Category Archives: Education

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Low-Info Hipster Morons Who Voted For Obama

10 Comments

…learn that elections have consequences:

That mean old company won’t throw extra cash at them so that they can live the New York City lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed! Dear Dudes: Companies are in business to stay in business and employ people. Obamacare regulations are making that increasingly more difficult; the costs are staggering and burdensome. That whole “you can keep your plan” deal? Obama lied.

And anyone with half a brain would have known that. But they’re products of the public educational system, and universities.

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

A Whistle-Blowing Scientist

2 Comments

…sues UCLA for his job:

The lawsuit filing provides a troubling description of how fraud was used to impose draconian environmental regulations on California enterprises, which is one of the many reasons why California is deemed by CEOs nationwide as the “worst place to do business”.

As he notes, “liberals” only like whistleblowers when they blow the whistle on conservatives.

Business, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Educational Malpractice

5 Comments

Is the fact that the majority of children in public schools are not learning to read malice, or incompetence?

Now, I realize that an illiterate peasantry is needed for a proper neo-feudal regime, but I wonder how many of these people are actually malicious, and how many are just full of their own self-importance and convinced that they are doing what is best for these children?

Judging by those I dealt with, most of them aren’t bright enough to see any overarching social aims in this. They are simply full of their own “good intentions” and they’ve been TAUGHT this is the best way of teaching to read. In fact, if you push them they become either irate or lachrymose and tell you that you don’t UNDERSTAND, you’re not an expert and you weren’t taught the latest METHODS. (This reminds me of when we stayed in NYC in a new hotel and every night our bed was, essentially, short sheeted – it’s more complicated than that, but that was the effect. When we complained the maid, with an accent stronger than mine, informed us it was “latest, Russian bed-making technology. … that one too didn’t end well, at least as soon as I stopped rolling on the floor laughing.)

Dave, yesterday, made a comment that the public school system for all its flaws might teach a kid to read who would otherwise not know how. Since I don’t know every teacher in every corner of the US – but I know from other contexts that at least some of them will be decent and competent and tell the system to stuff it – nor every kid, nor every school, this is POSSIBLE. What I guarantee and would put my hands in the fire for is that the percentage of those is dwarfed by the MASS of what would otherwise be competent “middle brow” C students, who could read and express themselves passably in writing, if they were left alone/had online teachers with just a class supervisor/were taught by anyone (retirees? Mothers?) BUT people who had been convinced they were education experts and that teaching children to read – something that village teachers managed for centuries. (And BTW my first village teacher was a discarded fallen woman, whom some guy had seduced and set up in a little cottage with no running water and only two rooms. She was, it was rumored “of good families” and left with no other means of support, taught the kids to read and fancy work (needlework, guys!) to the girls and died respected and almost revered in her eighties.)

But whether it’s from malice or misguided credentialism and do-goodism, what I can tell you is that our system of education is accomplishing the “miracle” of turning out a population MORE illiterate than the poor never-taught people in Tudor England.

Malice or incompetence, it comes to the same. If you have kids in the system, look to their future. If they read by “guessing” (the signs are easy. They’ll think words that start and end with the same letter are the same) stop that right now and teach them to sound it out. They’ll hate you for a month, but the hatred will pass and the literacy will remain.

Always remember J. Porter Clark’s law: any sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice. (I think it was originally prompted by spammers.)

Over thirty years ago, a report on public education started out with words to the effect (if not literally — it may have) that if some foreign power had imposed on us the educational system with which we’ve afflicted ourselves, it would rightly be considered an act of war. If anything, it’s gotten worse.

Education, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Reining In The Idiots

9 Comments

I’d like to see a bill like this pass in every state:

The bill also includes a section mandating counseling for school officials who fail to distinguish between guns and things that resemble guns. School officials who fail to make such a distinction more than once would face discipline themselves.

The discipline should be firing. Anyone stupid enough to do such a thing twice, after counseling, shouldn’t be allowed within two hundred feet of a kid.

Business, Economics, Education, Political Commentary

The Blue Civil War

21 Comments

The battle for California:

For decades, Democrats have straddled a divide: they sought to represent both the producers of government services and the low and middle income citizens who depend on those services. Democrats want the votes and the contributions of teacher unions, and they want the votes of the parents whose kids attend public schools. As long as the blue model worked, the contradictions could be managed.

Increasingly, however, the contradictions have come to the fore. Teacher unions want life employment for incompetent teachers; their representatives negotiate farcically unsound pension arrangements with complaisant politicians and want taxpayers to pony up when the huge bills come due. Other producers of government services also have their sweetheart deals.

The result is that the consumers of government services, many of whom of course are Democrats, are getting a raw deal. They are paying too much money in taxes to support a system of government that, however outstanding and dedicated some people in it may be, simply cannot deliver acceptable services at a reasonable cost. The Democratic claim to represent both sides fairly is getting harder to sustain.

What can’t go on, eventually won’t.

[Update a while later]

Beautifully medieval California.

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Anti-Gun Hysteria

6 Comments

Is it warping our kids?

It’s not necessary to plot progressive indoctrination with other true believers; they already know what to think and what to do, and from whom to take their cues. At the moment, that would be Mr. Obama and other members of his administration on the permanent campaign trail. This time, they are specifically campaigning against the Second Amendment.

As powerful as political motivation might be, the faddish nature of education is equally compelling. For some time, “zero tolerance” policies of one kind or another have enjoyed substantial popularity.

The zero tolerance policy most familiar to the public is the “gun free” school zone, which for some produces feelings of safety. Unfortunately, like all zero tolerance polices, this is a complete failure, actually encouraging attacks rather than enhancing safety. Those who need to “feel safe” cannot admit this obvious reality lest their belief system come crashing down, so they redouble their efforts, striking out at even imaginary threats and guns.

Understanding this sort of thinking, it is easy to realize that such people think nothing of applying a zero tolerance policy prohibiting actual firearms to not only toys bearing a slight resemblance to firearms, but to depictions of firearms and even imaginary weapons. Thus have elementary-aged children been punished for pointing fingers at each other and fighting imaginary heroic battles for mankind. Thus is childhood warped and wrenched from children.

Some of these bizarre incidents are the direct result of human confusion or incompetence. School systems have multiple levels of management that theoretically can avoid abuses in student discipline. Take the case of the five year-old girl who dared think of blowing bubbles on her friend and herself. Even if her teacher could not tell the difference between a Hello Kitty bubble gun — a toy the girl left at home — and a real weapon, and even if she could not tell the difference between five year olds playing and a threat of serious bodily harm or death, what’s the principal’s excuse? What’s the excuse of the assistant superintendent and the superintendent and the members of the school board?

They’re morons, who rely on feelings instead of thought?

More and more, it appears that sending your kid to a public school is malparenting, particularly if it’s a boy.

Also, as a commenter over there points out, these people can’t be said to be college educated. They’re merely college degreed.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Oh, good lord:

If your children express that they are troubled by today’s incident, please talk with them and help them share their feelings. Our school counselor is available to meet with any students who have the need to do so next week. In general, please remind them of the importance of making good choices.

These people shouldn’t be allowed within a hundred yards of a child.

[Update a few minutes later]

Jeeeez:

Officials said that even though it was not a real security situation, everybody in the school system did what they should in light of the reported threat, The Times reported.

Yes, apparently, if “doing what they should” means being moronic and hysterical.