A Colossal Waste of Taxpayer Money

On the radio on my drive home tonight I heard California's attorney general bragging about promoting "progressive values" in the 44 lawsuits he's filed against the Trump Administration.  These lawsuits have so far cost California taxpayers $12 million.  The major Sacramento newspaper has the details:

California’s war against the Trump Administration is costing state taxpayers millions for lawyers and other costs connected to nearly four dozen lawsuits.

Costs to fight the federal government in court have more than tripled since President Donald Trump took office, according to data provided to The Sacramento Bee by the California Department of Justice.

California has filed 44 lawsuits against the Trump administration in the past 21 months, with major battles on health care, immigration and energy policy. The federal government, meanwhile, has filed three suits against California. The price tag for the California vs. Trump war was $9.2 million for the 2017-2018 fiscal year ending June 30, up from $2.8 million the previous year — which included six months of the president’s first year in office...

“We are the No. 1 economy in the country, large enough that we’ve become the fifth largest in the world. That happens because we made investments — we made decisions which others have been unwilling to make,” Becerra said. “Our prosperity is intertwined with our progressive nature.”

But Republican leaders and taxpayer advocates say the lawsuits amount to a political stunt and a waste of taxpayer money.

“Just because California and its Democratic leaders disagree with something the president or his administration does, that doesn’t mean the courts are the place to have that disagreement,” said Harmeet Dhillon, an attorney and committeewoman for the Republican National Committee. “Xavier Becerra is misusing the courts to score political points.

“Not only is this a massive waste of taxpayer resources, but every time he files one of these frivolous lawsuits, that takes federal resources and court time — that means less time for immigration cases, business disputes, trademark cases, asylum cases.”

I disagree that this is the same thing as when Republican attorneys general filed suit against the Obama Administration, especially against the EPA. I view those as legitimate concerns about federal overreach, whereas these California cases are, as shown by the attorney general's own words, about his own "progressive nature".

Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said the spending reflects poorly on Democratic leaders, who hold all constitutional offices in California.

“These lawsuits, including some of the more complicated ones, represent little more than political posturing by California politicians,” Coupal said. “Compared to the $120 billion state general fund, it may not seem like much, but it’s symbolic of an attitude of waste and foolish pursuits by our state government officials.”

Pretty much, yeah.

It Didn't Happen Because Of Socialism or Communism

Half the world is now middle class or even better:

Something of enormous global significance is happening almost without notice. For the first time since agriculture-based civilization began 10,000 years ago, the majority of humankind is no longer poor or vulnerable to falling into poverty. By our calculations, as of this month, just over 50 percent of the world’s population, or some 3.8 billion people, live in households with enough discretionary expenditure to be considered “middle class” or “rich.” About the same number of people are living in households that are poor or vulnerable to poverty. So September 2018 marks a global tipping point. After this, for the first time ever, the poor and vulnerable will no longer be a majority in the world. Barring some unfortunate global economic setback, this marks the start of a new era of a middle-class majority...

Our “middle class” classification was first developed in 2010 and has been used by many researchers. While acknowledging that the middle class does not have a precise definition that can be globally applied, the threshold we use in this work has the following characteristics: those in the middle class have some discretionary income that can be used to buy consumer durables like motorcycles, refrigerators, or washing machines. They can afford to go to movies or indulge in other forms of entertainment. They may take vacations. And they are reasonably confident that they and their family can weather an economic shock—like illness or a spell of unemployment—without falling back into extreme poverty.

How could this possibly have happened? Adam Smith's "invisible hand" might have something to do with it.

When You think We In Education Have It Easy Because We Get 2 Months Off For Summer, Remember This

You know why schools are in such bad shape, why standards of behavior and discipline and ethics are so low?  Look no further:

A St. Louis mom is making a federal case over the fact that her son didn’t make the high school soccer team.

The unnamed woman, whose son is a junior at Ladue Horton Watkins High School– located in the most affluent section of the city– filed a lawsuit in federal court this week, claiming the coach’s decision discriminates against her child...

The judge will announce his decision Monday.

Remember the lawsuit, which made it all the way to the Supreme Court, in which a mother complained that students shouldn't grade other students' papers in class because they'd see her kid's bad grades on them?  Ugh.

A Late Memorial

(yes, there's a pun there)

I've had an excruciatingly trying couple of weeks personally, which is why my blogging took somewhat of a back seat.  But I can't fail to note the passing of Marty Balin, one of the founders of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship.  It was with Jefferson Starship that he wrote one of the most beautiful love songs ever:

The imagery in the lyrics is spellbinding, if sometimes rather explicit.

