Mandating Techonology In Classrooms

This doesn't sound right:

Ann Rosenbaum, a former military police officer in the Marines, does not shrink from a fight, having even survived a close encounter with a car bomb in Iraq. Her latest conflict is quite different: She is now a high school teacher, and she and many of her peers in Idaho are resisting a statewide plan that dictates how computers should be used in classrooms.

Last year, the state legislature overwhelmingly passed a law that requires all high school students to take some online classes to graduate, and that the students and their teachers be given laptops or tablets. The idea was to establish Idaho's schools as a high-tech vanguard.

To help pay for these programs, the state may have to shift tens of millions of dollars away from salaries for teachers and administrators. And the plan envisions a fundamental change in the role of teachers, making them less a lecturer at the front of the room and more of a guide helping students through lessons delivered on computers.

This change is part of a broader transformation that is creating tension – a tension that is especially visible in Idaho but is playing out across the country. Some teachers, even though they may embrace classroom technology, feel policymakers are thrusting computers into classrooms without their input or proper training. And some say they are opposed to shifting money to online classes and other teaching methods whose benefits remain unproven.

Do legislators know enough about education that they should mandate things like this, or might they be responding to a, uh, "special interest", or might they just be sticking their nose where it doesn't belong? There are valid arguments both for and against having technology in some classes, but to mandate it willy-nilly is just plain foolish.

You're Kidding!

Someone's figuring out that this isn't going to work:

A state-appointed panel said Tuesday that California's plan to build a high-speed rail system in the state is not financially feasible and should be placed on hold.

The report by the California High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group said the state should not authorize $2.7 billion in bonds to build the initial section of the system.

It's not time for a "Hallelujah!" yet, but we're getting closer.

Update, 1/13/12: Closer still:

The CEO of a California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) that is now described as "embattled" even by the establishment media has announced his resignation less than two years after taking office.

It's not dead yet, but I hope we're in the twitching stage.

It Must Be A New Year

Tonight the gym was much more crowded than is usual for a Tuesday night. Must be all the "resolutioners"--they'll be gone by the end of February.

Indoctrinating 3rd Graders

Anyone out there want to support this?

Virginia Elementary School Indoctrinating Third-Graders With Occupy Sing-Along: “They Want More Money, They’re The 1%. . . I’m Happy To Be Part Of The 99%”…

There's a teacher out there who needs some remedial instruction about how to treat other people's children....

Update, 1/3/12: The school district defends the performance of this song, claiming it was written and performed by students.

“They’re actually claiming third-grade children wrote these lyrics and chose the topic as well,” Weasel Zippers wrote. “Because what eight-year-old child isn’t obsessed with class warfare?”

Seriously.

ADA Taken Too Far?

I understand, and support, the principles behind the Americans with Disabilities Act. Sometimes, though, people stretch that law beyond all bounds of reason:

Employers are facing more uncertainty in the wake of a letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission warning them that requiring a high school diploma from a job applicant might violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The development also has some wondering whether the agency’s advice will result in an educational backlash by creating less of an incentive for some high school students to graduate.

Hat tip to reader MikeAT for the link.

Happy New Year, Everyone!

Thanks for reading my blog.

Posts and Quotes of the Year

I've never done this before but will give it a try: here are the blog posts and statements I think represent some of my best or favorite work from 2011.

Posts
Cheating
OK, So You Voted For Obama 2 1/2 Years Ago...
Terror
Filter Bubbles

Statements
If government-run programs were the answer to every problem, we wouldn't always hear about funding them by eliminating "waste, fraud, and abuse" in some other government program. link

It's one thing to get frustrated about my situation sometimes, but completely another to get into "woe is me" mode. I do not want to go there, but it's one of the few places I can get to easily given my current lack of mobility. link

No one should have a "right" to anything I have to pay for. If someone is entitled to have me pay for something, then what they have is an "entitlement", not a right, and an entitlement can be altered or abolished by the same government that grants it. link

Government Spending Is Out of Control

Spending, 1990-2010

Recent US Federal Deficit Numbers

Obama Deficits	Bush Deficits
FY 2012: $1,101 billion	FY 2009: $1,413 billion
FY 2011: $1,299 billion	FY 2008: $248 billion
FY 2010: $1,293 billion	FY 2007: $161 billion

And remember, Obamacare costs aren't yet included above.

Was all this caused by the Iraq War? Not if these charts on defense spending are correct.

Welfare and other programs for the poor?

We're in deep kimchee.

