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Father Teaches Daughter Lesson About Facebook

Teenage girl smarts off about her parents on Facebook, thinking they won't find out.

Wrong answer.

Of course I think it's hilarious, but at least one commenter at that link is correct:

So, your daughter gets over rebellious and says some mean things about you to her friends. Be angry? Sure. Punish her? I expect. But then what? You take it 10 steps further and try to humiliate her over the internet. Now, how the (expletive deleted) is that any different than what she did to you? Hell, that's worse if you ask me!

As I said to another teacher today, some people need a butt-kicking, and it's hard to feel sorry for them when they get it. Same with this situation; I'm conflicted.

But it's still pretty funny!

Unsustainable

That would be the current social security model:

In its latest projection, the Congressional Budget Office found that the Social Security Trust Fund had $1 trillion less than expected. Seems it always happens this way. When will Washington recognize that the problem is the model?

In an A1 story Friday by IBD's Jed Graham, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said it now expects the supposedly vaunted and unsinkable trust fund to peak in 2018 and then decline to $2.7 trillion by 2022.

That's a trillion dollars less than what was projected to be in the pot last year...

The question remains what to do about it:

Continue on as if nothing has happened — which is President Obama's "solution"?

Old News

John Rosemond, a writer I used to follow, sounds like this is new and he just discovered it:

Objective research isn't used when determining educational methods

...If school-reform fads had paid off, today's achievement levels would be higher, and classroom behavior would be better than it was in the 1960s. The opposite is the case. The taxpayer is catching on, evidenced by a growing revolt against public education's never-ending cry for more money. Accountability can be a painful thing.

The Latest Rumors

California's state budget is a disaster, but with the exception of pay freezes, cutting the number of school site vice principals, and dropping most school busing, our district hasn't fallen over a cliff.

Secret word leaking out of the district office, though, tells us this tale: for the rest of this school year, things won't change much and there will be no furlough days. Next year, though, will be a bloodbath. There will be smiting with fiery swords. Ten furlough days is what I've heard is being discussed, and who knows what other cuts are in the offing.

We can only keep our head in the sand for so long, I guess.

Remember When We Had A Cowboy For President, And War With Iran Was Imminent?

Oh what a difference a D after your name makes:

Nearly half of likely voters think the United States should be willing to use military force to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, according to this week’s The Hill Poll...

“Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal,” the president said in his State of the Union address.

Oppressive San Francisco Ordinances

Can we all agree that this is too much regulation?

The NYT's Scott James recounts the insane red-tape endured by Juliet Pries, an entrepreneur who decided to open an ice-cream parlour in San Francisco's Cole Valley. She had to pay rent on an empty storefront for over two years while the necessary permits were processed, and tens of thousands of dollars in fees (including the cost of producing a detailed map of nearby businesses, which the city itself seemed not to have). If the story sounds familiar, it's because it was the subject of a notorious Xtranormal-produced Hello City Planner video that used it as an example to lampoon the planning bureaucracy in San Francisco.

Pries's restaurant, the Ice Cream Bar, is a popular hit, and employs 14 people, but “Many times it almost didn’t happen," as she says, due to the incredibly administrative hurdles she faced in opening it...

I'm sure someone will try to justify, excuse, or explain this, but for the life of me I can't figure why they'd try.

What Can The Politicos Do For Me?

Fifteen years ago, one of my grandfathers died. He'd spent 20+ years in the air force and another 20+ years as a civilian working for the air force so the Veterans Administration was to provide a small marker for his plot. Unfortunately, at the time of his death the VA was backed up and was taking several--I don't remember how many, but certainly a lot more than a few!--months to provide headstones. This, of course, gave nana an opportunity to be dramatic and to complain about his being in "an unmarked grave".

Our local congressman was Democrat Vic Fazio, whom grandpa, a Republican, referred to as "Fazio the Wop". In earlier days, I guess, you called it like you saw it, without all the need for eggshell-walking political correctness. Anyway, I wrote Congressman Fazio and explained the situation, asking if there was anything he could do. A staffer contacted me periodically, kept me informed, and within a couple weeks notified me that a marker was on the way. I got the impression that grandpa wasn't just moved to the front of the line, but that a fire had been lit under the appropriate section of the VA.

Upon getting that news I penned another letter to the congressman, thanking him for his efforts on nana and grandpa's behalf. The staffer contacted me again solely to tell me thanks for sending a thank you, as entirely too many constituents ask for help and after receiving it, are never heard from again.

I joked with nana that grandpa would be spinning in his grave if he knew I'd asked Congressman Fazio for anything, especially something for him!

That's a fairly long lead-in to this story. My other grandfather turns 100 in a few weeks. I don't know why it didn't occur to me before, but I suddenly thought to ask the White House for greetings from the president. I looked it up and found they do that for people who are 80 or above (yeah, grandpa beats that one!), but that they're months behind schedule. Additionally, the best way to solicit a greeting is to have a senator or congressman make the request.

So tonight I contacted my senators, both Democrats, and my congressman (not my grandfather's, though, I don't think), a Republican, and made the request on grandpa's behalf. The senators also offer greeting letters, so I requested theirs as well as one from the White House. I'm pretty sure that grandpa hasn't cast too many votes for Democrats, but that doesn't change the impact of getting greetings from the White House.

We'll see if the politicos come through.

Socialism Is Un-Christian

Jesus never once told us how we were to govern ourselves here on Earth; instead, he instructed each of us how we should conduct our own lives such that we can go to Heaven. Invoking Jesus to support higher taxes is about as sacreligious as one can get:

During a speech on National Prayer Breakfast at the National Cathedral, President Barack Obama went partisan (shocker!) in what is usually a bipartisan event by invoking Jesus Christ to justify his push for higher taxes:

President Obama offered a new line of reasoning for hiking taxes on the rich on Thursday, saying at the National Prayer Breakfast that his policy proposals are shaped by his religious beliefs.

