Is High School Math Good Enough Preparation For College Math?

According to this piece, it's not.

We are in the midst of paradox in math education. As more states strive to improve math curricula and raise standardized test scores, more students show up to college unprepared for college-level math. The failure of pre-college math education has profound implications for the future of physics programs in the United States. A recent article in my local paper, the Baltimore Sun: “A Failing Grade for Maryland Math,” highlighted this problem that I believe is not unique to Maryland. It prompted me to reflect on the causes.

Not a bad essay, but I disagree with his tying the problem to "standards". There's nothing inherent in "standards" that makes them bad; in fact, I'll bet there were plenty of standards in math when you and I (and he) were in school! He's correct when he talks about confusing difficulty with rigor, and about inappropriate content (middle school kids' working with matrices? Please!). His discussion of mistaking process for understanding is also very elucidating, and also explains why I'm against using graphing calculators in K-12 education.

Again, he's mostly right, but we'll disagree on standards. The standards may not be good enough, or may be too stringent, or some people may try to teach them in superficial way just to get students to pass a standardized test, but those are not faults of having standards.

Algebra Project at a Local School

According to California's math standards, Algebra 1 is generally taken in 8th grade. So what is Robert Moses' Algebra Project doing being taught at nearby average-performing elementary school?

Beats me. But let's sample some choice quotes from California Educator:

Recognizing that their students needed more support in math, the Allison teachers sought out and developed the Algebra Project at their school site - initially as an after-school program, and then as part of their curriculum. The teachers not only implemented the program, they've worked to make sure it is aligned with state standards.

So they're teaching "algebra" to elementary students who need extra support in math? That pegs out my cynicism meter.

The Algebra Project was founded in 1982 by Harlem-born and Harvard-educated civil rights leader Dr. Robert P. Moses, who once said, "Becoming literate in mathematics is a life-and-death issue for the black community. If we don't get it, we're headed for a new form of serfdom."

No argument there.

Since the program (at the local school) was just implemented in the fall, it has yet to be determined if it will boost test scores, but teachers are hopeful, and researchers at UC Davis are closely monitoring the project and collecting data to determine if introducing algebra at an earlier age is efficacious.

If it is, in fact, "efficacious", that would put lie to the statement that algebra isn't "developmentally appropriate" for 8th graders when ordinary elementary students are doing it. Then again, we don't really know if it's "algebra" that's being taught or just something the school calls algebra.

Not to be lost in the pedagogy is the community organizing aspect of the project.

They had to go there, didn't they?

Tuesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
The Donner Party.

Today's question is:
After whom is the group Fleetwood Mac named?

Speech Codes and Other PC Nonsense At Universities

For many, the topic of political correctness feels oddly dated, like a debate over the best Nirvana album. There is a popular perception that P.C. was a battle fought and won in the 1990s. Campus P.C. was a hot new thing in the late 1980s and early ’90s, but by now the media have come to accept it as a more or less harmless, if unfortunate, byproduct of higher education.

But it is not harmless. With so many examples of censorship and administrative bullying, a generation of students is getting four years of dangerously wrongheaded lessons about both their own rights and the importance of respecting the rights of others...

Yet FIRE has determined that 71 percent of the 375 top colleges still have policies that severely restrict speech. And the problem isn’t limited to campuses that are constitutionally bound to respect free expression. The overwhelming majority of universities, public and private, promise incoming students and professors academic freedom and free speech. When such schools turn around and attempt to limit those students’ and instructors’ speech, they reveal themselves as hypocrites, susceptible not only to rightful public ridicule but also to lawsuits based on their violations of contractual promises.

Can you believe the above? Well, it was written by Greg Lukianoff. And who is he?

Greg Lukianoff (greg@thefire.org) is the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

Where's the ACLU?

A teenager expelled from his Glenn County high school for having shotguns in his vehicle, which was parked off campus, will challenge his expulsion this week...

Tudesko told school officials he'd gone on an early morning duck-hunting trip before school that morning and believed the guns would not be a problem if he parked off campus...

School officials claimed they had the legal authority to expel Tudesko. The teen and his family, with legal support from the NRA, are challenging the decision. link

Maybe the ACLU doesn't think the 2nd Amendment has anything to do with civil liberties. At least the NRA is there to help.

And while state education code does grant schools authority over students on the way to/from school (so schools can punish students for fights on the way home, for example), I can't imagine for the life of me why schools would be searching cars parked off-campus, even during school hours.

What'cha Gonna Do Now, Mr. President?

The labour force contracted by 661,000. This did not show up in the headline jobless rate because so many Americans dropped out of the system. The broad U6 category of unemployment rose to 17.3pc. That is the one that matters...

David Rosenberg from Gluskin Sheff said it is remarkable how little traction has been achieved by zero rates and the greatest fiscal blitz of all time. The US economy grew at a 2.2pc rate in the third quarter (entirely due to Obama stimulus). This compares to an average of 7.3pc in the first quarter of every recovery since the Second World War. link

A federal spending surge of more than $20 billion for roads and bridges in President Barack Obama's first stimulus has had no effect on local unemployment rates, raising questions about his argument for billions more to address an "urgent need to accelerate job growth."

An Associated Press analysis of stimulus spending found that it didn't matter if a lot of money was spent on highways or none at all: Local unemployment rates rose and fell regardless. And the stimulus spending only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry, the analysis showed...

But AP's analysis, which was reviewed by independent economists at five universities, showed the strategy of pumping transportation money into counties hasn't affected local unemployment rates so far. link

When even al-AP can't find something to trumpet in the so-called stimulus spending, the Democrats must know they're in trouble.

Eventually the economy will work itself out, but it won't be because of anything the president or Congress have done so far.

Monday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
2002.

Today's question is:
What was the name given to the famous group of California settlers who resorted to cannibalism after getting snowed in up in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the winter of 1846-47?

So-called Stimulus Spending

Why Government Spending Does Not Stimulate Economic Growth: Answering the Critics

Which Is Worse, Global Warming or Global Cooling?

In there past when there had been warming, humanity thrived. When there had been cooling, life was harder.

Prepare for harder.

The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.

Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in
summer by 2013.

According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this...

But the effects are not confined to the Northern Hemisphere. Prof Anastasios Tsonis, head of the University of Wisconsin Atmospheric Sciences Group, has recently shown that these MDOs move together in a synchronised way across the globe, abruptly flipping the world’s climate from a ‘warm mode’ to a ‘cold mode’ and back again in 20 to 30-year cycles.

Sunday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question, the last in Space Flight Week, is:
French Guiana.

Today's question is:
In what year did Switzerland join the United Nations?

New Record In Pi Eating Contest

Stories like this interest me not because of how many digits we can get to, but because of the creativity and work required to get those digits:

PARIS (AFP) – A French software engineer said on Friday he was claiming a world record for calculating Pi, the constant that has fascinated mathematicians for millennia.

Fabrice Bellard told AFP he used an inexpensive desktop computer -- and not a supercomputer used in past records -- to calculate Pi to nearly 2.7 trillion decimal places.

That is around 123 billion digits more than the previous record set last August by Japanese professor Daisuke Takahashi, he said.

Takahashi, using a T2K Open Supercomputer, took 29 hours to crunch Pi to 2.577 billion digits.