Grading Update

I randomly picked 8--I graded 8 tests a day until they were done. I finished them a few days ago, and then chose 5--5 stats projects a day to grade. That ended up taking too long, so I cut it down to 3. Yesterday I counted; at 3 a day, I finish grading on Monday. We go back to school on Tuesday.

Nice!

Why Obamacare's Individual Mandate Is Wrong (Not Just Unconstitutional)

Government exists first and foremost for the sake of our protection. Without it, our lives and our property would not effectively be our own. Government exists also to promote our well-being. For its support, however, taxation is necessary, and we have tacitly agreed that, to be legitimate, these taxes must be passed by our elected representatives. By our own consent, we give up a certain proportion of our earnings for these purposes.

The money left in our possession, however, is our own -- to do with as we please. It is in this that our liberty largely lies. Romneycare and Obamacare, with the individual mandate, changes radically our relationship vis-a-vis the government. The former presupposes that state governments have the right to tell us how we are to spend our own money, and the latter presupposes that the federal government has that right as well. Both measures are tyrannical. They blur the distinction between public and private and extend the authority of the public over the disposition of that which is primordially private. Once this principle is accepted as legitimate, there is no limit to the authority of the government over us, and mandates of this sort will multiply -- as do-gooders interested in improving our lives by directing them encroach further and further into the one sphere in which we have been left free hitherto...

Raising taxes to reward free riders is, of course, objectionable. We should oppose it on principle. But it does not in and of itself narrow in any significant fashion the sphere of our liberty. It is a question of the proper use of the public purse. The individual mandate sets a new precedent. It extends government control to the private purse. link

When people want to discuss or debate politics with me, the first question I usually ask them is, what is the purpose of government? Anyone who cannot answer that question, who hasn't thought about that basic idea, is just spouting talking points without even knowing why they think what they do. My beliefs on the purpose of government are worded differently than in the first paragraph above, but the end result is effectively the same.

We Want A New Performing Arts Center!

I like that these people aren't asking the taxpayers to foot the bill:

A determined group of parents, educators, students and alumni will begin the new year by kicking off a search for corporate sponsors to help them build a state-of-the art performing arts center at El Camino Fundamental High School.

The organization – ecARTS – wants to build a 600-seat theater with an orchestra pit, backstage facilities and professional lighting and sound at the campus in north Sacramento. A large lobby would serve as a gallery for student art.

As I stated in the comments on that article:

As long as the taxpayers aren't on the line for the cost, why should anyone object to this project? Donors can pay for whatever they like.

What they're seeking is more than the taxpayer should have to pay for, and they're seeking money for this project the right way. Kudos.

Open Source College Textbooks, And The Cost of College In General

I see this as an interesting way to help mitigate the high costs of tuition, but that doesn't relieve our state government of providing a university education at a reasonable price--a reasonable price for the student and for the taxpayers.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg wants to create a digital library of free course materials for California college students.

The proposal, unveiled earlier this month, is bound to be popular with students grappling with rising tuition and fees at California's public colleges and universities.

I'm currently reading Change.edu, and the insights in that book regarding the goals, and the costs, of higher education are remarkable. I recommend it wholeheartedly. This, from the "Book Description" on the linked Amazon page:

While low-income students can’t find a spot in their local community colleges for lack of funding, public four-year universities are spending staggering sums on luxurious residence halls, ever-bigger football stadiums, and obscure research institutes. We have cosseted our most advantaged students even as we deny access to the working adults who urgently need higher education to advance their careers and our economy. In Change.edu: Rebooting for the New Talent Economy, Andrew S. Rosen clearly and entertainingly details how far the American higher education system has strayed from the goals of access, quality, affordability, and accountability that should characterize our system, and offers a prescription to restore American educational pre-eminence.

You see, it's not that I think today's college students should sit idly by and pay whatever the universities see fit to charge. It's just that, having accepted the cost upon admission, they cannot then protest and raise hell and ask me, the taxpayer, to pay that cost for them. They chose that option; perhaps they should have read Change.edu and explored less costly options.

If you choose the resort lifestyle, don't expect me to pay for it. And if you choose the resort lifestyle whilst getting a bachelor's degree in "communications" or in Neo-classical Polish Music and Dance or in psychology or in Aggrieved Victim Studies, definitely don't expect me to pay for it.

Illegal Classes at School

I'm glad the ruling went this way:

An administrative law judge ruled Tuesday that a Tucson school district's ethnic studies program violates state law, agreeing with the findings of Arizona's public schools chief...

