Education Reform and Teachers Unions

These words are absolutely true:

Our idea of education reform isn’t to take teacher union membership away and leave teachers exposed to the power of uncaring, rigid bureaucracies. Instead, we want to use concepts like charter schools and school vouchers to give good teachers the chance to build cooperative and community schools where a reputation for excellence ensures a stream of students.

By acting like teachers are the problem or the enemy, education reformers often make their goals harder than they need to be. We don’t like teachers’ unions, but it’s not because we hate teachers and want them to suffer. It’s because the unions are part of what’s wrong with the system: They are the biggest defenders of the bureaucratized, by-the-book system that has stifled many teachers and made it difficult for them to do their jobs as they see fit.

We understand the appeal of unions to teachers. We understand why people under the rule of bureaucrats, who are ultimately responsive to big city political machines, would want to have their own representatives as the table. But we think there are ways to decentralize the whole system, to give teachers more autonomy and ground their evaluations more deeply in the views of their peers and local communities, while also giving parents more choice.

It’s not the teachers we want to disempower but the bureaucratic machines that seek to control them. Sadly, teachers’ unions have become a key cog in that machine. Pointing this out isn’t anti-teacher, it’s pro-teacher, and that is an important distinction for education reformers to make.

If only there were an organization out there that would empower California teachers....

Let The Revisionism Begin

I'm sure someone will try to blame this on NCLB:

In what has been described as one of the largest cheating scandals to hit the nation's public education system, 35 Atlanta Public Schools educators and administrators were indicted Friday on charges of racketeering and corruption.

The indictment is the bookend to a story that was once touted as a model for the nation's school districts after the district's test scores dramatically improved in some of its toughest urban schools.

Among those indicted by a Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury was Beverly Hall, the former schools superintendent who gained national recognition in 2009 for turning around Atlanta's school system...

A state review determined that some cheating had occurred in more than half of the district's elementary and middle schools. About 180 teachers were initially implicated in the scandal.

What evidence do I have that NCLB wasn't what started the cheating?  This little fact:

The alleged cheating is believed to date back to early 2001, according to the indictment, when standardized testing scores began to turn around in the 50,000-student school district.

NCLB wasn't signed by President Bush until January 8, 2002.

No, you can't blame Bush, Kennedy, Pelosi, Reid, Kerry, or any of the others who voted for this law.  This was just cheating, plain and simple, and you can only legitimately blame the people who did it.

Milton Friedman on the Free Lunch

Climate Change Takes More Body Blows

I know the True Believers will find reasons it isn't so, but at that point they leave the realm of science that so many claim to believe in and go straight into faith:

The new issue of The Economist has a long feature on the declining confidence in the high estimates of climate sensitivity.  That this appears in The Economist is significant, because this august British news organ has been fully on board with climate alarmism for years now.  A Washington-based Economist correspondent admitted to me privately several years ago that the senior editors in London had mandated consistent and regular alarmist climate coverage in its pages.

The problem for the climateers is increasingly dire.  As The Economist shows in its first chart (Figure 1 here), the recent temperature record is now falling distinctly to the very low end of its predicted range and may soon fall out of it, which means the models are wrong, or, at the very least, that there’s something going on that supposedly “settled” science hasn’t been able to settle.  Equally problematic for the theory, one place where the warmth might be hiding—the oceans—is not cooperating with the story line.  Recent data show that ocean warming has noticeably slowed, too, as shown in Figure 2 here.

So The Economist story, though hedged with every reservation to Keep Hope Alive, is nonetheless a clear sign that it’s about over for the climate campaign.

I Thought Big Corporations Were Eeee-vil

The president bashes Wall Street while giddily taking their money--and note that his administration hasn't charged, tried, or convicted a single one of these "greedy" people who supposedly brought the world to the brink of economic apocalypse.  If they're so bad, could not one single charge have been filed?

It's that kind of hypocrisy that, in part, causes me to despise the man.

All of you granola-eating corporation-haters, what do you think of this:

Slipped into the Agricultural Appropriations Bill, which passed through Congress last week, was a small provision that’s a big deal for Monsanto and its opponents. The provision protects genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks and has thus been dubbed the “Monsanto Protection Act” by activists who oppose the biotech giant. President Barack Obama signed the spending bill, including the provision, into law on Tuesday.

Some warned about this 3 years ago.

Flipping Of(f) The Parties

In his book Lies My Teacher Told Me, ardent socialist James Loewen goes into striking detail about the Democrats' racist past. This article hints at it, and links to more, and then explains why the theory that "the parties changed sides, and all the racists went to the Republican Party" is just a crock:

In order to escape their truly wretched past (click on the link for my short book on the subject), modern Democrats have adopted as an article of faith the bedtime story that, thanks to Tricky Dick Nixon’s “southern strategy,” the racists who had been the backbone of their party for the better part of a century suddenly switched to the GOP en masse some time around 1968, with the happy result that now all the racists are on the right. Presto — instant virtuousness and a clean slate...

