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Topic: Education (Read 154305 times)
Power User
Posts: 42558
HS student goes on a rant
Reply #250 on:
August 16, 2013, 08:41:33 AM »
Power User
Posts: 42558
Obama proposes fascism for US University Education
Reply #251 on:
August 28, 2013, 06:57:47 PM »
Power User
Posts: 42558
Re: Education
Reply #252 on:
August 31, 2013, 02:27:41 PM »
Power User
Posts: 15536
Larry Correia clubs a Slate writer like a baby seal
Reply #253 on:
September 03, 2013, 11:09:03 AM »
Fisking Slate over Public Schools
Posted on August 30, 2013 by correia45
I took a break from working on Monster Hunter Nemesis to check Facebook, and of course I found a link to something so astoundingly dumb that it demanded an immediate fisking. It is such a jaw dropping level of stupid that my first thought was that it was a brilliant piece of satire by a free market libertarian who really hates collective do gooders, but the article is from Slate, and I dont think anybody over there is clever enough to pull off something like that.
The article itself is your typical white guilt liberal pontificating on topics they dont quite grasp and lecturing everyone about how to live in a manner that best assuages their white liberal guilt. This article is dumb, even by Slate standards, and that is saying something, but there is some value to be taken from it as it is an excellent look into the thought process of ass kissing statists. If it was satire by somebody who has run into all of these same arguments before (Ive seen all of these points pop up in various school choice arguments, only Ive never seen them bundled so completely) then high five. Good work. If this author actually believes this tripe, then Im amazed she figured out how to turn on her computer to type it.
READ it all!
Power User
Posts: 7843
length of professional education
Reply #254 on:
September 04, 2013, 11:07:45 AM »
Obama is calling for law school to be two years not three. What do any of our legal contributors think?
I really have no knowledge in this area and no opinion.
Some are calling for radical overhaul of medical education too. For example get rid of much of the basic sciences. Some procedures could be done by non doctors etc.
Power User
Posts: 42558
Re: Education
Reply #255 on:
September 04, 2013, 11:40:49 AM »
We already have too many lawyers. Why make it any easier?
Power User
Posts: 7843
Re: Education
Reply #256 on:
September 04, 2013, 11:44:29 AM »
Well his point is it would be cheaper.
Save students money.
Your point well taken.
Can you imagine a nation of millions more lawyers?
Has anyone studied the fact that most politicians are lawyers and the connection with ever expanding legislations and government?
I suspect there is a huge connection or correlation.
Power User
Posts: 15536
Re: Education
Reply #257 on:
September 04, 2013, 12:13:59 PM »
Actually, law school is now one of the worst possible investments one can make. People are getting their JD's with 100,000 student debts and no jobs in the field. It's brutal.
Power User
Posts: 9484
Re: Education
Reply #258 on:
September 04, 2013, 12:22:36 PM »
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on September 04, 2013, 11:40:49 AM
We already have too many lawyers. Why make it any easier?
If it is an Obama proposal, it is probably aimed at the wrong outcome for the wrong reasons. I have no standing to know how long law school should be. It seems to me that if shortened, then more good lawyers will need an additional law degree in their specialty to be qualified, like tax law lawyers have right now.
To answer your question, if people with law degrees are more plentiful, competition increases and the cost of hiring one should go down. If most lawyers can't find work in law anyway, more will have to enter other professions (entrepreneur, corporate management, etc.) with a better understanding of law.
Everyone proficient in my business, residential rental property, has lawyer level knowledge of housing law, learned the hard way. Everyone who is an expert in my previous occupation, exporting, had a lawyer level knowledge of export law, more knowledge than a lawyer not working in export law. Same for securities etc.
It sounds to me like Obama wants to create an additional level, (Masters vs Juris Doctor)? In Medicine they seem to be transferring Doctor responsibilities to LPNs, Physician Assistants, etc. Maybe CCP has a view of how that is going. In law, there are tasks like advising and preparing routine legal documents that require less training than litigating constitutional issues, for example.
Power User
Posts: 42558
Re: Education
Reply #259 on:
September 05, 2013, 08:18:39 AM »
I admit to being a bit glib in my answer, in a perhaps vain search for wittiness
Power User
Posts: 9484
Re: Education
Reply #260 on:
September 05, 2013, 09:24:51 AM »
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on September 05, 2013, 08:18:39 AM
I admit to being a bit glib in my answer, in a perhaps vain search for wittiness
No, there are too many already, in the sense of pulling against rather than for the productive process. Too many of our great minds go into compliance of overly burdensome regulations rather than becoming inventors, innovators, entrepreneurs. The smartest guy by far in our school district growing up, with a Yale law degree, made a career at a public utility in employee benefit compliance. God Bless him for making a choice that worked for him, to work normal hours and be with his kids growing up, but this economy needs as many as possible of our best and brightest to go into some of those things mentioned above, finding the next abundant clean energy source, curing cancer, etc.
Power User
Posts: 42558
WSJ: As Education declines, so too civic culture
Reply #261 on:
September 17, 2013, 12:48:05 PM »
As Education Declines, So Does Civic Culture
A generation of college graduates unable to write or reason bodes ill for liberal democracy.
Even as the cost of higher education skyrockets, its benefits are increasingly being called into doubt. We're familiar with laments from graduates who emerge from college burdened with student loans and wondering if their studies have prepared them for jobs and careers. A less familiar but even more troubling problem is that their education did not prepare them for responsible civic life. The decline in education means a decline in the ability of individualsand ultimately the nation as a wholeto address political, social and moral matters in effective, considered ways.
The trouble begins before college. Large numbers of high-school students have faced so few challenges and demands that they are badly underprepared for college courses. Many who go on to four-year colleges seem to need two years of college even to begin to understand what it is to study, read carefully and take oneself seriously as a student. For many students, high-school-level preparation for college is a matter of having high self-esteem and high expectations but little else.
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Getty Images/Vetta
Even after three or four years of undergraduate education, many students still cannot recognize reasoning when they encounter it. They have little grasp of the difference between merely "saying something" and constructing an explanation or formulating an argument. This is often reinforced by college instructors who urge students to regard all theories, intellectual perspectives and views as ideologywithout acknowledging the differences between theories, beliefs, hypotheses, interpretations and other categories of thought.
This impedes students from acquiring habits of intellectual responsibility. Far too often, teachers and texts insist upon a "verdictive" approach, a politicized view of issues. Whatever your stance regarding the "culture wars" and the politics of higher education, it is undeniable that a great many graduating students have little idea of what genuine intellectual exploration involves. Too often, learning to think is replaced by ideological scorekeeping, and the use of adjectives replaces the use of arguments.
Such blinkered thinking has serious implications for civic culture and political discourse. It discourages finding out what the facts are, revising one's beliefs on the basis of those facts and being willing to engage with people who don't already agree with you. What does that leave us with? A brittle, litmus-test version of politics. It is one thing if people move too quickly from argumentation to name-calling; it is another to be unable to tell the difference.
There has been so much grade inflation in high school and college, so much pressure to move students along regardless of their academic accomplishment, that it is unsurprising to find large numbers of graduates lacking the skills required for available jobs. They may also lack the patience and discipline to learn those skills: If you haven't been required to meet demands in order to receive good grades, then patience and discipline are less likely to be among your habits. For graduates who do find work, the reality of employers' expectations may come as a shock.
Many employers can attest, as college instructors will too if they're being frank, that many college graduates can barely construct a coherent paragraph and many have precious little knowledge of the worldthe natural world, the social world, the historical world, or the cultural world. That is a tragedy for the graduates, but also for society: Civic life suffers when people have severely limited knowledge of the world to bring to political or moral discussions.
To see the effect of these trends, simply ask a few 15-year-olds, 19-year-olds or 22-year-olds some basic, non-tricky questions from non-esoteric knowledge categories (history, biology, current events, literature, geography, mathematics, grammar). See what the responses are. Ask these young people to describe the basic institutions of American government, or how a case makes its way to the Supreme Court or what "habeas corpus" means. The point isn't to embarrass them, but to wake up the rest of us to how little students have been expected to know even about the political and legal order in which they live.
The primary concern shouldn't be how American students rank in international science and math scores (though that is certainly relevant). It is whether the United States can be a prosperous, pluralistic democracy if higher education fails to require students to think, inquire and explain. A liberal democracy requires a certain kind of civic culture, one in which citizens understand its distinctive principles and strive to preserve them by addressing issues and one another in a responsible manner. That is essential to the mutual respect at the core of liberal democracy.