Kowal's ruling, first reported by The Arizona Daily Star, said the district's Mexican-American Studies program violated state law by having one or more classes designed primarily for one ethnic group, promoting racial resentment and advocating ethnic solidarity instead of treating students as individuals.

What was going on in those classes was quite different from what one might consider a "reasonable" ethnic studies class. Do we really need our schools promoting racial resentment and victimhood? I think there are plenty of other organizations out there willing to perform that socially corrosive "service", we don't need that kind of crap in schools.

What's My Status?

Several months ago, when walking still was a distant prospect, I set a goal of being able to kneel by Christmas so that I could put presents under the tree and retrieve them. Thankfully, yesterday I was able to do so. It still felt strange, but at least it wasn't excruciating or impossible. My injured leg still appears atrophied, but progress obviously continues. As of Christmas Day I'm cleared by the doctor to begin running, which I'll probably do on a treadmill, and I feel on track to run that mile on the 1-year anniversary of my accident.

My cold from the week before break started morphed into bronchitis, which antibiotics seem to be whipping. I may go to the gym tomorrow for the first time in over 2 weeks. It's been forever since I've been sick for so long; as I've said so many times recently, 2011 was not my year for health!

While I usually don't bring work home, I did bring a large stack of statistics tests and projects to grade. Grading fewer than 10 a day, so I don't get bored with grading, I've now knocked out all the tests. Tomorrow I start the projects.

Why Math Is Important

Especially if you're trying to get people to vote for your guy.

Why Capitalism Is So Important

It's important because it works:

One of the central dynamics that made Britain great for so long still seems to be working. Financial and economic crises recur in healthy capitalist economies. When these crises come, some countries that have only reluctantly embraced a capitalist system (and usually done so poorly and half heartedly), see the crisis as proof that capitalism is a flop, and lurch toward “alternative models” that generally lead to stagnation and the capture of the state by rent-seeking elites spouting empty populist slogans. Think Argentina. Think Greece.

Britain is one of the countries that historically responds to crises of capitalism by doubling down: seeking reforms that make capitalism work more effectively rather than trying to hobble and block it. Between World War Two and Maggie Thatcher Britain lost its way, bumbling through decades of decline and well intentioned but hopeless efforts to find some other way to grow.

I defy anyone to find a better economic system for creating general prosperity, especially when it is coupled with a democratic-style government.

Communism

There are lefties out there who talk like this:

On Monday I noted Vaclav Havel’s death; there was an interesting article on Havel at The Guardian by Neil Clark:

No one questions that Havel, who went to prison twice, was a brave man who had the courage to stand up for his views. Yet the question which needs to be asked is whether his political campaigning made his country, and the world, a better place.

Havel’s anti-communist critique contained little if any acknowledgement of the positive achievements of the regimes of eastern Europe in the fields of employment, welfare provision, education and women’s rights. Or the fact that communism, for all its faults, was still a system which put the economic needs of the majority first.

What's worse is that they actually think like this, although I admit to using the word "think" loosely in this case.

Occupy This Nativity Scene

These are the people lefties support:

I hope the disinfectant of sunlight is enough to make "occupy" supporters ashamed of their stupidity. Have any of them done anything right yet? Have they accomplished anything positive?

Their movement has petered out, but I'm not going to stop pointing out its flaws. I will ensure they serve as a warning to the next utopians who come along.

Merry Christmas

May you experience happiness and health on this most revered of holidays.

Eating The Whale One Bite At A Time

As a rule, I don't bring work home with me.

I try to do all my correcting at school. I'm pretty efficient when correcting, and can often get it done during my prep period and in "free time" during class. I don't want to bring work home with me. I don't balance my checkbook at work, and I don't grade papers at home.

Sometimes, though, I have to give in. Over the break I've brought home 2 classes' worth of stats tests as well as the stats project write-ups. That's a lot of grading to be done. And of course, the best time to do that is during the holidays, right? (sarcastic voice on) It's not like there's anything else going on. (sarcastic voice off)

I hate grading papers at home, but these need to be done with my usual attention to detail. I've decided to grade 8 tests a day. It doesn't take me that long at all to do 8, so it doesn't seem like a major imposition on my time. When the tests are all graded, I'll do maybe 4 or 5 survey write-ups a day. I may be grading a few extra the last night before we go back to school, but other than that I won't feel like I spent so much of my time grading because I nickel-and-dimed it over two weeks.