Obama said that as a person who has been “extraordinarily blessed,” he is willing to give up some of the tax breaks he enjoys because doing so makes economic, and religious sense.

“For me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that for unto whom much is given, much shall be required,” Obama said, quoting the Gospel of Luke.

I’ll admit upfront that I believe raising taxes is a terrible idea. It’s even worse of an idea in economy that just now seems recovering from an severe downturn, a point that the Congressional Budget Office recently echoed. But President Obama’s invocation of Jesus and religion to push tax hikes is sickening and it makes him no different from someone like Rick Santorum, who frequently uses his faith to justify authoritarian social policies.

A related quote from PJ O'Rourke, as well as links to two other posts on this same topic, here.

Stupid College Activities

Remember this post I did yesterday, on a new funding model for universities? Well, this genius is Exhibit A on why it won't work:

A college student claims he was injured when a fraternity member in a "drunken stupor" decided "that it would be a good idea to shoot bottle rockets out of his anus," and did so, "but instead of launching, the bottle rocket blew up in the defendant's rectum, and this startled the plaintiff and caused him to jump back," and fall off the fraternity's deck.

Louis Helmburg III sued The Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity Inc., of Huntington, West Virginia, and Travis Hughes, a fraternity member, in Cabell County Court...

Helmburg says Alpha Tau negligently failed to supervise its guests and members, "such as defendant Hughes, and other under age persons, from consuming alcohol on its premises, which leads to stupid and dangerous activities, such as shooting bottle rockets out of one's own anus."

As for Hughes, Helmburg says, "Defendant Hughes also owed plaintiff and others on the ATO deck a duty of care not to drink under age, or to fire bottle rockets out of his anus."

Louis Helmburg III. Good ole Lou Helmburg. Think this kind of publicity is going to help you get a job one day, Lou?

At least he's not the guy lighting bottle rockets in his butt. That would be one Travis Hughes.

The Latest Internet Meme--How Thick Is Your Bubble?

Go here to read about it online. The author's thesis is that we now have a ruling class so insulated from the experience of everyday Americans that they "make their judgements about what's good for other people based on their own highly atypical lives."

I took the 25-question quiz and scored 54:
Here are the scores that you could expect to get if you fit the following descriptions.
•
A lifelong resident of a working-class neighborhood with average television and moviegoing habits.
Range: 48–99. Typical: 77.
•
A first-generation middle-class person with working-class parents and average television and moviegoing habits.
Range: 42–100. Typical: 66.
•
A first-generation upper-middle-class person with middle-class parents.
Range: 11–80. Typical: 33.
•
A second-generation (or more)upper-middle-class person who has made a point of getting out a lot.
Range: 0–43. Typical: 9.
•
A second- generation (or more) upper-middle-class person with the television and moviegoing habits of the upper middle class.
Range: 0–20.Typical: 2.

I'm somewhere between the 2nd and 3rd categories, and my score matches that. This quiz is worth every cent you paid for it, and it's good if it causes you to think about your life experiences as they relate to others'.

I'm Sure They'll Say This Is Racist, Or Something

Any piece of art against President Bush was heralded as some great truth-to-power demonstration, and proof of the "courage" of the artist to stand up to The Big Evil. I doubt we'll be hearing about 1st Amendment rights and artistic expression regarding the painting shown here:

In front of the White House a man is sitting on a park bench in the throes of depression. He is surrounded by all 43 presidents. In the forefront, purposefully ignoring the depressed man is President Obama, whose right foot is stepping on the Constitution. James Madison is next to Obama, pleading with him to stop.

This tableau is called “The Forgotten Man”, a painting by Jon McNaughton, an artist who is known for his politically-charged work.

The painting, which uses objects such as discarded dollar bills as symbols and scraps of paper with individual constitutional amendments scrawled onto them, has been making the rounds across the Internet.

I don't think it's a big secret that most artists of any stripe are liberals, that's why this is so novel.

Why I'm Not A Socialist, A Quote For The Day

“There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as “caring” and “sensitive” because he wants to expand the government’s charitable programs is merely saying that he’s willing to try to do good with other people’s money. Well, who isn’t? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he’ll do good with his own money — if a gun is held to his head.”
-- P.J. O’Rourke

This is also why socialism is un-Christian.

How Fast We've Fallen

From universal preschool to this in just a few years:

Sherry Tam doesn't know where her son will go to school next year.

The Elk Grove boy, who is 15 days too young to start kindergarten in August, was signed up for transitional kindergarten, a new grade level slated to start in the next school year.

But Gov. Jerry Brown pulled the multicolored classroom carpet out from under thousands of California families when he proposed permanently eliminating funding for the program in next year's state budget.

We can no longer pretend we can afford whatever we want.

A New Funding Model For Universities?

From InsideHigherEd:

With public university administrators continually arguing for tuition increases to counter state appropriations cuts, it seems far-fetched that their budget problems could be solved by eliminating student tuition and fees altogether.

But that’s the idea put forth by a group of students from the University of California at Riverside, who in January proposed a new funding model for the University of California system that seeks to solve two of the system’s biggest problems: unpredictable and large decreases in state appropriations, and the steady increase in tuition costs.

Under the students’ plan, called the UC Student Investment Proposal, students in the system would pay no upfront costs for their education but would agree to pay 5 percent of their income to the system for 20 years after graduating and entering the workforce.

I'm reminded of the Popeye character Wimpy, who would say, "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."