The U.S. faces serious challenges; education should be serious and challenging. The cost to America of failing to reverse the trend toward trivializing education will be more than just economic. It will be reflected in social friction, coarsened politics, failed and foolish policies, and a steady decline in the concern to do anything to reverse the rot.
Mr. Jacobs is director of the Institute for Criminal Justice Ethics and chairman of the Department of Philosophy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Power User
Posts: 42558
A parent against Common Core
Reply #262 on:
October 18, 2013, 08:45:37 PM »
Power User
Posts: 42558
POTH/Friedman: The Chinese Model
Reply #263 on:
October 23, 2013, 11:54:48 AM »
The Shanghai Secret
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: October 22, 2013 216 Comments
SHANGHAI Whenever I visit China, I am struck by the sharply divergent predictions of its future one hears. Lately, a number of global investors have been shorting China, betting that someday soon its powerful economic engine will sputter, as the real estate boom here turns to a bust. Frankly, if I were shorting China today, it would not be because of the real estate bubble, but because of the pollution bubble that is increasingly enveloping some of its biggest cities. Optimists take another view: that, buckle in, China is just getting started, and that what were now about to see is the payoff from Chinas 30 years of investment in infrastructure and education. Im not a gambler, so Ill just watch this from the sidelines. But if youre looking for evidence as to why the optimistic bet isnt totally crazy, you might want to visit a Shanghai elementary school.
Josh Haner/The New York Times
Thomas L. Friedman
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Ive traveled here with Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America, and the leaders of the Teach for All programs modeled on Teach for America that are operating in 32 countries. Were visiting some of the highest- and lowest-performing schools in China to try to uncover The Secret how is it that Shanghais public secondary schools topped the world charts in the 2009 PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) exams that measure the ability of 15-year-olds in 65 countries to apply what theyve learned in math, science and reading.
After visiting Shanghais Qiangwei Primary School, with 754 students grades one through five and 59 teachers, I think I found The Secret:
There is no secret.
When you sit in on a class here and meet with the principal and teachers, what you find is a relentless focus on all the basics that we know make for high-performing schools but that are difficult to pull off consistently across an entire school system. These are: a deep commitment to teacher training, peer-to-peer learning and constant professional development, a deep involvement of parents in their childrens learning, an insistence by the schools leadership on the highest standards and a culture that prizes education and respects teachers.
Shanghais secret is simply its ability to execute more of these fundamentals in more of its schools more of the time. Take teacher development. Shen Jun, Qiangweis principal, who has overseen its transformation in a decade from a low-performing to a high-performing school even though 40 percent of her students are children of poorly educated migrant workers says her teachers spend about 70 percent of each week teaching and 30 percent developing teaching skills and lesson planning. That is far higher than in a typical American school.
Teng Jiao, 26, an English teacher here, said school begins at 8:35 a.m. and runs to 4:30 p.m., during which he typically teaches three 35-minute lessons. I sat in on one third-grade English class. The English lesson was meticulously planned, with no time wasted. The rest of his day, he said, is spent on lesson planning, training online or with his team, having other teachers watch his class and tell him how to improve and observing the classrooms of master teachers.
You see so many teaching techniques that you can apply to your own classroom, he remarks. Education experts will tell you that of all the things that go into improving a school, nothing not class size, not technology, not length of the school day pays off more than giving teachers the time for peer review and constructive feedback, exposure to the best teaching and time to deepen their knowledge of what theyre teaching.
Teng said his job also includes parent training. Parents come to the school three to five times a semester to develop computer skills so they can better help their kids with homework and follow lessons online. Christina Bao, 29, who also teaches English, said she tries to chat either by phone or online with the parents of each student two or three times a week to keep them abreast of their childs progress. I will talk to them about what the students are doing at school. She then alluded matter-of-factly to a big cultural difference here, I tell them not to beat them if they are not doing well.
In 2003, Shanghai had a very average school system, said Andreas Schleicher, who runs the PISA exams. A decade later, its leading the world and has dramatically decreased variability between schools. He, too, attributes this to the fact that, while in America a majority of a teachers time in school is spent teaching, in Chinas best schools, a big chunk is spent learning from peers and personal development. As a result, he said, in places like Shanghai, the system is good at attracting average people and getting enormous productivity out of them, while also, getting the best teachers in front of the most difficult classrooms.
China still has many mediocre schools that need fixing. But the good news is that in just doing the things that American and Chinese educators know work but doing them systematically and relentlessly Shanghai has in a decade lifted some of its schools to the global heights in reading, science and math skills. Oh, and Shen Jun, the principal, wanted me to know: This is just the start.
Power User
Posts: 7843
Larry Elder
Reply #264 on:
October 27, 2013, 11:30:30 PM »
Where do public school teachers send own kids?
Larry Elder looks at data on choices made by elite who oppose vouchers for parents
Published: 10/16/2013 at 7:51 PM
Larry Elder is a best-selling author and radio talk-show host. His latest book is "Dear Father, Dear Son: Two Lives Eight Hours." To find out more about Larry Elder, or become an "Elderado," visit
Guy walks into a restaurant. Says to the waitress, Id like some scrambled eggs and some kind words. She brings the eggs. The guy smiles, Now how about the kind words? Waitress whispers, Dont eat the eggs.
This brings us to the fact that urban public school teachers are about two times more likely than non-teachers to send their own children to private schools. In other words, many public school teachers whisper to parents, Dont eat the eggs.
About 11 percent of all parents nationwide, rural and urban send their children to private schools. The numbers are much higher in urban areas. One study found that in Philadelphia a staggering 44 percent of public school teachers send their own kids to private schools. In Cincinnati and Chicago, 41 and 39 percent of public school teachers, respectively, pay for a private school education for their children. In Rochester, N.Y., its 38 percent. In Baltimore its 35 percent, San Francisco is 34 percent, and New York-Northeastern New Jersey is 33 percent. In Los Angeles nearly 25 percent of public school teachers send their kids to private school versus 16 percent of all Angelenos who do so.
The study, conducted in 2004 by the Fordham Institute, said: These findings are apt to be embarrassing for teacher unions, considering those organizations political animus toward assisting families to select among schools. But these results do not surprise most practicing teachers to whom we speak. The data have shown the same basic pattern since we first happened upon them two decades ago: Urban public school teachers are more apt to send their own children to private schools than is the general public. One might say this shows how conservative teachers are. They continue doing what theyve always done. Or it might indicate that they have long been discerning connoisseurs of education.
The middle class will tolerate a lot disorder, decay and dismay, an unwholesome environment, petty crime, potholes, chicanery and rudeness. One thing, however, that middle-class parents will not tolerate is bad schools for their children. To escape them, they will pay out-of-pocket or vote with their feet. That is what discerning teachers do.
What about members of Congress? Where do they send their own children?
A 2007 Heritage Foundation study found that 37 percent of representatives and 45 percent of senators with school-age children sent their own kids to private school. Of the members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus with school-age children, 38 percent sent them to private school. Of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus with school-age children, 52 percent sent them to private school.
The ex-mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, was asked why he did not have his own kids in public school despite his strong advocacy of public education. Villaraigosa, whose wife was a public school teacher, said, Im doing like every parent does. Im going to put my kids in the best school I can. My kids were in a neighborhood public school until just this year. Weve decided to put them in a Catholic school. Weve done that because we want our kids to have the best education they can. If I can get that education in a public school, Ill do it, but I wont sacrifice (emphasis added) my children any more than I could ask you to do the same.
When he got elected president, Barack Obama and his wife made a big display of looking into D.C. public schools for his two daughters to attend. But the Obamas chose Sidwell Friends, the elite private school whose alums include Chelsea Clinton. Obamas own mother sent the then-10-year-old to live with her parents so he could attend Punahou Academy, the most exclusive prep school on the island. In fact, from Punahou to Occidental (a private college in Los Angeles) to Columbia (where he completed college) to Harvard Law, Obama is a product of private education.
So how does this square with Obamas opposition to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program that offered a voucher for the children of participating parents? It doesnt.
Heres what Obamas Office of Management and Budget said about the program: Rigorous evaluation over several years demonstrates that the D.C. program has not yielded improved student achievement by its scholarship recipients compared to other students in D.C.
