This Is Where Socialism Leads

Ignore Bitcoin, buy World of Warcraft tokens--if you live in Venezuela:

Digital gold from Blizzard’s massive multiplayer online game “World of Warcraft” is worth more than actual Venezuelan currency, the bolivar, according to new data.

Venezuelan resident and Twitter user @KalebPrime first made the discovery July 14 and tweeted at the time that on the Venezuela’s black market — now the most-used method of currency exchange within Venezuela according to NPR — you can get $1 for 8493.97 bolivars. Meanwhile, a “WoW” token, which can be bought for $20 from the in-game auction house, is worth 8385 gold per dollar.

According to sites that track the value of both currencies, KalebPrime’s math is outdated, and WoW gold is now worth even more than the bolivar.

I've written before about hyperinflation (here, for example).  This is what hyperinflation looks like at the beginning.

Venezuela is starving. And it was only a few years ago when Chavez and his socialism were being praised by American leftists (here's another).

Update, 8/2/17:  A couple of days behind me is the Los Angeles Times with this op-ed:

Remember all those left-wing pundits who drooled over Venezuela?

Privilege

Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

Methinks the "white privilege" crowd has jumped the shark with this one:

The University of Iowa’s student newspaper has announced the discovery of a special privilege which intelligent people acquire as an accident of birth. This new privilege — called “cognitive privilege” — functions in essentially the same way as white privilege...

As with skin color and much else, Daily Iowan author Dan Williams argues, people have no control over how smart they are. Life is a huge cosmic lottery full of winners and losers.

I teach in a public school and live in a 1240 sf house.  What has my cognitive privilege gotten for me? That I've avoided two of the faults in the Animal House quote above?  Yeah, hate me for that.

Guest Blogging

My post over at Joanne's today references the exorbitant amount of money the Los Angeles school board pays itself:

How Much Should School Board Trustees Be Paid?

Weight

It's not the eating, it's the lack of exercise.

Today's weight:  200.6 lbs.

Guest Blogging

My posts over at Joanne's today:
Doubleplus Ungood Crimethink, and
Elder Abuse?

California Pensions

Funny how it's the "elephant" in the room when it's the donkeys who run this state and have created this problem:

Jerry Brown has been a strong governor and a moderating force on budget issues. But when it comes to pensions, the new state budget projects that California has nearly $206 billion in “unfunded liabilities” for the state’s two public pension funds.

Over the last eight years, we added $100 billion in unfunded retirement liability for these funds. This is the elephant in the room of state finances, and it is time we got serious about it.

You probably haven’t heard much about the looming pension crisis because elected officials don’t like talking about it and it’s easy for them to kick the can down the road: they can make promises to public employees now that won’t come due until they’re out of office.

But the slow creep of pension costs is crowding out investments in other areas, including education, environmental stewardship, social services, and public transportation. In essence, the state is being forced to default on its social obligations to pay for its pension obligations. If you’re a progressive, fixing this problem may be the most important issue facing the state.

I'm not a progressive, I'm a conservative.  You don't have to be a progressive to think that fiscal solvency is good for a government.  In fact, that's a pretty conservative belief!

An Update on My "Christmas In July" Present

You might recall the story of my buying a massage chair at Costco.  What I didn't tell you was that it took days for the salesman to actually be able to complete the sale, and during those days I worried that the deal would fall through.  Perhaps he didn't have the authority to sell me a floor model at the price he did...

But as I said, a few days later he called me and asked me to come in to Costco.  At that point I paid for the chair and felt a lot better about the situation.  It was much more likely now that I'd actually get it!

I was told the chair company would contact me with shipping information in order to schedule a delivery.  A few more days went by and they didn't contact me.  I called them.  Fortunately, on my second attempt at a call I spoke to a real human (who was quite friendly and helpful) and got the shipping company and tracking information.  I looked up the tracking info.

On July 26th my chair left New Hampshire and on the 27th it arrived in Newark.  On the 28th it left Newark and is still listed as "en route".  It should arrive in California on August 1st; it would be nice if I could get it delivered on August 2nd.

I shouldn't have had to wait so long and put so much effort into giving a company 4 digits of money, but that feeling fades as August 1st gets closer and closer.  I'm so looking forward to sitting in that chair!

Update, 7/31/17:  As of 1:30 this morning my chair was at SFO.  Getting closer!

Update, 8/1/17:  I called yesterday and scheduled a delivery between 11 am and 3 pm today.  I just checked and it left SFO at 9:20, so that rules out an 11:00 sharp delivery!