Bellard took 131 days, comprising 103 for the computation in binary digits, 13 days for verification, 12 days to convert the binary digits to a base of 10 and three final days to check the conversion...

"It is a completely standard PC. The only unusual thing is that it has five 1.5-teraoctet hard disks. Mainstream PCs generally have only one 1-teraoctet disk."

Mark Steyn on the President and the War On Islamofascism

Barack Obama has spent the past year doing big-time Islamoschmoozing, from his announcement of Gitmo's closure and his investigation of Bush officials, to his bow before the Saudi king and a speech in Cairo to "the Muslim world" with far too many rhetorical concessions and equivocations. And at the end of it the jihad sent America a thank-you note by way of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's underwear: Hey, thanks for all the outreach! But we're still gonna kill you.

According to one poll, 58 percent of Americans are in favor of waterboarding young Umar Farouk. Well, you should have thought about that before you made a community organizer president of the world's superpower. The election of Barack Obama was a fundamentally unserious act by the U.S. electorate, and you can't blame the world's mischief-makers, from Putin to Ahmadinejad to the many Gitmo recidivists now running around Yemen, from drawing the correct conclusion. link

Aside from bolding several words above, I have nothing to add that would improve the commentary.

Saturday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Project Constellation, which includes the Orion space capsule (“Apollo on steroids”) and the Ares launch rocket.

Today's question, the last in Space Flight Week, is:
From which country does the European Space Agency launch its rockets?

Prisons vs. Universities, Budgeting Fiascos

Governor Schwarzenegger continues to disappoint. During the State of the State message earlier this week he said the following:

Thirty years ago 10 percent of the general fund went to higher education and 3 percent went to prisons.

Today almost 11 percent goes to prisons and only 7 1/2 percent goes to higher education.

Spending 45 percent more on prisons than universities is no way to proceed into the future.

What does it say about a state that focuses more on prison uniforms than caps and gowns?

It simply is not healthy.

I will submit to you a constitutional amendment so that never again do we spend a greater percentage of our money on prisons than on higher education.

Wow. So much idiocy in so few sentences. First, this, from an article in which some actually support this idea:

"The governor, some years ago, railed against autopilot budgeting," said Steve Boilard, director of higher education for the nonpartisan California Legislative Analyst's Office. "This is just another set of restrictions that may not make sense in future years."

I heard on a talk radio show I listen to on the way to work that California already has the 3rd longest constitution in the world. It's over 17 times as long as the US Constitution, in part because we have so many requirements to spend such-and-such a percentage of the state budget in a certain area, whether or not we need to--autopilot budgeting. The governor's proposal would add another such requirement.

Additionally, on that same radio show, the hosts brought up an interesting point. Why conflate or compare education and prisons? What do they have to do with each other? Bringing it to a personal example here (and I'm still paraphrasing the host), if I spend more money on golf than I do on shoes, should I require that I spend more on shoes to make for a "better" situation? What do golf and shoes have to do with each other?

And this proposal was from a Republican governor. Had he been a Democrat here in California he'd have proposed the same idiotic amendment, plus
1. he'd lower the threshold for raising taxes from 2/3 to 55% in the legislature (a dream of Democrats here in CA), and
2. he'd raise taxes to pay for higher education.

California doesn't have an income problem, it has a spending problem.

I'm sure many of you non-Californians have heard of Proposition 13 but might not know what it is. In the 1970s, local property taxes in some areas were rising so fast that people, especially the elderly on a fixed income who already owned their homes outright, were being forced out of their homes because they couldn't afford the higher property taxes. In 1978 Californians passed Prop 13, which capped property taxes at 1% of the property's assessed value and capped property tax increases at 2% per year. If property values climb sharply, property taxes still increase at only 2% per year; only if the property is sold will the taxes reset at 1% of the assessed value. The purpose was to halt what in 1978 was described as "obscene" budget surpluses in some locales.

Many people wrongly blame Prop 13 for California's budget problems. While it certainly has limited property tax receipts, California isn't hurting for money: here's a chart of state income tax rates, here's a chart of state sales tax rates (it's out of date, as California's has been raised to 8.25% plus local sales taxes), and here's a chart of state corporate tax rates. As you can see, California is at or near the top in all three categories. California doesn't have an income problem, it has a spending problem.

So, back to the governor's proposal. Are we to spend less on prisons (keeping in mind that the corrections officers' union is one of the most powerful special interests in California), or are we to spend more on higher education, even though we're deep in the budget doo-doo:

One thing is clear in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's final January budget proposal: California's finances are about as desperate as desperate gets.

Facing a $19.9 billion deficit, the Republican governor placed a big bet on a federal infusion of $6.9 billion. Should that fail to materialize, he proposes eliminating welfare-to-work, suspending business tax benefits and cutting state worker pay more deeply than the 10 percent reduction already in play.

California's experiment in socialism is crashing down all around us and some choose to ignore it, claiming that if we just made it easier for the legislature to raise taxes then everything would be OK.

I don't see how anyone can trust this legislature with more money, even if that money were to be spent on the angels who inhabit our higher education system.

John Dewey and Freedom

Schools of education love to quote John Dewey, amongst others. The current issue of National Review has lengthy articles on 4 early progressives, including Dewey, and I thought these passages about freedom speak loudly to us today:

The progressives’ view on this matter is particularly obvious in the scorn they heap upon the free market, an economic system animated by the selfish, and hence base, profit motive, but they viewed virtually every aspect of life in America — e.g. the prevailing interpretation of Christian Scripture and worship of God, the aim and methods of education, the physical layout and architecture of our cities and towns, the pattern of rural settlement and the character of life within it, the use of our natural resources, etc. — in the same light. The way of living inherited from the American founding was, in short, a cesspool of selfishness.

When freedom is redefined in terms of spiritual fulfillment, the “problem of achieving freedom” radically changes. Freedom is no longer secured by constraining government interference with “the liberty of individuals in matters of conscience and economic action,” as Dewey notes, but rather by “establishing an entire social order, possessed of a spiritual authority that would nurture and direct the inner as well as the outer life of individuals.” The problem with limited government — with a government dedicated to securing the natural rights of man — is that it does not perform the more positive role of “nurtur[ing] and direct[ing]” the spiritual lives of the governed. Rather, it secures mere “negative freedom.” “Negative freedom,” Dewey clarifies, is “freedom from subjection to the will and control of others . . . capacity to act without being exposed to direct obstructions or interferences from others.” In practice, freedom understood as natural rights is “negative” because government puts individuals in the enjoyment of their rights (e.g. the right to acquire and use one’s property, to speak, to worship God according to the dictates of one’s conscience, etc.), primarily by restraining others — and, importantly, itself — from interfering with the individual’s right to make such decisions. While interference with individual decision-making is certainly not altogether illegitimate in a limited government, freedom is the normal case and restraint the exception.

At best, Dewey argues, such a government secures to every individual the mere legal right to realize his spiritual potential, a right that for many is essentially worthless...

If mere negative freedom is to be transformed into what Dewey calls “effective” freedom, accordingly, negative government must give way to positive government. That is, the legislative power of government must expand in whatever ways are needed — and hence however far proves necessary — to effect a wider and deeper distribution of the resources essential to the actualization of every American’s spiritual potential. As Dewey presents it, and as subsequent political practice confirmed, this process is basically synonymous with the implementation of the positive conception of individual rights. In this new order, individuals are entitled to whatever resources they need to attain spiritual fulfillment.