Tell that to the educator/consultant the Department of Education hired to evaluate the program. Testifying before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, Patrick Wolf, a University of Arkansas education policy professor who spent more than 10 years evaluating school choice programs in D.C., Milwaukee, New York and Dayton, Ohio, said, In my opinion, by boosting high school graduation rates and generating a wealth of evidence suggesting that students also benefited in reading achievement, the D.C. OSP has accomplished what few educational interventions can claim: It markedly improved important education outcomes for low-income inner-city students.
President Barack Obama calls education the civil rights issue of our time. Yet, his opposition to K-12 education vouchers guarantees that many of Americas kids will sit in back of the bus.
Read more at
Last Edit: October 28, 2013, 10:33:45 AM by Crafty_Dog
Power User
Posts: 42558
Common Core think like a Nazi assignment
Reply #265 on:
October 30, 2013, 08:37:09 PM »
Power User
Posts: 42558
Higher Education online
Reply #266 on:
November 04, 2013, 10:43:30 AM »
Power User
Posts: 9484
Education: Career Pathways site links Majors to Careers
Reply #267 on:
November 11, 2013, 11:19:22 AM »
Click on any major on the left and any career on the right and see the the 'pathways'.
Power User
Posts: 1028
How to Raise a Child to Have Conservative Values...
Reply #268 on:
November 18, 2013, 03:44:43 PM »
If You Want a Conservative Child
Posted By Dennis Prager On November 18, 2013 @ frontpagemag.com
In my last column, I proposed some explanations for why many conservative parents have left-wing children.
In a nutshell, American parents who hold traditional American values such as belief in small government as the basis of liberty, in a God-based moral code, that American military strength is the greatest contributor to world peace and stability, or in American exceptionalism, not to mention in the man-woman definition of marriage or in the worth of a human fetus are at war with almost every influence on their childrens lives. This includes, most importantly, the media and the schools.
Here, then are some suggestions for raising a child with American, i.e., conservative, values.
First, parents who are not left-wing need to understand that if they do not articulate their values on a regular basis, there is a good chance that after one year, let alone four, at college, their child will adopt left-wing views and values. Do not think for a moment that values are automatically transmitted. One hundred years ago they may have been because the outside world overwhelmingly reaffirmed parents traditional values but no longer.
You have to explain to your children repeatedly what America and you stand for. (That, if I may note, is why I wrote Still the Best Hope and why I started PragerUnversity.com.)
Second, they need to know what they will be taught at college and now in many high schools and how to respond. When they are told from day one at college that America and its white citizens are inherently racist, they need to know how to counter this libel with these truths: America is the least racist society in the world; more black Africans have immigrated here of their own volition than were came here forcibly to be slaves; and racist is merely one of many epithets such as sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, and bigoted that the left uses instead of arguments.
Third, when possible, it is best that your child not go to college immediately after high school. One reason colleges are able to indoctrinate students is that students enter college young and unworldly. It is very rare that adult students are convinced to abandon their values and become left-wing. Why? Because they have lived life and are much less naive.
For example, someone with life experience is far more likely than a kid just out of high school to understand that the best formula for avoiding poverty is to take personal responsibility get a job, get married and then have children not government help.
Teenagers who spend a year before going to college working in a restaurant, for a moving company, at an office will mature far more than they would after a year at college. And maturity is an inoculation against leftism.
If your home is Jewish, Catholic, Protestant or Mormon, another option for the year after high school is to have your child devote a year to studying religion in some formal setting. The more your child knows, lives and adheres to the principles of any of these religions, the less likely he or she will convert to Leftism, which has been the most dynamic religion of the last hundred years. For example, it is a fundamental belief of each of these Judeo-Christian religions that the root of evil is within the evildoer. But it is a fundamental belief of leftism that people murder, steal and rape overwhelmingly because of outside influences such as poverty and racism. The moment your child understands that people who commit evil are responsible not poverty or racism they cannot be a leftist.
Fourth, dont be preoccupied with instilling high self-esteem in your child. It is the left that believes that self-esteem is a childs right, something that parents and society owe children. Conservatives believe that everyone, including children, must earn self-esteem. Indeed, the belief in earning rather than in being given is conservative.
Fifth, teach character. The left has essentially defined a good person as one who holds progressive social positions on race, the environment, taxes, health care, etc. That is why the left, including the feminist left, could so adore Bill Clinton who regularly used his positions of power to take advantage of women: He held progressive positions.
If your child recycles or walks five kilometers on behalf of breast cancer, that is lovely. But if your child refuses to cheat on tests or befriends an unpopular kid at school, that is character. And teaching that definition of character is more often done in a conservative (usually a religiously conservative) context.
It is not all that hard to produce a son or daughter able to withstand left-wing indoctrination. You just have to understand that it doesnt happen automatically.
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
Power User
Posts: 9484
Re: Education - Teachers Unions vs. Charter Schools, WSJ
Reply #269 on:
November 20, 2013, 09:38:26 AM »
"The Harlem Success teachers' contract drives home the idea that the school is about the children, not the grown-ups. It is one page, allows them to be fired at will, and defines their responsibilities no more specifically than that they must help the school achieve its mission. Harlem Success teachers are paid about 5 to 10 percent more than union teachers on the other side of the building who have their levels of experience.
"The union contract in place on the public school side of the building is 167 pages. Most of it is about job protection and what teachers can and cannot be asked to do during the 6 hours and 57.5 minutes (8:30 to about 3:25, with 50 minutes off for lunch) of their 179-day work year."
In the 2010, 29 percent of the students at the traditional public school were reading and writing at grade level, and 34 percent were performing at grade level in math. At the charter school, the corresponding numbers were 86 percent and 94 percent.
(More at the link.)
Power User
Posts: 9484
Today's professors grade Lincoln's writing
Reply #270 on:
November 20, 2013, 09:52:12 AM »
Power User
Posts: 15536
higher ed
Reply #271 on:
November 25, 2013, 02:43:21 PM »
Power User
Posts: 42558
Re: Education
Reply #272 on:
November 26, 2013, 11:28:52 AM »
Please post in the Race, discrimination, etc thread as well.
Power User
Posts: 9484
13 percent of students in two-year colleges graduate in two years
Reply #273 on:
December 27, 2013, 01:27:06 PM »
13 percent of students in two-year colleges graduate in two years
The Great Stagnation of American Education
By ROBERT J. GORDON
Javier Jaén
The Great Divide
The Great Divide is a series about inequality.
For most of American history, parents could expect that their children would, on average, be much better educated than they were. But that is no longer true. This development has serious consequences for the economy.
The epochal achievements of American economic growth have gone hand in hand with rising educational attainment, as the economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz have shown. From 1891 to 2007, real economic output per person grew at an average rate of 2 percent per year enough to double every 35 years. The average American was twice as well off in 2007 as in 1972, four times as well off as in 1937, and eight times as well off as in 1902. Its no coincidence that for eight decades, from 1890 to 1970, educational attainment grew swiftly. But since 1990, that improvement has slowed to a crawl.
Companies pay better-educated people higher wages because they are more productive. The premium that employers pay to a college graduate compared with that to a high school graduate has soared since 1970, because of higher demand for technical and communication skills at the top of the scale and a collapse in demand for unskilled and semiskilled workers at the bottom.
As the current recovery continues at a snails pace, concerns about Americas future growth potential are warranted. Growth in annual average economic output per capita has slowed from the century-long average of 2 percent, to 1.3 percent over the past 25 years, to a mere 0.7 percent over the past decade. As of this summer, per-person output was still lower than it was in late 2007. The gains in income since the 2007-9 Great Recession have flowed overwhelmingly to those at the top, as has been widely noted. Real median family income was lower last year than in 1998.
There are numerous causes of the less-than-satisfying economic growth in America: the retirement of the baby boomers, the withdrawal of working-age men from the labor force, the relentless rise in the inequality of the income distribution and, as I have written about elsewhere, a slowdown in technological innovation.
Education deserves particular focus because its effects are so long-lasting. Every high school dropout becomes a worker who likely wont earn much more than minimum wage, at best, for the rest of his or her life. And the problems in our educational system pervade all levels.