Do They Think We Don't Remember?

From CNN's editor-at-large:  Donald Trump's me, me, me, me press conference

Odd, I can't seem to find Cillizza's complaints about all of President Obama's I-I-I speeches. But I'm told media bias is a myth.

It's Not Just Out-of-Bounds Now, It's Pathological

Liberals are getting sicker by the day:

NEW CIVILITY UPDATE: Someone on Capitol Hill just doxxed Republican Sens. Mike Lee, Orrin Hatch, and Lindsey Graham. “Somebody working from a House of Representatives office is editing the Wikipedia pages of Republican senators to post what looks like their home addresses.”
Flashbacks:
● DC restaurant: We’ve received death threats after Cruz, wife forced out by protesters.
● Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ): We Are Less Than 60 Days From Totally ‘Kicking the S–t Out of the Republicans.’
● Networks Silent On Attempted Stabbing of GOP Candidate By Anti-Trump Attacker.
● Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) Jokes About Threatening Trump Supporters ‘All The Time.’
● Bernie Bro James T. Hodgkinson, Attempted Assassin Of Steve Scalise, Already Being Erased From History.
Why are Democrats so violent?

If you're a liberal, what do you have to say about this?  Do you support what too many in your party are saying and doing?

Judge Kavanaugh

My best friend's wife's brother knows this guy whose sister's college roommate was best friends with a woman whose daughter babysat Kavanaugh when he was young, and she heard him call someone--someone she couldn't identify--a poo-poo head.

No way does this guy belong on the Supreme Court.

New Contender for the Stupidest Senator Award

For years, California's Barbara "call me Senator" Boxer held court as the stupidest person in the US Senate, especially after Slow Joe Biden became Vice President.  Boxer's replacement, Kamala Harris, claimed Boxer's seat as well as her "stupidest Senator" mantle.

But lately, others seem to want to challenge Harris' position.  There's a mad rush to the IQ cellar, and right now Hawaii's Mazie Hirono is giving Harris a good run for the money:

As they say so often on Instapundit, we have the worst ruling class in our history.

Back to Ebonics?

Standard English is racist.  It doesn't matter that non-American blacks can and do speak proper English, it's racist nonetheless.  And now we're extending this ebonics-like argument to university students as well:

Sounding dim and uneducated is now, it seems, something to aspire to and encourage, especially at universities:

A sociolinguist from Stanford University claims the way African-Americans speak leads to discrimination across the board — in the court system, interactions with police, education, and employment. Professor John Rickford says, “Black Vernacular English” is viewed as less “trustworthy, intelligent and well-educated” than so-called standard “white” English, and that “dismantling this construction is part of the fight for racial justice.” Rickford, who is the current president of the Linguistic Society of America, said the “modern-day racialisation of language” — which mandates that African-Americans conform to the white norm — has its roots in slavery.

In other words, bad whitey. Because judging people by what falls from their mouths – its comprehensibility, precision and so forth – is racist and oppressive. And if someone sounds barely literate, and uninterested in being understood by anyone outside of their immediate circle, then you should pretend that this is somehow your fault. It’s the way of the woke...

In the comments, Mike in Seattle notes,

50 years ago, this bigotry would have been expressed as “well, it’s just not fair to expect them to do better”… The only difference is now we’re supposed to celebrate these “woke” bigots.

Indeed. It’s perverse, almost grimly comical. The students are encouraged to be hyper-critical, indeed delusional, regarding the motives of all white people, even to the point of dismissing the correction of spelling and grammar as some egregious, racially motivated act of oppression. And yet the motives of their educators, the ones who tell them these things, and whose status and careers depend on cultivating tribalism and paranoid resentment, and a kind of pernicious flattery, are spared any similar questioning - or, so far as I can see, any questioning at all.

So much for “critical thinking.”

I notice that the professors promoting this kind of idiocy do so in standard English.

The comments at the above link are logical, as you might expect.  Here's one of my favorites:

So, in summary;
1. A minority group chooses to speak in a certain way which is deemed imprecise and unintelligent by the majority.
2. This results in negativity be outcomes for the minority group.
3. Rather than the minority group choosing an alternative way of speaking, the solution is for the entire population of the majority group to change their perception.
Is there an historical precedent or example we could examine to determine how feasible this solution is?

*sigh*

Believable But Indefensible Behavior In Berkeley

Pee on the idiots instead:

The 25-year veteran said he and his colleagues had “never been treated with such disrespect and disregard” as they were during Free Speech Week.