The government big enough to give you whatever you think you want or need is big enough to take from you whatever it wants or needs. That may sound like a platitude, but its truth is undeniable.

Math In Politics

"I'm never going to need math. I'm going into politics."

Boo-yah! If you don't know enough math you can't understand the references in this article:

Here's the secret to this: Politics runs in cycles. Like a sine wave - about half the time the wave is above the mid-point line; about half the time it is below the line...

We are inside of 300 days until the November elections. The Democratic sine wave is on the way down and without doing much of anything, because it is a zero sum game, Republicans are on the way up.

Not a glowing recommendation for the GOP, and deservedly so, but right now the Republicans are least worst. Here's to a good November!

Should've Been A Model =)

Our yearbook at school has asked faculty members for their high school pictures. I knew that I had my freshman through junior pictures but do not have my senior portrait at all. I submitted scans of those first three years, which I'll post here for grins and giggles:

Freshman, 79-80

Sophomore, 80-81

Junior, 81-82

Can you guess the brand name of that last shirt? (Hint, think white pants with a tie-string in front.)

Update, 9/24/22:  Here we are, more than a dozen and a half years later, and while looking for something else I came across a wallet size picture of my senior portrait:

 Senior, 82-83

Finally this post is complete!

Friday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
1957.

Today's question is:
What is the name of the NASA program to land Americans on the moon in 2020?

Tugging At The Heartstrings

Who doesn't like stories like this one?

Kirkwood (Mo.) High senior basketball player David "Chubbs" Stillman had a game he will remember forever on Monday night.

And it was all by design.

Stillman, who is a special needs student at Kirkwood and has been the team's manager since his freshman year, suited up for his high school - and scored six points.

"This night was planned to give back to Chubbs for all he has given us the past four years," Kirkwood coach Bill Gunn said. "He made the night special."

Read that story and you'll encounter a lot of classy people in Kirkwood, Mo.

Student Wins Settlement Against School District

Joanne has the details:

Arrested and suspended for one day for wearing a “Nobama” shirt outside a pre-election speech by Michelle Obama in his high school gym, a Colorado high school student has won a s$4,000 settlement with his school district and the sheriff’s office. The speech was scheduled for after school hours. Blake Benson stayed on campus and held up a McCain sign as classmates entered the gym.

One of Joanne's commenters strikes me as exceedingly insightful, stating:

I’m always hopeful that enough of these smackdowns against overzealous school administrators will finally cause the lot of them to understand their limits. It’s good to dream.

It's interesting to note that even though the ACLU (rightly) represented the student in this case, there's no love lost for the organization in a few of the comments.

What Do You Call Parents Who Want Better Schools For Their Kids?

The president of the California Federation of Teachers, a statewide teachers union, calls them a lynch mob.

Yes, really.

Thursday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Valentina Tereshkova of the Soviet Union orbited for 3 days in 1963. Sally Ride first flew on the shuttle Challenger in 1983; she was the third woman in space, after Tereshkova and Svetlana Savitskaya.

Today's question is:
In what year was Sputnik launched?

Yet Another Broken Campaign Pledge

It's one thing to try and fail to do something--say, reform the social security program. It's another to promise something and then renege on that promise.

Watch here to see Barack Obama, on many different occasions, promise that health care reform negotiations would take place on C-SPAN.


Watch here to see another occasion.


Now click here and read the letter from the CEO of C-SPAN, "asking that they (leaders in Congress) please, please open to his cameras the meetings to craft the final consensus version of the gazillion-dollar healthcare bill that President Obama wants so very badly."

And why will this process most certainly not be televised? From the last link above: "Senate Democrat Harry Reid and House Democrat Nancy Pelosi are inclined to finish up the 2,500-plus-page legislation themselves behind closed doors, skipping the usual Senate-House conference committee that would include those pesky Republicans." No one is suggesting that the President is encouraging them to comply with the camera request; on the contrary, there's no evidence at all that he now wants the process to be made public.

Draining the swamp. Hope and change.

More of the same. Business as usual.

Update, 1/7/10: Jack Cafferty on CNN blasts the president for not even trying to keep his campaign promises, especially regarding "transparency" and "openness".


Update, 1/8/10: Even Jon Stewart won't try carry water for the president on this topic (or others)--and the link includes video.

Homework

Today the major Sacramento newspaper had an article about a nearby school district's study regarding homework:

How much homework is too much?

The Davis Joint Unified School District has conducted a survey to see if parents think teachers are overloading kids with take-home work.

An estimated 2,000 parents responded, and the results will be out next week. Davis administrators plan to use the findings to reshape the district's homework policy.

The article provides the obligatory quotes on the anti-homework side--"my baby doesn't have enough time to play soccer"--but nothing from other side except recognition that a different opinion exists. As I've said numerous times, many kudos to the major Sacramento paper for publishing reader comments on each of its stories; I find my self in complete agreement with commenter "darren65", who comes across as astute, reasoned, and correct:

As a teacher, I cannot imagine why anyone would *want* to assign so-called busy work. That's just more work for a teacher to grade.

I assign the number of practice problems that I think will allow the student not just to "get it", but to "remember it" through repetition. That number may be as small as a few or as many as 25 in the vast majority of cases.

Contrary to the views of some, my sole mission at school is to help my students *learn* mathematics. I have no interest in assigning work for its own sake or in depriving students of their free time.

(Paraphrasing an old commercial here) I'm not just a teacher, I'm also a parent. I understand both sides of the issue.

Bright guy =)

Getting Back In The Groove After Christmas Break

My natural sleeping rhythms make me a "night person". During summer vacation, absent some reason not to, my usual sleeping time is 2am to 10am.

Staying up late at night over Christmas break, though, has caused me to pay a price. Even though I tried to go to bed and wake up at reasonable hours this week, I've still felt like death-warmed-over at school. Today I was at least awake enough to function reasonably well; I'll probably be completely back in the groove tomorrow.

Wednesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Guion Bluford in 1983, aboard the shuttle program's 8th flight and the shuttle Challenger's 3rd.

Today's question is:
Who was the first woman in space, and who was the first American woman in space?

Love Affair In Tatters?

It's almost refreshing in a way--the December 2009 issue of California Educator isn't near as objectionable as most issues are. It's mildly entertaining, though, to read Ole Si Se Puede's lament about Saint Obama:

Competition for one-time federal education funds, of which California would receive no more than $700 million, will require that states fall in line with certain federal guidelines - guidelines that, in their first draft, looked more like the same No Child Left Behind (NCLB) sanctions than the change the Obama administration promised. (boldface mine--Darren)

Spurned lovers are often the worst.

Update: Spurned lovers are often the worst.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, piqued with White House pressure to accept the Senate health reform bill, threw a rare rhetorical elbow at President Barack Obama Tuesday, questioning his commitment to his 2008 campaign promises.

A leadership aide said it was no accident.

West Point Puff Piece

It's probably easier for a journalist to write a puff piece on my alma mater when he has a relative who will attend there, as is the case with this article. I genuinely liked this paragraph from the middle:

In other words, the promise is not that West Point will produce the next generation of Grants, MacArthurs, Eisenhowers or Petraeuses—though it will. The promise is more consequential. To the moms and dads of all those in uniform, West Point says: When America puts your sons and daughters in harm's way, they will be led by men and woman of character and ability.

Wednesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
1981. The first shuttle flight, aboard Columbia, was commanded by John Young and piloted by Robert Crippen.

Today's question is:
Who was the first African-American astronaut to go into space?

Religious Belief

Here's the introduction to the "quiz" I took at BeliefNet:

Even if YOU don't know what faith you are, Belief-O-Matic^TM knows. Answer 20 questions about your concept of God, the afterlife, human nature, and more, and Belief-O-Matic™ will tell you what religion (if any) you practice...or ought to consider practicing.

So I took the quiz and here are my top five results:

1.	Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (100%)
2.	Eastern Orthodox (99%)
3.	Roman Catholic (99%)
4.	Orthodox Quaker (93%)
5.	Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (84%)

I'm certainly not surprised at the #1 answer, but I was surprised by what I read at that link. One would think that I'd agree with the major tenets listed since I scored 100%, but I absolutely do not (the Genesis creation story is one such philosophical difference, for example). So while I consider myself a "mainstream Protestant", I'm not a fundamentalist or evangelical--two categories that this quiz classifies under my #1 category.

Interestingly enough, Mormon came in #8 at 69%, Islam #9 at 69%, Jehovah's Witness #14 at 60%, and Scientologist #19 at 38%. And bringing up the rear:

26.	Secular Humanism (18%)
27.	Taoism (16%)

If it's not too personal, take the quiz and let us know in the comments how you score and if you think it's "right". I've certainly identified my own concerns about the label I was given.

Good Buys In Public Universities

From today's major Sacramento newspaper:

The University of California, Davis, joined seven other California colleges on the Kiplinger's Personal Finance list of "100 Best Values in Public Colleges 2009-10."

UC Davis ranked 41st on the Kiplinger's list, which included UC San Diego (11th), UCLA (13th), UC Berkeley (18th), UC Irvine (20th), UC Santa Barbara (29th), California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (50th) and UC Santa Cruz (68th).

Kiplinger's noted that the listed schools "continue to deliver strong academics at reasonable prices, in many cases by offering the same or more financial aid as in previous years."

Education-Related Quotes of the Decade

Here's a fun compilation from EIA, introduced thusly:

It takes a special statement to become the EIA Communiqué Quote of the Week, and a singular one to be included as one of the Quotes of the Year. So you can imagine how difficult it was to choose the Quotes of the Decade. I found it impossible to chop it down to 10, so here are the 17 most memorable quotes of the 2000s, in countdown order.

Monday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Michael Collins remained in the command module, Columbia, orbiting the moon while Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon in the lunar module Eagle.

Today's question is:
In what year was the first US space shuttle launch?

Update on Climategate

I won't excerpt this piece, I'll just reprint the bio line of the author:

Neil Frank, who holds a Ph.D. from Florida State University in meteorology, was director of the National Hurricane Center (1974–87) and chief meteorologist at KHOU (Channel 11) until his retirement in 2008.

Sunday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
A DeLorean DMC-12.

Today's question, the first in Space Flight Week, is:
Which Apollo 11 crewmember did not step on the moon?

For-Profit Universities

Public school teachers are certainly familiar with certain types of for-profit universities, diploma mills, and private and/or geared-toward-the-working-individual schools--National, Chapman, Phoenix, and LaVerne come to mind--as so many of us get master's degrees from them to move up on the pay scale.

It turns out that it's not only public school teachers who frequent such schools; military personnel are also a target audience.

I had a bad experience with one of these types of schools. I don't have a master's degree yet, but once when I was seriously looking at getting one I found one I'd truly enjoy: a Master's in Military History from Norwich University. I about bounced my jaw off the floor when the admissions person on the phone told me it would cost $40,000 for this online degree. I don't care if it's that much because most people who get this degree are active duty military who get reimbursed for the cost or not, that was just way too high. I don't care what kind of financial aid they offer, that cost is absurd. I don't fault them for charging that much if they think they can get it, but they won't get it from me.

The Last Day of Break

This Christmas break sure flew by, and tomorrow I'll have to get up way too early and go back to work. So how am I spending this last day?

1. Washing and ironing my school clothes.
2. Writing thank-you notes to the students who brought me gifts.
3. Thinking of interesting ways to review the semester's material, since the week after this one is finals week.

Saturday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
The Chrysanthemum Throne.

Today's question is:
What type of car was used for the time machine in the Back To The Future movies?

Tomorrow starts a new theme week. Hope you enjoy it!

It Used To Be Such A Beautiful City

This post, about the author's experience watching the degradation of the once-beautiful San Francisco, is sad indeed.

As we enter the second decade of the 21st Century, I find myself in the City more and more often. I don’t visit the well-maintained spots that still charm tourists, though. Instead, my children’s activities take me to parts of town other than the little Potemkin neighborhoods, neatly preserved for the tourists or the affluent liberals concerned with preserving lovely enclaves for themselves. On these journeys, consistently, I am appalled by what I see. The City has morphed into a crazy combination of anarchy and Leftist totalitarianism, all neatly wrapped into a package called “political correctness.” This matters, not just because we’re witnessing the death of what used to be one of the most beautiful, desirable cities in the world, but because it perfectly represents the American Leftist paradigm. In other words, San Francisco is the future of American Leftism, and it’s a very scary future indeed.

It's a long post--because the lament is so obvious and so deep.

Mayo Clinic Branch To Stop Accepting Medicare Patients--Govt Reimbursement Is Too Stingy

Just in case you need yet another reason not to support nationalized health care:

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little...

Obama in June cited the nonprofit Rochester, Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio for offering “the highest quality care at costs well below the national norm.” Mayo’s move to drop Medicare patients may be copied by family doctors, some of whom have stopped accepting new patients from the program, said Lori Heim, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, in a telephone interview yesterday.

This president and this Congress continue to show themselves to be complete and total buffoons, and they're bankrupting the country in the process.

Not Quite The Best Use For Math

Making apocalyptic predictions that the world will end in 2011. *sigh*

Numerology is to math what digging post holes is to archeology.

Friday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
The Peacock Throne.

Today's question, our second throne question in a row, is:
what is the name of the throne upon which the Emperor of Japan sits?

Teachers Union Funds Terrorists?

EIA says it's a "provocative" headline, but the question is, how accurate is it?

An Ontario teachers' union says Colombian authorities are claiming it inadvertently funded a terrorist organization through its donations to a Colombian union.

The allegations stem from the 2008 arrest of Liliany Obando, who Colombian authorities allege was managing the resources of FARC, a left-wing guerrilla group considered a terrorist group by Colombia, the U.S. and Canada for its bombings, hijackings and violent attacks on Colombian targets.

Before her arrest, Obando toured Australia, the U.K. and Canada as an international representative for FENSUAGRO, one of the biggest labour organizations in Colombia. While on the tour, she collected donations from various unions, including the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation...

Although OSSTF officials say their money was accounted for, El Tiempo, a daily newspaper published in Bogota, reported the country's counterterrorism unit believed Obando had funnelled $3,000 from OSSTF to FARC.

It certainly seems a stretch, given the information in only this linked report.

