Classy Move by Tennessee

The university helped a young child make lemonade out of life's lemons:

The young University of Tennessee fan that was bullied last week for a homemade shirt he wore to his school’s collegiate day was shown an outpouring of support that has since inspired the university to make his design into an official piece of apparel...

“Some girls at the lunch table next to his (who didn’t even participate in college colors day) had made fun of his sign that he had attached to his shirt. He was DEVASTATED," she wrote. "I know kids can be cruel, I am aware that it’s not the fanciest sign, BUT this kid used the resources he had available to him to participate in a spirit day.”

The teacher, obviously touched by the student’s attempt, said she was going to get him his own shirt but posted the story to social media to try and get in contact with someone from the university.

Her expectations were surpassed.

Not only did the University of Tennessee send a box full of “swag” - so that the student would never run out of options to show his Vols pride - but they also announced that they would be designing an official school shirt after his own creation.

There is plenty of decency in the world if you look for it.

Pulled In Opposing Directions

When so-called social justice conflicts with the academic mission of our universities:

She repeated the class her sophomore year, and then moved on junior and senior years to Geometry and Algebra II, determined to meet the requirements for admission to the Cal State University system. She was accepted to Cal State Los Angeles, and, last month, Velasquez, 19, became the first in her family to attend college.

“It was difficult,” Velasquez said. “If I had to do four years of math, it would have been more difficult.”

Velasquez is among the students, parents, educators and Los Angeles school board members who are opposed to a proposal by Cal State University to require a fourth year of math, science or other quantitative high school coursework for admission, laying bare a tension between two imperatives in California education.

On the one hand, Cal State is seeking to raise standards and academic preparation for all high school students, especially in math. Yet this objective has become mired in a debate about disparities in educational access and quality that disproportionately harm high school students of color and those from low-income families in the state. Some fear that these students’ access to Cal State will diminish if the proposal is adopted.

Aren't they really just advocating for lower university standards?  Be honest, that's the end result of this.  And then, when more unprepared students are admitted to universities, the same people will wonder why those students have such a difficult time achieving success in the universities.

Unprepared students should be in community colleges beefing up their academic resumés.  And if too many of those unprepared students are of specific racial or ethnic groups, then target those groups for improvement.  When doing so, be sure not to fall into the all-to-simple victimhood trap.

Why are CSUs considering increasing the admissions requirements in math?  Could it possibly have something to do with the number of students who are unprepared to do the math required to earn their degrees?  It's just more evidence that a high school diploma is not much more than a certificate of seat time.

I don't blame the CSUs for wanting better prepared students.  Speaking as a former manufacturing manager I can state categorically that it's difficult to put out a quality product when your raw materials are of inferior quality.

The Reason Is Simple--Feelings

Too many teachers feel instead of think.  That explains why so many fall for bogus theories:

Almost all teachers believe persistent myths about learning, a new survey finds.

More than three-fourths of teachers think that people are either right-brained (creative) or left-brained (analytical), and that those designations affect how they learn. And nearly all teachers endorsed the idea of "learning styles"—meaning that students learn more when their teachers tailor instruction to their individual styles, such as auditory, visual, or kinesthetic.

But research doesn't back up these ideas, said Ulrich Boser, a researcher who leads the firm The Learning Agency and conducted the survey.

So-called learning styles theory has done more damage to more kids than just about anything short of so-called Whole Language (and its cousin, Balanced Literacy) or Fuzzy Math.

The closing was clear:

"Many schools of education don't embrace the cognitive sciences," Boser said.

Yet they have a responsibility to prepare teachers to stay abreast of the current research in the cognitive sciences: "It would be weird if large swathes of American doctors believed in bloodletting," he said.

Joanne Is On A Roll

In two consecutive (but unrelated) posts, Joanne Jacobs addresses some of the difficult issues surrounding problems in education, and addresses them head on.

From yesterday, discussing the importance of parents:

Everyone agrees with that, even the most ardent believers in the transformative power of public schools, writes Stewart. Yet we limit the options of all parents because we’re suspicious that some will make the wrong choices.

But, if our goal is to find solutions to the educational failure that compounds year by year, all logical roads lead back to parents or guardians and their ability to access educational opportunities.

That means school choice (and even the right to choose no school at all), and that scares people to death.