They were using a ballroom to rest and eat in the student union building, and it was “completely understandable” when they were asked to use an external stairwell to get in and out of the ballroom, so as not to disrupt student activities.


What was “offensive and unacceptable” was when they were asked to “not to use any restrooms” in the building, “as it was upsetting some students,” he said. (The officer’s email is phrased in the passive tense, and does not give any clue as to who made these requests, even as general as building staff or student activists.)

Not only does this request potentially violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, it is simply “unconscionable” to put public restrooms in a public building off-limits to police, he wrote:

How can we foster a sense of community policing when the campus community, that we work hard to protect, has such disdain for us as fellow human beings that would deny us such a basic human function. [sic] If we treated a member of the campus community in this way we would most certainly be held accountable and rightly so.

The Stopped Clock Is Right

Don't let his common sense here throw you, he's still cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs:

Amid opposition from teachers and school boards, Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday rejected legislation that would have delayed the start time for most California high schools and middle schools until at least 8:30 a.m.

“These are the types of decisions best handled in the local community,” Brown wrote in a veto message for Senate Bill 328, dismissing the “one-size-fits-all approach.”

Who Was Right, and Who Was Wrong?

Sarah Palin said we should "drill, baby, drill!"  Barack Obama said we "can't just drill our way out of the problem."  Headline today:

America is now the world's largest oil producer

Just one more data point as evidence that not only was he an empty suit, he was an idiot.

So-called Social Justice Math

Does anyone truly believe this crap, or do people spout this stuff just to get a rise out of people like me, or perhaps to flaunt their liberal/progressive bona fides?

The National Science Foundation is spending over $1 million to train two-dozen "social justice" math teachers in Philadelphia.

The Drexel University project will promote Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) high school curriculums (sic) that are "steeped in the context of social justice."

Know what I'd like?  A curriculum steeped in the context of excelling at math.

"Inquiry-based instruction supports this approach as it opens communication among students by establishing a learning community of shared knowledge and experience," the grant states. "Seminars related to mindfulness and developing emotional intelligence will augment the Scholars' coursework. The latter will be scaffolded to develop the following behaviors: professionalism, growth mindset, commitment to serving all students well, and cultural competency."

Inquiry-based education takes quite a bit of time.  Good luck teaching everything that needs to be taught in a course.  As for everything else in that paragraph--learning community, developing emotional intelligence, scaffolding, cultural competency--complete and total crap.  It just is.  And I'm not going to pretend otherwise just because it's popular to do so, or because it would hurt someone's feelings if I don't.  Reality doesn't care about your feelings.

All Those Union Member Teachers Sure Must Be Racist!

What other conclusion can you draw from this headline?

California still suspending black and Native American students way more than whites

Is it at all possible that those groups of students misbehave "way more than whites"?  Clearly not.  California's teachers, the vast majority of whom are union members, are racists.

An Observation On Progress Report Grades

It's "progress report time" at school, which means that we're required to post interim grades so parents and kids can see how they're doing in class.

Among other classes, I've taught pre-calculus (trig and analysis) for most of the 15+ years I've been at my current school.  When completing progress report grades, I noted what I thought was a lot of D's and F's in my pre-calculus class, so I looked up past years' information.  Sure enough, just as an example, last year I had only 1 D or F at the first progress report; this year I have 11. The contrast with other years is just as stark.

What happened?  What's changed?  I can't be sure, but this is the first year that pre-calculus students at my school had gone through so-called Integrated Math at our school as opposed to the Algebra 1-Geometry-Algebra 2 sequence.  I don't know if that's the cause or not, but it's certainly a likely explanation.

I'm going to keep my eyes open on this one.

How You Can Tell That Yesterday's Training Was Worthless

This is a "paradigm shift", switching from "evaluation" to "growth".

Honestly, I have enough to do without added work on my part for an evaluation growth system that's meaningless.  Example:  I have to supply 2 pieces of "evidence" for each of 9 "essential elements".  Such evidence, though, could be something as silly as a picture, a seating chart, or an assignment.  During our many meetings with our "facilitator" (usually an administrator who has more important things to do than spend a half an hour with me several times a year going over my "growth"), we are supposed to "observe the process, not the content".  What????

What attributes make a good math teacher?  That was the title of one of my research papers for one of my master's degree classes.  It was a review of literature, and here's the conclusion:

There are no definitive skills, knowledge, or attributes that have been identified, the possession of which will, ipso facto, make a good math teacher. There is no known way to predict in pre-service who will become a good math teacher, and there is no known protocol (such as the MKT) for determining effective math teachers. Furthermore, popular pedagogical styles do not seem to improve student performance, so the teachers who employ them cannot rightly be deemed effective.