When Ravitch Made Sense

Here's a little somethin'-somethin' that Diane Ravitch wrote 7 years ago, something that makes as much sense today as it did when she wrote it. Contrast those words with her talk which I attended a couple weeks ago.

What caused her to lose her mind?

Seven years ago, she was worried about "ethnomathematics", about trying to bend math from a pure science to support liberal social science claptrap. It's reasons like that, Diane, that people turned to charter schools, the testing of at least basic skills, vouchers, and the rest of the school reform movement. It had nothing to do with trying to privatize and deprofessionalize public schools; the former is a response, and the latter we did to ourselves, in part by creating such sputum as "ethnomathematics".

Why I'm Not A Statist

On the topic of why sugar should be classified a controlled substance:

Once Demon Sugar has been properly classified alongside Demon Rum, these super-nannies recommend “using taxation, controlling access to sugary products and tightening licensing requirements to sell sweet snacks and drinks in schools and workplaces.”

But don’t worry – they say they’re “not advocating a major imposition of the government into people’s lives.” They will be “gentle” when they set about making “sugar consumption slightly less convenient.”

Let's remember what Daniel Webster is quoted as saying:

“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”

Here's One From The "Let's Hope So" List

I mentioned in this post that paycheck deduction was what the unions were really fighting in Wisconsin. Let's hope it becomes illegal everywhere in this great land:

It’s no secret that Big Labor is dependent on dues and fees automatically withdrawn from the payroll checks of union members and non-members alike.

The automatic deductions funnel millions of dollars into public sector union coffers each year, with a portion frequently going toward partisan political causes and liberal candidates who promise to preserve or expand the unions’ forced dues racket.

But this vicious cycle is finally being challenged in states and municipalities around the nation. Perhaps the most important challenge, Knox vs. Service Employees International Union, was heard earlier this month by the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

A New Light For Freedom Shines

It shines in Indiana, the 23rd state to pass a right-to-work law, which means that Indiana workers now have a right to work without having to financially support a union as a condition of employment. This is in contrast to California, a so-called "fair share" state, wherein employees (like me) can be compelled as a condition of employment to give money to a union even if they choose not to be union members.

Good Assignment, Or Bad?

It could be either, depending on how it was conducted:

Jessica Gibson says she won't let her 11-year-old son complete a school assignment that she says took a lesson about slavery too far.

"Pretend that you are a slave in the southern United States," says the assignment. "Write a journal/diary memoir about your life."

Gibson, 27, of Melvindale, Mich., said her sixth-grade son, Taylan, received the social studies assignment from a Strong Middle School teacher last month. But her son hid it from her, later telling her he didn't want to do it. Gibson found out about it last week.

"He's never had a master nor will he ever have a master, so why should he have to pretend to have a master?" Gibson said. "That really disturbed me"...

Taylan had been learning about slavery when he got the assignment. He said it embarrassed him.

"I'm black, and it was a slave assignment," he said.

His mother, who is biracial, said she doesn't think anyone should be required to complete the assignment, regardless of race.

"For him to pretend to be something he's never been or never will be, that's going too far," she said.

Should the child be allowed to complete an alternate assignment if a parent finds an assignment inappropriate? I assert that the answer is yes, sometimes. A parent who finds one assignment exceedingly inappropriate, well, accommodate that. If a parent finds too many assignments inappropriate, then teachers would be going beyond providing alternate assignments and would be being asked to provide an alternate curriculum for a particular student. At that point, the parent is out of line and either needs to accept the approved curriculum or find a different school for their child.

Membership Criteria For College Groups

If a bunch of frat boys want to join and "take over" the Lesbian Club, is that acceptable or not? When freedom of association conflicts with school policies, which should win out?

Christian student organizations at Vanderbilt University may be forced to go underground or meet in secret after university officials doubled down on a policy that bans student religious groups from requiring their leaders to hold specific beliefs, according to a law professor at the university.

Vanderbilt said their nondiscrimination policy ensure that campus groups are open to all students. But opponents said the ban restricts their freedom of speech and could force some nationally-known groups off campus.

This is exactly why colleges and universities should not financially support student clubs at all. These clubs should support themselves, and should get no support or interference from their respective schools.

Have We Ever Heard This Story In California Before?

Yes, yes we have. It's an annual thing these days, if not more frequent than that:

California will run out of cash by early March if the state does not take swift action to find $3.3 billion through payment delays and borrowing, according to a letter state Controller John Chiang sent to state lawmakers today.

The announcement is surprising since lawmakers previously believed the state had enough cash to last through the fiscal year that ends in June.

But Chiang said additional cash management solutions are needed because state tax revenues are $2.6 billion less than what Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers assumed in their optimistic budget last year. Meanwhile, Chiang said, the state is spending $2.6 billion more than state leaders planned on.

Chiang's a Democrat, but he speaks the truth about our screwed up budgeting and he calls it like he sees it. I will probably vote for him if he runs again.

Why I'm Not A Socialist

Basically, he’s saying that Barack Obama, Harry Reid, John Boehner, and the rest of them don’t have a clue as to the ordinary goings-on of us average people. That’s probably why they do things like require us to buy toilets that don’t work and light bulbs full of poisonous mercury.

Those in Washington may have the best intentions when they do things like require Americans to purchase health insurance for the very act of breathing, but they fail to see how that will affect the lives of ordinary Americans. Ensconced in their bubbles, they like the idea of ‘helping’ people, so they pass legislation without any idea as to how the majority of us tick. link

At its core, socialism is at least paternalistic and more probably tyrannical. However good the intentions, the road to Hell still leads to Hell.

It's Great Work, If You Can Get It

From the New York Post:

Hell no, he won’t go.