What if they make bad choices and their children suffer for it?

Stewart believes in “parental sovereignty” rooted in “roles, responsibilities and rights.” Talking about parent “engagement, involvement, participation and partnership” implies that “some divine entity (is) graciously loaning decision-making power to parents to raise and educate their children,” he writes. But, “parents don’t need to be empowered. They need to be in power.”

And today, discussing victimhood:

Rejecting personal responsibility, because it’s “blaming the victim,” is not the road to educational equity, writes Rick Hess on Project Forever Free. It’s a dead end that sets students up for failure.

I’m admittedly a simple guy, but the suggestion that it’s unfair to expect certain students and families to manage their part of the social compact seems to me the rankest kind of prejudice. Presuming that some students or parents are such passive victims of circumstance that it’s unfair to expect them to be responsible for their actions is to deny these individuals their agency, and to strip them of their dignity.

...If you’re an eternal victim, with no power to shape your future, why do the homework or show up to class? Why try to make good choices?

It’s not that those who don’t take responsibility aren’t real Americans. They’re not adults.

I'm constantly reminded of President Bush's comment about the "soft bigotry of low expectations."

Army at Michigan

Army has the 2nd longest current winning streak (10 games) in the NCAA.

Michigan is ranked #7.

The line is Michigan by 22 (earlier this week it was 23).

I'd love to see Army play a great game--so great, in fact, that I get to shout the English language's two prettiest words when together, and shout them many times:  Touchdown, Army!

I'm hoping for the biggest upset of the year, but I'm not going to pretend this isn't going to be an uphill battle. 

Update:  Army never trailed until the last seconds, losing 24-21 in 2OT.  The Michigan fans hated the entire game, while we Army fans were excited as heck.  Sure, I'd rather we had won, but I can't feel too upset by this outcome. Go Army!

A True Hero

I hadn't heard this story before, but was so moved by it that I'm just going to repost the entire Instapundit story here:

ON THIS DAY IN 1986, FLIGHT ATTENDANT NEERJA BHANOT DIED SAVING THE LIVES OF PASSENGERS ON PAN AM FLIGHT # 73: She was just two days short of her 22^nd birthday.

Flight #73 originated in Mumbai and was ultimately bound for New York. It was initially carrying 394 passengers, 9 infants, 19 Indian flight attendants and an American pilot and co-pilot.

During a stopover in Karachi, four heavily-armed hijackers—part of the Abu Nidal Organization–stormed the plane. Alerted to the hijacking, the pilot and co-pilot escaped from the cockpit via the Inertial Reel Escape Device, thus leaving the aircraft immobilized on the ground.

Realizing that the plane was pilotless, the hijackers sought out an American passenger, eventually singling out a 29-year-old Californian named Rajesh Kumar. Kumar was ordered to kneel facing the front of the aircraft with his hands behind his head. They threatened to kill him if Pan Am’s negotiators did not send them a flight crew immediately.

Bloodthirsty and dissatisfied with the speed of the negotiators’ response, the chief hijacker shot Kumar in the head and dumped him onto the tarmac. He died before he reached the hospital. Thereafter, they told the negotiators, a passenger would be executed every 15 minutes until a pilot was produced.

The hijackers then turned to purser Neerja Bhanot, who remained calm and collected even when a gun was put to her head. They demanded that she and the flight attendants under her control collect the passports from all passengers. Believing that the hijackers intended to kill the more than 40 Americans on board, she had the flight attendants hide some of the American passports in the seats and dumped the rest of them down the rubbish chute.

For a time, the hijackers considered executing a British national instead, but ultimately did not.

Meanwhile, Bhanot surreptitiously handed a passenger the instructions, hidden in a magazine, for how to open the door and deploy the slide in case the opportunity arose.

The hijackers were stymied. By late evening, the auxiliary power unit shut down, causing all but the emergency lights to come down. At that point, the hijackers tried to set off the explosive belt one of them was wearing. If they’d been successful, they could have blown up everyone on board. Instead, the explosion was rather puny. Immediately, they began shooting their guns and throwing grenades. With bullets ricocheting off the walls, passengers were dying everywhere.

In the bloody melee, Bhanot was able to open one of the aircraft doors. She could have escaped herself, but instead one-by-one she assisted passengers out the door. She died as a result of wounds suffered shielding three children from the hail of bullets.