The surge in high school graduation rates from less than 10 percent of youth in 1900 to 80 percent by 1970 was a central driver of 20th-century economic growth. But the percentage of 18-year-olds receiving bona fide high school diplomas fell to 74 percent in 2000, according to the University of Chicago economist James J. Heckman. He found that the holders of G.E.D.s performed no better economically than high school dropouts and that the rising share of young people who are in prison rather than in school plays a small but important role in the drop in graduation rates.
Then there is the poor quality of our schools. The Program for International Student Assessment tests have consistently rated American high schoolers as middling at best in reading, math and science skills, compared with their peers in other advanced economies.
At the college level, longstanding problems of quality are joined with the issues of affordability. For most of the postwar period, the G.I. Bill, public and land-grant universities and junior colleges made a low-cost education more accessible in the United States than anywhere in the world. But after leading the world in college completion, America has dropped to 16th. The percentage of 25- to 29-year-olds who hold a four-year bachelors degree has inched up in the past 15 years, to 33.5 percent, but that is still lower than in many other nations.
The cost of a university education has risen faster than the rate of inflation for decades. Between 2008 and 2012 state financing for higher education declined by 28 percent. Presidents of Ivy League and other elite schools point to the lavish subsidies they give low- and middle-income students, but this leaves behind the vast majority of American college students who are not lucky or smart enough to attend them.
While a four-year college degree still pays off, about one-quarter of recent college graduates are currently unemployed or underemployed. Meanwhile, total student debt now exceeds $1 trillion.
Heavily indebted students face two kinds of risks. One is that they fall short of their income potential, through some combination of unemployment and inability to find a job in their chosen fields. Research has shown that on average a college student taking on $100,000 in student debt will still come out ahead by age 34. But that break-even age goes up if future income falls short of the average.
There is also completion risk. A student who takes out half as much debt but drops out after two years never breaks even because wages of college dropouts are little better than those of high school graduates. These risks are acute for high-achieving students from low-income families: Caroline M. Hoxby, a Stanford economist, found that they often dont apply to elite colleges and wind up at subpar ones, deeply in debt.
Two-year community colleges enroll 42 percent of American undergraduates. The Center on International Education Benchmarking reports that only 13 percent of students in two-year colleges graduate in two years; that figure rises to a still-dismal 28 percent after four years. These students are often working while taking classes and are often poorly prepared for college and required to take remedial courses.
Our subpar performance in schooling our kids hurts our economys capacity to grow.
Federal programs like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have gone too far in using test scores to evaluate teachers. Many children are culturally disadvantaged, even if one or both parents have jobs, have no books at home, do not read to them, and park them in front of a TV set or a video game in lieu of active in-home learning. Compared with other nations where students learn several languages and have math homework in elementary school, the American system expects too little. Parental expectations also matter: homework should be emphasized more, and sports less.
Poor academic achievement has long been a problem for African-Americans and Hispanics, but now the achievement divide has extended further. Isabel V. Sawhill, an economist at the Brookings Institution, has argued that family breakdown is now biracial. Among lower-income whites, the proportion of children living with both parents has plummeted over the past half-century, as Charles Murray has noted.
Are there solutions? The appeal of American education as a destination for the worlds best and brightest suggests the most obvious policy solution. Shortly before his death, Steve Jobs told President Obama that a green card conferring permanent residency status should be automatically granted to any foreign student with a degree in engineering, a field in which skills are in short supply..
Richard J. Murnane, an educational economist at Harvard, has found evidence that high school and college completion rates have begun to rise again, although part of this may be a result of weak labor markets that induce students to stay in school rather than face unemployment. Other research has shown that high-discipline, no-excuses charter schools, like those run by the Knowledge Is Power Program and the Harlem Childrens Zone, have erased racial achievement gaps. This model suggests that a complete departure from the traditional public school model, rather than pouring in more money per se, is needed.
Early childhood education is needed to counteract the negative consequences of growing up in disadvantaged households, especially for children who grow up with only one parent. Only one in four American 4-year-olds participate in preschool education programs, but thats already too late. In a remarkable program, Reach Out and Read, 12,000 doctors, nurses and other providers have volunteered to include instruction on the importance of in-home reading to low-income mothers during pediatric checkups.
Even in todays lackluster labor market, employers still complain that they cannot find workers with the needed skills to operate complex modern computer-driven machinery. Lacking in the American system is a well-organized funnel between community colleges and potential blue-collar employers, as in the renowned apprenticeship system in Germany.
How we pay for education shows, in the end, how much we value it. In Canada, each province manages and finances education at the elementary, secondary and college levels, thus avoiding the inequality inherent in Americas system of local property-tax financing for public schools. Tuition at the University of Toronto was a mere $5,695 for Canadian arts and science undergraduates last year, compared with $37,576 at Harvard. It should not be surprising that the Canadian college completion rate is about 15 percentage points above the American rate. As daunting as the problems are, we can overcome them. Our economic growth is at stake.
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Beware the ***academic industrial government complex***
Reply #274 on:
January 03, 2014, 10:43:16 AM »
Recalling Eisenhower's warning "beware the industrial military complex" I know propose this warning:
"Beware the academic industrial government complex"
It is very self serving and just as much greed error and hubris as every other sector of humanity.
Here is one example:
****Impervious to Evidence, Liberals Ride Again
Mona Charen
By Mona Charen 8 hours ago
"We will restore science to its rightful place ... " So intoned a "dismissive and derisive" President Barack Obama in his first inaugural. It's been oft quoted in the five years since (frequently by me, I'll confess) for its arrogance and condescension, which has continuing relevance, but before turning to the left's latest departure from scientific rigor, I cannot resist a fuller quotation. The second part of this sentence from Obama's first inaugural reads " ... and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost." Hmm.
In his second inaugural (compared to Abraham Lincoln's second by Chris Matthews), Obama proposed a vast new program ($150 billion in combined federal and state funds) for universal preschool serving 4-year-olds. "Every dollar we invest in high-quality early childhood education can save more than $7 later on by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime ... We know this works."
Universal preschool is universally popular with Democrats. Nancy Pelosi has hailed Head Start as "one of our most effective investments," while the newly minted progressive heartthrob New York mayor, Bill de Blasio, proclaims, "We will ask the very wealthy to pay a little more in taxes so that we can offer full-day universal pre-K and after-school programs for every middle school student."
Before getting to science, let's talk politics. The federal government already runs a preschool program called Head Start. Democrats love it because they can claim to be doing something beneficial for poor children. Republicans decline to oppose it because they fear ads saying "Rep. X wants to deny education to poor children ... "
Now, let's talk science. Head Start, a product of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, has been carefully evaluated by the Administration for Children and Families within the Department of Health and Human Services. The study examined 4,667 3- and 4-year-olds across 23 states. It compared children who had applied for but not been accepted into Head Start to those who had participated in it. The children were evaluated by their teachers, parents and outside examiners both before and after. As David Armor and Sonia Sousa relate in the winter issue of National Affairs, the Head Start Impact Study found almost no positive effects of the program.
While children in the program showed some positive results on measures of cognitive skills and social/behavioral ratings while in the program, those results lasted only so long as the children were enrolled and did not carry through to kindergarten or early elementary school. The principle positive effect noted in the HSIS was in social skills for 3-year-olds, but these results were reported only by parents and not replicated by outside examiners. Teachers, by contrast, noted a negative effect on social/emotional skills for the 4-year-old cohort.
The point of Head Start is the promise that it offers poor children a leg up and prepares them for school. It would be nice if it worked, but it doesn't. It does provide jobs for teachers and federally subsidized day care. But taxpayers have spent $180 billion since 1965 for a program that fails to achieve its objectives.
Other studies have examined the effect of preschool more generally on school performance and have found effects ranging from very small to none.
What then was Obama referring to when he insisted that "high-quality" preschool "boosts graduation rates," "reduces teen pregnancy" and so forth? In a post titled "Obama's Preschool Proposal Is Not Based on Sound Research" on the center/left Brookings Institution website, Russ Whitehurst explains that the studies the president and other advocates of universal pre-K rely on are flawed. They do not involve randomized controls (as the HSIS did) but instead employ something called "age-cutoff regression discontinuity."
