of color,’” Coffman stated in the emailed complaint, a copy of which was obtained by The College Fix.

“Twice I was told I should not be sitting in those chairs and I should leave the room or stand in the back. 

You'd think minorities, specifically American blacks, would be sensitive to issues about being told to sit in the back (of the bus).

“I refused to move and was repeatedly harassed by event organizers and other students around me,” Coffman added. “As this happened on college property and at an event attended by college leadership, it is patently obvious that attempts to discriminate and deny access to facilities based on race or ethnicity occurred in violation of state law and college policy.”

Ya think?

Also in mid-July, a memo emailed from an Evergreen State College administrator to students warned them that aggressively cornering and shouting down faculty, staff and peers and blocking campus exits is actually illegal and future occurrences could result in criminal charges.

One wonders why the school didn't enforce these rules last May.

Another student, while claiming that the campus isn't a hotbed of racism, somehow survives swirling inconsistency after writing this:

I’m left wondering, where is the racism I keep hearing so much about? This place is so not racist. If it was any less racist, it could be the textbook example for MLK’s dream. It’s so far left its professors and policies often make Bernie Sanders look moderate.

Yet I kept hearing about racist campus police, and racist professors, and racists campus policies, and institutional racism. Then I asked for specifics. Big mistake.

The response I get in person and online can be summarized thusly: “Asking about racism is perpetuating racism.” “Seeking evidence is oppressive.”

It's not racist because it's so leftie?  *retch*

After a few more observations he states,

I say this as a non-traditional student in nearly every way. I’m 37 years old and a junior. I’m a gun-toting libertarian atheist who voted for George W. Bush. Twice.

The racism is right in front of him but he refuses to see it.  Impressive, dangerous, clueless, or some mixture of all three?

What Is There For The University To Investigate?

The man clearly didn't rape the woman.  The evidence--video, no less--shows the sex was consensual.  The legal case against the man has been dropped.

Prosecutors will no longer pursue a case against a USC student accused of raping a fellow undergraduate after a judge’s decision that there was not enough evidence to send the case to trial, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said Monday.

Charges will not be refiled against 20-year-old Armaan Karim Premjee, who was accused of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old student in her campus dorm on April 1, said Shiara Davila-Morales, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office. Premjee’s preliminary hearing was held in Los Angeles Superior Court last week...

Emily Gersema, a USC spokeswoman, said in an email Monday that Premjee is registered for courses in the fall. Gersema said she could not confirm whether the university was conducting its own investigation.

What could a university "investigation" possibly uncover?

Totally left out of this story are two questions that need to be answered:
1) Who reported this alleged rape?
2) Are charges being filed against the person who falsely reported a rape?

Update:  Then there's this, also from USC, which should be proof enough that the university can't be and shouldn't be trusted to investigate alleged sexual assaults.  Leave such investigations to law enforcement:

A former football player was “railroaded” by a “rogue” Title IX office at the University of Southern California, according to a surprising source — his alleged “victim.”

Zoe Katz, the captain of USC’s women’s tennis team, is accusing the university of not only ignoring her protestations that her boyfriend Matt Boermeester didn’t assault her, but threatening her for speaking up...

She denounced USC for conducting a “horrible and unjust” investigation: “Looking back, Matt never had a chance. Before he was even interviewed by the Title IX investigator, he was suspended from the University"...

“I was told that I must be afraid of Matt, which I definitely was not and am not,” Katz wrote in her statement denouncing USC. “When I told the truth about Matt, in repeated interrogations, I was stereotyped and was told I must be a ‘battered’ woman, and that made me feel demeaned and absurdly profiled.”

Instead she fears “further” retaliation from USC’s Title IX office, which she says isolated her by prohibiting her from speaking with Boermeester and even her own friends....

USC is not covering itself in glory on this topic.

Guest Blogging

My post at Joanne's today is about teaching in International Schools.