(The passenger who had been slipped the instructions by Bhanot got his door open too and was able to deploy the slide. So Bhanot gets credit for causing two doors to open.)

Sources differ slightly on the number of dead and injured. I am going with 22 dead, including Bhanot, and 140 injured. Without her, the carnage likely would have been a lot worse.

All four hijackers were arrested, convicted and imprisoned in Pakistan. In late September 2001, Pakistani authorities released the chief hijacker, but he was picked up by American law enforcement authorities shortly thereafter, apparently with the blessing of the Pakistani government. He is currently serving 160 years in a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. His fellow terrorists were released in 2008 over the objections of the United States. One was reported dead in a 2010 drone strike, but his death is unconfirmed.

A movie called Neerja was made about Bhanot’s heroism in 2016.  (Unlike most real-life figures portrayed by gorgeous actors or actresses, Neerja Bhanot was drop-dead gorgeous herself. But beautiful or not, she had the right stuff.)

Rest in peace, Neerja.  Americans in particular have reason to thank you.

Heroes come in all flavors.

If Green Projects Won't Work In California...

If Cali-unicornia isn't Green Project Utopia, no place can be:

California’s mixed record of using public investments and environmental mandates to create “green jobs” raises serious questions about the promises of some Democratic presidential candidates to use economy-transforming investments in environmentally friendly technologies to put millions of people to work.

Many of the initiatives touted by the candidates in their environmental plans are already in place in California, and some of them having been promoted as important engines of job creation. But California stopped counting green jobs in 2013, struggling to separate truly new jobs from existing employment growth...

As California's experience shows, reality doesn't always live up to projections. And while some of the most conservative estimates, like Warren's and Steyer's, appear reasonable based on California’s record, the state’s experience also reveals just how modest — and unimpressive — those goals would be for a 10-year period...

The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics stopped tabulating green jobs in 2013, as did California’s Employment Development Department after it found "no discernible evidence that green firms were more likely to create jobs than non-green firms." A 2008 California law required the creation of a "green-collar jobs council" and annual reports to the legislature, but they dropped off in 2010.

"'Green jobs' is a strange and somewhat elusive category," said University of California, Davis economist Dave Rapson...

Overall, though, economists don't subscribe to theories of massive job creation. "The sort of standard economist take on all of this is pretty skeptical," said James Bushnell, another UC Davis economist. "Unless you're in a recession, creating jobs in one sector usually comes at the expense of reduced jobs in another sector." Indeed, California's oil and gas sector shrank by about 6,000 jobs from 2013-18, going from 21,000 to 15,000 jobs, according to state data.

At the least, California's forays into clean energy haven't dampened its juggernaut economy, which rebounded from the recession significantly faster than the national average. "What we know is California's economy has done very well, and we've invested a lot in clean energy," Bushnell said. "I don't know if we're at the point where we can point to causality there. I conclude from that that our investment in clean energy has not hurt the economy. I don't necessarily take it in the direction that it's stimulated growth."

It's an interesting article, I recommend reading the whole thing--while keeping in mind that the source is not considered a conservative mouthpiece.

School Picture for This Year

What a handsome devil!

Salary

This year I gave up being department chair--and the stipend that went with it.

Last week we got our "statement of earnings" to check for accuracy.  These tell us what credentials we have, where we are on the pay scale, whether or not we get "longevity pay", etc.  We got a small pay raise this year, and I noted that, when all is said and done, I'll be making $150 less this year than I did last year.  Not $150 per month, $150 total.  For the whole year.

I've given up a school and a district meeting each month, plus all the internal hassles that go with being department chair, for about $15 less per month in pay.  So worth it!

I attended a special meeting last week and will be paid about $60 for doing so.  Only $90 left to make up!

Who's Missing?

Curmudgucation pretty much summarizes all professional development in schools.  Here are the presenters:

The Defense Specialist
The Social Issues Specialist
The Data Dumper
The Education Entrepreneur
The Ballsy Tourist
The Sacrificial Lamb
The Lawyer
The Edu-Celebrity
The Flavor of the Month
The Angel of Slow Death
The Bringer of Bad News
The Unfortunate Administrator
The Camp Counselor

Descriptions are at the link.  And yes, I've heard from all these people.