Happy Teachers

This should make for some interesting talk in the staff room next week:

A career in teaching might be good for your well-being. While the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index previously revealed that business owners were richer in well-being than other job types, further research isolating teachers from other professionals finds teachers fare as well as or better than business owners in overall well-being.

Thursday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Belgium.

Today's question is:
What was the name given to the throne upon which the Shah of Iran sat?

Social Networking Media In Classrooms

Joanne links to an article promoting the use of Facebook, et al, in the K-12 classroom. At the time I write this there are only four comments and I agree with all of them.

Wednesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
10 Downing Street.

There's a short if not mildly entertaining story behind the picture below. In the late Spring of 1986 I was one of four cadets sent for two weeks on exchange to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. We trained with the Brits for about seven of those days and toured on the other seven. One day we ended up in London.

I was disappointed to see that Downing Street, a very short dead-end street, was blocked off and one bobby was guarding it (clearly he was for security theater only, as one cop couldn't do much of anything). I mentioned to him how disappointed I was, because I'd have liked to take a picture of #10. I should be embarrassed to admit this next part, but since I only did it a couple times in life I guess it's not so bad--I name-dropped. I told him I was a cadet at the US Military Academy on exchange to Sandhurst. He asked if I had any identification, I showed him my ID with "Cadet USMA" listed as rank, and that, along with my short hair and American accent, must have convinced him I was legit. He told me to go quickly, stay on the left side of the street, take my picture quickly, and check back in with him when I was done.


And that's the story of the picture above. The bobby outside #10 did not react to my presence at all, even though he and I were the only two people outside on the street.

I've been told that #10 doesn't have a doorknob on the outside of the door because there's always someone on the inside ready to open the door. The picture above seems to confirm this.

And now for today's question:
In what country is Waterloo, the site of Napoleon's last battle, located?

A New Twist On An Old Story

Via The Volokh Conspiracy we learn of this strange tale of racial discrimination. Oh, the beginning of the tale isn't so strange, as blacks' accusing each other of "acting white" for doing well in school is nothing new. What's new is a school losing a suit, or settling, for allowing such taunting, and progressively worse acts, to occur:

"What made this unique is that this, as far as I know, is the only Title VI case ever brought in federal court when it's an intra-racial hostile environment," Kobrovsky said.

Title VI prohibits allowing a racially hostile educational environment in schools and programs receiving federal financial assistance and provides for a private cause of action for violations.

The younger student initially asserted nine causes of action, but only the Title VI claim went to trial.

She claimed she suffered emotional trauma because she was subjected to racial and sexual slurs at an elementary school in Salters during September and November 2006. She had to receive home instruction for the rest of the school year, according to an amended complaint.

Despite complaints, school administrative staff and district officials allowed the abuse to "escalate to the point where [she] was physically threatened, assaulted and battered," the suit alleged.

The suit also claimed that a school official and a district official, either individually or together, "retaliated" against the student by causing the state Department of Social Services to launch an abuse-and-neglect investigation of the plaintiffs and their household. The complaint said DSS determined the investigation, which included a strip search of the student, was unfounded...

"You have a culture where to act like you want to do well in school is considered acting white. And that is part of why we're saying that it was racial, even though the students were all of the same race because they weren't acting how the others thought they should be acting as members of that race," Kobrovsky said.

Could whites make such coin by accusing each other of "acting white"?

OK, I ask that question only to be snarky. The far more important question is how adults could allow children to be bullied. There's far more at work than some B.S. racial identity thing here, there's a definite hatred.

Tuesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
PT-109.

Today's question is:
The White House is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. What is the address of the residence of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom?

Uh Oh

When I left for Reno yesterday, the weather report said "light snow" for Monday and only a 30% of flurries for Tuesday.

When I got outside today, the car was covered with snow. After losing a bunch of money playing Pai Gow, the car was covered again--and the snow wasn't stopping.

That was a few hours ago. The snow still hasn't stopped. The Weather Channel says 1-3" accumulation tonight with more expected tomorrow. The California Department of Transportation web site says that chains are required for quite some distance over the summit.

Good thing I have chains and lots of snackies. Wish I had some patience!

It sure is beautiful looking out the 9th floor window right now, though.

Update, 12/29/09: The snow stopped falling at about 3am, and I wish I'd brought my camera to show you how nice it looks outside. Oh, it's still relatively dark with overcast, but the roads look clear--and CalTrans reports no chains required over the summit! We'll be leaving after lunch.

Update #2, 12/29/09: Under ideal conditions the drive home would have taken 2:15, and today it took only 2:30. Considering what I was watching late last night and early this morning, I'm going to call that a win.

Monday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Racer X.

Today's question is:
What was the designation of John Kennedy's torpedo boat?

Sunday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
The Breakfast Club, 1985. The line was spoken by Anthony Michael Hall's character Brian, during the pot smoking scene.
(I guess that wasn't a classic line, it was a line from a classic movie!)

And that's the end of Classic Movie Lines Week. We'll do a week of random trivia questions, and next Sunday we'll start a new theme week.

Today's question is:
Who was Speed Racer's older brother?

Saturday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Braveheart, from 1995.

Today's question, the last in Classic Movie Lines Week, is:
From which movie do we get the line, “Chicks cannot hold they smoke, that's what it is”?

We're In Trouble

Why we're in trouble:

No offense intended to New York Post reporter Charles Hurt, but the behavior of Barack Obama is not showing us a "new side" of him. This is who he's always been. You don't sit in the "church" of Jeremiah Wright for two decades and not be angry and resentful toward America. You do not write books with Bill Ayers and learn how to love America. Trashing America in nearly every speech isn't anything new for Obama.

This is who he is and who he's always been. Bitter, angry and resentful.

Nothing new about this at all. We were never dazzled by his "soaring oratory" or seduced by Hopenchange. Now, it seems, we're in the majority.

Those of you who were taken in by the "soaring oratory" or who thought this insider Chicago politician, who's never done anything in the business world, would "reach across the aisle" and be a "transformative" or a "post-racial" president--well, accept that you were fooled, and vow not to make that mistake again. Don't cling to your clearly wrong beliefs out of embarrassment or stubbornness.

More reasons why we're in trouble:

Recent headlines seem lifted directly out of an Ayn Rand novel. President Obama decries the “fat cat bankers on Wall Street”. Harry Reid attacks insurance companies for making too much profit. House Democrat leaders call Tea Partiers “Racist, Nazi, Gun Nuts”. How about this nauseating statement made by Army General George Casey after the Muslim terrorist attack on Ft. Hood?

As great a tragedy as this was, it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well

Each of these headlines might well have been uttered by an Ayn Rand character. Rand, whose father’s pharmacy was confiscated by the Soviets during the communist revolution of 1917, and who came to America in 1926, seems uniquely able to speak to us about the inverted morality of our times. Virtue is to be apologized for. Depravity commands respect. Success is cast as evil and punished while failure is blamed on others and rewarded. Rand’s insights into the psychological state of collectivists—those who demand that we sacrifice our individual freedom and happiness for the sake of the state—explain what often seems incomprehensible to thinking people.

We're not in trouble because people believe these things. We're in trouble because they're true.

Our only hope is for conservatives (not necessarily Republicans) to make headway in next November's elections, and for our rookie President to be shown the door two years after that.