Update, 8/2/17:  It arrived in the early afternoon.  But the delivery driver would only deliver it to my porch, saying he's not allowed inside people's houses.  A friend came over and helped me get the 200+ pound behemoth inside.  It was missing a couple clips to hold the footrest/calf massager onto the chair, so I jerry-rigged it with wire (the clips will arrive in the mail within a week, I was told this morning).  It feels so good!  I probably spent an entire hour or more in it yesterday!

Rescinding Admissions

I'm not sure it's entirely justifiable for UC Irvine to rescind admissions for incoming freshmen because they didn't submit transcripts by a certain date--but for poor senior year grades?  Absolutely.  And yet people are complaining because they think they're entitled to admission.

Probably not the strongest argument for rescinding:

UCI’s stated reason for the rescission, Gonzalez said, was that the campus had not received one of two required transcripts on time — though she and her mother say they mailed out both documents in the same envelope two weeks before the July 1 deadline.

These are the snowflakes who need to suck it up, buttercup:

Yunek said UCI had revoked acceptances only for students who had not met the conditions of their admission contracts. Those conditions include receiving a high school diploma, maintaining a weighted 3.0 senior-year grade-point average with no Ds or Fs in UC-approved courses...

And then there's the overreaction:

A petition stating these demands had been signed by more than 640 students, relatives, alumni and community members as of Thursday afternoon.

“We are so sorry that UCI admin has decided to ruin students lives...."

The drama, the drama.

For those students from whom UCI didn't get the paperwork, just send them a notification that the document hasn't been received and give them one more week.  After one more week send a nastygram letting them know they have 3 more days or their admission will be rescinded.  Or, send out that first warning a week before July 1st reminding students.  Something.

For those students who got senioritis and bombed a class?  You don't belong at a university.  Full stop.  It's not because you couldn't succeed there, it's because you didn't meet the academic admissions requirements.  Your spot went to someone more deserving, someone who met the requirements. Deal with it.  Accept responsibility for your own shortcomings and move on from there.  Apply again next year.

Update, 8/5/17:  Irvine has rescinded some of the rescissions:

On Wednesday afternoon, Gillman announced that Irvine was reinstating the offers to almost 300 students whose acceptances had been rescinded because of a missed deadline (so long as their final high school transcripts don’t show problems, such as an F). Roughly another 200 students, whose senior-year grades fell too steeply or whose transcripts contain inconsistencies, will still have to win an appeal in order to enroll.

“We are a university recognized for advancing the American Dream, not impeding it,” Gillman wrote in a public letter. “This situation is rocking us to our core because it is fundamentally misaligned with our values.” He added: “The students and their families have my personal, sincerest apology. We should not have treated you this way over a missed deadline.”

Screw Up, Move Up

When I was in the army--more than half my life ago--we used to have a saying:  "f*** up, move up."  When someone screwed up they were moved up to a staff position in higher headquarters.  True, they were out of a "line" unit, but they also had more decent working hours and much less field time.

As it was in the army, so it is in higher education:

Linda P.B. Katehi, who resigned last year as UC Davis chancellor after months of controversy, will return as a distinguished professor in September at the same pay rate she received as campus leader, university officials said Friday.

Katehi will be paid $318,000 on a nine-month contract – when annualized, equivalent to the $424,000 salary she received as chancellor. She will teach electrical and computer engineering, as well as women and gender studies, according to a UC Davis bio.

Her salary appears to make her the highest paid faculty member in either department, based on the most recent UC salary data available to the public.

Let's recall why she's no longer in charge at UC Davis:

Katehi, 63, resigned last August as an embattled chancellor who faced questions about her actions and leadership. She initially drew criticism for accepting a board seat from for-profit DeVry Education Group while it was under federal investigation for allegedly misleading students. She later came under fire when The Sacramento Bee reported she spent heavily on image-enhancing firms to boost her reputation after the 2011 pepper-spraying of student protesters by campus police.

Doesn't sound good, right?  Well, check out the wrist-slap she got:

University of California President Janet Napolitano launched a $1 million, four-month investigation that ended with an agreement allowing Katehi to return in 2017 as a member of the faculty. But first, as is the tradition, she was allowed to take a year off at her chancellor’s pay, plus retirement and health benefits.

Does that sound reasonable?

“This is exactly why so many people are so cynical about government,” said Ed Howard, senior counsel for the Center for Public Interest Law.

No feces, detective.

Guest Blogging

My post over at Joanne's today is about Peer Tutoring.

Fool Me Once, Shame On You, Fool Me Twice...