Due to state-mandated birthdates for enrollment in preschool, the studies wind up comparing kids who are actually enrolled in play-based programs for 3-year-olds with those enrolled in academically oriented preschool for 4-year-olds. These regression discontinuity studies also fail to account for dropouts from the program. The Brookings post, to which Armor also contributed, concludes: "Because 'gold standard' randomized studies fail to show major impacts of present day pre-K programs, there are reasons to doubt that we yet know how to design ... a government funded pre-K program that produces sufficiently large benefits ... "
Armor and Souza suggest in National Affairs that those truly respectful of science would propose: "A national demonstration project for pre-K in a selected number of cities and states, accompanied by a rigorous randomized evaluation that would follow participants at least into the third grade. This demonstration project should also examine whether 'preschool for all' closes achievement gaps between rich and poor, since it is possible that middle-class children will benefit more than disadvantaged children."
This would put science in its "rightful place," but don't hold your breath. Many liberal nostrums are impervious to evidence.
To find out more about Mona Charen and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at
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What Happens When A Kid Leaves Traditional Education
Reply #275 on:
January 12, 2014, 07:33:28 AM »
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Posts: 7843
Re: Education
Reply #276 on:
January 18, 2014, 10:26:15 PM »
Obama Administration Mandates Racism in Schools
Mona Charen's column is released once a week.
Mona Charen
By Mona Charen January 17, 2014 3:00 AM
The Departments of Education and Justice have teamed up to make the lives of students in tough neighborhoods even tougher. Framed as a measure to combat discrimination against black and Hispanic children, the guidelines issued by the Obama administration about school discipline will actually encourage racial discrimination, undermine the learning environments of classrooms and contribute to an unjust race-consciousness in meting out discipline.
Claiming that African-American and Hispanic students are more harshly disciplined than whites for the same infractions, the Obama administration now advises that any disciplinary rule that results in a "disparate impact" on these groups will be challenged by the government.
"Disparate impact" analysis, as we've seen in employment law, does not require any intentional discrimination. It means, for example, that if an employer asks job seekers to take a test, and a larger percentage of one ethnic group fails the test than another, that the test is de facto discriminatory because it has a "disparate impact."
In the school context, the federal government is now arguing that if a disciplinary rule results in more black, Hispanic or special education kids being suspended or otherwise sanctioned, the rule must be suspect. The "Dear Colleague" letter explains that a disciplinary policy can be unlawful discrimination, even if the rule is "neutral on its face ... and is administered in an evenhanded manner," if it has a "disparate impact" on certain ethnic and other groups.
The inclusion of special education students is particularly perverse, as special ed students frequently get that designation because their emotional disturbances cause them to misbehave in various ways. So if a rule against, say, knocking over desks, is found to be violated more frequently by special ed than regular ed students, then the rule must be questioned? That's circular.
As the CATO Institute's Walter Olson notes, the federal guidelines pass over one example of disparate impact with no comment namely the dramatically more males than females who face disciplinary action nationwide. If we are to judge a rule's lawfulness by the disparate impact on males, no rule would survive the inquiry. Is it possible that more boys misbehave in the classroom than girls? To ask this question is to venture into an area the federal government would have us avoid. Actual infractions by individuals are not the issue. We must have group justice, not individual justice.
We've actually been down this road many times before. Various state and federal agencies have raised concerns about the large numbers of black and Hispanic students facing disciplinary action. Such concerns helped to generate the rigid "zero tolerance" policies the administration now condemns. Zero tolerance is a brainless approach to a subject that requires considerable finesse and deliberation, but the disparate impact rule is even more pernicious.
Under the new dispensation, teachers, principals and other officials will have to pause before they discipline, say, the fourth black student in a month. "How will this look to the feds?" they'll ask themselves. Will the student's family be able to sue us? A variety of solutions to the federally created problem will present themselves. School officials can search out offenses by white and Asian students to make the numbers come out right. Asian students are disciplined at rates far below any other ethnic group. Is this due to pro-Asian bias in our schools, or is it because Asians commit many fewer infractions? Oops, there we go into territory forbidden by the federal guidelines.
Another solution will be to ignore misbehavior by blacks and Hispanics. For classes with large numbers of minority students, this guarantees that the learning environment for the kids who actually want to learn will be impaired as teachers reluctant to remove troublesome students expend precious time on kids who are rude, threatening, loud or otherwise disruptive. Every minute of the school day taken up by bad kids is taken away from good kids. It's a true zero-sum game.
So the Obama administration's pursuit of group justice actually leads to injustice to individual students. Whites and Asians will be disciplined more than they merit it by their conduct, and fewer students of all groups will get the kind of classroom atmosphere that is conducive to learning. Even the students who get a pass on their bad conduct are disserved, as they will not have learned that disrespectful language, tardiness and even violence are unacceptable in society.
Everyone loses. Obama strikes again.
To find out more about Mona Charen and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at
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Posts: 42558
Newt: Fund the student/parent, not the school
Reply #277 on:
January 31, 2014, 08:11:45 PM »
One of the great parts about being a consumer these days is that many of items we like to buy--computers, smartphones, and televisions, for instance--every year are higher quality with more choice at declining cost. This is true not just of electronics, but of a wide range of products.
Walmart and more recently Amazon are the two clearest examples: Each offers an astounding variety of products at very narrow margins, and theyve developed sophisticated systems for customers to evaluate items before they buy. This drive to improve cost and quality has won them tens of millions of happy customers. Walmart accounts for roughly 3 percent of the countrys GDP. Amazon sold 426 items per second in the weeks before Christmas.
Although they improve the lives of millions of people, these businesses arent increasing quality and choice while lowering cost simply out of altruism. They have to do it, because they have to compete with each other. Every customer at Walmart has the option to place an Amazon order instead right from his or her smartphone. Thats the magic of competition.
But if being a consumer recently has meant higher quality at declining cost, the world of education has moved in the opposite direction. Even after two decades of astonishing progress in information technology, we still trap our students in schools that offer higher cost and declining quality.
Spending on elementary and secondary education has gone up almost 40 percent since 2001, with no substantial improvement in outcomes. Twelve years later, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan argues that our public schools must greatly accelerate the rate of progress of the last four years and do more to narrow America's large achievement gaps, describing the mission of improving schools as an urgent moral and economic imperative.
This is an understatement, as we all know. Last year only 36 percent of eighth graders were proficient in math, and the rate for reading was the same. Our schools are failing a majority of our students.
Should we keep doing the same things that have failed for decades to improve schools, then, or should we make some big changes?
Its clear that the only way we will see the major improvements in learning is by opening up schools to competition, forcing them to compete for students as Walmart and Amazon compete for customers. And as I argued last week, the only way to promote competition and innovation in education is to fund the students, not the school, so families can vote with their feet.
Two U.S. senators, Lamar Alexander from Tennessee and Tim Scott from South Carolina, have introduced pioneering legislation this week to promote school choice for those Americans who need it most. Their efforts could be an important step toward giving every student in the United States the option to choose the school that is best for him or her.
Senator Alexanders bill, the Scholarships for Kids Act, would consolidate roughly $24 billion of federal education funding and allow states to make it available to low income students to help pay for the public, private, or charter school of their choice. This could potentially allow millions of poor children to escape from the failing schools theyre trapped in based only on their neighborhoods.
Senator Scotts CHOICE Act would allow states to provide similar school choice opportunities for students with disabilities. It would also create portable scholarships for the children of military families on certain military bases.
These are critical steps toward creating a breakout in learning. If federal funding for education remains locked up by school district, it will be impossible to create the competition we need to foster innovation.
Call or write your senators today and urge them to support this important school choice legislation.
Your Friend,
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Posts: 42558
Re: Education
Reply #278 on:
February 02, 2014, 11:22:49 AM »
My friend Walter is asserting that spending on education has gone down. My distinct impression is that it has gone up. Anyone have a quite and easy citation either way?
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Posts: 9484
Re: Education
Reply #279 on:
February 03, 2014, 09:57:21 AM »
My guess is that he refers to cuts to the US Department of Education (bureaucracy), not to education which is funded at the state and local level.
The 'cuts' restore spending to pre-crash levels.
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Posts: 42558
Re: Education
Reply #280 on:
February 03, 2014, 10:12:45 AM »
That helps. Citations, especially on the net trend over time, would be wonderful.
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Posts: 9484
Re: Education
Reply #281 on:
February 08, 2014, 11:40:33 AM »
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on February 03, 2014, 10:12:45 AM
That helps. Citations, especially on the net trend over time, would be wonderful.
As stated previously, this is not 'education', this is federal bureaucracy. Education is funded at the state and local level.