Friday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Top Gun, from 1986.

Today's question is:
From which movie do we get the line, “They may take our lives, but they'll never take—our freedom!”?

Cheesy Decorations

click to embiggen

Some people do very elaborate, beautiful Christmas lighting displays, and others do cheesy. I'm OK with both.

Here's one not far from my house--note they've strung a line across the street so Santa can fly overhead! This display counts as cheesy, but I like it.

Merry Christmas.

Litmus Test Currently Dead

I've written twice recently about the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities' plan for an ideological litmus test for prospective teachers (and you might correctly guess that it's a somewhat left-leaning litmus test). Joanne reports that under pressure from FIRE, the school has backed down--at least for now.

University of Minnesota-Twin Cities has promised not to enforce a “political litmus test for future teachers,” FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights) proclaims...

In response to a letter from FIRE, General Counsel Mark B. Rotenberg promised that “[n]o University policy or practice ever will mandate any particular beliefs, or screen out people with ‘wrong beliefs’ from the University.”

Think this is over? No, this is just one skirmish. They'll be back.

It's Christmastime

Merry Christmas!

I hope you enjoy this video as much as I do.

Thursday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
A Streetcar Named Desire, from 1951.

Today's question is:
From which movie do we get the line, "I feel the need—the need for speed!"?

Christmas Eve in California

It was a clear blue sky today, although a few wispy clouds showed up in the late afternoon. It was crisp out this morning, but got up to 58 degrees.

After heading up into the foothills to visit some relatives today, my son and I stopped by Jamba Juice on the way home.

That's how we roll here in California :-)

Wednesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Network, from 1976.

Today's question is:
From which movie do we get the line, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers”?

Tuesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Sudden Impact, from 1983.

Today's question is:
From which movie do we get the line, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"?

Yale Administrators (and the students who back down to them) Are Sissies

I have to quote this from the Huffington Post. Me, quoting Huffington Post! Actually, I'm just linking to Huffington Post, but I'm quoting Greg Lukianoff of FIRE:

It started before the Harvard and Yale teams flailed against each other on the football field last month; Yale's freshman class designed and voted to produce an anti-Harvard T-shirt that actually had some literary merit. According to the Yale Daily News,

The original design, which won out over five other entries, displayed an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote in the front -- "I think of all Harvard men as sissies" -- in bold white letters. The back of the long-sleeved, navy blue T-shirt said "WE AGREE" in capital letters, with "The Game 2009" scrawled in script underneath it.

Unfortunately--and is it any surprise these days?--a couple of Yale administrators decided that the word "sissies" was too offensive because some people interpreted it as a slur against gay men. This was news to the Yale freshmen who, like me, see "sissies" as being funny primarily because it is such a ridiculous, silly, old-fashioned put down, somewhere between "cad" and "toots" as far as insults go. Besides, in context, Fitzgerald actually wrote, "I think of all Harvard men as sissies, like I used to be." Does anyone really think Fitzgerald was coming out as a success story of the ex-gay movement, or was he simply calling Harvard men, well, a bunch of sissies (modern translation: wusses, wimps, etc.)? The administrators were gearing up to ban the T-shirt, but the students backed down and changed the design.

Why do people actually pay money to attend such schools?

It's Good To Be The Boss

Especially if you're a university president:

In the 1990s, the president of Adelphi University was accused of receiving excessive compensation and forced from office. Since then, the leaders of American, Towson, Texas Southern and other endowment-poor universities have also crashed to earth after plunging their institutions into turmoil for similar excesses.

Now, charges are swirling over Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. The state attorney general has sued the institute and its president, Harold J. Raveché, accusing him of plundering the endowment and receiving $1.8 million in illegal low-interest loans for vacation homes, with half of them later forgiven.

The institute’s trustees tripled Dr. Raveché’s salary over a decade, to $1.1 million last year, higher than presidential salaries at Harvard, M.I.T. and Princeton, and, the lawsuit says, Stevens used multiple sets of books to hide its deteriorating financial condition.

I guess it's not just "Wall Street fat cats" and "evil corporations" who do this sort of thing.

Update: The theme of the above post hits a little close to home:

Attorney General Jerry Brown is auditing University Enterprises Inc., a nonprofit organization that is closely affiliated with Sacramento State.

In a letter dated Nov. 5, the attorney general's office asked University Enterprises for seven years of financial information as well as information about loans made to Alexander Gonzalez, president of California State University, Sacramento. Gonzalez also serves as the president of University Enterprise's board of directors...

But the audit of University Enterprises appears to come in response to a request from the California Faculty Association, the union that represents CSU professors, which sent a letter to the attorney general in July. The letter alleges that University Enterprises and other foundations affiliated with Cal State campuses have mismanaged millions of dollars. It cites these examples....

*sigh*

Pittsburgh Tuition Tax Post Updated

My post about the attempt by the mayor of Pittsburgh to place a "tuition tax" on local university students has been updated, and a resolution reached.

How The Environmental Movement Can Win Friends And Influence People

Yes, this is the way to sell your idea of treading lightly on Mother Earth:

Man's best friend could be one of the environment's worst enemies, according to a new study which says the carbon pawprint of a pet dog is more than double that of a gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle...

Combine the land required to generate its food and a "medium" sized dog has an annual footprint of 0.84 hectares (2.07 acres) -- around twice the 0.41 hectares required by a 4x4 driving 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) a year, including energy to build the car.

To confirm the results, the New Scientist magazine asked John Barrett at the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, Britain, to calculate eco-pawprints based on his own data. The results were essentially the same.

"Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat," Barrett said.

Other animals aren't much better for the environment, the Vales (authors) say.

Cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares, slightly less than driving a Volkswagen Golf for a year, while two hamsters equates to a plasma television and even the humble goldfish burns energy equivalent to two mobile telephones...

And pets' environmental impact is not limited to their carbon footprint, as cats and dogs devastate wildlife, spread disease and pollute waterways, the Vales say...

But the best way of compensating for that paw or clawprint is to make sure your animal is dual purpose, the Vales urge. Get a hen, which offsets its impact by laying edible eggs, or a rabbit, prepared to make the ultimate environmental sacrifice by ending up on the dinner table.

"Rabbits are good, provided you eat them," said Robert Vale.

Eat your pets. It's good for you, it's good for the pet, it's good for the Earth.

Ask some people about their particular brand of environmentalism, they'll tell you about recycling, taking mass transit, and replacing incandescent light bulbs with fluorescents or LEDs. None of those is necessarily bad, but the people who want to force them on everyone else probably already do these things and hence wouldn't be giving up very much. Ask them to do without a pet, though....

Sylvie Comont, proud owner of seven cats and two dogs -- the environmental equivalent of a small fleet of cars -- says defiantly, "Our animals give us so much that I don't feel like a polluter at all.

"I think the love we have for our animals and what they contribute to our lives outweighs the environmental considerations.

"I don't want a life without animals," she told AFP.

There are too many people to laugh at in this one little story.

Who comes across worse: the woman who loves her animals and because of that decides, against the evidence, that she's not a polluter, or the people who published this study and who apparently think they're going to win converts to the environmentalist cause by telling people to eat their pets?

(Here's another link, as the first will invariably go bad.)

Monday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, from 1948.

