Category Archives: Education

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Teachers Gender Stereotypes

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…are holding boys back:

…boys are basically being graded on their behavior, not their merit. They have different styles of doing homework and don’t sit still in class. Teachers often hate this and reward girls for their conformity to their rules and penalize boys for their non-conformity and behavior. Teachers can no longer discipline in school, and the only punishment is often suspension. I wonder how the lack of discipline has played a role in teacher’s using grading, perhaps subconsciously to punish boys.

Sending kids to public schools is more and more becoming bad parenting.

Business, Economics, Education, Political Commentary

The Democrats’ Political Problem

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SOTU reflections from Yuval Levin:

Simply put, the foremost problem to which the country now wants a solution from Washington is the problem of slow economic growth, and the Democrats are in a very bad position to advance solutions to that problem.

As the president suggested, and Rubio said outright, slow growth is the key barrier to upward mobility and a key source of pressure on middle-class families, and only robust growth offers a plausible way out of our economic and fiscal problems. The core of Rubio’s speech was basically an outline of how he thinks growth could be achieved now. It suggested an implicit assumption that the reason the economy is not growing is the inefficiency or unproductivity of our economy today—and especially of the public sector and those portions of the public sector most dominated by the government—and it proposed entitlement reform (to induce greater efficiency in health care and to reduce federal spending), education reform (to improve the quality of our labor force and provide greater opportunities for mobility), tax reform (to reduce needless drag on the economy by raising revenue more efficiently), immigration reform (to improve the quality of our labor force), and energy exploration (to make the fossil fuels that power today’s economy much cheaper). I think that’s a pretty plausible list (though I would add real health-care reform beyond the entitlements to vastly improve productivity and reduce costs, and regulatory reform to ensure open competition rather than further advantage large established players throughout the economy). And when you look over that list, you realize the Democrats’ dilemma. They are prevented by the politics of their electoral coalition from seriously advancing most of these ideas.

Yes. they can’t do what’s right, because all of the rent seekers in their base won’t allow it.

[Update a few minutes later]

Some useful advice for the president, that he will never take:

In a reductionist sense, if the president would just take his first draft of these speeches, and then pencil in the opposite of each talking point, the economy might take off.

There’s no “might” about it.

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The State Of Our Union

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…as seen though a fractured bizarro lens:

Obama called for the federal government to “redesign high schools.” Does he not know that schools are creatures of local and state, not the federal, governments? Does he care? Does he see no limits at all on the things that should occupy a president’s time?

And again, on what basis does the president who cannot even submit a budget make the claim that he is qualified to redesign high schools?

It’s all absurd. Barack Obama is the absurd president. He makes no attempt to make any sense, yet the media will pretend that he is a visionary.

The reality is, Barack Obama is just a very powerful crank.

Far too powerful. Far more powerful than the Founders ever intended.

[Update a while later]

Turning MLK on his head:

Ordinarily a politician whose rhetoric diverges so far from the reality of his record would be run out of town, but with this president it is different. After four years of mediocre leadership, the majority of Americans continue to judge Barack Obama not on what he has done but on who he is. In an ironic reversal of the criteria of judgment set forth by Martin Luther King, they judge him not on the content of his character (or more precisely his actions and achievements) but on the color of his skin. The president is therefore exempt from the penalties other democratically elected leaders pay when they offend too egregiously against the truth; unlike them, he can stray into the realm of fantasy with impunity.

Not just with impunity, but he’s actually applauded for it.

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

Another Road

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The Blue elites are wrong:

It is easy to see how rational people can conclude that the only hope of preserving mass prosperity in America comes from transfers and subsidies. If we add to this the belief that only a powerful and intrusive regulatory state can prevent destructive climate change, then the case for the blue utopia looks ironclad. To save the planet, save the middle class and provide American minorities and single mothers with the basic elements of an acceptable life, we must set up a far more powerful federal government than we have ever known, and give it sweeping powers over the production and distribution of wealth.

But what if this isn’t true? What if the shift from a late-stage industrial economy to an information economy has a different social effect? What if the information revolution continues and even accelerates the democratization of political, social and cultural life by empowering ordinary people? What if the information revolution, like the industrial revolution, ultimately leads to a radical improvement in the way ordinary people live and opens up vast new horizons of human potential and freedom?

Obviously nobody knows what the future holds, and anything anybody says about the social consequences of the information revolution is mostly conjecture; still, the elegantly paternalistic pessimism of our elites about the future of the masses seems both defeatist and overdone. The information revolution, one should never forget, may be disruptive but more fundamentally it is good news. Human productivity is rising dramatically. If the bad news is that fewer and fewer people will earn a living working in factories, the good news is that a smaller and smaller percentage of the time and energy of the human race must be devoted to the manufacture of the material objects we need for daily life. Just as it’s good news overall when agricultural productivity increases and the majority of the human race no longer has to spend its time providing food, it’s good news when we as a species can free ourselves from the drudgery and monotony of factory work.

Good news is bad news for people who don’t like (other people to have) freedom. They need a crisis to not waste.