In a defiant raspberry to the city Department of Education — and taxpayers — disgraced teacher Alan Rosenfeld, 66, won’t retire.

Deemed a danger to kids, the typing teacher with a $10 million real estate portfolio hasn’t been allowed in a classroom for more than a decade, but still collects $100,049 a year in city salary — plus health benefits, a growing pension nest egg, vacation and sick pay.

Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Cuomo can call for better teacher evaluations until they’re blue-faced, but Rosenfeld and six peers with similar gigs costing about $650,000 a year in total salaries are untouchable. Under a system shackled by protections for tenured teachers, they can’t be fired, the DOE says.

Until we educators quit protecting people like this, quit expecting unions to protect people like this, and start policing our own ranks, we can hardly expect to be considered professionals.

Set Up To Fail

From Joanne's Community College Spotlight:

Both intellectually disabled students and their instructors are set up to fail, writes Anonymous, a professor at a commuter college, in an essay in Inside Higher Ed.

We've probably all thought this at one time or another, usually in the context of modifications or accommodations required by IEP's. Click on the link to see what Anonymous has to say on the topic, from the junior college level.

Why Don't You Hear Much About "Occupy" Protests Anymore?

Here's why:

You can tell that the movement has lost popular support because the press suddenly stopped the breathless coverage. As I predicted, once it became clear the movement was hurting the Democrats, the coverage dried up.

Remember that less than 2 months ago there was a suggestion that my local union officially support that movement. I said then that they were a day late and a dollar short; I was right then, and even more right now.

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The Furor Over Start Time

Several months ago, word got to our faculty that a group of parents was working to move our school's start time (and hence finish time) 30 minutes later in the day. They did a fairly decent job of poring over research and late last year (month?) gave a presentation to the faculty. The presentation was clearly biased towards a later start time, but that was to be expected since that's what they wanted. They anticipated many challenges to their proposal and addressed each of them. A couple of "community forums" were held after school hours so that interested parties could raise their points, but they were sparsely attended.

After that first presentation to the teachers, a straw poll showed faculty support for moving the start time to be about 60%.

In mid-January the teachers union president came to give a presentation. He wanted to explain how making this change involved the union, the district, and their negotiation teams. He also mentioned that when making such decisions, a mere majority often isn't a good idea; he recommended a 75% majority. One of our teachers (correctly) pointed out that we couldn't get 75% of our faculty to agree on summer vacation, so the threshold was moved to only 55%. I believe this number was chosen because of the aforementioned straw poll.

Discussions about the change took place in the halls, in the staff lounges, via email, you name it. I questioned why only teachers got a vote on this, and not our administrative, clerical, custodial, or food service staffs. We took informal polls of students and parents and those, while not scientific, were overwhelmingly against the change. Some staff members thought a vote on the change was being forced on us in a time crunch. The issue was fast becoming contentious, and the vote was held.

The start time change failed, 57%-43%.

Yet Another Reason I'm Not A Socialist

I'm currently reading Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, so I find it interesting that Hayek also discussed fascism as it relates to socialism in his The Road To Serfdom. Here's a snip from the chapter called The Great Utopia, and its wisdom speaks as loudly today as when it was written 70 years ago:

Nobody saw more clearly than the great political thinker de Tocqueville that democracy stands in an irreconcilable conflict with socialism: "Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom," he said. "Democracy attaches all possible value to each man," he said in 1848, "while socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."

To allay these suspicions and to harness to its cart the strongest of all political motives—the craving for freedom — socialists began increasingly to make use of the promise of a "new freedom." Socialism was to bring "economic freedom," without which political freedom was "not worth having."

To make this argument sound plausible, the word "freedom" was subjected to a subtle change in meaning. The word had formerly meant freedom from coercion, from the arbitrary power of other men. Now it was made to mean freedom from necessity, release from the compulsion of the circumstances which inevitably limit the range of choice of all of us. Freedom in this sense is, of course, merely another name for power or wealth. The demand for the new freedom was thus only another name for the old demand for a redistribution of wealth...

What is promised to us as the Road to Freedom is in fact the Highroad to Servitude. For it is not difficult to see what must be the consequences when democracy embarks upon a course of planning. The goal of the planning will be described by some such vague term as "the general welfare." There will be no real agreement as to the ends to be attained, and the effect of the people's agreeing that there must be central planning, without agreeing on the ends, will be rather as if a group of people were to commit themselves to take a journey together without agreeing where they want to go: with the result that they may all have to make a journey which most of them do not want at all.

Democratic assemblies cannot function as planning agencies...

Planning leads to dictatorship because dictatorship is the most effective instrument of coercion and, as such, essential if central planning on a large scale is to be possible. There is no justification for the widespread belief that, so long as power is conferred by democratic procedure, it cannot be arbitrary; it is not the source of power which prevents it from being arbitrary; to be free from dictatorial qualities, the power must also be limited. A true "dictatorship of the proletariat," even if democratic in form, if it undertook centrally to direct the economic system, would probably destroy personal freedom as completely as any autocracy has ever done.

Individual freedom cannot be reconciled with the supremacy of one single purpose to which the whole of society is permanently subordinated.

I choose freedom over the kind of order envisioned by the utopians, whose good intentions are paving the way to Hell.

A "Frost Fair" on the Thames Sounds Like Fun

From the Daily Mail:

The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.