"The Department of Education, a 4,200-person agency, has enjoyed dramatic funding increases year after year since its creation over three decades ago. The Presidents FY 2013 budget request includes a 2.5 percent increase (over 2012 levels) for the Department of Educationthe largest increase for any domestic agency in the proposed budget. But nearly a half century of ever-increasing federal education spending and control has failed to improve academic outcomes. The bloated bureaucracy has added layer upon layer of red tape on states and school districts, requiring school leaders to demonstrate compliance with more than 150 federal education programs."
Also please see this chart.
Click on current year, click on 5 years past, etc. Education spending is up 42% in 10 years, in spite of budget woes. Test scores remain "utterly stagnant" over the same time period:
Local examples (MN):
Minneapolis Public Schools, per student spending $20,911, Graduation Rate: 55.1%
Minnetonka Public Schools, Per student spending: $9,579, Graduation Rate: 93.7%
Edina Public Schools, Per-Pupil Spending: $9,219; Graduation Rate: 94.1%
Money has an inverse relationship with results. There could be other factors involved...
Last Edit: February 08, 2014, 11:42:28 AM by DougMacG
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Re: Education
Reply #282 on:
February 09, 2014, 05:28:58 AM »
Thank you very much Doug, I have forwarded the URL to this thread to Walter. We'll see if he joins in.
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Posts: 9484
Re: Education, Ben Carson
Reply #283 on:
February 19, 2014, 11:05:41 AM »
Dr. Ben Carson addresses graduates at the Univ of Delaware May 27, 2000.
Great story. Read it!
"When I was in the fifth grade, I thought I was stupid, so I conducted myself like a stupid person and achieved like a stupid person. When I was in the seventh grade, I thought I was smart: I conducted myself like a smart person and achieved like a smart person."
Last Edit: February 19, 2014, 11:30:24 AM by DougMacG
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Posts: 15536
Worse than I imagined
Reply #284 on:
February 26, 2014, 05:57:55 PM »
In Defense of the Elastic Clause of the Constitution
February 26th, 2014 - 5:15 am
If college students listened to Mark Levin or Rush Limbaugh, they would receive a better American history education than they are getting from their professors. I recently spoke at Emory University, where one student defended all of President Obamas unconstitutional actions by invoking the Elastic Clause of the Constitution.
Citing the Elastic Clause could indeed justify a wide range of administration actions, except for one problem it doesnt exist.
But you couldnt tell that to the student at Emory University who came to my speech last week on Obamas abuses of power. He persisted in defending the actions through the Elastic Clause, as if the be-all, end-all provision was common knowledge.
From the sound of it, the Elastic Clause must be common knowledge in faculty lounges.
The Elastic Clause, he persisted, gives the president the power to address a wide range of issues through executive prerogative. It allowed the government, he said, to adapt to new circumstances unlike the age when the Founders wrote the Constitution.
Of course the Founders did include an elastic clause of sorts, namely Article V, which gives the people and the states the power to amend the Constitution.
But he wasnt speaking of something quite so stiff and formal. He wasnt referring to something that required broad assent. He was referring the Elastic Clause that allows the president to swiftly respond to needs as they arise sort of like Mussolini and Mugabe did.
He was serious. He really believed the Elastic Clause was real. But the constitutional literacy of a different student was even worse. With a straight face, she defended the exercise of executive power and the issuance of executive orders as constitutional because of the inaction of Congress.
Its part of the Constitution that if the Congress doesnt act, then the president can issue executive orders to fix something, was her argument.
Even more frightening, the person saying this is an officer of the campus Democrats. A little totalitarian in training.
Naturally, this was all quite an eye opener. Im no fool when it comes to the institutional left and their corrosion of the system. But to have a student debate me over a verifiably fictional constitutional provision, to have a student presume I was the one making things up when I said the Elastic Clause didnt exist that blazed new territory.
All of this illustrates the dangerous rot occurring on campus, facilitated in large part by the faculty. All signs point to their success. Students are learning the lexicon of the institutional left and producing tragic-comedy like complaining about equality at UCLA, and worse. My appearance at Emory was sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the College Republicans. Recognize that groups like these are fighting an uphill battle on campus. But without them, college campuses would be intellectually monolithic.
The talk at Emory wandered into the small discrete psychological components of tyranny as described brilliantly in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns Gulag Archipelago. No doubt Mr. Elastic Clause and College Democrat Vice President Edict had never heard of the Nobel Prize winning description of where elastic ideas can lead.
Solzhenitsyns great book of the 20th century describes the small ideas of totalitarianism, and the camouflaged embryonic consent that individuals give to tyranny over time. Tyranny isnt just about gruel with potato peelings day after day and bullets to the back of the head.
I presume Mr. Elastic Clause and Ms. College Democrat Officer will never read Gulag, but if they did, they would learn the story of Georgi Osorgin. Osorgin was imprisoned in the Solovetsky Islands in the early 1920s. The date was important because American leftists (such as some Democrats of the 1960s) like to pin the mass murder system only on Stalin. But Solzhenitsyn documents that the gulags were a necessary part of Lenins vision of the International Brotherhood. Without terror, his system would not work.
Solovki Prison Camp
Osorgin was to be shot, but he begged his jailers for a few more days because his wife was coming to visit him at the gulag. Osorgins wife visited him, then as her boat pulled away from Solovetsky Island, keeping his part of the bargain, he undressed to be shot. Niceties were part of the gulag in the early days because nobody really knew where the fledgling system was headed.
But still, someone did give them those three days. The three Osorgin days, like other cases, show how far the Solovetsky regime was from having donned the armor of a system. The impression is left that the air of Solovki strangely mingled extreme cruelty with an almost benign incomprehension of where all this was leading, which Solovetsky characteristics were becoming the embryo of the great Archipelago and which were destined to dry up and wither on the bud. After all, the Solovetsky Islands people did not yet, generally speaking, firmly believe that the ovens of the Arctic Auschwitz had been lit right there and that its crematory furnaces had been thrown open to all who were ever brought there. (But, after all, that is exactly how it was!)
People there were also misled by the fact that all their prison terms were exceedingly short: it was rare that anyone had a ten-year term, and even five was not found very often, and most of them were three, just three. And this whole cat-and-mouse trick of the law was still not understood: to pin down and let go, and pin down again and let go again. . . .
Here too, on the first islands of the Archipelago, was felt the instability of those checkered years of the middle twenties, when things were but poorly understood in the country as a whole. Was everything already prohibited? Or, on the contrary, were things only now beginning to be allowed? Age-old Russia still believed so strongly in rapturous phrases! And there were only a few prophets of gloom who had already figured things out and who knew when and how all this would be smashed into smithereens.
I explained to the students that a written Constitution, free from the phony Elastic Clause and power for a president to issue edicts, is what keeps them free. It is what lets them have fun and have a good life. Structural constraints on the power of government allow people to experience joy, worship God, build dreams and fulfill potential. Our Constitution does not have an Elastic Clause for a very good reason. It was established to be inelastic absent the consent of three quarters of states. It was established to lay down fundamental ironclad restraints on the power of government, especially the executive branch.
Some are trying to redefine freedom away from this ideal and toward freedom from want.
That it is becoming fashionable to reject our particularly American version of freedom deserves an overpowering response.
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Trivium Education
Reply #285 on:
March 06, 2014, 03:39:05 AM »
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SAT changes coming
Reply #286 on:
March 06, 2014, 04:12:42 AM »
second post
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NYC Mayor Diblasio goes after charter schools
Reply #287 on:
March 11, 2014, 12:09:19 PM »
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Common Core
Reply #288 on:
March 30, 2014, 04:22:18 PM »
I really don't know much about it - off my radar:::
*****Get to know the Common Core marketing overlords
by Michelle Malkin
Copyright 2014
Theyre everywhere. Turn on Fox News, local news, Animal Planet, HGTV, The Family Channel or talk radio. Pro-Common Core commercials have been airing ad nauseam in a desperate attempt to persuade American families to support the beleaguered federal education standards/testing/technology racket. Whos funding these public relations pushes? D.C. lobbyists, entrenched politicians and Big Business interests.
The foundational myth of Common Core is that its a state-led initiative with grassroots support that was crafted by local educators for the good of all of our children. But the cash and power behind the new ad campaign tell you all you need to know. For parents in the know, this will be a refresher course. But repeated lies must be countered with redoubled truths.
