Tag: Education

Why Thomas Sowell is so Popular with Conservatives

KevinLeave a comment

Worth 50 minutes of your time:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdBn7MUM3Yo?rel=0]
Quote of the Day, from the end of the interview:

Peter Robinson: How’s my generation’s project of holding on to liberty coming along?

Thomas Sowell: Not well. One of the reasons I’m glad to be as old as I am is that it means I may be spared seeing what’s going to happen to this country, either internally or as the result of international complications.

Robinson: You think that America’s greatest days are gone? Full stop? That it’s irreversible?

Sowell: Nothing is irreversible. But I think that we’re like a team that is coming to bat in the bottom of the ninth, five runs behind. We can win it, but this is not… I wouldn’t bet the rent money on it.

Robinson: Last question. What would you say – talking about Milton (Friedman) talking to my generation – what would you say to the next generation, to your grandchildren’s generation about the America for which they should be preparing themselves?

Sowell: Since I don’t know what that America is going to be, I don’t want to say anything to them. By the time they get here I think the issue will have been settled one way or the other.

Robinson: By then it will be irreversible.

Sowell: Either we will have pulled out of the dive, as it were, or else it will be all over.

Quote of the Day – Education Edition

KevinLeave a comment

My students do know — because they have been taught this — that America is run by all-powerful racists who will never let them win. My students know — because they have been drilled in this — that the only way they can get ahead is to locate and cultivate those few white liberals who will pity them and scatter crumbs on their supplicant, bowed heads and into their outstretched palms. My students have learned to focus on the worst thing that ever happened to them, assume that it happened because America is unjust, and to recite that story, dirge-like, to whomever is in charge, from the welfare board to college professors, and to await receipt of largesse.

– Danusha V. Goska, 10 Reasons I Am No Longer a Leftist

Read the whole thing.

I am reminded of this 2011 “Truth in Fiction” excerpt from the science fiction novel The Road to Damascus:

(The party) is composed of two tiers. The lower tier produces many outspoken members who make their demands known to the upper tier. The lower tier is derived from the inner-city population that serves as the base of the party. The lower tier’s members are generally educated in public school systems and if they aspire to advanced training, they are educated in facilities provided by the state. This wing constitutes the majority of (the party’s) membership, but contributes little or nothing to party theory or platform. It votes the party line and is rewarded with cash payments, subsidized housing, subsidized education, and occasional preferential employment in government positions. The lower tier provides only a handful of clearly token individuals allowed to serve in high offices.

The upper tier, which includes most of the party’s management, virtually all the appointed and elected government officials, and all of the party’s decision-makers, is drawn exclusively from suburban areas where wealth is a fundamental criterion for admittance as a resident. These party members are generally educated at private schools and attend private colleges. They are not affected by food-rationing schemes, income caps or taxation laws, as the legislation drafted and passed by members of their social group inevitably contains loopholes that effectively shelter their income and render them immune from unpleasant statues that restrict the lives of lower-tier party members and all nonparty citizens.

(The party) leadership recognizes that in return for supporting a seemingly populist agenda, they can obtain all the votes they require to remain in power. Even the most cursory analysis of their actions and attitudes, however, indicates that they are not populists but, in fact, are strong antipopulists who actively despise their voting base. This….is proven by their efforts to reduce public educational systems to a level most grade-school children (in other countries) have surpassed, with the excuse that this curriculum is all that the students can handle. They have made the inner-city population base totally dependent on the government, which they control.

The Stupidity of the American Voter

KevinLeave a comment

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G790p0LcgbI?rel=0]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hcu1S2GKf0?rel=0]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7IlKhqJPH8?rel=0]
Well, he’s right.  I made the argument during what passed as “debate” over Obamacare (as did literally thousands of others) that you could not:

  • add millions to the health insurance rolls
  • add tens of thousands of IRS and other government agents to the federal payroll to regulate the Act
  • not add any doctors or medical centers to the existing system
  • eliminate lifetime payout caps
  • remove limits of insurability for those with pre-existing conditions

and honestly promise a DECREASE in health insurance costs and an IMPROVEMENT in health care services.  Much less “If you like your Plan, you can keep your Plan.  If you like your Doctor, you can keep your Doctor.”