The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

Smaller Class Sizes Don't Help Students Learn Better

From the Washington Post:

Two Harvard researchers looked at the factors that actually improve student achievement and those that don’t. In a new paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Will Dobbie and Roland Freyer analyzed 35 charter schools, which generally have greater flexibility in terms of school structure and strategy. They found that traditionally emphasized factors such as class size made little difference, compared with some new criteria:

We find that traditionally collected input measures — class size, per pupil expenditure, the fraction of teachers with no certification, and the fraction of teachers with an advanced degree — are not correlated with school effectiveness. In stark contrast, we show that an index of five policies suggested by over forty years of qualitative research — frequent teacher feedback, the use of data to guide instruction, high-dosage tutoring, increased instructional time, and high expectations — explains approximately 50 percent of the variation in school effectiveness.

I believe this to be true, but that doesn't mean I'm going to fight for larger class sizes. At some point it becomes a matter of working conditions; it takes me a long time to grade papers from a class of 37 students--and yes, I have classes that large.

The Main Problem With Higher Education, Shown In One Simple Graph

What Obama Won't Mention Today in Michigan: Campus Has 53% More Administrators Than Faculty

Not Classy

If you don't want to accept an award from someone you disagree with, don't go to the ceremony. It's narcissistic and selfish to go and then, in front of an audience, to make a scene of not accepting the award.

social studies teacher won't accept an award from Congressman Paul Ryan

Anyone want to try to justify this behavior? Anyone?

Government Shouldn't "Invest" My Money

From Power Line Blog:

But this got me to thinking: just what does a investment specialist with the Steadman Funds do after crashing and burning in such a comprehensive fashion? I wonder if maybe they went to work for the Obama administration’s “green energy investment” program? I offer this as a possible explanation after seeing the news this week that yet another green energy company backed with over $100 million in taxpayer dollars has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Ener1 Inc., a battery maker, has joined the ranks of Solyndra, Evergreen Solar, and Beacon Power in the Obama Administration’s Steadman-like portfolio of energy investment losers. More failures are thought to be in the pipeline, according to a recent CBS News report.

If the president really believed the Abraham Lincoln quote that he mentioned in this past week's State of the Union Address, that government should only do for people what they cannot do for themselves, then it has no business making risky "investments" in companies. Any one of us can do that all on our own. This president seems hell-bent on using his office to enforce his view of society on the rest of us, and I hope this dystopia ends next January.

You Know What Sucks? This Sucks.

This is just sad, sad, sad:

A man who took 10 years to create his own personal man-cave—in this instance, an awesome Star Trek starship interior replica that would make every Trek geek weep—has to tear it all down because his wife is divorcing him...

Unfortunately, the soon-to-be-ex-wife, named Georgina—who actually owns the apartment and has paid the mortgage since '94—wants to sell it in the divorce. So Alleyne has no choice but to destroy the entire thing...

So how much would it cost for Alleyne to rebuild the whole thing from scratch? Close to £100,000 ($155,630.63 U.S.). Ouch!

I'm sure someone's done it already, but if not, there should be an Android app that turns such tablets into PADDs or LCARS terminals.

Which Is The Bigger Problem Here?

Is it worse that a substitute teacher was dozing off in class, or that a student used "an unauthorized electronic device" (my term) to document it?

A ninth grader who snapped a picture of a snoozing substitute teacher with his cell phone camera and posted it on a social network is in hot water with his school district.

The unnamed student, who attends Mustang Mid-High School in Mustang, Okla., was suspended, according to ABC affiliate KOCO...

"Appropriate follow-up action has taken place," Mustang Public Schools spokeswoman Mary Leaver wrote to ABCNews.com.

Let's grant that the student violated a policy. Did the school act appropriately? If so, would the suspension be justified if, instead of putting the picture on a social network, the student had shown the picture to the school administration as a sort of FYI?

Al Gore Won't Like This...

...and neither will the rest of the lefties:

There's no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy.

Who says so? The usual suspects:

Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.

Why do I believe these people while discounting others with similar credentials? Because these people make sense to me. It's truly as simple as that.

Occupy vs. Tea Partiers

This was sent to me today. Is it true? We know a lot of it is. Anyone want to defend the behavior of the animals in the 2nd column?

REPORTED	OCCUPY PARTY	TEA PARTY
ARRESTS	4149+	0
RAPES	12	0
DAMAGE	$10,000,000.00	$0
PUBLIC DEFECATION	YES	NO
ANTISEMITIC RANTS	12	0
COST TO TAXPAYERS ( by 11/9)	$19,327,487.00+	$0
PUBLIC MASTURBATION	3	0
MOLOTOV COCKTAILS THROWN	10	0
FIGHTS STARTED	YES	NO
CHILDREN EXPLOITED	YES	NO
POLICE CARS DAMAGED	2	0
PUBLIC DRUNKENNESS	YES	NO
DRUG POSSESSION ARREST	YES	NO
CONCEALED WEAPON ARREST	YES	NO
DRUG OVERDOSE	YES	NO
THEFTS	YES	NO
BURGLARIES	YES	NO
VANDALISM ARREST	YES	NO
TRESPASSING ARREST	YES	NO
NON FATAL SHOOTINGS	1	0
PUBLIC URINATION	YES	NO
URINATION ON OTHERS	YES	NO
ISRAELI FLAGS BURNED	2	0
AMERICAN FLAGS BURNED	1	0
AMERICAN FLAGS DANCED ON	1	0
AMERICAN FLAG DESECRATION	25	0
FELONY ASSAULT ON AN EMT	1	0
HEAD/BODY LICE OUTBREAKS	1	0
TUBERCULOSIS OUTBREAKS	1	0
MURDER	1	0
SUICIDE	1	0
SHOTS FIRED AT WHITE HOUSE	1	0
SCABIES OUTBREAKS	1	0
OBAMA ENDORSED IT	YES	NO
PELOSI ENDORSED IT	YES	NO
CAIR ENDORSED IT	YES	NO
SOCIALIST PARTY ENDORSED	YES	NO
NAZI PARTY ENDORSED	YES	NO
MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD ENDORSED	YES	NO
COMMUNIST PARTY ENDORSED	YES	NO
BIDEN ENDORSED	YES	NO
HUGO CHAVEZ ENDORSED	YES	NO
BLACK PANTHERS ENDORSED	YES	NO
HEZBOLLAH ENDORSED	YES	NO
MARXIST UNION ENDORSED	YES	NO
9/11 TRUTHER ENDORSED	YES	NO
BOLSHEVIK ENDORSED	YES	NO
IRAN GOVERNMENT ENDORSED	YES	NO
AYATOLLAH ENDORSED	YES	NO
NORTH KOREA ENDORSED	YES	NO
FARRAKHAN ENDORSED	YES	NO
NATION OF ISLAM ENDORSED	YES	NO