I didn't buy or watch Al's first movie, and now his second is coming out:

Former Vice President Al Gore’s new global warming film debuts in select theaters Friday, just in time to see if his 2006 prediction came true that humanity would face a “true planetary crisis” if nothing was done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It didn’t, but that hasn’t stopped Gore from going on a whirlwind media tour to promote his new film “An Inconvenient Sequel.”

As an educator I did get a free copy of the original movie.  It's in my safe doing a two-fer:
1) no one is watching that copy, and
2) after 20 years I'll show it and let people see for themselves how wrongheaded the current environmental movement is.

It's Almost Like The Civil Rights Movement Never Happened

I thought we decided before I was born that government wasn't supposed to treat people of different races differently.  Yet it does, all the time--but does a government arm have to go this far?  Can this be justified on any legal grounds?

The University of Minnesota is banning white and straight students from a safe space on campus, according to a Thursday report.

The school’s Gender and Sexuality Center for Queer and Trans Life hosts “Tongues Untied,” a space in which people can congregate to discuss the impact of sexuality, race and gender, according to Campus Reform. But not everyone is invited.

“For our allies: we do appreciate your voices and commitment to dismantling racism and homophobia; however, please note that this is a space created for LGBTQIA and/or same-gender-loving people of color,” the space’s description reads.

“If you identify as a queer and/or trans indigenous person or person of color, we welcome you to take part in our discussions,” states the group’s Facebook page.

Guest Blogging

My post over at Joanne's today is
Getting Rid of Algebra, Part 3–The Empire Strikes Back

Update:  Just added another one:
District Admits Asst Principal Acted Illegally

Guest Blogging

My posts over at Joanne's today are

Getting Rid Of Algebra, Part 2, and
Charter Schools Are Racist? The Answer Isn’t Black and White

"Digital Natives My A**"

Kids today may be "digital natives", may have grown up with electronics in their hands, but most don't know much about them besides how to use a few chosen apps on their phones.  Seriously, I've encountered more than a few students who couldn't save a file to a flash drive on a computer.  Asking them to folders on their phones so they could organize pictures so they don't have to scroll through thousands to find the one picture they want to show me--"You can do that?"

Teachers who use the "digital native" term are merely looking for an excuse not to teach.  Yes, I know I just painted with a pretty broad brush, but the statement is more true than not.  There's a world of difference between teaching and letting kids play with electronics.

It should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about electronics that most students don't know as much about electronics as many in my generation do; after all, we taught ourselves how to program in BASIC on TRS-80's!  We used DOS, ferchrissakes!  We're more familiar with how things operate because we were in at the beginning and, while not having used electronics all our lives, we've used electronics for 30+ years (I bought my first computer in 1981).  Kids know how to use Snapchat and Instagram, but that doesn't mean they know much about anything else electronic.

And it certainly doesn't mean that we should teach them differently:

Abstract

Current discussions about educational policy and practice are often embedded in a mind-set that considers students who were born in an age of omnipresent digital media to be fundamentally different from previous generations of students. These students have been labelled digital natives and have been ascribed the ability to cognitively process multiple sources of information simultaneously (i.e., they can multitask). As a result of this thinking, they are seen by teachers, educational administrators, politicians/policy makers, and the media to require an educational approach radically different from that of previous generations. This article presents scientific evidence showing that there is no such thing as a digital native who is information-skilled simply because (s)he has never known a world that was not digital. It then proceeds to present evidence that one of the alleged abilities of students in this generation, the ability to multitask, does not exist and that designing education that assumes the presence of this ability hinders rather than helps learning. The article concludes by elaborating on possible implications of this for education/educational policy.

Go read the whole thing. The text itself is only 5 pages, plus title page and references.

A Liberal Acknowledges That Liberals Own A Large Portion of the Blame for The Disdain Conservatives Have for Universities

The author shows his own prejudices, to be sure, and probably isn't even aware of them (how many do you find in just the snippet below?).  But despite that, he's headed in the right (like that pun??!!) direction:

And given the endless controversies on college campuses in which conservative speakers get shut out and conservative students feel silenced, the public relations work is being done for the enemies of public education by those within the institutions themselves.

Who’s to blame for the fact that so few Republicans see the value in universities? The conservative media must accept some responsibility for encouraging its audiences to doubt expertise; so must those in the mainstream media who amplify every leftist kerfuffle on campus and make it seem as though trigger warnings are now at the center of college life.

But academics are at fault, too, because we’ve pushed mainstream conservatism out of our institutions. Sociologists Neil Gross and Solon Simmons have found that about half of professors identify as liberal, versus only 14% who identify as Republican. (At the time of their study, in 2006, only a fifth of American adults described themselves as liberal.)