Former Congressman Thad McCotter put it quite succinctly in March of 2010:

The Democratic Party believes that you can take an imperfect health-care system and fix it by putting it under the most dysfunctional and broken entity in the United States today: It’s called the Federal Government.

That proposition is insane.

But that’s how they sold it.  A lot of people bought the lies.  Even worse, a lot still do.

The Democrats depend on the stupidity of their supporters.  After all, it’s served them remarkably well in the past.  In 2000 (long before I started this blog) I wrote a piece now archived at KeepandBearArms.com entitled An Uncomfortable Conclusion.  I will reproduce it here, as fourteen years later I wouldn’t change a word:

With the continuing legal maneuvers in the Florida election debacle, I have been forced to a conclusion that I may have been unconsciously fending off. The Democratic party thinks we’re stupid. Not “amiable uncle Joe” stupid, but DANGEROUSLY stupid. Lead-by-the-hand-no-sharp-objects-don’t-put-that-in-your-mouth stupid. And they don’t think that just Republicans and independents are stupid, no no! They think ANYBODY not in the Democratic power elite is, by definition, a drooling idiot. A muttering moron. Pinheads barely capable of dressing ourselves.

Take, for example, the position under which the Gore election machine petitioned for a recount – that only supporters of the Democratic candidate for President lacked the skills necessary to vote properly, and that through a manual recount those erroneously marked ballots could be “properly” counted in Mr. Gore’s favor. They did this in open court and on national television, and with a straight face.

So, it is with some regret that I can no longer hold that uncomfortable conclusion at bay:

They’re right. We are.

Not all of us, of course, but enough. Those of us still capable of intelligent, logical, independent thought have been overwhelmed by the public school system production lines that have been cranking out large quantities of substandard product for the last thirty-five years or so. The majority of three or four generations have managed to make it into the working world with no knowledge of history, no understanding of the Constitution or civics, no awareness of geography, no ability to do even mildly complex mathematics, no comprehension of science, and realistically little to no ability to read with comprehension, or write with clarity. And we seem to have developed attention spans roughly equivalent to that of your average small bird. (Ed. – Twitter didn’t come along until 2006!)

After all, about half the public accepted the Democratic premise that we were too stupid to vote correctly because their guy didn’t win by a landslide, didn’t they? And the other half was outraged, not that they made such a ludicrous argument, but that they didn’t want to play fair and by the rules that no one seems to understand or to be able to explain.

The other majority party isn’t blameless in this; they like an ignorant electorate too. It’s easier to lead people who can’t or won’t think for themselves. It took both parties and many years of active bipartisan meddling to make the education system into an international laughingstock.

However, the end result of this downward spiral has been an electorate ignorant in the simple foundations of this country and its government. Most especially the foundation of a rule of law in which EVERYONE is equal under the laws of the land. The Democrats have taken advantage of this general ignorance to its logical extreme. President Clinton, when testifying under oath, debates the meaning of the word “is,” and essentially gets away with it. Vice President Gore, when shown to be in direct violation of campaign finance law states that there was no “controlling legal authority.”

Laws don’t MEAN anything to them. A law is an inconvenient bit of wording that just has to be “interpreted” properly to achieve their ends. When they file suit, they must shop for the proper judge, or they might not be able to get the “spin” they want. Like the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland, words mean just what they want them to mean, no more no less. And that meaning can change at any time.

What has this election proven? The system is broken beyond a shadow of a doubt. Humpty-Dumpty is smashed. Regardless of who wins the recount in Florida, we have a system that has abandoned the rule of law because the populace let it, not knowing any better. Everything is up for interpretation. We don’t live in the United States of America anymore, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We live in `Merica, land of the free to do whatever we please, with no adverse consequences to our actions because that just wouldn’t be “fair”. Ain’t Democracy wunnerful? Let’s just vote ourselves bread and circuses and wait for the Barbarians to come over the walls. Bet that’ll get more than 49% of the vote, huh?