School Choice Video By Juan Williams

“A Tale of Two Missions” – a film by Juan Williams and Kyle Olson – tells the story of competing cultures in American education through examples from Chicago.

While the fight for school choice rages across the nation, perhaps no better example exists than that of the Windy City. Traditional alliances are breaking down. Both political parties are pushing for education reform and expanded school choice. The status quo is under attack, because most reasonable people understand that thousands of Chicago students are trapped in failing schools.

There's a clip at the link.

It Doesn't Fit The Narrative, So No One Will Care

And we'll continue to spend money making school food that kids not only don't want to eat, but food that we force them to take (when they get free school meals) which they then throw away:

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University tracked the body mass indexes of 19,450 students from fifth through eighth grade...

No matter how the researchers looked at the data, they could find no correlation at all between obesity and attending a school where sweets and salty snacks were available. link

A valuable study for my statistics classes.

What Lessons Are We Allowing These Students To Learn

If they're going to act like children, holding their breath until they get their own way, we should reinstate the principle of in loco parentis--and then swat them on the butt and send them to bed without dinner:

Following a noontime rally Tuesday, University of California, Davis, students spilled into an unused campus building, saying they intend to occupy it around the clock.

The students entered the building that formerly housed the Cross Cultural Center shortly before 1 p.m. The building will take the place of a tent encampment as the center of operations for the campus Occupy movement, said student Artem Rafkin.

"We are going to be permanently occupying it," Rafkin said.

Good lord, are there any adults in Davis?

I'm Officially Old Now

Some would say I've been old for a long time. Perhaps I could challenge that claim before, but now there's no way: two members of my West Point graduating class have just made general!

Teachers And Race

OK, so this article was somewhat interesting, but I found this little tidbit of information to be both interesting and counter-intuitive:

As you can see, Asian teachers, who presumably have a college degree, actually score lower than college bound Asians! This means they’re almost certainly drawn from a below average set of college graduates. For whites there is not so much discrepancy. And interestingly for blacks teachers seem to be drawn from the higher end of the distribution.

How does this statement, if true, relate to this post?

What Could Explain This?

How could this possibly be, with all the emphasis on multicultural education?

Educators are expressing alarm that the performance gap between minority and white high school students continues to expand across the United States, with minority teenagers performing at academic levels equal to or lower than those of 30 years ago.

Must be that all those liberal, union-loving teachers are closet racists. Yep, that's what I'm going with.

This Is How We Demonstrate Tolerance and Critical Thinking Skills

I wonder how many of us in the education community think this reaction, if it's accurately reported, is acceptable:

A 15-year-old Wisconsin boy who wrote an op-ed opposing gay adoptions was censored, threatened with suspension and called ignorant by the superintendent of the Shawano School District, according to an attorney representing the child.

I Wonder How Many Teachers Will Drive To This

I received this link at my school email address today. In case it disappears into the ether some day, here are the first two lines:

The annual Green California Summit will be held on April 26-27 at the Sacramento Convention Center, is the state's the largest annual event focused on green policy, practice and technology.

It's already a can't miss destination for many in the education community, but for 2012, it has more to offer educators than ever!

What Was Supposed To Have Happened Two Years Ago Yesterday?

One of President Obama's first acts as president was to sign an executive order closing the Guantanamo Bay prison within one year. Three years later, and two years after that deadline, Guantanamo Bay is as bustling as ever:

Obama campaigned on closing the facility in Cuba and, in one of his first actions as president, issued an executive order calling for it to be dismantled within one year. But as he enters the final year of his first term, human-rights groups are dismayed that the end of Guantánamo is nowhere in sight.

He was wrong to campaign on closing it, he was wrong to order it closed, and he's a loser for not being able to enforce his own orders.

Three strikes.

Become A Member of the Weather Stasi

In the former East Germany, the Stasi was the name of the secret police. There were everywhere and knew everything--mostly because they found ways to get people to spy and/or report on their neighbors.

This organization wants you to report on your weatherman:

“This is an important moment in the history of the AMS,” said Daniel Souweine, the campaign’s director. “It’s well known that large numbers of meteorologists are climate change deniers. It’s essential that the AMS Council resist pressure from these deniers and pass the strong statement currently under consideration.”

Interesting that they admit that large numbers of meteorologists are climate change "deniers". Why do you think that might be?

7th Blogiversary

Seven years ago I wrote my first blog post. This is my 7,449th post.

Wow!

My Evening With Diane Ravitch and a Couple Thousand of Her Closest Friends

On Friday night, January 20th, my friend and fellow conservative blogger Mr. Chandler of Buckhorn Road and I zipped down to the Sacramento Convention Center to hear a talk by noted "education historian" Diane Ravitch. I didn't realize it was sponsored by a bunch of teachers unions; I thought it was going to be an intellectual talk by someone who used to agree with me but now has switched sides. I thought I was going to get some really good information that would "challenge my assumptions" and make me think. Instead, what I got was, if you'll pardon the mixed metaphor, a liberal red-meat bacchanalia. As Mr. Chandler described it, we were "pilgrims in an unholy land".

