Obama's Education Secretary Openly Lies About The Effects of the Sequester, Washington Post Calls Him On It

Why anyone would believe a single word coming from any mouthpiece of the current Administration is far beyond me.  Just this week, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has lied through his teeth three times regarding the apocalyptic effects of sequestration; his claims were bad enough that the Washington Post, hardly a right-leaning paper, gave his claims 4 Pinocchios, their worst rating:

Duncan’s claim, on one of the Sunday morning shows, that teachers were already getting pink slips because of the looming sequester was actually the second time he had made this assertion.

“I was on a call yesterday, people are starting to give RIF [reduction in force] notes,” Duncan said in a meeting with reporters Feb. 21, three days before his appearance on CBS. “Schools are already starting to give teachers notices.”

Oddly, however, the Education Department for days was unable to cough up the name of a single school district where these notices had been delivered. Then, on Wednesday, Duncan appeared before the White House press corps and produced a name — Kanawha County in West Virginia — with a major league caveat. “Whether it’s all sequester-related, I don’t know,” he said...

In fact, no one in the county seemed to know what Duncan was talking about, including the education reporters who cover the school district for the Charleston, W.V., newspapers. “There’s very little sequestration-related panic, at least on the education side of things,” one reporter said...

The administration has been on thin ice with some of its claims about the impact of the sequestration cuts. Duncan’s assertion that “as many as 40,000 teachers could lose their jobs” also appears to be hyperbole...

There is little debate that across-the-board spending cuts in education funding will cause pain for some schools and states. But there is no reason to hype the statistics — or to make scary pronouncements on pink slips being issued based on misinformation.

Indeed, Duncan’s lack of seriousness about being scrupulously factual undercuts the administration’s claim that the cuts are a serious problem.

Duncan made this claim not once, not twice, but three times. Let this be a teachable moment for him: Next time, before going on television, check your facts.

That's about as close as the Post is going to get to saying "liar, liar, pants on fire", so I just said it for them.

Only In America Could Something This Stupid Happen

In no other country on the planet would this even be contemplated:

A Texas high school student has filed a federal lawsuit against her school and her teachers after she was punished for refusing to salute and recite the Mexican pledge of allegiance.

The Thomas More Law Center filed the suit on behalf of Brenda Brinsdon alleging the McAllen Independent School District violated the 15-year-old girl’s constitutional rights when she was forced to recite the Mexican pledge and sing the Mexican national anthem.

Brinsdon, who is the daughter of a Mexican immigrant and an American father, refused. She believed it was un-American to pledge a loyalty oath to another country.

Ironically, the school district has a policy that prohibits a school from compelling students to recite the American Pledge of Allegiance.

Well, duh.  That was decided by a 1943 US Supreme Court decision, but let's continue:

The recitation of the Mexican pledge and the singing of the Mexican national anthem was part of a 2011 Spanish class assignment at Achieve Early College High School.  The teacher, Reyna Santos, required all her students to participate in the lesson.

When Brinsdon refused to back down – she was punished, the lawsuit alleges. She was given an alternative assignment on the Independence of Mexico. The teacher gave her a failing grade – and then required the student to sit in class over a period of several days to listen to other students recite the Mexican flag.

The lawsuit states Brinsdon offered to recite the American pledge in Spanish but the teacher refused her request.

“It’s astonishing that this Texas school would deny Brenda her right of conscience and free speech not to pledge allegiance to a foreign country,” said Thompson...

And while she is fluent in Spanish and English and is proud of her Mexican heritage, Brinsdon is a “true-blooded American,” Mersino added.

Who will defend this teacher's actions?  Anyone?

Bad Teacher Doing A Bad Thing

Doesn't this just make your heart sink?

A California high school student was shocked at what she found when she decided to play detective and stop a string of thefts from backpacks during gym class.

Justine Betti said she decided to hide in a locker to see if she could catch the thief in action. She didn’t expect the alleged culprit to be her gym teacher.

After all of the students left the locker room, the teacher stayed behind, rummaged through backpacks and took money, Betti said.

“Something needed to be done. That’s not okay,” she told ABC News’ Sacramento affiliate KXTV.  Betti is a sophomore at Linden High School in Linden, Calif., about 60 miles southeast of Sacramento.

Betti decided to hide in the locker again — this time, with a cellphone camera to record what she saw. She set up a second camera in another locker to get two angles.

I'm curious if this teacher's union is gearing up a defense.

Classy

If you're one of the 7 people in the country who hasn't seen this video yet, I'm privileged to be the one to provide it for you:

Both those teams are full of winners.

Update, 2/28/13:  Clearly CBS isn't full of winners, as they're removed the video due to copyright considerations.