The Bipartisan Policy Center is one of the leading Common Core ad sponsors. Its a self-described nonprofit think tank founded by a pantheon of Beltway barnacles: former Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and George Mitchell.
Lobbying tank would be more accurate. The BPCs senior fellows include K Street influence peddlers such as liberal Republican Robert Bennett, the big-spending Utah senator-turned-lobbyist booted from office by tea party conservatives; former Democratic Agriculture Secretary and House member-turned-lobbyist Dan Glickman; and liberal Democrat Byron Dorgan, the former North Dakota senator who crusaded as an anti-D.C. lobbying populist before retiring from office to work as, you guessed it, a D.C. lobbyist.
Jeb Bushs Foundation for Excellence in Education is also saturating the airwaves with ads trying to salvage Common Core in the face of truly bipartisan, truly grassroots opposition in his own home state of Florida. As Ive reported previously, the former GOP governors foundation is tied at the hip to the federally funded testing consortium called PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers), which pulled in $186 million through the Obama administrations Race to the Top program to develop Common Core tests.
One of the Bush foundations top corporate sponsors is Pearson, the multibillion-dollar educational publishing and testing conglomerate. Pearson snagged $23 million in contracts to design the first wave of PARCC test items and $1 billion for overpriced, insecure Common Core iPads purchased by the Los Angeles Unified School District, and is leading the $13.4 billion edutech cash-in catalyzed by Common Cores technology mandates.
In December, you should know, the state of New York determined that Pearsons nonprofit foundation had abused the law by siphoning charitable assets to benefit its for-profit arm in order to curry favor with the Common Core-peddling Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Pearson paid a $7.7 million settlement after the attorney general concluded that the companys charitable arm was marketing Common Core course material it believed could be sold by the for-profit side for tens of millions of dollars. After being smoked out, the Pearson Foundation sold the courses to its corporate sibling for $15.1 million.
Then theres the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has joined the Clintonite-stocked Center for American Progress to promote Common Core and has earmarked more than $52 million on D.C. lobbying efforts.
Two D.C. trade associations, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, continue to rubber-stamp Common Core propaganda. They are both recipients of tens of millions of dollars in Gates Foundation money. NGA employed Democratic education wonk Dane Linn to help shepherd through the standards; Linn now flacks for Common Core at the D.C.-based Business Roundtable lobbying shop, another leading sponsor of the ads now bombarding your TVs and radios.
Despite its misleading name, the NGA does not represent all of the nations governors, holds only nonbinding resolution votes, and serves primarily as an unelected, unrepresentative networking forum, as Heartland Institute scholar Joy Pullmann put it, with funding from both taxpayers and private corporations. NGAs Common Core standards writing meetings were convened in secret and are protected by confidentiality agreements.
Direct public input was nil. Of the 25 people in the NGA and CCSSOs two Common Core standards-writing working groups, EdWeek blogger Anthony Cody reported in 2009, six were associated with the test-makers from the College Board, five were with fellow test-publishers ACT, and four were with Achieve Inc. Several had zero experience in standards writing.
Achieve Inc., you may recall from my previous work, is a Washington, D.C., nonprofit stocked with education lobbyists whove been working on federal standards schemes since the Clinton years. In fact, Achieves president, Michael Cohen, is a veteran Clinton-era educrat who also used to direct education policy for the NGA. In addition to staffing the standards writing committee and acting as lead Common Core coordinating mouthpiece, Achieve Inc. is the project management partner of the Common Core-aligned, tax-subsidized PARCC testing conglomerate.
Whos behind Achieve? Reminder: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has dumped $37 million into the group since 1999 to promote Common Core. According to a new analysis by former Georgia State University professor Jack Hassard, the Gates Foundation has now doled out an estimated total of $2.3 billion on Common Core-related grants to thousands of recipients in addition to NGA, CCSSO, the Foundation for Excellence in Education and Achieve.
As they prop up astroturfed front groups and agitprop, D.C.s Common Core p.r. blitzers scoff at their critics as black helicopter theorists. Dont read their lips. Just follow the money. This bipartisan power grab is Washington-led and Washington-fed. Its not a conspiracy. Its elementary: All Common Core roads lead to K Street.*****
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Re: Common Core
Reply #289 on:
March 30, 2014, 06:54:53 PM »
Oppose Common Core with all your energy. And when it comes back under some other name, oppose that too.
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Posts: 2268
Re: Common Core
Reply #290 on:
March 31, 2014, 01:32:58 PM »
Quote from: DougMacG on March 30, 2014, 06:54:53 PM
Oppose Common Core with all your energy. And when it comes back under some other name, oppose that too.
I do NOT like Common Core, Sam-I-am.
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commie core
Reply #291 on:
March 31, 2014, 04:29:51 PM »
The let's long march through the institutions continues.
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Son of Ghanaian immigrants
Reply #292 on:
April 03, 2014, 05:35:41 PM »
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Re: Education
Reply #293 on:
April 05, 2014, 10:14:50 AM »
What a marvelous story ( or beginning of a story). Truly the American dream. I recall posting about my Indian friend and colleague who commented how he sees American Blacks simply not seeing the advantages they have because they are in America. I don't want to sound cold or indifferent or that I don't recognize the sort of holocaust Blacks went through over centuries as slaves and in segregated America etc.
But this son of parents from Africa seem to have been taught and learned to embrace the gift of America that exists no where else. I have many African patients and some colleagues. I also have many from the Caribbean and American. Culture and nation/regional roots certainly does influence them (as it does us all).
Yet there is something special in this child's parents. And there is something special in him.
It seems like they just wanted the chance. You don't hear anything about entitlements or the rest. Just to be in America where one has a chance.
To blame discrimination was believable in the past. It is not anymore. In fact most of the Black Doctors I run into these days seem to be of African descent.
Power User
Posts: 42558
Re: Education
Reply #294 on:
April 05, 2014, 06:28:30 PM »
Similarly several years ago economist Walter Williams (who happens to be black) pointed out that Jamaicans and their children in America score equal to whites on average.
Power User
Posts: 42558
Corporate money leading to changes in curriculum
Reply #295 on:
April 09, 2014, 10:26:49 AM »
Power User
Posts: 42558
Common Core in Chicago
Reply #296 on:
April 23, 2014, 05:57:11 PM »
Power User
Posts: 9484
George Will joins with Bigdog and Doug in opposing "Common Core"
Reply #297 on:
May 06, 2014, 03:52:04 PM »
George Will: Common Core Disregards The Creativity Of Federalism
(link below)
GEORGE WILL: The advocates of the Common Core say, if you like local control of your schools, you can keep it, period. If you like your local curriculum you can keep it, period, and people don't believe them for very good reasons. This is a thin end of an enormous wedge of federal power that will be wielded for the constant progressive purpose of concentrating power in Washington so that it can impose continental solutions to problems nationwide. You say it's voluntary. It has been driven by the use of bribes and coercion in the form of waivers from No Child Left Behind or Race to the Top money to buy the compliance of these 45 states, two of which, Indiana and I believe Oklahoma have already backed out, and they will not be the last. Watch the verb align in this argument. They are going to align the SAT and ACT tests with the curriculum. They are going to align the textbooks with the tests. And sooner or later you inevitably have a national curriculum that disregards the creativity of federalism. What are the chances, Juan, that we're going to have five or six creative governors experimenting with different curricula or one creative constant permanent Washington bureaucracy overlooking our education? We've had 50 years now of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. 50 years of federal involvement that has coincided with stagnation in test scores across the country.
Power User
Posts: 42558
Re: Education
Reply #298 on:
May 06, 2014, 05:00:49 PM »
Power User
Posts: 9484
Education: Peggy Noonan, The Trouble With Common Core
Reply #299 on:
May 10, 2014, 09:42:10 AM »
First my thought that we will not advance our causes if we spend all our time on defense, opposing the endless stream of liberal leftist bad ideas. That said, C.C. cannot be ignored and Peggy Noonan sums up the main reason why very well:
It isn't that we disagree with the abstraction that students should be taught and master a core curriculum of great building blocks for life in school, we disagree with WHO should decide what those are.
Noonan: "The irony is that Core proponents overall objectiveto get schools teaching more necessary and important things, and to encourage intellectual coherence in what is taughtis not bad, but good. Why they thought the answer was federal, I mean national, and not local is beyond me."