Hat tip to Joanne.

What Happens When The School Is The Bully?

I'll bet this school and district have anti-bullying measures in place:

A Colorado teen has been told he cannot return to school until authorities hold a “threat assessment hearing” after he went target shooting with his mother.  Nate Evans, a junior at Loveland High School in Loveland, Colorado actually got a visit from police after he posted video of his plinking with his mom Justine according to the Colorado 2nd Amendment group Rally For Our Rights...

Unfortunately, even after police determined that there was nothing nefarious about a mom taking her son out for some firearms training, the school district wasn’t convinced.

Because of a pearl-clutching law, the school can legally do what it's doing--even though the child is no threat to the school and never has been.  Legally, the school could just as easily have taken the complaint, determined the boy presented no threat, and that would have been the end of it.  But no, they had to act like moonbats.  Colorado is rapidly approaching California in lunacy.

A few years ago I had a foreign exchange student from Germany.  Shortly before he returned home, he and I went to a range.  He fired a .22 rifle and a .357 Magnum, and I took video so he could show his friends in Germany.  Then we went to Marie Callender's and had some apple pie.  Had the restaurant not been so full we'd have sung God Bless America (yes, I'm serious).  One wonders how I didn't get fired.

Not Quite The "Screw You" That The Headline Implies

You don't like abortion, don't have one.  I don't like Chick-fil-A, you can't eat there.  Isn't that how it works, lefties?

Following years of demands that the taxpayer-funded institution discriminate against a vendor because of its founders’ religious beliefs, the KU administration actually gave its Chick-fil-A restaurant a better place on campus, The Kansas City Star reports.

Sounds good so far, and then we learn that it wasn't a poke in the eye:

KU’s 10-year contract with Chick-fil-A requires upgrades to its location in the basement of Wescoe Hall, where it’s been for 15 years, that would cost about $2.6 million more than simply moving it to the student union building, a higher-traffic area, a spokesperson told the newspaper.

But there is a fun little twist to the story:

The Sexuality and Gender Diversity Faculty and Staff Council, whose office is near the new location for Chick-fil-A, objected to Chick-fil-A developments in a letter this week to Chancellor Doug Girod, the provost’s office and the athletic department.

Walk by that restaurant every day, see the long lines of students, smell that chicken cooking, and then remember that your politics and pride won't let you have any, you whiny little fascists.

Impact of Ethnic Television on Political Participation

This not what I would expect:

Abstract

Despite the importance of ethnic television within immigrant communities, its effects on political participation are unclear. On the one hand, ethnic media can mobilize and inform voters. On the other hand, it can serve as a source of diversion and reduce the desire to participate. To evaluate these competing possibilities, we implement a geographic regression discontinuity (GRD) approach involving Federal Communication Commission reception boundaries for Spanish‐language television stations in two states. Additionally, we replicate and unpack our GRD analyses using three nationally representative samples of Latinos. Across multiple studies, we find that access to Spanish‐language television is associated with decreases in turnout, ethnic civic participation, and political knowledge. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings on the ethnic politics, political communication, and social capital literatures.

The Democrats Are Not In A Good Place

It's hard to argue with fact:

To counter every signature Trump issue, there is almost no rational alternative advanced. That void helps explain the bizarre, three-year litany of dreaming of impeachment, the emoluments clause, the Logan Act, the 25th Amendment, the Mueller special-counsel investigation, Stormy Daniels and Michael Avenatti, Trump’s tax returns, White Supremacy!, Recession! — and Lord knows what next.

The subtext of all these Wile E. Coyote all-too-clever efforts at trapping road-runner Trump is not just the wish to abort an elected presidency; they’re offering the heat of hatred rather than the light of a viable political alternative.

Thoughts On Race

Classifications and distinctions based on race or color have no moral or legal validity in our society. They are contrary to our constitution and laws.
--Thurgood Marshall on behalf of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, 1954

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
--Dr. M. L. King, Jr., at the Lincoln Memorial, 1963

Free your mind, and the rest will follow.
Be colorblind, don't be so shallow.
--En Vogue, Free Your Mind, 1992

Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you a white man. And I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You’re not going to say, “I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.” Hear what I’m saying?
--Morgan Freeman, interview with Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes, 2005

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.
--Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the Court in Parents Involved, 2007

I don't pretend I don't see a person's skin color any more than their height, their build, or their attractiveness.  What I do believe is that justice should be colorblind, that the law should be colorblind, and that we should treat people in accordance with the Golden Rule--as individuals.  Such a belief is anathema to today's left.