Why We Can't Build Any More Hoover Dams

I periodically hear people, often liberals, claim that America isn't great anymore, and as evidence say that we don't build things like the Hoover Dam anymore.  Even President Obama said so last fall:

The dam is frequently cited by Obama as an example of American ingenuity and the value of government-funded investment in public infrastructure.

There are plenty of reasons why we can't or don't, and many of those reasons are liberals. Here's a modern example:

The application for approval (for the Keystone XL pipeline) has been under review by the U.S. government for more than four years, far longer than any other cross-border pipeline project and more than twice as long as it would take to build the pipeline.

I Don't Quite See How The Common Core Standards Address These Issues (Especially The California Version of Those Standards)

But who doesn't like a funny Xtranormal video?

Strippers For Teens

I'm not convinced this is really genuinely truly endangering the welfare of a child, but it's certainly base:
World’s Best/Worst Mom Hired Strippers For Her Son’s 16th Birthday Party

I'm sure you don't want to miss the picture of the stripper upside down on the boy's lap with her crotch in his face.

And People Still Talk About This Guy For The Supreme Court

The correct way to amend the Constitution is via Article V.  That's why the Founders put Article V in the Constitution.

"But Darren," some claim, "the Article V hurdle is too high!  Things have changed, times have changed, and we need an easier way to make things right!"  My answer to that is to change the Constitution to make it easier to change the Constitution, not just ignore Article V because it's (intentionally) difficult.

Of course, if you're an ideologue California Supreme Court justice in arm's reach of the US Supreme Court, that pesky Constitution isn't something you have to worry about for long:

Asked about the doctrine of enumerated powers and whether it was possible to reconcile the limited view of federal power articulated in The Federalist with modern Supreme Court doctrines, Liu demurred. “If I had an answer to that I’d have written a book,” he quipped, observing the question of federal power is an enduring constitutional and political debate. Despite the language of enumeration, he noted, “there are certain economic realities that have shifted our understanding of these words over time,” such as the increasingly integrated economy. Nonetheless he noted that it is a hotly debated proposition whether courts should rely more on founding era understandings or contemporary realities.

That's fancy talk for "I'll do what I think is right, the Constitution be damned."

You want a poster child for liberals?  There you have one.

Amazon Student

I probably spend $39/year in shipping costs on Amazon anyway, so now that I'm a student again I'm taking advantage of this offer.  If you're a student, too, check it out!

Most Miserable Cities In The US

The list created by Forbes involves the scrutiny of the country’s largest urban areas which are then ranked via factors such as the city’s crime rates, foreclosures, taxes, home prices, commute times, weather, and decreasing populations.


Go take a look at the list, and note the following:  of the 20 most miserable cities, how many are west of the Mississippi?  And of those, how many are in California?


Socialism doesn't work because, as Margaret Thatcher said, eventually you run out of other people's money.

University Students and Their Expectations

A couple days ago I posted on the pleasant experience I had in Reno, meeting up with two former students.  I wrote about how pleased I was that they'd figured out that personal responsibility is one of the important life lessons to be learned at college.

Clearly not everyone has figured that out:

Such accusations reveal little about the professor in question; no one ever satisfactorily distinguishes a boring professor from a boredom-inclined student — which is not to suggest that boring professors do not exist, simply that Rate My Professors cannot recognize them. What the comments reveal are students’ assumptions about what they are owed by their teachers and what constitutes a good classroom experience. Most pointedly, they show the extent to which higher education in North America has become a consumer product like any other, catering to client satisfaction and majority appeal. Reading through the comments, one is disheartened not only because so many are crude and illiterate but also because they indicate how deeply most students have imbibed the canard that university is about being entertained and helped to feel good about oneself.

The following observation, though, doesn't apply only to college:

Statistical researcher Valen Johnson has demonstrated in Grade Inflation: A Crisis in College Education (2003) that student responses to their university experience have been corrupted by an entitlement mentality about grades. Because students tend to excuse poor performance by pointing to external factors, they often blame their teachers when marks are lower than expected — when, as one student wrote on the site, they are “completely blindsided by a bad grade.”

Accuracy vs. Political Correctness

Rasmussen reports:

Voters continue to believe that political correctness trumps accuracy in most school textbooks. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 16% of Likely U.S. Voters think most school textbooks are more concerned about accurately providing information. That's down from 27% in March 2010. Fifty-nine percent (59%) think most textbooks are chiefly concerned with presenting information in a politically correct manner, consistent with attitudes for the past three years. Twenty-five percent (25%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Considering the requirements of California textbooks, this result should be higher in California. I wonder if it is.