And yet this myth persists — in fact, it’s just about the only response today’s Democrats have to their own sordid history: pinning it on the other guy. It makes them profoundly uncomfortable that among the 21 who voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 can be found Albert Arnold Gore, Sr., the founder of the Hillbilly Dynasty; Robert “KKK” Byrd, the Conscience of the Senate; and Sleepin’ Sam Ervin of Watergate fame.

Just for laughs, let’s take a look at the electoral maps for 1968 (Nixon-Humphrey), 1972 (Nixon-McGovern), 1976 (Carter-Ford), and 1992 (Clinton-Bush) to see how the South voted....

I see no evidence of this flip.  You make your own call.

Economic Freedom

Political conservatism sure looks good:

The "Freedom in the 50 States" study measured economic and personal freedom using a wide range of criteria, including tax rates, government spending and debt, regulatory burdens, and state laws covering land use, union organizing, gun control, education choice and more.
It found that the freest states tended to be conservative "red" states, while the least free were liberal "blue" states.

The freest state overall, the researchers concluded, was North Dakota, followed by South Dakota, Tennessee, New Hampshire and Oklahoma. The least free state by far was New York, followed by California, New Jersey, Hawaii and Rhode Island.

Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/032813-649561-americans-leaving-blue-calif-ny-for-freer-red-states.aspx#ixzz2OspHGnjx

Socialism, not so much.

The Coming Ice Age

The information in the article is based on a peer-reviewed paper from two Russian scientists, who looked at the real world data and trends, as well as the solar processes, and say that this could lead to a climate similar to the Little Ice Age (PS for Warmists: it’s not just about sun spots, but the overall activity of the Sun along with its magnetism).

Again, to be clear, until it happens, it’s all conjecture. Just like the notion that this current warm period is caused by Mankind. Well, except that the climate does switch between warm and cool.

It's that big yellow thing in the sky.

(The actual Die Welt article is here--where is that "translate this page" link?)

Not A Good Way To Run A Business

For all the Wal*mart haters out there--instead of whining, instead of boycotting, instead of ordinances to keep them out of your area, why not just practice what a Japanese friend told me was an old proverb: If you wait long enough by the river, eventually the head of your enemy will float by:

It’s not as though the merchandise isn’t there. It’s piling up in aisles and in the back of stores because Wal-Mart doesn’t have enough bodies to restock the shelves, according to interviews with store workers. In the past five years, the world’s largest retailer added 455 U.S. Wal-Mart stores, a 13 percent increase, according to filings and the company’s website. In the same period, its total U.S. workforce, which includes Sam’s Club employees, dropped by about 20,000, or 1.4 percent. Wal-Mart employs about 1.4 million U.S. workers. 

The market will solve such problems far more efficiently than government ever will.

Chicago Teachers Union President On Lying To Parents

Hear her in her own words.

Really, is hostage a word you want to use with regards to a student?

To paraphrase someone else, she won't be bringing the potato salad to the next Mensa picnic.

Race: Toure v. Alfonzo Rachel

Which one seems more reasonable?  I know which one I choose.

"Coercive Paternalism"--a Leftie's Term, Not Mine

Why we need an overarching government:

Sarah Conly, an assistant professor of philosophy at Bowdoin College, is the author of “Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism.”

A lot of times we have a good idea of where we want to go, but a really terrible idea of how to get there. It’s well established by now that we often don’t think very clearly when it comes to choosing the best means to attain our ends. We make errors. This has been the object of an enormous amount of study over the past few decades, and what has been discovered is that we are all prone to identifiable and predictable miscalculations...

So do these laws mean that some people will be kept from doing what they really want to do? Probably — and yes, in many ways it hurts to be part of a society governed by laws, given that laws aren’t designed for each one of us individually. Some of us can drive safely at 90 miles per hour, but we’re bound by the same laws as the people who can’t, because individual speeding laws aren’t practical. Giving up a little liberty is something we agree to when we agree to live in a democratic society that is governed by laws. 

The freedom to buy a really large soda, all in one cup, is something we stand to lose here. For most people, given their desire for health, that results in a net gain. For some people, yes, it’s an absolute loss. It’s just not much of a loss.

Of course, what people fear is that this is just the beginning: today it’s soda, tomorrow it’s the guy standing behind you making you eat your broccoli, floss your teeth, and watch “PBS NewsHour” every day. What this ignores is that successful paternalistic laws are done on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis: if it’s too painful, it’s not a good law.  Making these analyses is something the government has the resources to do, just as now it sets automobile construction standards while considering both the need for affordability and the desire for safety. 

One of the myriad problems with "logic" like that is that it only works when the "right" people are in charge, when the "right" people know what's best for you.  I think it would be best if students said the Pledge of Allegiance in school each day, but I doubt Sarah would agree.  When the "wrong" people are in charge, I'm sure Sarah would argue that their laws are too painful, too burdensome, just plain wrong.

I wonder if she supports abortion....

You live your life your way, I'll live my life my way, and lots not impinge on each other any more than is absolutely necessary.  That is freedom, and I'm all for it.