(This is the piece that got me kicked off of Democratic Underground, BTW. Somebody had to Google my name to find it and then point a DU administrator at it.)

The Unkillable Zombie that is Communism

KevinLeave a comment

Recently at Quora.com, someone asked the question:

Why does communism get such a bad reputation?

Why is America so opposed to what I merely see as a different system of running things? I used to read Karl Marx as a senior in high school and his ideas don’t seem all that “evil” to me. Am I missing something here. Why all the hate?

I responded:

I understand that the rules of Quora state that I’m not allowed to answer a question only with a graphic, but this one pretty much says it all:


Karl Marx’s failed attempt at economics and social engineering has been – directly or indirectly – responsible for the deaths of over 100,000,000 human beings – at the hands of their own governments. At the same time, capitalism has been responsible for lifting more people out of poverty than any other system ever attempted – to the point that Communist China (about half of that hundred million dead) has taken to it, albeit with strong restrictions.

If you don’t “understand the hate” I suggest you read up on the history.

Today Bill Whittle has a better answer (naturally) in his latest Firewall:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvfHLr5aEqU?rel=0]
Pullquote:

The Progressive utopia is the Loch Ness Monster of politics: a giant, air-breathing creature that never surfaces for air.

UPDATE: Eric S. Raymond expands on the subject.

You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up

KevinLeave a comment

So in the UK’s Daily Mail comes a piece about a teacher.  An English teacher.

Who admits that she’s illiterate.

Well, actually, she’s not.  Apparently she’s just really, really badly educated and doesn’t know what the word “illiterate” means:

As a teacher with six years’ experience, you might imagine that I would have been in my element as I chatted about the eight-year-olds in my charge and offered their parents encouragement and advice.

Instead I was consumed with embarrassment. And no wonder. The father opposite me — a lawyer — was looking at me as if I was dirt under his shoe.

I had been telling him about the new drive to improve literacy standards in our school when he had interrupted me.

‘Can you repeat what you just said?’ he said. ‘I’m not sure I could possibly have heard you correctly.’

I had no idea why he was getting so agitated. To humour him, I repeated slowly: ‘I said that me and the headmistress are doing all we can to improve standards.’

I might as well have told him that we were planning to bring back the birch. Throwing his hands up in the air, he launched into a tirade that left me red hot with shame.

‘Me and the headmistress?’ he ranted. ‘Don’t you know it should be: “The headmistress and I”? How can you call yourself a teacher when your grammar is so poor?’

And a little later in the piece:

The stark truth is that most people educated in a state school in the Seventies and Eighties had little or no grounding in grammar. And many of us have become teachers. Scarred ourselves, we have passed the damage on.

I’m convinced the rot started in 1964 when Harold Wilson’s Labour government came to power and abolished the 11-plus in many areas. Parents were told this was to enable primary schools to develop a more informal, child-centred, progressive style of teaching, with the emphasis on learning by discovery.

As a teacher, I can see this is rubbish. The belief that grammar could be ignored was virtually all pervasive until 1988, when the Conservative government introduced the National Curriculum.

This observation dovetails nicely with the one made by former New York Teacher of the Year, John Taylor Gatto, when he wrote:

I lived through the great transformation which turned schools from often useful places (if never the essential ones school publicists claimed) into laboratories of state experimentation. When I began teaching in 1961, the social environment of Manhattan schools was a distant cousin of the western Pennsylvania schools I attended in the 1940s, as Darwin was a distant cousin of Malthus.