In “What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts?” Michael Berube describes and defends a philosophy of non-coercion and intellectual pluralism that isn’t just an intellectual curiosity, but an actual ethos that he and other professors live by. I grew up believing that most professors lived by that ethos. I don’t anymore. And when I suggest it’s a problem that academics are so overwhelmingly liberal, I get astonished reactions. “You actually think conservatives should feel welcome on campus?”

In my network of professional academics, almost no one recognizes that our lopsided liberalism presents a threat to academia itself. Many would reply to the Pew Research Center’s findings with glee. They would tell you that they don’t want the support of Republicans. My fellow academics won’t grapple with the simple, pragmatic realities of political power and how it threatens vulnerable institutions whose funding is in doubt. That’s because there is no professional or social incentive in the academy to think strategically or to engage with the world beyond campus.

The last paragraph shows that his reasoning is based on practical rather than philosophical considerations.  In fact, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch, from what is excerpted above, to conclude that the author wouldn't worry at all if Democrats ran all levels of government and hence universities wouldn't have to worry about funding.  Still, despite his traveling down the wrong road, he arrived at the right destination.

School, District, and University Administration

Much like any agency of government, I want educational administration at any level to be lean and to focus only on certain narrowly-defined tasks.  I want administration to do those tasks, only those tasks, and to do them well.  Yes, it's naive, but it's certainly not a harmful belief.

It seems that administrative bloat is not restricted to the western shores of the Atlantic, as we learn from a British university professor:

Then there’s the administration. Leaving aside the widely pilloried and Sisyphean administrative exercises known as the Research Excellence Framework and now the Teaching Excellence Framework, to put it simply we have in recent times witnessed an administrative coup in UK academia. In an article focussing on Oxford University but painting a picture that will be familiar to most academics, The Spectator wrote that the “university’s central administrative staff is now almost three times what it was 15 years ago. There was no similar increase in full-time academic staff, the people who teach students or do research…”. I won’t speculate here on the many reasons why this might be, rather I’ll merely point out that an increase in administrators—lovely and well-meaning as most of them are as individuals—naturally does not do what you might naively expect, i.e., take care of the administration so that academics can focus on academic work. No, instead it breeds ever more complex administrative mazes that are not just difficult to navigate but are de facto becoming the main part of the job. Kafkaesque would not be pushing it too far by any means.

I'm reminded of the discovery of the element Administratium:

The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered by investigators at a major US research university.  The element, tentatively named administratium, has no protons or electrons and thus has an atomic number of 0.  However, it does have one neutron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons and 111 assistant vice neutrons, which gives it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by a force that involves the continuous exchange of meson-like particles called morons.  It is also surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since it has no electrons, administratium is inert.  However, it can be detected chemically as it impedes every reaction it comes in contact with.  According to the discoverers, a minute amount of administratium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete what would normally have occurred in less than a second. 

Administratium has a normal half-life of approximately three years at which time it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons, vice neutrons and assistant vice neutrons exchange places.  In fact, an administratium sample's mass actually INCREASES over time, since with each reorganization some of the morons inevitably become neutrons, forming new isotopes.  This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to speculate that perhaps administratium is spontaneously formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration.  This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "critical morass".

 

Guest Blogging

While Joanne Jacobs is off to England, I'll be minding the store over at her blog.  My two posts from over there today:
Male Teachers
Here We Go Again With Algebra

How Much Should High School Graduation Cost?

High school graduation is a big deal, I get it.  But how much should a school spend on it?  This much?

Elk Grove Unified’s graduation bill nearly doubled to $195,293 this year after the school district moved its ceremonies from Sleep Train Arena to the Golden 1 Center.

In April, the school board approved moving commencement for its nine high schools to the new downtown Sacramento arena on May 22-24, although district officials at the time didn’t say what it would cost.

The contract between Golden 1 Center and the district called for a $70,000 license fee and “additional fees.” The district didn’t have an estimate of final costs before the contract was approved, saying the price would come out in the final bill.

The bill issued July 5 included $109,000 for staffing that had not been charged at Sleep Train Arena. The district for several years held its graduation ceremonies at the Natomas arena that closed in December.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article163616883.html#storylink=cpy

Reaping What You Sow

I hope he gets a ton of money from them:

• Bret Weinstein, the Evergreen State College professor who was driven from campus by a mob of students earlier this year, is preparing to file a $3.8 million claim against the public institution.
• The claim accuses Evergreen State of "fostering a racially hostile work and retaliatory environment" by encouraging the student protests that forced Weinstein to flee campus for his own safety.
• The students were upset with Weinstein for objecting to a "Day of Absence" event that called for white students and faculty to leave campus for a day of diversity programming.