Yet, we are to spend hours and hours on form over substance.

This new evaluation growth regime focuses a lot on behaviors the exceptional teacher will have, and a few times a comparison of our standards to National Board standards was mentioned.  In my research, what did I find out about National Board?

At the turn of the 21st century, National Board certification was a trumpeted way to recognize high-quality teachers. To achieve National Board certification, teachers were assessed in a variety of domains that reflected a particular pedagogical slant. Peculiarly, student achievement was not one of the assessed areas. In research pertaining to National Board certified teachers, the results depended on whether or not student achievement was factored into the study...

Yeh also made reference to my opening comment on p. 3 of this paper:

“The theory of action underlying NBPTS certification is that it is possible to improve achievement by replacing weak teachers with strong teachers. The quality of teaching is an intermediate, rather than a final goal. Society cares about the quality of teaching to the extent that it improves student outcomes” (Yeh, 2010, pp. 223-224).

Perhaps because of the style of teaching promoted by National Board certification—namely, discovery learning—National Board certified teachers “were less effective in math than never certified teachers” (Yeh, 2010, p. 228), a damning indictment, indeed. Yeh found that “rapid assessment” (providing teachers with information specifically on how to improve student performance) is “three magnitudes as cost-effective as Board certification” (Yeh, 2010, p. 220), and concluded that it is in fact more cost effective than NB certification, value-added assessment of teacher performance, or imposing higher requirements on prospective teachers (Yeh, 2010, p. 233).

Clearly, I'm not going to be impressed by National Board standards.  If you're interested, here's the citation for the Yeh study:

Yeh, S. S. (2010). The Cost-Effectiveness of NBPTS Teacher Certification. Education Review, 220-241.

What's the biggest problem with National Board standards?  They focused on teacher behaviors and not student achievement.  What's my issue with all this silliness on which my "growth" is now going to be evaluated?  It stresses some things I couldn't care less about, and ignores my strength--the ability to transmit knowledge to teenagers in such a way as to allow them to learn and excel in math.  I agree with Yeh:  "Society cares about the quality of teaching to the extent that it improves student outcomes." (italics mine--Darren)

Well, it wouldn't be teacher training unless there was butcher paper hanging around the room, right?  RIGHT?  Well, this training didn't disappoint:

All around the room.  And you see that little rainbow of color on the right side of the picture?  Sentence strips.

The first 5 1/2 hours of this training was selling the new paradigm and writing on butcher paper.  It was only in the last half hour that we actually determined which of the 9 "essential elements" we wanted to focus on for growth this year, and began filling out the first page of our documentation forms (which we must have ready when we have our first meeting with our "facilitator").  And you know what?  Those forms look a lot like the forms we filled out when it was an "evaluation" rather than a record of "growth".

It was a beautiful day outside yesterday.

There were a few dozen teachers in the room, and I don't know how many other rooms had this training going on as well.  I estimate that, on average, each teacher earned $350 yesterday.  That's a lot of money to blow on an ineffective evaluation growth system.

Emptiness and Despair

In the Harry Potter books, bad people were locked up in a prison called Azkaban.  Wraith-like beings called dementors, which could literally suck the soul out of you, kept guard over the prisoners.

Today I had to attend 6 hours of district/union training in how to be a participant in my own evaluation.  It was held at Azkaban, and conducted by dementors.

On Island Time

Need a break?  Have some money?  Check out this site, one of my long-time favorites.  I take a mental vacation whenever I visit that one.

And In The Socialist Paradise of Kalifornia...

Newly released federal estimates show California’s poverty rate remained the highest in the nation, despite a modest fall, and the state’s falling uninsured rate slowed for the first time since before Medicaid expansion.

According to the Census Bureau, the share of Californians in poverty fell to 19 percent — a 1.4 percent decrease from last year. However, policy experts warned that in spite of the good news more than 7 million people still struggle to get by in the state. link

If Samuel Morse were testing the telegraph in California today, his first message would be "What hath liberalism wrought".

What do we want? More government! When do we want it? Now!

Female Privilege?

I don't think it's out of bounds to suggest there's a double standard at work here:

A Bronx high school teacher who admitted to performing oral sex on her 14-year-old student won’t face jail time — and she might even return to the classroom...

On Wednesday, Judge Michael Obus sentenced the woman to 10 years' probation and found her to be a Level 1 sex offender. Prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Myers to a minimum of two years in prison.

As part of her plea agreement at Manhattan Criminal Court, Myers also got to keep her teaching certificate.