Today's question is:
From which movie do we get the line, “Go ahead, make my day”?

California Legislature Can't Agree On "Reforming" Education

It's a valid question: are the changes required in order to qualify for federal Race To The Top funds genuine reforms, or just changes with no real teeth?

I already wrote about one change the legislature has made in order to be compliant--and no one can tell me its impact!--but now they can't agree on others:

With time running short, the Legislature on Thursday failed once again to strike agreement on legislation to compete for a share of $4.35 billion in Race to the Top federal funds.

The Senate instead passed a partial compromise, SBX5 4, that combined portions of two competing Assembly and Senate bills.

Under the bill, California would adopt new academic content standards, alter student testing, overhaul failing schools, and give parents the right to transfer their children from the lowest-performing campuses or to force major campus changes by gathering enough signatures on petitions.

I'm not sure what changes in our content standards would be required; our math standards are exceedingly rigorous, and some say too rigorous. Our state standards have repeatedly gained high praise from national organizations. And our testing requirements are more rigorous than required by NCLB.

It would be nice to know my details about what changes are required, and why.

Update, 12/22/09: Here's some interesting information about the proposed changes:

Of all the reforms that legislators are on the verge of passing to enhance its Race to the Top application, the most consequential also has been the least discussed.

California is about to commit to junk its decade-old, much ballyhooed system of K-12 academic standards by Aug. 2. Doing so will the require writing new assessments and curriculum frameworks and adopting new textbooks over the next few years– at a cost that easily run in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

What’s amazing is not the state’s consideration of the Obama administration’s push for “common core” standards. The concept of internationally benchmarked academic standards to which students in all states can be measured and compared is certainly sound.

But, in the hopes of scoring extra points in the Race to the Top contest the state is saying it will adopt common core standards as article of faith, essentially sight unseen.

California’s standards aren’t perfect; there appear to be too many of them in many grades in many subjects. But they are tough. Skeptics have raised legitimate worries that common core standards may be flabby, especially in math.

Sunday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Colorado

Today's question, the first in Classic Movie Lines Week, is:
From which movie do we get the line, “Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinkin' badges!”?

Praying For Someone = Bullying?

I weep for the land of my ancestors.

A devout Christian teacher has lost her job after discussing her faith with a mother and her sick child and offering to pray for them.

Olive Jones, a 54-year-old mother of two, who taught maths to children too ill to attend school, was dismissed following a complaint from the girl’s mother. She was visiting the home of the child when she spoke about her belief in miracles and asked whether she could say a prayer, but when the mother indicated they were not believers she did not go ahead.

Mrs Jones was then called in by her managers who, she says, told her that sharing her faith with a child could be deemed to be bullying and informed her that her services were no longer required.

link

And let's not forget that this occurred in a country with a state religion!

Wearing Flowers In Your Hair, Not Phones In Your Ear

Weren't those hippies against "the Man" back then? Let's see what "the Man" has in store for their little bohemian paradise today:

Gavin Newsom is at it again. The San Francisco mayor's latest foray into annoying nanny statism is a proposal, reported in The Chronicle last week, to require the city's cell phone retailers to post the radiation levels of their products...

In other cities, mayors usually try to make it easier for local businesses to prosper. But in The Special City, the mayor somehow manages to find ways that, if anything, make it harder for commercial enterprises to compete with out-of-town retailers...

The Federal Communications Commission and the Food and Drug Administration say cell phones sold in America are safe. The World Health Organization says they are not a health risk.

The Environmental Working Group has found studies that suggest that there could be problems from long-term cell phone use.

On the other hand, the American Cancer Society -- which isn't afraid to cry "carcinogen" -- looked at studies on cell phone use and cancer and found the following: "Patients with brain tumors do not report more cell phone use overall than the controls. This finding is true when all brain tumors are considered as a group, when specific types of tumors are considered, and when specific locations within the brain are considered. In fact, most of the studies show a trend toward (SET ITAL) a lower risk of brain tumors among cell phone uses, for unclear reasons (END ITAL)." (My italics.) The Cancer Society did warn that there has not been enough research to determine if cell phones might affect children differently than adults...

There's no need to be a fill-in for the FDA. If Newsom thinks it is his job to reduce risky behavior, he instead could focus on the estimated 900-plus new cases of HIV in the city each year.

Closer to home, if Newsom feels the urge to warn people of potential threats, he might want to put up a warning signs under Welcome to San Francisco banners -- that disclose the city's 99 homicides in 2008. As the precautionary principle ordinance notes, the public has a "right to know."

I shake my head in wonder.

Updated Post on Climate Change

My recent post on climate change has been updated.

Saturday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Hattie McDaniel in 1939, for her role in Gone With The Wind.

Today's question is:
In what state is the US Air Force Academy located?

And for those readers who still pop in during Christmas break, tomorrow will be the start of Classic Movie Lines Week! Each day's trivia question will be a line from a movie, and you get to identify the movie.

Learning Styles--No Scientific Basis

I'm skeptical about the whole global warming thing, and have been for quite some time. I've also been skeptical about some educational dogma, specifically "multiple intelligences" and "learning styles". Joanne's blog has pointed me to the current issue of Psychological Science In The Public Interest, which contains an article about learning styles. I'll quote from the abstract:

The term "learning styles" refers to the concept that individuals differ in regard to what mode of instruction or study is most effective for them. Proponents of learning-style assessment contend that optimal instruction requires diagnosing individuals' learning style and tailoring instruction accordingly. Assessments of learning style typically ask people to evaluate what sort of information presentation they prefer (e.g., words versus pictures versus speech) and/or what kind of mental activity they find most engaging or congenial (e.g., analysis versus listening), although assessment instruments are extremely diverse. The most common—but not the only—hypothesis about the instructional relevance of learning styles is the meshing hypothesis, according to which instruction is best provided in a format that matches the preferences of the learner (e.g., for a "visual learner," emphasizing visual presentation of information).

The learning-styles view has acquired great influence within the education field, and is frequently encountered at levels ranging from kindergarten to graduate school. There is a thriving industry devoted to publishing learning-styles tests and guidebooks for teachers, and many organizations offer professional development workshops for teachers and educators built around the concept of learning styles.

The authors of the present review were charged with determining whether these practices are supported by scientific evidence...

Although the literature on learning styles is enormous, very few studies have even used an experimental methodology capable of testing the validity of learning styles applied to education. Moreover, of those that did use an appropriate method, several found results that flatly contradict the popular meshing hypothesis.

We conclude therefore, that at present, there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice. Thus, limited education resources would better be devoted to adopting other educational practices that have a strong evidence base, of which there are an increasing number.

Of course, no such article could be printed in such a magazine without the caveat at the end: more research is needed.

Pittsburgh Inadvertently Teaches College Students About The Ills Of Statism?

The mayor of Pittsburgh, PA, wants to impose a 1% tax on tuitions for the college and university students in the city to, and I quote, “to help pay for pensions of retired city employees.” You might imagine that the students are none too happy about this.

Many students have been led to believe by their state-loving profs, as well as by many elementary and secondary school educators who preceded them, that the government must always be granted whatever it needs to accomplish its objectives, regardless of the costs involved. Now these collegians have discovered that the government is not their presumptive friend and will eventually turn on them if not reined in. Many of them are currently having their entire cost of attendance, including living expenses, financed by the federal government and would be facing an immediate out-of-pocket cost that someone else isn’t paying for ranging from “$27 at the Community College of Allegheny County to $409 at Carnegie Mellon University.” They are not taking it well.

Faculty and administrators who so loathe the American capitalist model of free enterprise and competition have figured out that they would have an externally imposed competitive disadvantage against their peers outside of Pittsburgh. Perhaps they’ll take a belated interest in the city’s fiscal situation. If they do, they’ll likely discover that its annual municipal budget of roughly $450 million contains more than a little fat.

Moreover, radical faculty members would have a more difficult time justifying their ardent love of statism in front of their tax-paying students if the government begins in essence biting the hand that feeds it philosophical support for its voracious desires. These poor saps must be wondering how it can be that Democrat Ravenstahl, who attended Pitt for a time, is employing the tactics normally associated with romanticized thugs like Chavez, Castro, and Ahmadinejad on his “friends.” Perhaps they’ll begin to understand how the term “useful idiots” applies to them.

My goodness, students are even engaging in anti-tax and anti-spending protests like the tea partiers they’ve been taught to despise. What’s more, they’re coming up with constructive, cost-saving ideas of their own.

Perhaps during all of this the kids will meet up with patriotic everyday Americans who will impart important lessons about how free markets and limited government are supposed to work.

It's hard not to giggle, isn't it?

The first comment on the story at the link goes the opposite direction from giggling:

Classic case of, ”I was a liberal until I got mugged.” Personally, I wouldn’t be disturbed one bit if an even higher tax was imposed. And, I think it would be a great idea to impose a ”tenure tax” on professors, a special levy on research grants, a special tax on university investment income to pay for ‘’social projects” in the community, tuition surcharges to pay for increased diversity, and any other taxes anyone can think of on students & faculty – in other words, take their lefty ideology & shove it down their throats until they choke on it.

Trust me, it will definitely be an educational experience.

Update, 12/22/09: I'm almost disappointed that this didn't drag on a little longer. Maybe some liberal students and professors would have learned something from it:

In what he described as a “leap of faith,” Mayor Luke Ravenstahl of Pittsburgh agreed on Monday to shelve his plans for the nation’s first tax on college tuition in exchange for an increase in voluntary contributions from local colleges and universities to the city...

He threatened, they caved.

By the by, wasn't Pittsburgh the city that President Obama praised in front of the G20? Why yes, it was. And yet the city has to threaten college students, who prop up the economy already, just to make ends meet? Lefties, God love 'em!

A Personal View of the Economy

Of course today was the last day of school before Christmas break, and at our school that meant the traditional staff potluck at lunchtime. How nice it is to take over the library and have food as far as the eye can see.

While eating, some other teachers at my table were talking about something that I had been thinking about but didn't feel comfortable voicing. I teach in an upscale area wherein live some very generous people, and there have been years in which I've had to make a couple trips to the car to pack up all the Christmas presents I'd received--and I'm not the only one, by a long shot. Anyway, conversation at the table was about how many fewer gifts teachers were receiving this year than in years past.

Now please, don't get me wrong--no one was lamenting the lack of a haul, or showing any sign of being personally disappointed in receiving fewer gifts. No, there was widespread recognition that even in an upscale area, people are feeling the effects and uncertainties of today's economy.

I am very thankful for the gifts I received, and on the first day of school after break I'll be giving out handwritten thank you cards as I do each year.

I love the Christmas season.

Friday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
C+C Music Factory.

Today's question is:
Who was the first African-American to win an Oscar?

Things Your Kid's Teacher Won't Tell You

I came upon these two sets of lists, 13 Things Your Child's Teacher Won't Tell You and 20 More Things Your Child's Teacher Won't Tell You.

I agreed with, and enjoyed, the second list more.

Here's one I liked from the first list:
Your child may be the center of your universe, but I have to share mine with 25 others. (Darren's note: if it were only 25 others!)

Here's one from the second:
The truth is simple: Your kid will lie to get out of trouble.

Here's a bonus one from the second:
Parents give their kids the pricey gadgets and labels, but what kids really crave is for you to talk to them. They want to know you are interested in their lives.

It's true. We teachers may discuss these amongst ourselves, but we usually won't tell parents these things.

Thursday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
21 states end with the letter “a”.

Today's question is:
Which group performed the 1990 dance hit Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)?

School Segregates 4-year-old Boy Because of Long Hair

I support reasonable dress codes and standards of appearance. As this boy's father says, if the boy's hair were dyed some bright color or up in Statue of Liberty spikes, that could be what the school considers "distracting" to the learning environment. But the boy's hair just covers his ears.

The school has no business regulating a student's hair length in this manner.

Update: More info here.

Court OK's "Bullying" Video

Via Joanne:

A student who posted a nasty video about a classmate can’t be suspended for bullying, ruled a US District Court judge.

A Beverly Hills girl posted a video calling another girl “spoiled,” a “brat” and a “slut.” The victim complained to a school counselor.

Judge Stephen Wilson wrote in his judgment: “To allow the school to cast this wide a net and suspend a student simply because another student takes offence to their speech, without any evidence that such speech caused a substantial disruption of the school’s activities, runs afoul [of the law].

I agree with this judgement. In fact, I'd go further. Just because some off-campus activity might interfere with the school environment is not enough for the school to take disciplinary action. Hurting someone so they miss a couple days of school will certainly affect their schooling, but that doesn't mean that the school can suspend people who fight on Saturday afternoon; assault and battery is a crime, and the courts, not schools, are the appropriate place to deal with such offenses.

While the girl who made the video clearly has some issues and has shown herself to be less than a stellar person (her parents must be so proud), I can't see how the school has any business punishing her for this.

I have consistently advocated the belief that schools need to focus only on events that occur at school and at related activities.

Wednesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
American Samoa.

Today's question is:
What is the most common last letter in US State names?

Another Reason Not To Buy Into The Global Warming Hysteria

The hysteria rests on a fallacy:

There is a variation on this fallacy, in fact. It goes: There is a crisis; something must be done! What we propose to do is something. Therefore, it must be done!

This invalid argument is otherwise known as false choice, of course, because the alternative to the particular something being proposed is not nothing (even if one accepts the initial premise that there is a crisis about which something must be done) — it is a variety of other somethings, some of which may be the something that is actually key to solving the problem, even if their own is not necessarily.

Color Me Surprised

San Francisco is not the best-run city in the country:

Despite its good intentions, San Francisco is not leading the country in gay marriage. Despite its good intentions, it is not stopping wars. Despite its spending more money per capita on homelessness than any comparable city, its homeless problem is worse than any comparable city's. Despite its spending more money per capita, period, than almost any city in the nation, San Francisco has poorly managed, budget-busting capital projects, overlapping social programs no one is certain are working, and a transportation system where the only thing running ahead of schedule is the size of its deficit.

It's time to face facts: San Francisco is spectacularly mismanaged and arguably the worst-run big city in America. This year's city budget is an astonishing $6.6 billion — more than twice the budget for the entire state of Idaho — for roughly 800,000 residents. Yet despite that stratospheric amount, San Francisco can't point to progress on many of the social issues it spends liberally to tackle — and no one is made to answer when the city comes up short.

But they're good "progressives" so we must look the other way.