We entered the Convention Center, where a couple thousand seats had been set up. Interestingly enough, they were mostly filled by the time the talk started. Imagine, a couple thousand teachers coming to hear a talk by someone who used to support the No Child Left Behind Act! As we entered we were given the following playbill (click to enlarge):

Holy crap! Linda Darling-Hammond, one of the crazies of the "educational equity" movement, was going to be a speaker! At this point we had our first realization of what we were in for.

The first speaker didn't make it a minute into his speech without launching an attack on Michelle Rhee, about whom I've written glowingly several times on this blog (type Rhee into the search box at the bottom of this page). When he spoke later he mentioned the Sacramento Bee, Sacramento's only remaining newspaper and one that is widely recognized to be somewhat left-leaning. He attacked the Bee, saying, "Without the News and Review, where would we be?" The Sacramento News and Review is an alt-weekly paper; just to give you a sense of what it's like, the vast majority of the ads in the back of it are for massage parlors, so-called medical marijuana dispensaries (which the feds started going after a couple weeks ago), and 1-900-SEX phone numbers. It's sort of a counter-culture paper. I read it every once in awhile, but let's not pretend for a moment that it's "mainstream" or "balanced". Anyway, for whatever reason, the Bee isn't liberal enough or radical enough for this Knudson fellow! And to make matters worse, his question generated significant applause! I just cannot understand that. The Bee isn't supportive of public schools? Really? (Incidentally, here's the SN&R's interview with Ravitch. It's actually the type of reasonable, sober discussion that I expected at Friday's talk from someone with Ravitch's gravitas.)

The second speaker was Tom Torlakson, the CTA's hand-picked Superintendent of Public Instruction. The first thing you need to know about Torlakson is that he's a dork. Imagine a dork trying to be a cheerleader for the crowd: "Teaching is awesome, right? You guys love kids, right? These are some great speakers, right?" It seemed like he was just trying to generate applause and, like all the other speakers, slobbered all over himself to praise Ravitch--someone he and the others wouldn't have touched with a 10-foot pole just a couple years ago.

Torlakson attacked standardized testing several times, even throwing out the new pejorative "bubble testers" to describe people who support standardized testing. News flash: Torlakson runs the department responsible for our state standardized testing program! He and other speakers talked down NCLB, but our state testing regimen is far more rigorous than anything NCLB requires! Torlakson talks about the stress of teaching, but so much of that stress comes from his department! The crowd clapped and cheered--like sheep cheering the butcher.

Sac State University is a fairly liberal school, and the teacher education program there even more so, so when I saw that the Dean of the College of Education was a speaker, I expected lunacy. Instead, she delivered a lot of pablum but didn't say anything completely stupid. I will admit, I was suprised that while introducing Linda Darling-Hammond, Sheared mentioned that Linda was an advisor on President Obama's transition team, and that mention got only tepid response. From a bunch of teachers. Wow.

I went into full-on battle preparation mode for Darling-Hammond, and was rewarded for doing so when the first thing she talked about was "marching and rallying for education". She also blasted NCLB, which Ravitch at one time supported, but never mentioned who wrote that law (hint: he used to be known as the Lion of the Senate), a theme to which I'll return when discussing Ravitch's talk. Like the other speakers, she attacked NCLB without pointing out that if it went away tomorrow, our state testing regime would remain virtually untouched because of our state testing mandates, most of which predate NCLB, and that the person responsible for enforcing those mandates was sitting on the stage with her. Darling-Hammond came across as a "true believer", but tempered her words enough so as not to across as batcrap insane.

No, that was left to Ravitch.

"You have the only governor in the nation who gives a damn about education." Really, Diane? See, I expected a sober discussion from her, and she goes straight for the red meat. She followed that comment up with a dig at Michelle Rhee--not a discussion, not a "here's where I disagree" comment, but just a dig. She did the same thing with Governor Scott Walker, saying "Let's all hope that he is soon recalled." Ravitch, who admits in the SN&R link above that there definitely are problems in American public schools, didn't "go there" in her talk; no, she said that the only crisis in American education is that it's under attack! And it's under attack by "right wingers", a phrase she used over and over again, whose hidden purpose is to privatize public schools. One of her repeated phrases was about the "corporate reform movement".

At one point I leaned over to Mr. Chandler and said, "She's an angry old biddy, isn't she?" We weren't getting reason from her, we were getting vituperation.

I was very disappointed in the logical fallacies, and the boogeymen, that she kept bringing up. "We must improve them (schools), not lose them." She seems absolutely convinced that there is a movement afoot to destroy public schools and to privatize them. If you believe that's so, then her statements make sense. If you don't, and she offered no evidence that it's so, then she's insane. She piled on: There are two goals of the "corporate reform movement", privatization and deprofessionalism.

Does this sound sane, or like a conspiracy theory?

Her bad statistics and bad logic could have been picked out by my first-year statistics students. At one point, when talking about how charter schools in Milwaukee haven't improved education, she said that African-American charter students in Milwaukee score no better than African-American students in Mississippi. Uh, to determine if the schools are an improvement over Milwaukee's public schools, shouldn't those kids be compared to African-American students in Milwaukee public schools? She makes several of these types of errors. In another attack on Michelle Rhee she mentioned something, I didn't write down what, that good teachers do, and then said that "Michelle Rhee certainly didn't do that in DC." Great applause line, but Michelle Rhee never taught in DC, she was the chancellor (superintendent) of the public schools there.

These types of logical errors detract from Ravitch's credibility.

