Category: Education

Sarcasm = racism, fascism, *ism, etc.?

When engineering students responded with sarcastic answers to a transgender research survey, the authors of the associated report became upset – so much so that some had to take time off ” …to heal from traumatic harm…” (no kidding – this is right from the text of the report). The researchers were so upset that they turned the tables on the sarcastic students and used the responses to singled them out as hate mongers:

Attack Helicopters and White Supremacy: Interpreting Malicious Responses to an Online Questionnaire about Transgender Undergraduate Engineering and Computer Science Student Experiences

In summary, the report essential says (in my words, not theirs):

WAAAAAH!
STEM students are MEAN, and make fun of our work. As a result, we’ve determined that they are racist, fascist, transphobic, anti-semitic, white supremacist meanies. They should all be forced into government re-education programs until they stop thinking independently.
WAAAAAAH!

The report is full of gibberish and politi-speak (George Orwell would be proud). I love this line:

“The data was coded inductively and discursively interpreted through social justice frameworks.”

Huh? (Really – right from the text!)

I can’t believe this nonsense actually got published. I think the authors were surprised, too, based on this observation from the report:

“Tellingly, earlier versions of this paper submitted to journals in engineering education were ultimately rejected, not because of the quality of the research itself, but because of “fit.” We were left with the impression that our arguments concerning the necessity of addressing fascist ideologies within the cultural contexts that TGNC students endure was seen as irrelevant to engineering education…” (emphasis mine)

Anyway, here’s the Fox News story that clued me in to the existence of the report; it’s pretty funny, too:

Researchers horrified, decry rise of ‘fascism’ as students send mocking responses to woke survey

Weaponizing Homeland Security against Parents

You can’t make this shit up:

Randi Weingarten Gets a New Gig in the Federal Government

Really – the head of the United Federation of Teachers, the organization that has chastised parents for attempting to block the woke agenda of the education system – is now a member of the (Department of ) Homeland Security Academic Partnership Council. Per Mayorkas, the council is:

“…helping us counter the evolving and emerging threats to the homeland…”

Hell, just that sentence alone makes my skin crawl; the use of the word “homeland” here is just too reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s “fatherland” tag.

But the point remains that placing a teacher’s union president with a history of demonizing parent on what is essentially a school security council for a police agency – well, that’s  just not going to end well. I can visualize the result as nothing less than arming the teacher’s union with effectively police powers in their drive to silence parents. I don’t understand how people can fail to recognize the potential damage this can cause – to both our children and our right to raise them as we see fit.

It’s unfortunate that the current political climate is “us vs. them”, with people voting for their “team” rather than for what is right. It’s time we put aside our “team” banners and do what is necessary to preserve our way of life and defeat those willing to sacrifice the primary tenets of our Constitution. If it’s not too late…

I find this VERY interesting…

First, read this article from Fox News:

Ohio moms react to ‘vicious’ school reporting them to FBI after exposing critical race theory: complaint

Sounds pretty serious, yes? Scary, even? Parents who investigate the schools curriculum being attacked by said school? Now, read the denial from the school:

The school categorically denied all allegations in a statement to Fox News Digital, saying, “These allegations are entirely without any legal merit or factual basis whatsoever.”

Here’s the interesting part – an allegedly earlier statement on their “false and misleading” statements policy:

“[A]ny parent who waged a public campaign of false and misleading statements and inflammatory attacks harmful to the employees, the reputation, or the financial stability of Columbus Academy would be in clear violation of the Enrollment Agreement and would be denied re-enrollment for the following school year.”

Besides the obvious use of the Bart Simpson defense (“I didn’t do it, and you can’t prove a thing anyway”), the sense that they are providing justification for allegations that are “…totally without merit…” is telling.

However, the statement itself is also troubling because it provides only subjective criteria for taking the actions noted in their policy. “False and misleading statements”? As determined by who? What if the statements are “…damaging to the reputation and financially stability of Columbus Academy” but are also true? What then?

I just hope more parents have the wherewithal to fight against the education system and its attempts to politically indoctrinate our children in their one-sided brand of politics. We may not be able to undo the damage they cause – at least not until it is too late.