Update:  This sums it up for me:

I want a "leave me alone" society -- one where Christian schools can turn people away for rejecting their doctrine, just as gay rights groups can reject those who don't share their beliefs. I don't want us all to get along -- not because I'm misanthropic (well, not just because I'm misanthropic), but because I know that "consensus" is usually a fancy word for muting minority viewpoints. I want us all to be free to be annoyed with each other from our separate corners. Is that too much to ask?

In other words, I support tolerance.  I'll tolerate you and your dumb ideas as long as you don't try to impose those dumb ideas on me.

Update #2, 4/3/13:  Here's a great post on the food police:

I am reading a new book by professor Jayson Lusk titled The Food Police: A Well-Fed Manifesto About the Politics of Your Plate. The author is tired of the food socialists coming after trans-fats, Happy Meals, Twinkies, and soda. The book seeks to debunk “the myths propagated by the holier-than-thou foodie elite who think they know exactly what we should grow, cook, and eat"...

It is a dangerous dynamic and one that feeds into power for the political class at the expense of the individual. Those of us who believe in freedom must fight for Happy Meals, Twinkies, and, yes, even the occasional trans-fats, for the food police are more dangerous than these.

Are You Surprised This Was Jesus And Not Muhammed?

A professor at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Davie campus named Deandre Poole teaches an “Intercultural Communication” class from a textbook by the same name.  The textbook calls for an exercise where students write the name of Jesus in large letters on a piece of paper and then stomp on it.

Enter Ryan Rotela, a student in the class who happens to be a devout Mormon. Rotela refused to stomp and complained to Professor Poole, telling him, “Never do the assignment again because it’s offensive.”  Rotela also told the professor that he was going to complain to the university.  Then, according to Rotela, FAU responded by suspending him from Poole’s class.

It's not politically correct to say, but I'll say it: the reason they stomped on Jesus' name and not Muhammed's name is because no one is worried that the Christians will riot, cut throats, and post the video on the internet.

Only cowards attack Christians.

Bag It and Tag It

My skiing days are done.

Sunday I went up to the slopes.  The temperature was in the 50s, but despite that the snow conditions weren't horrible.  Oh, they weren't optimal, but it was pretty darned good skiing for being in the 50s.

From my house to the ski slope is 80 minutes, and another 40 min from there to Reno, so that's where I stayed Sunday night.  Slept in Monday, then hit the slopes on my way home.

I can't do what I used to be able to do--my once-injured knee lets me know it's not happy.  Skiing is just not as enjoyable an experience as it once was so I'm packing it in.  Next fall I'll sell the skis, boots, and poles.

I need a new winter activity.  I'm considering snowshoeing.  Any other ideas?

I Can Imagine Worse Designations Than This

Worst party schools--West Point is #10:

"The closest things we have to nightlife here is Eisenhower Hall, a place where noted authors, poets, scholars, artists, entertainers, and musicians perform on the weekends," said a student. The school doesn't have much of a nightlife, but then again, we expect they didn't expect much of one when they enrolled.

This Summer's Vacation Starts Taking Form

I've got three nights of camping reserved on San Juan Island in Washington, followed by three nights of camping reserved in Victoria, British Columbia.  Not a bad start.

It Takes All Types, Or So I've Heard

It doesn't take this type to teach kids, though:

Police in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania arrested a local high school Spanish teacher on Thursday for allegedly creating and disseminating Photoshopped images of naked bodies — to which he attached students’ faces.

The teacher, Jeffrey Schmutzler, had four terabytes of data storage capability at his home, reports Public Opinion, a local newspaper. (Four terabytes is the rough equivalent of several laptop computers’ storage capacity.) Pornographic images, including child pornography, reportedly took up much of that space.

Federal prosecutors charge that Schmutzler also wrote fictional sex fantasies involving him from the perspectives of students, according to WHP-TV, the local CBS affiliate.

The 42-year-old bachelor apparently owned a couple of life-size silicone dolls, too.

What Is It About This Post?

I just deleted a couple dozen spam comments on this post.  Whenever large numbers of spam comments arrive, that post is always on the list.

Can anyone find anything there that might cause it to merit so much attention from the dregs of internet society?

Update:  I'm up to over 50 on that post just today.

Update #2:  Well over 100/day now.

White Men, Higher Education, and Race

It's about time someone who's not a white man notices:

Most people who are not straight white men would probably smirk at the idea that straight white men feel alienated in the higher education workplace.

Those who smirk, Sandra Miles said here at the annual conference of NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, are hindering meaningful discussion about race.

I've experienced this issue myself.

TED Talks

I first discovered TED Talks when I was convalescing from my ski accident almost 2 years ago.  They're usually good for stimulating thought; on the other hand, sometimes they project that NPR-like elitist veneer.  That's not to say that I wouldn't enjoy attending one some time, just that not every word spoken in them is gospel.

I was watching some of the videos last night and these two interested me.  Under the new Common Core standards, the first video should generate many huzzahs and accolades.  The second just makes sense to me. (full disclosure: I teach stats)