I had hoped to hear why she changed from being an NCLB supporter and school reformer to whatever it is she is today; I got that information from the SN&R article linked above, not from Ravitch's talk. Every attack was against "right wing" something-or-others. Bottom line, she's just another liberal hack. "Public schools are a public good." But as I always say, "Universal public education is sacred, but public schools are not." A convert is always the most zealous. She didn't explain why she changed her mind, but she's certainly a zealot now. She attacked US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan a lot, but dared not mention his boss.

Near the end of her speech she was railing against some measures of school performance, and said, "I am not an economist, I am a historian. I don't think these (measures) should ever be used!" I leaned over to Mr. Chandler and said, "That's why she's not an economist."

She confused "bonus pay" with "merit pay", and concluded that merit pay doesn't work. But Mike Miles in Colorado Springs shows that true merit pay does work, and the students in his district, not affluent by any measure, are better off because of it.

"Organize, agitate, demonstrate!" "Act up, silence equals complicity!" Do these sound like cries from a particular side of the political spectrum? Do they sound like the clarion call of a reasoned person, or of a zealot? To ask the questions is to answer them, and that's how Ravitch closed her talk--to thunderous applause.

I didn't expect a red meat feeding frenzy. From someone of Ravitch's stature I expected much more intelligence, decency, and evidence. It's not that I disagreed with her--I knew going in that that was the case--it's just that I expected better. I was truly disappointed at the intellectual shallowness of her talk. This was the great Diane Ravitch? Really?

Sigh.

Update, 1/23/12: This EdWeek article discusses how a review of charter school studies shows many to be "flawed,problematic".

College Financial Aid

Out of nowhere these two questions just popped into my mind this morning, on the subject of financial aid:
1. At what age do colleges stop looking at parent income?
2. Why do they do so at all for 18-year-olds, who are legal adults in all 50 states?

Where Was I This Evening?

Here:


It may take me a couple days to transcribe my notes and publish a post on the evenings speakers, but rest assured, it will get done!

I Don't Support Racial Discrimination

That makes me a bad guy in some circles, because it means I don't support affirmative action:

The San Francisco Chronicle noted Tuesday that Gov. Jerry Brown had joined a challenge to the portion of 1996′s Proposition 209 that prevented state universities from using race in college admission decisions, with his lawyers telling the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the provision of state law “imposes unique political burdens on minorities” and violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. But what the media almost never point out, and the Chronicle doesn’t, is that the UC admissions status quo before 1996 indisputably punished a minority. This is particularly insane when one realizes that affirmative action is meant to atone for white racism. In California, who paid the price for this historical sin? Asian-American students. Says who? Says The New York Times, quoting UC documents. link

Combine that story with this one (my previous post) and one has to wonder what's going on in higher ed.

I Don't Know Where To Begin In My Exasperation

What do these people want?

An unpublished study by Duke University researchers that says black students are more likely to switch to less difficult majors has upset some students, who say the research is emblematic of more entrenched racial problems.

The study, which opponents of affirmative action are using in a case they want the U.S. Supreme Court to consider, concludes black students match the GPA of whites over time partially because they switch to majors that require less study time and have less stringent grading standards. Opponents of affirmative action cite the study in a case they want the U.S. Supreme Court to consider.

About three dozen students held a silent protest Sunday outside a speech by black political strategist Donna Brazile that was part of the school's annual Martin Luther King Jr. observance. And members of the Black Student Alliance have met with the provost to express their unhappiness with the study and other issues on campus.

These protesters/complainers--do they think the report's methodology or data is flawed in some way, or, what seems more likely from the story, do they just not like what the data tell them?

First Day of Winter

Here in Northern California we recently had our 4th driest December on record. Temperatures lately have been almost spring-like.

For a few days now, we've been prepared for a big storm blowing in from the Pacific. This morning the sky was overcast and temperatures were in the low 40s instead of their usual 30s, and this afternoon the first sprinkles came. This isn't a heavy rain by any stretch, but it's expected to be persistent--continuing off and on for the next week.

Winter has finally started in the Sacramento Valley.

Costa Concordia

Here is a satellite view of the Costa Corcordia, and here is the Google Earth view:The Google Earth image is from 2005; I wonder if they'll update it to one that shows the ship.

Education Buzz

The first Education Buzz of the new year is here and includes my post about a bill that would allow "gender identity" to determine which team (boys or girls) that a student would try out for, and which locker room/bathrooms he/she would use.

CATFIGHT!!!!!

Oh, there could be scratching and hair-pulling in this one:

Gov. Cuomo will give New York’s teachers one month to agree to a statewide performance evaluation plan — or he’ll write his own educator-rating scheme into the budget for legislative approval, The Post has learned.

In the ultimatum — which Cuomo will level at the United Federation of Teachers and New York State United Teachers as he presents his budget today — the governor will also insist the state union drop its lawsuit challenging certain provisions of the evaluation system, a source close to the administration said.

From time to time I enjoy a little internecine warfare, but only when it takes place on the Left :-)

Another School Paper Steps Into The Line Of Fire

All opinions are valued and respected, unless we disagree with yours:

A Wisconsin high school is in the middle of a free speech debate after they apologized for publishing a student essay opposing gay families who adopt children. School officials called the essay a form of “bullying and disrespect.”

The column ran on the editorial page of the Shawano High School student newspaper. It was part of an op-ed featuring a student supporting gay families who adopt children and one opposed to the idea.

Makes you wonder why they published the essay in the first place, doesn't it?

And seriously, if expressing an opinion, even an unpopular opinion, is now "bullying", then the term no longer has any meaning or usefulness. Like a Top 40 song that's been played too many times in the last hour, it's just been run into the ground.