She compares the implementation of C.C. to the implementation of O'Care. She quotes this caricature that sums up all the real examples of stupidity within Common Core:
Louis CK was right Late Show With David Letterman, when he spoofed the math problems offered on his daughters tests: Bill has three goldfish. He buys two more. How many dogs live in London?
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Great Double Room on the Ormeau Rd
Maks. liczba gości2
- Internet
- Kuchnia
- Kominek wewnątrz
- Dostępny parking
- Śniadanie
- Zamykany pokój
- Ręczniki
Podsumowanie obiektu
|Ardmore Avenue, Ormeau Road, BT7 3HD Belfast, Wielka Brytania
|Rodzaj nieruchomości
|Prywatny pokój
|Kod referencyjny
The house is also certified as a B&B with the Northern Irish Tourist Board, meeting strict statutory requirements as a provider in NI.
Set over three floors, the house is spacious, bright, inviting, carefully decorated throughout and offers 2 bedrooms to clients. A continental breakfast is also included! You'll have access to the dining room, kitchen and covered garden on the ground floor. Upstairs, you'll find the modern bathroom and the bedrooms.
The front attic bedroom has a comfy double bed, is bright, welcoming and cosy with a neutral colour scheme. A bed-settee is available should a second bed be needed in this room. Inside, you'll find plenty of reading material (including maps and guides) clean white linens, towels and toiletries. The room has a desk, central heating, electric blanket, tea/ coffee making facilities and wifi.
The house is located on a very quiet residential street in the heart of Belfast's Ormeau Road - a safe, family-friendly and diverse area where you can find great restaurants and cafes, contemporary bars and traditional pubs. Only 15 min walk into the very centre of the city, 10min walk to nearby Ormeau Park, Botanic Gardens and Queens University. Virtually outside the house is the bus stop for the number 7 bus which takes you into town, via Botanic Ave (for Queen's University/Ulster Museum).
Guests who book to stay for more than 4 days may use the kitchen to prepare meals and will be provided with kitchen storage space.
I'm a Belfast native and have lived abroad and travelled the globe. I love welcoming people to the city and to my home and look forward to making your trip special. I have worked in Universities, Colleges, City Councils, Voluntary and Community Sectors and have a life time of community development involvement. I am happy to provide city tours outlining the history of the Conflict, and visits to explore the cultural and artistic legacy of the City. Please inquire about optional extra rooms in the house (I have 4 bedrooms).
RegulaminThe house is partly accessible for mobility disabled persons - am able to provide a comfortable sofa bed and toilet provisions on the ground floor if required.
Unfortunately, the house is not suitable for children.
Respect is an explicit and implicit 'value' of the house and is demonstrated in how people are treated and behave. Principles of equality, diversity and the promotion of 'Good Relations' are core values.
There are no spare computers or mobile phones in the house so please bring your own laptop/phones to access information etc.
Guests who wish to use cooking facilities and washing machine are asked to cover the basic costs of these services, bearing in mind that the house provides a B&B service and is not a hostel or hotel.
Security Deposit: £100
Extra cleaning fee of 5 pounds per week
|Cena za >1 gości
|183 zł opłata dodatkowa od gościa/nocy
|Zameldowanie po
|Zameldowanie przed
|Do ustalenia
|Wymeldowanie przed
|Zasady Anulowania Rezerwacji
I spent 3 days at Brigid's B&B. It was wonderful. A really lovely room with everything I needed and especially a very helfpful and charming host. Thank you Brigid. It was a pleasure staying at your house:-) When I come to Belfast again, I hope you've got a room free.
Brigid's house is a really great place to stay. It is situated in a quiet street close to the busy Ormeau Road with lots of nice restaurants, pubs and cafés. The house with its three guest rooms has a great atmosphere and is beautifully decorated.
Brigid is a lovely host and she creates an atmosphere that you immediately feel like home. Brigid provides you with valuable information on the city of Belfast, its history and the troubles. Moreover, she can give you a lot of advice on how to get around in Belfast and where to go for research or leisure activities. I spent nearly two weeks at Brigid's house and it was a really great time. I can fully recommend to stay at her place.
I stayed with Brigid at the end of July and I feel so lucky to have had a chance to meet her and stay in such a warm, welcoming home! Belfast and its people stole my heart and I credit Brigid for her amazing introduction to the city. She is quick to help with anything you may need and her bright, cheery home was a comfort morning, noon and night. She has incredible taste, a wonderful sense of humor and she was a generous host. I can't thank her enough! I met so many wonderful people, talked and laughed, and I owe many of my adventures in part to Brigid's gentle guidance and tips. Thank you again! I had the absolute best time in Belfast and can't wait to come back.
thank you so much,you are a very lovely person!i have loved all in your house!i hope to come back in the future!
Persona veramente gentile e simpatica;consiglio vivamente una vacanza da Brigid.
Opinie o innych obiektach tego gospodarza
Never i had at my trips such a nice welcome and such a hearty host. Was treated like a member of the family and i got many good recommendations to the sightseeing by exceedingly charming Brigid. Her romantically furnished row house in typically Irish construction method is a really pleasant residence in Belfast. The traffic-connections also is very well (approximately 100 metres up to the next bus stop), a large park nearby and in less Minutes on foot many shops. All in all a well chosen stay.
Brigid was such a lovely host, we would totally recommend our friends anyone that goes to belfast to stay in her beautiful house. The room was bright and cozy, and the bus station right in front. She helped us when we needen and recommended great places to visit in the city. Very happy that we made the choice of staying in her house.
Merci à Brigid pour son accueil !! location très clean, petit déjeuner très copieux, à recommander sans aucun doute !!
Varm, hjælpsom, omsorgsfuld og yderst informativ vært. Kan kun anbefales.
- Gwarancja jakości zakwaterowania
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subset: commoncrawl


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We all think we know what Dad wants, but what does Dad really want? Something practical, but unique and thoughtful, of course! Just like your father!
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text:
|© 2010
Boesch collected Big Hurt, Piazza cards08/17/2010 11:13 AM ET
By George Castle / Special to MLBPLAYERS.com
One of the most impressive rookies of 2010 has been Tigers outfielder Brennan Boesch. The third-round pick was not expected to start this season but forced his way into the lineup with his power, much like some of the players whose cards he collected as a kid:
MLBPLAYERS.com: What players did you collect growing up?
Boesch: Frank Thomas was my favorite. Also Mike Piazza cards. For the most part, I'd collect the boxed sets and collect as many as my parents would let me.
I was definitely not a White Sox fan, but the Big Hurt was a lot of the kids' favorite player growing up. A lot of kids loved him. I had his cleats. That card was the prize in the collection. I remember having one Thomas card that was a big deal at Christmas, and I cherished that one.
MLBPLAYERS.com: Did you have a favorite card brand?
Boesch: For the most part I was into the whole boxed sets of Upper Deck and Topps. I would just go through them all and look at all the stats.
MLBPLAYERS.com: Did you try to collect rookie cards?
Boesch: I was a Dodgers fan, but I wasn't biased toward Dodgers cards. I was crazy for all of them. I don't remember being that into it for rookie of the year cards. I just remember trying to find my favorite player, look him up in Beckett's to see how much they were worth, and try to find some hidden gems. But they were never worth more than a couple of bucks.
MLBPLAYERS.com: Did you trade cards?
Boesch: At baseball camps, we traded. But I was always warned not to do it because some of the older kids would take advantage.
MLBPLAYERS.com: Where did you first appear on a card?
Boesch: The first one was the Oneonta (N.Y.) Tigers, and they PhotoShopped me into a San Diego Padres jersey by accident. I still sign that card to this day.
The first [accurate] card was a Bowman card, in a Tigers uniform.
MLBPLAYERS.com: As a rookie, do you have a card out already?
Boesch: Yes. It's a Topps card. It's me hitting. I like hitting cards. [A defensive-gem card] would be great, but I'd rather have the hitting card.
-- Red Line Editorial This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


text:
I have a diamond supramax...it's an excellent modem, but it won't work under Linux(winmodem) I need to order a quality hardware modem but I am having problems determining which ones will work under Linux. Right now I am looking at Zoom modems but I cna't find anything on their site that has information as to which ones are winmodems and which ones have controllers...i know that price pretty much tells you which one's are winmodems and not, but on the zoom site, it doesn't list anything about linux at all...
are there any suggestions for which one I should get? it doesn't have to be zoom, I have just heard a lot of good things about them. Thanks


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