Skiing Yesterday and Today

It snowed a little on Tuesday, so skiing yesterday was beautiful.  My knee, though, hurt like heck--I don't think I can do this anymore.  Here are two phone-cam videos from the top:

They're mp4 files, and I don't know if Blogger will recognize them as videos or pictures....

Update, 2/23/13:  Try this Vimeo link.

Teachers Unions As Bullies

The author of this piece is the president of the California Teachers Empowerment Network (CTEN), of which I am a board member.

Here's the setup:

The Michigan Education Association had its apple cart turned upside down when the Wolverine State went "right-to-work" in December. This means that, unlike California and 25 other states, a worker doesn't have to pay union dues as a condition of employment.

My introduction to union coercion came in 2005, when, as a middle school teacher in Los Angeles, I joined the Prop. 75 campaign. That initiative would have prohibited public employee labor organizations from collecting the part of union dues which goes for politics without prior consent of the employee. Sensing a disruption in their forced dues gravy train, the California Teachers Association went into overdrive. It raised union dues on its members for a three-year period and mortgaged their offices in Sacramento, then used the millions they accumulated to scare teachers and the public – ominously warning them of imaginary horrors that would be visited on them if the proposition passed.

Here's the part the unions and their u-bot zombie supporters just cannot argue:

Teachers unions are forever telling its members how much the union does for them in the way of wages, job benefits, etc. You would think that an organization that does so much for its members wouldn't have to resort to bullying to keep them in the fold.

The rest of the piece is just as strong, go take a read--especially the part about the unions' specious "free rider" complaint.

College Life

Yesterday I drove up to Reno, skiing a little bit on the way up.  I'd arranged to meet a couple of former students (now UNR students) for dinner at Circus Circus, and I hope they enjoyed themselves as much as I did.

They've already figured college out.  They both said how college is "on you"--no one cares if you go to class or not, if you do your work or not, if you do well in the classes or not.  Personal time management (e.g., not procrastinating) and personal responsibility have been the most important things they've learned.

One made a very specific point.  He said that there's plenty of time to party, you don't need to go to college to party.  Those that do, those that can't stand their classes and are only there for the social aspect of it, aren't learning anything.   His point was that you should study what you like so that you look forward to going to class; that will help build the sense of responsibility to actually go.

We agreed that partying is fun now, but when it's over you have nothing more than a nice memory that will no doubt fade with time.  You could have the same experience partying after working as a shopping cart gatherer at your local grocery store, you don't need to pay the high cost of tuition to experience that.  Getting an education, though, lasts forever--and you can still party on weekends.

I'd say they're coming along just fine for freshmen.

Chase

My grandfather died 16 years ago.  Several years after that, when we moved my grandmother into an assisted living facility, I bought nana and grandpa's house.  I've lived here for 7 1/2 years and very infrequently I get mail addressed to one or the other of them--often solicitations for money.

Today I received mail from Chase addressed to my grandfather.  It felt like a credit card so I opened it--and sure enough, there was not one but two credit cards in grandpa's name.  Remember, he died 16 years ago.  You'd think a bank as big as Chase wouldn't  have to use such old lists.

Pardon Me, Would You Have Any Grey Poupon?

Who didn't like those commercials?  No one?  I thought not, so it's good they're coming back:

After a 16-year hiatus, the mustard that mocked its own stuffy image in one of TV's most famous commercials will once again take to the airwaves during the Academy Awards show on Feb. 24. 

And now the bad news:

The spot comes as Kraft Foods looks to boost sagging sales of the Dijon mustard, which is facing competition from a growing variety of high-end condiments on supermarket shelves.

I Can See Clearly Now, The Rain Is Gone

Yesterday's rain here in the Valley meant snow up in the Sierra, enough that checking the CalTrans web site showed that chains were required over Donner Summit.  As I look out the window this morning, though, I see nothing but the clearest of blue skies--not a cloud--and I-80 is clear.

Guess I'll make use of this:

I have another post scheduled to appear later today, enjoy!

Spam

The less I blog (and I know I haven't been blogging much lately), the more spam I get.

How does that work?

Give Her The Axe

This is remarkable on a couple different levels:

A tenured professor who forced her students to sign pledges that they would vote for President Barack Obama last November should be fired, the college’s president recommended.

Sharon Sweet, an associate professor of mathematics at Brevard Community College in Florida, is guilty of electioneering, harassment, and incompetence, according to a three-month investigation into her classroom behavior leading up to the November election.

The Board of Trustees will hold a hearing on the matter, and then vote on whether to adopt President James Richey’s recommendation that Sweet be fired.