Discipline was the daily watchword on school corridors. A network of discipline referrals, graded into an elaborate catalogue of well-calibrated offenses, was etched into the classroom heart. At bottom, hard as it is to believe in today’s school climate, there was a common dedication to the intellectual part of the enterprise. I remember screaming (pompously) at an administrator who marked on my plan book that he would like to see evidence I was teaching “the whole child,” that I didn’t teach children at all, I taught the discipline of the English language! Priggish as that sounds, it reflects an attitude not uncommon among teachers who grew up in the 1940s and before. Even with much slippage in practice, Monongahela and Manhattan had a family relationship. About schooling at least. Then suddenly in 1965 everything changed.

Whatever the event is that I’m actually referring to—and its full dimensions are still only partially clear to me—it was a nationwide phenomenon simultaneously arriving in all big cities coast to coast, penetrating the hinterlands afterwards. Whatever it was, it arrived all at once, the way we see national testing and other remote-control school matters like School-to-Work legislation appear in every state today at the same time. A plan was being orchestrated, the nature of which is unmasked in the upcoming chapters.

Think of this thing for the moment as a course of discipline dictated by coaches outside the perimeter of the visible school world. It constituted psychological restructuring of the institution’s mission, but traveled under the guise of a public emergency which (the public was told) dictated increasing the intellectual content of the business! Except for its nightmare aspect, it could have been a scene from farce, a swipe directly from Orwell’s 1984 and its fictional telly announcements that the chocolate ration was being raised every time it was being lowered. This reorientation did not arise from any democratic debate, or from any public clamor for such a peculiar initiative; the public was not consulted or informed. Best of all, those engineering the makeover denied it was happening.

1964 in the UK, 1965 in the U.S.  Coincidence? 

But I wrote all that so I could post this, the Quote of the Day, definitely the Week, possibly the Month and contender for Quote of the Year, by our “illiterate” teacher:

Thankfully, I had the good grace to quit teaching and take a job in the media.

I can’t think of a more appropriate place for her!  Can you?

So the LA School System is Going to Give Every Student a Laptop…

KevinLeave a comment

I covered that here a couple of weeks back.  Guess they can’t learn from New Jersey.

“We had the money to buy them, but maybe not the best implementation,” said Mark Toback, the current superintendent of Hoboken School District.

Once again: 

When someone tries to use a strategy which is dictated by their ideology, and that strategy doesn’t seem to work, then they are caught in something of a cognitive bind. If they acknowledge the failure of the strategy, then they would be forced to question their ideology. If questioning the ideology is unthinkable, then the only possible conclusion is that the strategy failed because it wasn’t executed sufficiently well. They respond by turning up the power, rather than by considering alternatives. (This is sometimes referred to as “escalation of failure”.) – Steven Den Beste

Oh, and by all means, read the comments!

Edumacation

KevinLeave a comment

So the New Yorker magazine does an article about the recent Atlanta school system standardized test cheating conspiracy:  Wrong Answer.  This used to be the thing that would inspire hours of research and writing to create an überpost, but I’m going to resist that.  Instead, I’m just going to quote this little excerpt:

“Without even reading the question, I could tell you just by the shape of the graph, ‘Oh, my kids know that,’ ” (Damany Lewis, a math teacher at Parks Middle School, in Atlanta) told me. He put the test in his fireplace once he’d confirmed that he had taught the necessary concepts. But he worried that his students would struggle with questions that were delivered in paragraph form. Some of his seventh-grade students were still reading by sounding out the letters. It seemed unfair that the concepts were “buried in words.”

Seventh grade.  They’re 12-13 years old, assuming none had been previously held back.

And some can barely read.

But the tests are at fault.

Quote of the Day – Wish I’d Said That Edition

KevinLeave a comment

MiddleAgedKen left this zinger of an Education QotD as a comment to the P.J. O’Rourke QotD from a few days back:

To be minimally fair, a good high-school education is still essential, and college is (if you’re lucky) where you go to get one.

I’ve said it before somewhere, if not in here, that a high-school diploma used to mean you were ready for the workforce. Now it’s a BA. A high-school diploma just means you were bodily present long enough that they had to give you a piece of paper to make you go away.