Eh? Just lower the bar…!

Of course it’s unfair to expect students to show competency to graduate high school. So if we have to do it, let’s just make it easy for them. Not like having dumb kids everywhere will be a problem…

New York lowering minimum test scores for student proficiency in math, English: the ‘new normal’

If this doesn’t make the American Federation of Teachers and Randi Weingarten poster children for school choice, I don’t know what will…

The Purge

Well, that’s one way to purge conservatives from the education system:

Over 800 NYC Teachers Fired Over Vaccine Mandate

And this even though Biden has announced that the COVID pandemic is over…??

It’s unfortunate, but this plays right into the liberal takeover of our education system – and the “dumbing-down” of our children so that they don’t question the progressive socialist agenda.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Insidious

I am appalled by the Biden administration’s blatant ploy to buy votes with taxpayer money. But I am not surprised.

FACT SHEET: President Biden Announces Student Loan Relief for Borrowers Who Need It Most

A couple of things to note:

a) The loan forgiveness program will provide “relief” for households making 3.7 times the median household income (a/o 2020) in the United States. Yeah; sounds like it helps poor people to me…

b) If you’ve been a  successful, responsible adult who chose a valuable degree and paid back your student loans – tough. And thanks for all the fish.

But  if you didn’t complete your degree or pay towards your student debt – debt that benefited no one but you – Jackpot! you WIN the student loan lottery (and you get to keep the car you bought instead of paying your student loans).

c) The loan relief will do nothing to lower the cost of college; it will simply shift its cost to others – including those who have not/will not attend college. This cost transfer will be direct via increased taxes, or indirectly via increase costs as tax increases are passed down to consumers. Colleges have no incentive to lower prices as long as the government is footing the bill as written. Similar to electric vehicle prices when sales are supported by government rebates, I expect college cost to rise, not fall.

But by far the most insidious element of the Biden administration’s debt forgiveness program is that students cannot apply for relief now; they instead must wait for the government to develop the program, ensuring that the relief comes after the election. From the White House fact sheet (a/o 8/29/22 5:52pm PDT):

The application will be available no later than when the pause on federal student loan repayments terminates at the end of the year.

This action by the Biden administration – announcing the relief before the process is available – confirms that this is a buy-the-vote effort meant to ensure that the 41 million students now lined up for “free” money will vote Democrat in November.

Sadly, this is not a new tactic by the Biden administration. Biden used a similar tactic in 2021 to campaign for Georgia senators Ossoff and Warnock, stating:

“If you send Jon and the Reverend to Washington, those $2,000 checks will go out the door … The power is literally in your hands.”

It’s becoming increasingly popular ploy, as other Democrat politicians use the same method to buy local elections – such as Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf:

Pennsylvania Gov. Wolf calls for $2,000 payments to help families ‘survive inflation’

His plan? Send $2,000 to families making less than $80,000/year (still 18% above the 2020 U.S. median income) in order to help them fight inflation(?!?). Wolf, however, is an even slyer fox than Biden; he knows that with a Republican-controlled state legislature he won’t actually have to send the money. And he’ll still be able to blame the Republicans for not putting such a bill on his desk. Promising money he won’t actually have to pay – brilliant!

We are on a slippery slope, with Democrats driving our population towards government dependence while destroying the economy through inflationary giveaways. I hope you all have the courage to vote them out of office this November – student loans or not.

Buying votes with YOUR money, Part II

That’s $300,000,000,000 in student loan debt forgiveness. This amounts to almost $1000 of debt to be absorbed by each and every man, woman and child living in America.

Biden announces student loan handout as national debt soars

This wasn’t “free” money; it was money taken from the treasury and given to students with the intent that it be paid back with reasonable interest. Never mind that only the student benefited from the loans that they took out. Never mind that this money – if/when repaid – could be used to send others to college. Never mind that this money was taken from the American taxpayers, and that without repayment they will have to pay the loss out of their own pockets – again.

What kind of message does this send about responsibility? Don’t worry; if you f**k up the government will bail you out? