Soldiers and Dogs, Stay Off The Grass

I don't know if such signs ever existed, but I heard stories about such signs when I was young. In the late- and post-Vietnam era, when respect for soldiers was at an ebb, it was said that there were such signs in public places.

I first read this story last night and cheered for the restaurant owner:

Fed up with what he views as crappy treatment from the TSA, the owner of a restaurant near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has decided to put all TSA agents on his No-Eat List.

"We have posted signs on our doors basically saying that they aren't allowed to come into our business," one employee tells travel journalist Christopher Elliott. "We have the right to refuse service to anyone."

She says that whenever a TSA agent attempts to dine at the restaurant, "we turn our backs and completely ignore them, and tell them to leave... Their kind aren't welcomed in our establishment."

Before we go any further, yes, it is legal. TSA workers are not a protected class like racial minorities and the handicapped are, so it's entirely legal to discriminate against them. We've all seen those signs in restaurants--"we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone"--and those signs are there exactly for cases like this.

And readers of this blog know of the complete and total contempt I have for the TSA as an organization and for the people who work there. In my view, what they do is sick, it's ineffective, it's a waste of money, and it's un-American.

So when I first read the linked story, I cheered at one person's ability to strike a blow, however small, against the cretins--and make no mistake, I do believe they're cretins.

This morning, though, I'm having second thoughts about my cheering. I've written before that I don't think every single thing needs to be made into a political issue; while TSA-hatred isn't political in a partisan sense, the concept is the same--we don't really need to broadcast our beliefs every instant of the day, nor to act on every single one of them. At some point there's got to be a "go along to get along" philosophy or else society itself falls apart.

Yes, there are lines I wouldn't cross. Unlike the NEA, I wouldn't allow the local communists to meet in my cafeteria for their meetings. But there's a huge difference between communists and TSA agents. TSA agents are, at worst, losers doing a crappy job, but they're not trying to get rid of capitalism and democracy. Somewhere between TSA agents and communists is where *I* would draw the line.

I don't really want to live in a society wherein I'd have to wonder if "my kind" is allowed in a certain establishment, or where I'd have to do my homework to determine if the owners of the establishments I frequent support "my kinds" of causes. Everybody's money is green, and I'd think businesses wouldn't want to turn off entire segments of the customer population by openly espousing certain political philosophies and catering only to those who hold those philosophies. As Michael Jordan once supposedly said when asked why he didn't support a certain Democratic candidate, "Republicans buy shoes, too."

So if the issue is big and important enough, if you'd feel like a hypocrite if you served a certain type of person or did business with a certain company, then I guess you've gotta do what you've gotta do and stand by your principles. But if your principles dictate that you can only do business with people who think like you do, I'd suggest that you'd need a very strong business plan. After all, what's next--"no Democrats served here"? "Republicans not welcome"? I certainly don't agree with the Wisconsin teachers, but if I had a hotdog cart I'd sell them hotdogs at lunchtime.

The priority for any business is to make money for its owners. In fact, I'd assert that that's the only function of a business. And everybody's money is green.

I'll still write about the TSA. I'll still slam them every opportunity I get. I'll still hope that entire operation goes away. And I will not cut the workers any "they're just doing their job" slack when it comes to "just doing their job".

But I don't really want to see any "soldiers and dogs, stay off the grass" signs.

(And yes, I know the restaurant story may be a hoax. That doesn't change my sentiment.)

The NEA Wants More Of Your Money

And remember, in 28 states they're entitled to your money it by law:

NEA to Double Member Dues Contribution to Political War Chest. Amid substantial membership losses and a $14 million shortfall in its general operating budget, the National Education Association plans to double each active member's annual contribution to the national union's political and media funds.

Currently, $10 of each active member's NEA dues is allocated to these special accounts. The more than $20 million collected each year is then disbursed to state affiliates and political issue campaigns - such as last year's SQ 744 in Oklahoma. A portion of the money also pays for state and national media buys to support the union's agenda.

But the most recent numbers show NEA lost more than 54,000 active K-12 members since this time last year. Coupled with less-than-expected increases in the average teacher salary - upon which NEA dues are based - the union will find itself with $14 million less revenue than it had planned. This includes about $500,000 less in the political and media funds.

Faced with unfriendly legislatures and governors seeking to roll back the union's influence, the NEA Executive Committee decided to double down - literally. It proposed raising each active member's assessment to $20, effective in September 2011. The union's board of directors ratified the decision, and it will go before the NEA Representative Assembly for a vote this July in Chicago. If passed, NEA's national dues for teachers will total $178.

The increase in the assessment has a five-year sunset clause, but this is just eyewash, since the last time the contribution was doubled - from $5 to $10 in 2004 - it also had a five-year sunset clause. The 2007 NEA Representative Assembly made the $10 contribution permanent.

NEA is already the top political campaign spender in the nation. This increase will give the national union an additional $40 million per election cycle. The increase alone is larger than all but two other groups spent during the entire 2007-08 cycle.

Wednesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
10, in the 1942 movie There's One Born Every Minute.

Today's question is:
What is the more commonly known name for what in statistics is called the “normal curve”?

Tea Party

GAY BLACK TEA PARTYER Attacked By Racist SEIU Activists at Denver Tea Party (Videos)

What they say about the Tea Party--is really true about themselves.

I haven't seen the stories of Tea Partiers' beating people up--and if it happened, you know it would have been the top story on every newscast for a week.

Lefties should just admit that they are, at heart, violent thugs who want to enforce their views on everyone, democracy be damned.

Update: Here's a Tea Partier hitting someone. Oops, my bad! He's a union thug--hitting a woman.

Update #2, 2/24/11: Here's a nice roundup of videos. I agree with the closing sentiment, that lefties must be very proud of themselves.

Back From Skiing A Little Early

The friend I went with wasn't feeling so great; in fact, he came in a couple hours before I did yesterday. Didn't feel up to skiing at all today, and since I didn't go up there to ski alone, we had a leisurely morning and then headed back to Sacramento--stopping by the Boa Vista Orchards in Apple Hill on the way back for some much needed hot cider and snackies.

I'll post a few pictures in awhile.

Update, 2/24/11: Pics! Click on them to enlarge.

Heavenly Valley's gondola, within walking distance (even in ski boots) of the casinos at the stateline.



View from the top, looking west.

View from the top towards Carson City. Friend sneaks into the shot again!

Heading back down at the end of the day.

The four casinos at Stateline.

From left to right: Harvey's, Harrah's, Horizon, and Montbleu (formerly Caesar's Tahoe). We stayed at Harvey's. You can pretty much see the stateline (to the left/south) in this picture.

At 111 mb, the panoramic video I took would take about forever to load....

Tuesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
It was first played in 1930 and won by Uruguay.

Today's question is:
How old was Elizabeth Taylor when she made her first movie appearance?

Monday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Simon Legree.

Today's question is:
In what year was the World Cup first played? Bonus question: who won?

Now That I've Jumped Into The Fire About The Wisconsin Teachers...

...I'm jumping right back out and going skiing for a few days :-) The dog and the house are in good hands, the hotel room is booked, and Tahoe awaits.

I won't have internet access so comments won't be posted until I get back. Trivia questions, though, are already scheduled and will pop up at 4pm each day--so keep on checking back!

"See" you in a few days.

Why The Teachers In Wisconsin Are Wrong

I've received several emails asking why I haven't commented on the Wisconsin debacle, and the reason is that I wanted to gather some information and try to add something more than just a "me too" post about it. I think I'm ready now.

Let me begin by pointing out that I understand why the teachers are angry--they're worried about more money coming out of their pockets. The governor wants them to start kicking in for their own retirements (no!) and to pay for 1/8 of their health care costs (horrors!). Neither of those is unreasonable, but since they haven't had to pay for them before, they will see less take-home pay if the measure passes. Additionally, the governor's plan will place limits on what types of workplace issues can be bargained collectively.

I've seen interviews with some of the protesters who claim that they understand about the money, but it's the collective bargaining they're concerned about. I don't believe them, but let's assume for a moment that that's true for one or two of them. What's being proposed is only a return to the status quo 2008:

Mr. Walker also wants to limit the power of public-employee unions to negotiate contracts and work rules—something that 24 states already limit or ban.

The governor's move is in reaction to a 2009 law implemented by the then-Democratic legislature that expanded public unions' collective-bargaining rights and lifted existing limits on teacher raises.

Since Wisconsin is widely recognized as the state where "progressivism" began or held the most sway, I'm having a hard time believing that Wisconsin's teachers toiled in sweatshop conditions until the 2009 law was passed. The democratically-elected governor, who hasn't felt the need to tell anyone "I won" in order to try to get his policies approved, is merely trying to rein in a public union that has been given too much leeway.

And because of this he's compared to Mubarak, Mussolini, Hitler, et al, and legislators have actually left the state to avoid a quorum in a state senate otherwise sure to pass the bill.

As a teacher, though, I'm appalled at the behavior of the teachers (and of the doctors that lie for them). We tell students to follow the rules, and these teachers lie about being sick in order to continue to be paid--from public funds!--while protesting a reasonable law. We teach students about civil disobedience, but these teachers act like a mob. Civil disobedience involves violating an unjust law, hoping to be arrested in order to draw attention to the need to change the unjust law; that is not what is happening in Wisconsin. We teach children that it's a sign of maturity to accept the consequences of one's actions, but these teachers get doctors to write notes which illegally claim the teachers truly are sick so that the teachers don't get in trouble for violating both their own contracts as well as state law (more on that here and here and here). We tell children how important their education is, how they're our top priority, but these teachers shut schools down for 4 days in a row in order to throw a temper tantrum.

In other words, those teachers are, for their own selfish purposes, violating every major tenet of socially acceptable behavior that we teach in our schools. Their lessons are now "just words", and their students, like all people, will absorb the lessons based on actions to a much greater degree than those of mere rhetoric. These teachers have dealt a crippling blow to their own credibility.

These teachers, and their union bosses have demonstrated far better than any Republican could why teachers unions need to be curtailed, and they certainly show why none other than President Franklin Roosevelt himself was against public sector unions. Governor Walker's plan to require that the union be recertified every year, and to limit what can be bargained, are simple ways to start curtailing that power and influence.

Let the curtailing begin.

Update: I'm not the only teacher who feels this way.

Update #2: Joanne's round-up is, as you would expect, exceptional.

Update #3, 2/23/11: A wise way of looking at things:

To Republicans, the budget fight has involved the widespread shirking of responsibilities: teachers walking out on students, legislators running away from their offices, even doctors abandoning medical standards to make excuses for perfectly healthy teacher/protesters. To Democrats, the fight has touched a core issue; anything is justified to preserve union benefits.

Update #4, 2/23/11: How could I forget this one?

Unions take to the streets to defend their collective bargaining agreements... which ban work stoppages and "any unauthorized concerted activity."

Update #5, 2/24/11: Another teacher (and frequent commenter here at RotLC) weighs in.

A Conservative View

"It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it."
--George Washington

Sunday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Those Were The Days was the opening theme, and Remembering You was the closing theme.

Today's question is:
Who was the overseer in the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin?

ROTC and the Ivies

Anyone who claimed to believe that opposition to ROTC at our so-called elite universities was honestly and truly grounded in the "don't ask, don't tell" policy is either a liar or a fool:

Columbia University students heckled a war hero during a town-hall meeting on whether ROTC should be allowed back on campus.

"Racist!" some students yelled at Anthony Maschek, a Columbia freshman and former Army staff sergeant awarded the Purple Heart after being shot 11 times in a firefight in northern Iraq in February 2008. Others hissed and booed the veteran.

Maschek, 28, had bravely stepped up to the mike Tuesday at the meeting to issue an impassioned challenge to fellow students on their perceptions of the military.

"It doesn't matter how you feel about the war. It doesn't matter how you feel about fighting," said Maschek. "There are bad men out there plotting to kill you."

Several students laughed and jeered the Idaho native, a 10th Mountain Division infantryman who spent two years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington recovering from grievous wounds.

Maschek, who is studying economics, miraculously survived the insurgent attack in Kirkuk. In the hail of gunfire, he broke both legs and suffered wounds to his abdomen, arm and chest.

He enrolled last August at the Ivy League school, where an increasingly ugly battle is unfolding over the 42-year military ban there.

More than half of the students who spoke at the meeting -- the second of three hearings on the subject -- expressed opposition to ROTC's return.

They're not anti-war. They're anti-American.

Update, 2/23/11: Two links included here--supporting my view that both the students and the administration of the Ivies "hates (sic) the military and has for more than a generation.

Does This Surprise Anyone?

The only surprise would be that anyone's surprised by it.

The Center for Equal Opportunity released a study earlier this week that analyzed undergrad admissions data we had obtained from Ohio State and Miami University and concluded that heavy preferences are given to African American and, to a lesser extent, Latino applicants over white and, again to a lesser extent, Asian applicants. The study is posted on our website here, and Linda Chavez and I have written about it here and here, respectively.

The universities’ response is that, while we considered test scores, grades, residency, and other variables in addition to race, we did not consider all the variables they consider. In other words, they are apparently claiming that the severe disparities we found can be explained away by the fact that African Americans write much, much more persuasive admission essays than do whites, for example, and that Latinos get much, much better letters of recommendation than do Asians. To which our response is . . . be serious. Such “soft” factors are unlikely to break along racial lines — or, if they do, they are likely to break along the same racial lines that test scores and grades do (for example, wouldn’t teachers be more impressed with, and write more glowing letters of recommendation for, students who get good grades?), which would leave the universities with even more to explain.

Color of their skin. Content of their character. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to, dude.

Saturday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Reichenbach Falls, in Switzerland.

Today's question is:
What were the opening and closing themes for the tv show All In The Family?

Where Is The Line Drawn For This Algebra Teacher

(Line, algebra--get it? Sometimes I slay myself.)

Here's something I won't do to make up for that projected 10% pay cut I'm going to get next year:

A high school teacher in Little Rock has resigned after school officials learned she pleaded guilty in November to a prostitution charge...

Islam said she was desperate for money and originally thought she was just going to work for a dating service. She pleaded guilty on Nov. 5 and was given a suspended 90-day sentence and a $640 fine...

Islam, who was in the fifth year of her teacher career, told Fox16.com that she hopes this attention doesn't affect her ability to find another job.

I'm always very conflicted about such stories. On one hand, if her students had ever found out, I can see how that could impact classroom discipline--thus making it the district's business. On the other hand, what consenting adults do in their free time should be no concern of the school district (see this post from almost 3 years ago). But, you might say, she broke the law! And that's true, but lots of teachers break the law (often while driving) and they don't get suspended or fired.

Is there a difference between what this teacher has done vs. the butt-print artist (see link two sentences above)? Is one situation, if known, more likely to create a classroom disruption than the other?

I always come back to the unanswered question--where is the line drawn for teachers? What conduct can get you fired and what can't? If some "morals clause" is invoked, how would you address this scenario:

A male teacher in a very conservative area (say, Utah or something) is spotted at a gay pride parade--wearing Daisy Dukes, waving the rainbow flag, belting out It's Raining Men like there's no tomorrow. He may even appear in a picture in the local newspaper.

Should the teacher be fired? If yes, why? If no, should Ms. Islam have been fired? Should the butt-print artist have been fired? If you say no to all of them, under what circumstances could a teacher's off-duty behavior get them fired? If you say yes to all of them, at what point (if any) is a (mere) teacher entitled to any sort of adult life outside of school?

What about this scenario:

A female teacher has an affair with a married man. This affair is eventually discovered and word gets around the community.

Should this teacher be fired? How about this one:

A local teacher protests in front of the local grocery store, carrying a sign claiming that the president is a Kenyan-born impostor.

And this one?

A teacher works a side job at a (legal in California) medical marijuana dispensary in order to supplement her income due to a pay cut. The feds raid the place, it makes big news.

At some point, expecting teachers to be saints or the Cleaver Family or something similar is just not, to use a word currently in vogue, sustainable. Where is that point? Where is the line to be crossed? (sorry, math humor there)

New Segregation? Sorry, No.

This is the quality of thought you get from a newspaper education reporter today:

For more than 50 years, the notion that racially mixed schools are in the best interests of all students has been a basic underpinning of America's educational landscape.

Is that the lesson we're to draw from Brown v. Board of Education? No. The lesson from Brown is that children shouldn't be excluded from their neighborhood schools because of the color of their skin, that government shouldn't look at the color of a child's skin when assigning children to schools. Brown v. Board ended forced segregation. The 2007 US Supreme Court decision in the case of the Seattle and Louisville school districts was entirely consistent with Brown.

So what problem does our hopelessly lost education reporter see as a threat to diversity? Charter schools--for black students!

Is it a return to segregation? Is it legal?

Those are the questions being debated after Margaret Fortune, a former adviser to two California governors and a leader in education reform circles, successfully petitioned the Sacramento County Board of Education for five publicly funded charter schools aimed at closing the achievement gap for African American students.

Fortune said her objective is to serve the lowest-performing student subgroup in the region, and that group happens to be African American. Addressing their needs isn't segregation, she said, because parents can choose whether to send their children to her charter schools.

I support school choice, and I support Margaret Fortune. I've met her, worked with her, and written about her before, and she is a thoughtful, intelligent woman. (Full disclosure: I got my teaching credential through Project Pipeline, a program founded and run by her parents.) I have no reason not to trust Margaret's motives and abilities. In short, I think she's top notch.

For years, it's been common for public school systems to offer charters or academies tailored to specialized academic interests (think technology and health sciences) or educational approaches (Waldorf, for example.)

Fortune said her charters aren't really any different. The curriculum will be geared toward helping low-achieving students make the transition to a college-bound track.

Fortune said her program will employ strategies known to be effective with struggling students: school uniforms; longer school days, standards-based instruction, extensive professional development for teachers; and ongoing analysis of student data.

David DeLuz, president of the Greater Sacramento Urban League, said the charters are about providing options for black students, not segregating them.

And kudos to Mr. DeLuz for recognizing that this isn't segregation. But shame on a local school board president who is as ignorant of history as is our intrepid newspaper reporter:

While some critics opposed the proliferation of charters in general, others expressed discomfort at an educational mission defined by race. Board President Harold Fong, the lone trustee to vote against the proposal, said he couldn't get past the feeling that Fortune was essentially creating segregated schools.

"To ask us to approve a school that is heavily segregated flies in the face of education policy handed down from the Supreme Court," he said. "To ask us to do this is wrong."

You, sir, are an idiot, and a disgrace to the district you oversee. Shame on you for being so dumb.

Here's what the county is telling Ms. Fortune:

By law, public charter schools, like traditional schools, have to be open to all students, regardless of race. As part of the conditions applied to the charter's approval, the County Office of Education is requiring Fortune to recruit a population that mirrors the county. Thirty-six percent of students in Sacramento County are white, 27 percent are Latino and 14 percent African American.

Sacramento County schools chief Dave Gordon said reflecting those numbers should be the goal, but it can't be required. "The idea is you can advertise and recruit and who comes is who comes," Gordon said. "Their obligation is to fairly recruit from all over."

How is she supposed to "recruit" 36% white students, etc? It's a silly stipulation that Gordon admits can't be required, yet he reminds Fortune that she must recruit fairly. I have no doubt Fortune will recruit students honestly and fairly. Geez, it's not like she's an unknown quantity around here.

After reading the linked article and coming face-to-face with the reality of the entrenched system, how can any right-thinking person not support school choice?

Watson

An IBM computer beat Ken Jennings in Jeopardy--it's such an amazing feat, I'm hard-pressed to explain what it all really means. Watch a 10-minute film about Watson and his development team here.

Friday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Glenn.

Today's question is:
Where did Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty fight and fall to their deaths?

Higher Education Finally Getting The Closer Look It Merits?

I knew that college costs were rising, but I didn't know they were rising this much:

Nationally the price of college tuition increased more than 274 percent from 1990 to 2009 -- roughly four times the rate of inflation. That's even more than the brutal rise in health costs that has touched off a near-crisis in that field.

How might higher education problems be addressed? Here are some ideas out of Utah:

Some of the rumblings are already shaking the Utah Legislature this session:

• Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, inveighed against state funding for impractical "degrees to nowhere," and wants more emphasis on math, science and technology tracks.

• Rep. Chris Herrod, R-Provo, introduced HB 485 to ban the granting of tenure to professors at state colleges and universities. Critics have long said that tenure deprives some professors of motivation and responsibility.

• Sen. Stuart Reid, R-Odgen, is backing SJR 9, which would amend the state constitution to give the governor control over both public schools and higher education. That could be seen as expressing general frustration with Utah's academic establishment.

Degrees to nowhere. What could they possibly mean by that? Certainly not Aggrieved Victim Studies degrees. No, definitely not.

The Calm View of What's Going On In Wisconsin

Wisconsin's teachers are a little angry at their governor and are protesting at the capitol. I'm sure you can find plenty of news and opinion on what's going on there, complete with pictures and/or video, but probably none of what you read elsewhere will offer the same insights as EIA will. Seriously, go take a read.

Civility and Non-violent Speech, Leftie Edition

What is "acting appropriately" in a democracy?

Exhibit A

While politicians are still talking about restoring civility, liberal thugs are waging an all out attack on the website of David Rivkin, lead counsel in the multi-state lawsuit against Obamacare, rather than engage in a civilized debate that they can’t win. And what do the ACLU and other left-leaning civil rights groups have to say about these attempts to silence a leading voice for freedom and liberty? Not a thing.

Exhibit B

Here are some photographs taken yesterday by Meade (my husband) at the demonstration against Gov. Scott Walker's budget plan....

Exhibit C

Chris Matthews, in the wake of the Tucson shootings, went on a tear against the likes of Sarah Palin who used what he called "gun play" language, yet on Wednesday's Hardball, Matthews uttered phrases against public figures that he, himself, would've considered incendiary had a conservative said them.

In his "Let Me Finish" segment Matthews issued a "call to arms" against George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and others who were responsible for the "unpatriotic way this country was marched to war."

Exhibit D

Union Hate Rally in Wisconsin: Protests Rife With Hitler, Gun Targets, Death Threats

Exhibit E

Progressive Libtalker Mike Malloy Threatens Breitbart

Dear readers, those are from just the last few hours.

Update: this video is only 1:34 long.

Update #2: When did protesting at someone's house become acceptable behavior?

Nearly two dozen activists from DC Vote swarmed House Speaker John Boehner’s Capitol Hill residence at 7:30 Thursday morning, chanting “Don’t tread of D.C.” and “No taxation without representation” to protest congressional “meddling” in the District’s local affairs, in particular a House continuing budget resolution that would cut $80 million in federal payments and prohibit the city from using local funds to pay for needle exchange programs and abortions.

Update #3, 2/24/11: Here's a classy fellow.

Need Any Free Textbooks?

The school district in Stockton may be able to hook you up:

A school district is giving away thousands of brand-new textbooks because they don’t meet state academic standards, officials said.

The Stockton Unified School District has stored millions of dollars worth of the elementary school supplies in a warehouse for months while trying to determine how to reclaim as much money as possible.

Officials say former superintendent Anthony Amato bought the materials from a company called “Success For All” in 2008, spending $3 million on the reading material and another $1.7 million on training.

“This really became a drama resulting in a poor choice by an out-of-state superintendent who didn’t understand the rules and regulations,” said assistant superintendent Dr. Kirk Nicholas.

Amato was fired after 14 months on the job.

The poor choice left the school district with few options and additional penalties.

That's a Grade A screw-up.

Not Enough "Tolerance" in Davis

I've previously referred to the nearby city of Davis, home of the University of California at Davis, as "Berkeley-lite". If I haven't offered enough prior evidence for the title, try this:

The University of California at Davis has backed away from a policy that defined religious discrimination as Christians oppressing non-Christians after more than two dozen Christian students filed a formal complaint.

The definition is listed in a document called, “The Principles of Community.” It defines “Religious/Spiritual Discrimination” as “The loss of power and privilege to those who do not practice the dominant culture’s religion. In the United States, this is institutionalized oppressions toward those who are not Christian.”

I guess it's progress that they're "backing away" from such a policy, but imagine for a moment what the environment must be like for such a policy ever to see the light of day in the first place. That is why I call Davis "Berkeley-lite".

Thursday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Captain Greer.

Today's question is:
What was “Pop” Warner's real first name?

Doesn't Make Teachers Or Teachers Unions Look Good

How would you like this guy to be the public face of your profession?

A hulking teacher's union honcho whose big mouth got him bounced by cops from an Albany restaurant after he complained his quail was too small was previously reprimanded as a teacher after being accused of brazenly helping test-taking students cheat, officials said today.

Food-lovin' lobbyist Paul Egan was named in a scathing 2000 report by the Department of Education investigator as helping a group of Bronx middle-school students taking a city-wide math exam get the right answers to the test by using "several different methods to cheat."

The then-investigator, Edward Stancik, said Egan while proctoring the 1999 exam "purposely displayed the answers to the first 11 questions by leaving them unguarded on his desk for the students to find," and that he urged students to check individual answers after seeing they had gotten them wrong...

Egan was listed in the 1990 Guinness Book of World Records for longest recorded after-dinner speech — a Nov. 19-21, 1988 stem-winder that lasted 34 hours and 16 minutes at University College in Dublin, Ireland.

Interestingly enough, EIA is on the story, and addresses some of Egan's complaints about the restaurant:

Late and rude service? Drinks spilled? Cold and uncooked meals?

Surely not. After all, Marché is a union restaurant, organized by UNITE HERE Local 471 in 2007 through card check, and its members work as “cooks, bakers, kitchen utility workers, servers, bussers, bartenders and bellmen.” Maybe Egan should have demanded to speak to the shop steward.

Classic.

"Greedy Bastards" Paradox

From the American Thinker blog:

If we accept President Obama's economic arguments, his State of the Union address was most remarkable in the aftermath, when nothing happened.

For the sake of argument, let's agree with the President that the winning ticket of the global economic lottery will be investment in renewable energy, high-speed rail and other green industries. Bet on green and you win the future. Let's also stipulate, as the left believes, that private capital in America is in the hands of greedy bastards -- capitalists who will do anything for a buck.

The question then becomes why all those greedy bastards are not pouring money into the epochal investment opportunity that President Obama unveiled. Why is Wall Street not running up the stocks of companies positioned to flourish in the coming green economy? Where are the private equity firms that should be knocking down the doors of the solar shingle company that the President touted? Why aren't hedge fund sharpies jumping into high-speed rail? After all, if Warren Buffet or John Paulson delivered a speech that laid out the way to win the future, every other greedy bastard would be shoveling money into their ideas before the applause was over.

This is the greedy bastard paradox inherent in all government "investments." The state is left to fund the industrial policies of old or today's green schemes precisely because they are uneconomic. Economically viable investments need no government support because the greedy bastards of the private economy are already funding them...

Some on the left would counter that Big Oil is somehow preventing or undermining investment into promising clean energy technologies. Here again they run into the greedy bastard paradox. If an epic financial bonanza is right around the corner, how can the oil majors possibly keep all the other money-grubbers out of the game? And if green energy is really poised to supplant petroleum, why wouldn't Big Oil go for the gold, if only to survive? Even the most orthodox leftist should recognize that a conspiracy theory based on capitalists leaving money on the table is bankrupt.

But if the left can't call them "greedy bastards", at whom will they direct their daily 2-minute hate?

UNLV Going Bankrupt?

From the Las Vegas Sun:

UNLV President Neal Smatresk told a somber Faculty Senate on Tuesday that the administration was planning a kind of bankruptcy to deal with its budget crunch.

Under the "financial exigency" plan, tenured professors could be fired and whole departments and programs more easily closed down.

When I saw the picture at the linked article, the first thought that came to my mind was the Touchdown Jesus mural at Notre Dame. After living on borrowed money for so long, many of our public institutions may require some "divine intervention" in order to survive.

Wednesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Jack Lalanne, who passed away last month at age 96.

Today's question is:
On the tv show, who was the Mod Squad's immediate superior (played by Tige Andrew)?

Education Buzz

This week's Education Buzz is here and includes my post about smuggled documents related to national security--a RotLC exclusive!

Ew.

They say it takes all kinds. I wonder why it takes people like this:

A tenured economics professor at Colby College was forced to resign late last month after allegations surfaced that he set up a hidden surveillance camera to take photos of female students in a bathroom while chaperoning an international student trip, according to court documents.

Whole Foods and Trader Joe's

These two articles were linked on Yahoo today and I found them interesting enough to mention. Here's the skinny (get it? skinny? I slay myself):

Some of my friends jokingly call Whole Foods Market “Whole Paycheck.” The first time I shopped there, I understood why Whole Foods gained its nickname—I was stunned at how much I spent. Of course, I bought everything on my list—I hadn’t paid attention to what was a good deal and what wasn’t.

What to skip at Whole Foods:
conventional fruits and vegetables
the meat counter
health and beauty products

What to buy at Whole Foods:
local fruits and vegetables
sustainable fish and seafood
bulk foods
store-brand products

If you ever want to start a conversation at a party, try asking this question: What are the best and worst deals at Trader Joe’s? It’s only slightly less controversial than health care reform.

Americans (and I include myself) are crazy about Trader Joe’s. There are Facebook pages, books about shopping there, even fan-run websites. What inspires this passion? Jovanna Brooks, founder of traderjoesfan.com and traderjoesguide.com, says, “The reason that there are so many really die-hard Trader Joe’s fans is because you can get incredibly unique items. It’s adventure shopping all the time because there are things that are constantly new. At the same time, people get upset when products get discontinued, but that’s part of the fun.”

What to skip at Trader Joe's:
produce
meat

Toss-ups:
bakery and prepared foods
treats

What to buy at Trader Joe's:
cheese
staples
frozen foods
beyond food--flowers, body oils and soaps, etc

Years ago at Trader Joe's I bought a chocolate torte with a chocolate ganache on it. The once or so a year I've been since then I always check the freezer section to see if they still sell it, and they do. I remember the trip I took in my camper van, with one of those tortes in the frig. Memories, especially the good ones, last a lifetime.

Put Up Or Shut Up

Since 2007, Al Gore has been warning that there will be no north polar ice cap in the summer "in five years". Well, a year and a half from now, I guess we'll find out how much stock to put in the Goracle's words.

Tuesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Kazakhstan, which is well known for its potassium.

Today's question is:
Whose California license plate read “REDUCE”?

Respect and Civility

Instapundit quotes Victor Davis Hanson:

In times to come, the period between the failed campaign of John Kerry and the Democratic control of the Congress, coupled with the beginning of the successful surge, should be known as “The Insane Years.” This was the era in which Guantanamo was a gulag, renditions were the stuff of Hollywood movies, and Bush and Cheney were deemed veritable war criminals. Was it all a dream, those nightmare years of 2004-7?

I recall all that only because Oprah was just quoted as calling for more civility to be shown President Obama (“even if you’re not in support of his policies, there needs to be a certain level of respect”), echoing the president’s own post-Tucson insistence on a new amity between opponents. Bill Maher recently expressed outrage over the uncivil tone shown Barack Obama in Bill O’Reilly’s Super-Bowl Day interview. I think such concern for deference and conciliation is altogether fine and good; but, again, do we recall the crazy years of not so long ago?

This was the period in which Michael Moore called for U.S. defeat in Iraq and dubbed the Islamists who were killing our own soldiers “Minutemen.” . . . I do remember 2007, when the New York Times gave a discount to MoveOn.org for the ad hominem “General Betray Us” ad. Hillary that day suggested the general’s testimony required a suspicion of disbelief. Barack Obama assured us the surge had failed, and Joe Biden lectured Petraeus on trisecting Iraq — in the days before Iraq became, in Biden’s words, “our greatest achievement.”

Whenever I use the label "hypocrisy", it's almost always accompanied by "liberals/lefties"--as it is this time.

A Progressive Tax System

This is progress???

A quarter of all of Britain's income tax revenues this year will be paid by just one per cent of earners, according to official data.

The figure is in sharp contrast to 1978, an era associated with supertaxes, when the top one per cent paid 11 per cent of all the tax revenues.

Experts suggested the projections, published by HM Revenue and Customs, was evidence of how the rich had got richer over the last three decades, while the tax burden on them had increased substantially in recent years.

The new top rate of 50p income tax rate came into force in April 2010, landing a small number of people with the highest rate of income tax since 1988.

I wonder who these "experts" are, especially when in the very next sentence we're told that tax rates went up. Lefties, you gotta love 'em.

Monday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Smee.

Today's question is:
Sacha Baron Cohen's character Borat hails from which country? Bonus: according to Borat, for what export product is that country well known?

School Replaces Textbooks With Kindles

I don't see this happening on a mass scale in K-12 education. College-level, yes; K-12, no. I notice the reporter didn't mention any of the difficulties the school has had with issuing Kindles....

Sunday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Every 76 years.

Today's question is:
In Peter Pan, who is Captain Hook's first mate?

Ah, Italia....

I've been emailing back and forth today with a former student and recent college graduate who's living the 20-something dream in Italy, and she's given me permission to post the following comments she made about public education where she lives:

That's a shame about the budget cuts. I've been teaching a few hours here and there. Being a native speaker of English is the only thing I can capitalize on at the moment. Frankly, my first-hand experience with Italy's school system has really made me see how inefficient the America system can be. High school is specialized here. There's a school for science, one for classical studies, and one for the arts, not to mention an agrarian, a culinary, an automotive, and an enological tech school, and that's just in my tiny little medieval valley. The education is more tailored to what kids might want to go into, but it doesn't limit them when university time rolls around. The presence of the tech schools means that kids that aren't college-bound actually graduate with a diploma and a good deal of training. Much better than a system that (sorta) prepares everyone for a university degree they might not want, or moreover, not be able to afford. Italy also spends less per student than a lot of other countries, including the U.S.. I worked in the lab with a guy who only went to the enological high school. You'd need a BS in chem from a reputable university to do the same job in America and you wouldn't be nearly as qualified as he was at 17.

I find that the U.S. school system likes to b***s*** itself. State funded education that tries to guarantee individual development and promote personal growth, self esteem, and teamwork and all those buzz words...the schools here are part of a government-funded system, educating people so that they don't become burdens to said government later on. Sure it's a tad socialist, but why should public education have anything other than publicly-minded goals.

Been giving that a lot of thought. I teach at the scientific high school and oh...my...god it's freaking beautiful. It's in the old bastille (there's a moat!). The hallways are spotless, the technology up to date, and the students are motivated and interesting. Maybe it's just a different mentality here, but they're doing something right.

One person's opinion, a person whose opinion I trust.

I'll comment on one point she made, though. All public education is socialist, and that's not necessarily bad. What she describes in Italy, though, sounds a lot like what we in the US would call magnet schools. What we mostly have in the US, where every square kid is pounded into the round hole of college prep and so-called 21st Century Skills, is much more "socialist" (as a pejorative, not as a descriptor) than what she described in her "little medieval valley".

New CTEN Blog

The California Teachers Empowerment Network has started a blog, one whose purpose is to publish alternate viewpoints on matters related to education in general and teachers in particular. Please check there periodically.

Bjorn Lomborg on Green Jobs

I've mentioned Mr. Lomborg several times on this blog--just enter his name in the search box at the top (or preferably the one at the bottom) of this page to see other posts. To cut to the quick, he's a leftie Danish vegetarian environmentalist who believes in anthropogenic global warming.

He also makes sense when discussing how to deal with it.

In this article he puts the lie to the idea of "green jobs":

Political rhetoric has shifted away from the need to respond to the "generational challenge" of climate change. Investment in alternative energy technologies like solar and wind is no longer peddled on environmental grounds. Instead, we are being told of the purported economic payoffs—above all, the promise of so-called "green jobs." Unfortunately, that does not measure up to economic reality.

The Copenhagen Consensus Center asked Gürcan Gülen, a senior energy economist at the Bureau for Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin, to assess the state of the science in defining, measuring, and predicting the creation of green jobs. Gülen concluded that job creation "cannot be defended as another benefit" of well-meaning green policies. In fact, the number of jobs that these policies create is likely to be offset—or worse—by the number of jobs that they destroy.

On the face of it, green-job creation seems straightforward. Deploying more wind turbines and solar panels creates a need for more builders, technicians, tradesmen, and specialist employees. Voilà: Simply by investing in green policies, we have not only helped the climate but also lowered unemployment. Indeed, this is the essence of many studies that politicians are eagerly citing. So what did those analyses get wrong?

And then he tells us.

The end of the first page ends thusly:

The fundamental problem is that green-energy technologies are still very inefficient and expensive compared to fossil fuels. Deploying less efficient, more expensive alternative-energy sources will hurt businesses and consumers, not help them.

As I said, I like the way he addresses his concerns with an economics mindset. Go read the entire article for yourself if you want to find out what's on page 2.

Update, 2/14/11: Check out this book on Amazon :-)

Rented/Bought Movies Yesterday

Yesterday I rented two movies and bought (for only $5.99) 21, the Kevin Spacey movie about card counting in casinos. And this morning I come across the following related story:

The co-founder of a criminal enterprise known as the Tran Organization pled guilty last month to scamming casinos across the country out of millions of dollars, bringing to a close one of the largest card-cheating cases in recent FBI history.

Van Thu Tran, 45, along with her husband, parents, extended family, and others, participated in a surprisingly simple scheme to cheat casinos at the gaming tables.

Tran and her husband were dealers at an Indian tribal casino in San Diego in 2002 when they devised a plan to use a false shuffle to track cards and thereby guarantee successful betting.

Initially, it was a pretty bare bones operation, said Special Agent Peter Casey, one of several case agents who worked the Tran investigation out of our San Diego Field Office.

Over time, the couple branched out from an Asian card game called Pai Gow to blackjack, and they enlisted many others in the scheme including dealers at other casinos with the promise of easy money.

For awhile, the money was easy, because some of the tribal casinos security was not yet sophisticated enough to pick up on the scam. Before the ring was rounded up in 2007, some 29 casinos from Canada to Mississippi were hit for about $7 million.

New Look

After over 6 years with the same look, I've changed--hopefully updated--the appearance of Right On The Left Coast. I trust you'll find it appealing and easier to read.

Same great content, fresh new look!

Saturday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
1927, in Illinois.

Today's question is:
How often does Halley's comet “return” to Earth?

An Icelandic Teacher Opposes Budget Cuts

The problems in Iceland sound similar to what I wrote about in this post earlier today, but unlike me, this Icelandic teacher takes a decidedly Marxist/socialist view of things:

The education of Icelandic children is facing an ominous threat. Funding to schools is being slashed by municipal authorities, which can only have dire consequences for the current generation of children. So Icelanders have a stark decision to make in the immediate future. In a nutshell, citizens must choose between the welfare of their children and increasing taxes to those who can afford it...

Accepting the proposition that children are sacred, the parents rightly protest to the municipalities. The municipalities have no money. Ergo, the municipalities must get more money. However, the government has no money to give them. So the government must get more money.

This is where we run into a roadblock. The obvious solution is for government to increase taxes to those who can afford it in order to save the children from harmful cuts.

Enter the neoliberal mouthpiece, with the standard baseless dogma about the inherent evil of taxes. Greed is good. To such people, economic austerity is good for everybody but their true constituency: the wealthy...

Those who have the money must pay up through taxes. To do otherwise is to cannibalise the future of Iceland's children.

He doesn't consider the value of teaching Iceland's children about the cost of socialism or even the cost of government. No, he goes right for "the rich", believing "the children" are entitled to other people's money. We have plenty of "the rich", and the companies they own, leaving California for more business-friendly environments in nearby states. Iceland has only 300,000 people in the whole country, less than 1% of California's population; it can't be that hard for "the rich" to up and leave if they're not entitled to keep what they earn, leaving the rest to fend for themselves.

If It's A Public Meeting, Who Owns The Video?

This is interesting:

An Evanston dad was hoping for a response when he posted a video clip on YouTube that showed a heated exchange touching on race during a public school board meeting.

But the fallout that ensued had as much to do with legal questions, after an official with the Evanston-Skokie School District 65 cited copyright infringement and successfully asked the video website to remove the original clip.

YouTube complied — and the father, Becket Strom, responded by posting several more video snippets taken from the same Jan. 24 board meeting.

Strom, who said someone gave him the video after obtaining it from the district, said he wanted to show how the superintendent's behavior is "problematic to the community."

Now school officials have asked their lawyer to weigh in.

"Obviously, someone can come in and record an open meeting," said John Relias, an attorney who represents District 65.

But because the video may have been taken from a DVD provided by the district, "it's a very complicated question."

"Just because it could be obtained through a FOIA (federal Freedom of Information Act) does not automatically give the person a right to post to YouTube," Relias said.

I'm curious to see how this turns out. Absent deeper thought on the subject, I'm presently inclined to support the parent on this one.

California's Chickens Are Coming Home To Roost, And They're Camping Out In My Eaves

Thursday after school we had a staff meeting, and the topic was the district budget for next year. Property taxes don't fund schools in California, all funding comes from the state; so when Uncle Sunny (the state equivalent of Uncle Sam?) has an empty wallet, every district in the state feels it.

California's profligacy has been, to use a popular term, "unsustainable" for decades, and we seem to have reached the cliff. We've known this day was coming, but politicians and the voting public refused to do anything about it until we reached a crisis, and even now there are some who refuse to accept reality.

My school district has a budget of about $365 million dollars a year. In the best-case scenario, one which involves a state-wide special election in June that passes some tax extensions, my district will have to cut only about $37 million. If the tax extensions don't pass, the number skyrockets up to over $50 million.

If it hasn't happened already, the state Board of Education is expected to allow districts to shorten the next school year from 180 to 175 days. March 15th, the day state law requires districts to notify teachers who might be laid off the next year, is expected to be bloody, with over a third of our district's teachers' potentially receiving layoff notices. Negotiations are currently underway regarding furlough days and pay cuts.

It's a good thing I chose to go to Iceland this year, because I won't be able to afford to next year.

California, like the federal government, doesn't have an income problem. It has a spending problem. You can't go buy a house in Beverly Hills, shower yourself in minks and diamonds, and then complain that your boss doesn't pay you enough. You have to look at how much money you have and make, and budget accordingly. Our state government is full of departments and agencies (and I'm not sure that list is exhaustive) that are nice-to-haves when time is good, but absolutely silly in an economic environment such as this. But it's easier to cut the education budget. I wonder how much welfare will be cut? California has 10% of the country's population but a full third of the country's welfare recipients--might you wonder why that is? Will we continue to spend money on bullet trains from nowhere to nowhere, or on embryonic stem cell research?

Now I'm not saying that the education budget shouldn't be cut. When education makes up half the state budget, the budget cannot be balanced without touching education. I get that. But is there not one department or agency that could be abolished in its entirety? I don't expect there will be. In other words, I doubt our legislature and governor will identify so much as a single redundant agency or department whose mission could be absorbed by another agency, much less just abolish one outright as not critical to the operation of the state. Most will probably agree that education is a critical state function.

So, furlough days. Between teacher work days and staff development days, there are (I think) 5 days right there our district could cut without affecting students. Cutting staff development days just takes money out of my pocket, but cutting teacher work days requires me to work for free--because the work still has to get done. For example, we have 2 such days immediately before school starts, and these days include staff meetings as well as getting our classrooms set up for the new year. Those activities will have to be done, whether or not we get paid for them. Another such day is the day immediately after first semester final exams. The students get Friday off and we teachers have a day to grade finals and get grades inputted. That will still have to be done, whether or not there's a teacher work day allotted for it.

If they shorten the school year 5 days, those would be another 5 days they wouldn't pay me for. 10 days total out of 185. Then tack on a pay cut on top of that. Yes, I definitely should start working on that master's degree!

So personally, I'm looking at having to shoulder some of California's economic burden. Of course I don't like it--who would?--but I recognize that it's necessary if California is to get its fiscal house in order. I try to look at it this way: my retirement depends on the financial solvency of this state, so let's get that fixed!

Economically, the 2011-2012 school year is not going to be a good one for me. My hope is that it will be a good start for California.

Friday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
2010. Air Force won the Independence Bowl, Navy lost in the Poinsettia Bowl, and Army won the Armed Forces Bowl.

Today's question is:
When did the Harlem Globetrotters play their first game?

Busted For Blogging

I don't know exactly where the line is, but the teacher in this story came a lot closer to it than I ever do:

Since it hit the Associated Press wires, the story has spread to more than 200 publications. Natalie Munroe, an English teacher at Central Bucks High School, was suspended and faces dismissal for what she wrote about her students and school on her personal blog “Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?”

As I put in my comment on the above-linked post, Ms. Munroe was definitely indiscreet. I certainly wouldn't write the things quoted--at least, not very often at all, and certainly not about identifiable students. She's certainly gotten closer to the line than I would ever go, but did she cross that line? I guess we'll find out.

Thursday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
US intelligence knew that Yamamoto would be conducting an inspection tour of Japanese units, and a squadron of American P-38 Lightning aircraft was dispatched to “dispatch” Yamamoto. The Americans succeeded, shooting down Yamamoto's plane over Bougainville.

Today's question is:
What was the first year that all three major US service academies—Army, Navy, and Air Force—played in a bowl game at the end of football season?

Heck, Must Everything Be Made Political?

(In the event you couldn't figure it out,) I enjoy politics as much as the next guy. Still, politics isn't the end all, be all of human existence. Not everything needs to be made into a political jujitsu match! There are plenty of stores I frequent, even knowing that they give lots of money to Democrats; I only boycott when the stores trumpet that knowledge (e.g. Ben and Jerry's) in an attempt to appeal to a certain demographic, or otherwise display an extreme bias or aversion to my beliefs (MSNBC).

So I just roll my eyes when I see stories like this one, which make me wonder about some people's sanity:

As chocolatiers plan for one of their biggest sales weeks of the year, human rights activists are stepping up efforts to make consumers think twice before purchasing the traditional box of chocolates for their sweethearts for Valentine's Day on Monday.

One online campaign is aimed at raising awareness of the cocoa trade in Ivory Coast, which is helping to prop up the pariah regime of incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo, while another focuses on ending the alleged use of child labor by growers in West Africa, which produces about two-thirds of the world's cocoa...

Activist group Green America is urging consumers to send a "valentine" to U.S.-based Hershey, or e-mails directly to its executives, urging the use of cocoa that has "been certified to be free from the worst forms of abusive child labor."

Some leftie will try to score a cheap point by accusing me of supporting abusive child labor. My response to that would be a labored breath and a sarcastic, "Yes, that must be it."

In the case above we have a single group that is trying to take advantage of a "holiday" in order to spread its political message. Do we really want to expand that type of behavior as much as we could? Think about it.

Liberals Don't See Their Own Hypocrisy

From the New York Times, of all places:

Discrimination is always high on the agenda at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s conference, where psychologists discuss their research on racial prejudice, homophobia, sexism, stereotype threat and unconscious bias against minorities. But the most talked-about speech at this year’s meeting, which ended Jan. 30, involved a new “outgroup.”

It was identified by Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia who studies the intuitive foundations of morality and ideology. He polled his audience at the San Antonio Convention Center, starting by asking how many considered themselves politically liberal. A sea of hands appeared, and Dr. Haidt estimated that liberals made up 80 percent of the 1,000 psychologists in the ballroom. When he asked for centrists and libertarians, he spotted fewer than three dozen hands. And then, when he asked for conservatives, he counted a grand total of three.

“This is a statistically impossible lack of diversity,” Dr. Haidt concluded, noting polls showing that 40 percent of Americans are conservative and 20 percent are liberal. In his speech and in an interview, Dr. Haidt argued that social psychologists are a “tribal-moral community” united by “sacred values” that hinder research and damage their credibility — and blind them to the hostile climate they’ve created for non-liberals.

“Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.”

He said it, not me. I just agree wholeheartedly.

Wednesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Both the Vikings and the Bills are 0-4.

Today's question is:
How did Naval General (Admiral) Yamamoto, planner of the Pearl Harbor attack, die?

Does This Just Look Bad, Or Is It Really Bad?

If there was something meaningful and useful to be gained from going to a conference, is there a problem with sending some teachers?

The Chicago Public Schools system is suffering from a $700 million budget shortfall. So why did some educators travel to Las Vegas just days after a travel restriction was ordered?

CBS 2′s Dave Savini and the Better Government Association investigated questionable spending of school tax dollars and how children are impacted.

Former Scammon Elementary School teacher Laura Hoffman is angry that 14 of her Chicago Public School co-workers went on an all-expense paid trip to a Las Vegas resort and spa for a conference last year.

“That’s what happened. Does it make sense? No,” Hoffman said. “I think parents need to be aware what is happening.”

Hoffman quit her job at Scammon Elementary last year and says school officials should not have spent the $15,000 on the conference in Las Vegas while city schools are hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.

I'm willing to have my mind changed here, but I don't see anything wrong with attending a conference in Las Vegas if--and it's a big if--there was something meaningful and useful to be gained by having the teachers attend.

Would it have been better somehow if the conference had been held in Modesto, CA rather than Las Vegas?

Tuesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
The Zugspitze.

Today's question is:
Of teams that have been to the Super Bowl, which two are tied for the worst record in the Super Bowl?

Sham U--And I'm Not Talking About the Killer Whale, Either

Some enterprising individual will hopefully be spending some time behind bars:

Officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) say every year, they bust hundreds of schools that served as fronts for illegal immigration operations, leaving thousands of foreign nationals who've paid tuition in exchange for a student visa in the lurch, while the head of the "school" often winds up forfeiting property, or, behind bars.

The latest example appears to come from the San Francisco Bay Area: Tri-Valley University based in Pleasanton. Federal prosecutors say it wasn't a school at all- rather an elaborate scheme to defraud the government, and perhaps the biggest scam of its kind.

Open since 2008, TVU's website touts on-line classes in engineering, medicine, and law, and a faculty list of more than 50 highly educated professionals. But those we contacted said they'd never seen the school, or taught a class. Many had no idea their names were on the site, which is peppered with numerous spelling and grammatical mistakes ("Now you graduate, we would like to hear from you, about life and how the study at TVU and the degree do to your career, not just your million dollar donation!").

ICE officials noticed enrollment nearly tripled in a matter of months to over 1,500 students- almost all from the same region of India, and each paying $5,400 per semester to the schools founder, Susan Su.

Court documents say "since its inception, Tri-Valley University has been a "sham" university which Su, and others, have used to facilitate foreign nationals in illegally acquiring student immigration status that authorizes them to remain in the United States."

Hmmm.

Monday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
The San Francisco 49ers beat the Cincinnati Bengals in 1982 and 1989, and the Dallas Cowboys beat the Buffalo Bills in 1993 and 1994. Pittsburgh and Dallas have met three times.

Today's question is:
What is the tallest mountain in Germany?

Sunday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Today's question is:
Two pairs of teams have met twice in the Super Bowl, with the same team winning each pair of games. Who are those pairs of teams?

Should College Students Vote In Local Elections?

Or should they vote in their "home" elections?

This situation is akin to military members, who might live anywhere in the country. Military members have a "home of record", usually where they joined from, and that is the jurisdiction in which they vote by absentee ballot.

How is the college student situation sufficiently different from the transitory military member? Both live only temporarily in their current location, even if "temporarily" means 2-4 years. Is there a legitimate argument to be made in favor of restricting voting of college populations in the college towns, and instead requiring them to vote by absentee in the elections of the municipality they call "home"? For purposes of this discussion, let's set aside whatever laws and rulings are present and discuss the issue on its own merits.

It's Only Funny Because of the Truth It Holds

Anyone who's been a teacher long enough has had at least one conference like this.


Hat tip to Buckhorn Road, where I first saw this video

Ronald Reagan's 100th Birthday

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan, one of the best American presidents and certainly the best in the last half-century. Mister we could use a man like Ronald Reagan again:

It is not just Reagan's specific achievements, though, that inspire people today, that leave so many of us yearning for his brand of leadership. It is also his profound faith in the essential goodness of the American people and in the exceptional role the U.S. has been destined by the Almighty to play in the world. Reagan was a master of the stage. But the Great Communicator's power came from deeply held convictions, not from superficial eloquence. Reagan's words represented his core. There was no slight-of-hand in his speeches; he didn't use liberal language to disguise or hide his agenda.

Here's an example of showing his core beliefs, his deeply held convictions. How they resonate for us today!


He was a good man. Not perfect, by any stretch, but the very definition of a leader. You get a sense of how good a man he was--how genuine he was--at the Reagan Library. I visited there almost two years ago.

Saturday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Majel Barrett Roddenberry.

Today's question is:
The Khyber Pass connects which two countries?

California

California, by Phantom Planet. Nice music, nice lyrics.

On the other hand:

California has never looked less golden, with eight of its cities making the top 20 on our annual list(of America's most miserable cities).

I'll Be On The Radio Tonight

Details are currently here--although the time is 11pm Eastern, not 9pm.

Description:

The Great Education Reform Debate Part 2, Conservative vs Liberal. Participants: In the Right Hand corner, Larry Sand and Darren Miller. In the left hand corner, The Frustrated Teacher and Jason The Public School Guy. The Topics: Standardized testing, Charter Schools, Teacher Tenure, School Vouchers. Listeners can be part of the debate. Call 805-285-9736

Podcasts for previous shows are available, so I assume this one will be available, too. Or you might be able to stream it live on iTunes! Click on the iTunes button at the link above if you have nothing better to do on a Friday night....

Update: Just finished our 90 minute roundtable discussion of the topics above on Neil Haley's radio show. Neil's link is above, Larry (in addition to being the president of the California Teachers Empowerment Network) comments at RedCounty.com, The Frustrated Teacher blogs here, and I do not have a link for Jason the Public School Guy (but please send one if you have it!).

It was refreshing to learn how much we agreed upon; sometimes the differences in our views were just where we would draw the line. At one point I thought I was in Bizarro World, as conservative Larry was touting the education system of socialist Sweden while one of the liberals supported less federal control over education (federalism!) and seemed to have a problem with the fact that vouchers could disproportionately help poor inner-city minority kids! Neil did a great job as moderator herding us cats.

I did some "show prep" and was armed with a couple pages of notes, much of which didn't come in handy--but those points that I did get to make, I like to think I made them well and forcefully.

What a treat! I'm sure plenty of you readers had a more eventful Friday night than I had, and I'm glad you did, but I wonder if you had as much fun as I had! I truly enjoy mental gymnastics, which is partly why I jumped at the opportunity to take part in this show. I would enjoy a similar opportunity in the future.

Want to listen? Click here and then click on the arrow just above the "Fav" heart

or click the iTunes button to download the podcast.

Separation of Church and State?

Or just another school principal's being an idiot? It took a lawsuit to get the school to see straight:

A California elementary school is changing course after being sued for barring a fifth grader from performing to a Christian song in the school's February 4 talent show...

The lawsuit claims that after the boy's January 14 audition the school's principal, Jerilyn Shubert, told his mother the song was "offensive" and a violation of the "separation of church and state" and asked why he couldn't "pick a song that does not say Jesus so many times?"

Los Angeles Unified School District now says the district, the PTA and the boy's legal representation were (sic) have come to an agreement.

Ridiculous that it took this much effort for a kid to perform in a talent show.

Carrying a Dagger To School

If you're a Sikh, you can carry a (dulled) dagger to school. But put green plastic army men and a small American flag on your baseball cap for Crazy Hat Day, and you could be in deep crap because of the zero-tolerance ban on "weapons"--yes, the tiny plastic representations of weapons carried by the tiny plastic army men! Take a nerf gun (that shoots ping pong-type balls) to school and you get charged with a misdemeanor!

How's That Civility Coming Along?

Protesters call to lynch US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (video at link)

COMMON CAUSE RESPONDS TO CALLS FOR A CLARENCE THOMAS LYNCHING BY ITS SUPPORTERS, and James Taranto observes: “Everybody does it? Think it through and you will see that this is a stunning indictment of the American left. To begin with, it is not true that everybody does it. As we noted yesterday, the formerly mainstream media have spent the past two years trying to depict the Tea Party as precisely the sort of racist, hateful, violent political movement that Common Cause appears in the video to be. That media effort has failed, not for lack of will but for lack of evidence. If everybody did it, the Tea Party would do it, and if the Tea Party did it, you would have read about it in the New York Times.” (link)

Why does this not surprise me? Because I wrote this just four days ago.

Should Our K-12 Math Paths All Lead To Calculus?

The president of the National Council on Teachers of Mathematics says no. While I agree with that, I'm not pleased with his analysis of the issue.

Algebra isn't the problem. I can't imagine that anyone truly believes that algebra isn't a "gateway" course--students have to be capable of more than just "doing" algebra, they have to know and understand algebra, and that includes both Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 topics. Additionally, Mr. Shaughnessy's fictional algebra track strikes me as exactly that, fictional.

I have no objections to different math tracks--probability, combinatorics, statistics, and/or data analysis. All are important, valuable fields that are certainly worthy of study, and are more directly applicable to non-math/engineering/science fields than is calculus. My fear, though, is that given the NCTM's history (which extends to this day) of favoring "interpretation of data" over computation, as well as their over-insistence on calculators and computers to do the computation, there's very little "math" left over in these so-called math classes. I assert that students must know how to do all the calculations themselves so that they can understand what the calculator or computer is telling them; they must have the "number sense" before they can truly interpret the data. In the same sense that students must know their multiplication tables before they use a calculator to do such work for them (do I really need to justify that??), so must students understand the calculations that the calculator or data analysis software will do for them. They should know both the calculations and the interpretation, but one before the other.

And I'll be honest here--I don't trust the NCTM when they as an organization say that they support computational ability as well as interpretation. Words are cheap, and the organization's actions of the past several years hasn't backed up those words.

Is Higher Education a Public or a Private Good?

This is an interesting opener:

As state legislatures around the country start cutting budgets, they face a puzzler—what is the proper subsidy (if any) for higher education?

The answer to this question may hinge on another: whether higher education can be considered a “public good.” Two writers for the Chronicle of Higher Education recently weighed in on the issue. Sandy Baum, an economist, and Michael McPherson, a former college president, say that education is partly a route to a job and to personal satisfaction and therefore a private good, something that most individuals should pay for themselves. But they argue that it is also a public good—they do not want state legislatures to shirk their responsibility to support education.

I have a rather iconoclastic take on this question, one that I shared recently in an article in Independent Review. Perhaps higher education, as currently provided, is indeed a public good—but a bad one.

The CSU and UC systems have raised tuition each year, and sometimes even mid-year, much higher than the rate of inflation. When they do, students in those systems raise quite the stink--acting as if they're entitled to a low-cost education. I'm willing to listen to arguments that say that California's master plan for education, now 50 years old, could use some adjustments.

ROTC at Stanford?

I'm waiting....

Former U.S. Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and George Shultz have officially offered their support for the return of ROTC to Stanford. In a letter delivered today to the Faculty Senate’s Ad Hoc Committee on ROTC, Rice and Shultz stated that they were joining former U.S Secretary of Defense William Perry and Stanford History Professor David Kennedy in their calls for ROTC’s return to campus.

Waiting, but not holding my breath.

Friday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Double Fantasy.

Today's question is:
Who is the only performer to have had a role in every Star Trek series, including the animated series, as well as both the original series-based and Next Gen-series based movies?

Thursday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Van Pelt.

Today's question is:
What was the name of John Lennon's last album, released just weeks before he was killed?

Plenty of Teachers Will Say "Duh" To This Study

It took someone from Harvard this long to figure out that college isn't for everyone?

A new Harvard study (PDF) says American students need to begin to decide in middle school whether they want to prepare for four-year college and then a career. The alternative approach, the study says, is to begin vocational training for a job earlier.

High school teachers could have told them this years ago.

The "Good" Kind of School Segregation

From Reason:

As Sinclair Lewis should have said, when segregation returns to American public schools it will come wrapped in a union contract and carrying a copy of The State of America's Children.

Principal Bill Jimenez should segregate those polka dots out of his tie. A high school principal in Lancaster, Pennsylvania is defending a policy of separating an underperforming segment of the student body -- and he's not talking about the Amish.

Discuss.

What Excuse Do The Greens Have For Being Against This?

From Wired:

China has officially announced it will launch a program to develop a thorium-fueled molten-salt nuclear reactor, taking a crucial step towards shifting to nuclear power as a primary energy source...

“President Obama talked about a Sputnik-type call to action in his SOTU address,” wrote Charles Hart, a a retired semiconductor researcher and frequent commenter on the Energy From Thorium discussion forum. “I think this qualifies.”

While nearly all current nuclear reactors run on uranium, the radioactive element thorium is recognized as a safer, cleaner and more abundant alternative fuel. Thorium is particularly well-suited for use in molten-salt reactors, or MSRs. Nuclear reactions take place inside a fluid core rather than solid fuel rods, and there’s no risk of meltdown.

In addition to their safety, MSRs can consume various nuclear-fuel types, including existing stocks of nuclear waste. Their byproducts are unsuitable for making weapons of any type. They can also operate as breeders, producing more fuel than they consume.

Wish we could do something related to nuclear energy in this country.

What "Free Speech" Means To Today's Lefties

I'll just quote the entire Instapundit post:

ANN ALTHOUSE: When Did The Left Turn Against Free Speech?" When they started losing the debate. "Free speech was only ever a means to an end. When they got their free speech, made their arguments, and failed to win over the American people, and when in fact the speech from their opponents seemed too successful, they switched to the repression of speech, because the end was never freedom." Nope. It was always about control.

Plus, from the comments: "I think the reason the Left so often opposes free speech now is that they have victoriously marched through the institutions and are now in control. And those in control don't care for there to be further discussion that might threaten their power. Those who are not in power are the ones who want free speech."

And, from Althouse further down in the comments: "A person from 1969 watching that video of me and Bob Wright would assume Bob was right wing and I was left wing. Bob's ranting about law and order. The me of 1969, sitting in a room with my college friends, would have said 'Nixon!' and everyone would have laughed."

An Insider's View of San Francisco

An outsider, a tourist, would only see this side of San Francisco. Dig a quarter of an inch deeper, though, and this is what you find:

District Six Supervisor Jane Kim rises with her fellow supervisors for the Pledge of Allegiance at each session of the Board of Supervisors, but she does not recite the pledge and has not done so since taking office last month, Fox KTVU reports.

Kim said that she believes it is a personal decision of how to honor the flag and country and has been surprised by the criticism.

"I don't think our flag represents a nation where there's liberty and justice for all," argued Kim.

Wednesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
Harvard. He earned a PhD in mathematics from the University of Michigan, and was an assistant professor at UC Berkeley for two years.

Today's question is:
In the Peanuts comic strip, what is Linus and Lucy's last name?

Liberty vs. Benevolence

There are too many good quotes in this piece for me to do a decent job of excerpting, so do yourself a favor and read Roger Kimball's essay in toto.

Tuesday Trivia

The answer to yesterday's question is:
University of California, Davis (School of Medicine).

Today's question is:
At what university did the Unabomber earn his undergraduate degree?