New Scale

Now that I'm interested in losing weight, I've been stepping on my scale again.  It's an old digital scale, and it gives me a different number each time I step on it.  If I step on it 3 times in succession, the difference between the largest and smallest readings could be as much as 10 pounds!  How did I know which number is correct?  I just picked the number in the middle, and moved on.  And when I put that number into my weight loss app, I was told I was in the "moderate" category but very close to the next higher category.

Not trusting the digital scale anymore, I bought an old school spring-and-dial scale.  This new scale consistently weighs me in at about 10 pounds higher than the highest value from the old scale.  I put these numbers into the weight loss app--mildly obese.  My heart sinks.

Update, 8/28/19: I wish I could believe this, but I don't:

For the first time this fall, Princeton University will offer a course examining “the fat body” and how it is viewed by society.

Course texts include literature asserting that it is not actually unhealthy to be overweight, and that medical professionals “mislabel” people as overweight.

England Is Different

I used to say that my heart is American but my soul is British.  Both sides of my family come from all over that blessed isle, and even though it's Europe, I feel at home in England (the only part of Britain I've ever visited).  (Let's not forget that the US Constitution represents the pinnacle of English Enlightenment thought!)

While viewing a video on YouTube yesterday, I noticed a video in the righthand column that looked interesting.  And then another, and another.  Well, there went an hour or more!  Here are some of the ones that entertained me most:

Gramsci Would Be So Proud

Millennials don’t value patriotism, family and religion as passionately as previous generations, according to a new survey.

“The values that Americans say define the national character are changing, as younger generations rate patriotism, religion and having children as less important to them than did young people two decades ago,” Wall Street Journal reporter Chad Day wrote about the results.       link

Of course that's the case.  It's what they're taught in public schools.  And don't think that's not by design, either.

How Much Has Earth's Temperature Warmed Since 2005?

According to NOAA, not much:

When American climate alarmists claim to have witnessed the effects of global warming, they must be referring to a time beyond 14 years ago. That is because there has been no warming in the United States since at least 2005, according to updated data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)...

The USCRN (U.S. Climate Reference Network) has eliminated the need to rely on, and adjust the data from, outdated temperature stations. Strikingly, as shown in the graph below, USCRN temperature stations show no warming since 2005 when the network went online. If anything, U.S. temperatures are now slightly cooler than they were 14 years ago...

There is also good reason to believe U.S. temperatures have not warmed at all since the 1930s. Raw temperature readings at the preexisting stations indicate temperatures are the same now as 80 years ago. All of the asserted U.S. warming since 1930 is the product of the controversial adjustments made to the raw data. Skeptics point out that as the American population has grown, so has the artificial warming signal generated by growing cities, more asphalt, more automobiles, and more machinery. 

If Barack Obama really thought the oceans were going to rise dramatically, would he have bought a house on Martha's Vineyard?  (Hint:  Martha's Vineyard is a low-lying island.)
 

Law For Me But Not For Thee?

I wonder if I could legally break the windows of the police car to rescue this dog:

Police in Long Beach, California, are mourning a K9 officer that died apparently of heat-related causes in a department vehicle.

The dog, Ozzy, was found by its handler when both were off-duty about 3:40 p.m. on August 14, the Long Beach Police Department said in a statement.

"This unfortunate incident was not intentional," the statement reads. "Preliminarily, we believe this was an accident and we are taking all the necessary steps to avoid this happening in the future."

It's never intentional, and I wonder if any ordinary citizen would be given such a pass.

Did you know it's legal in California to break a car window to rescue a dog or child?

“California’s new law (AB 797) sets out a measured and reasonable way for citizens to respond to animals trapped in hot cars. In requiring citizens to use ‘no more force to enter the vehicle and remove the animal than … necessary,’ the law encourages a calm and effective response to these emergencies, protecting the animals involved,” he said. “Using as much force as necessary to get the animal out of the hot car — and no more — means that the animal is removed from a deadly environment, while being exposed to as little associated trauma as possible.”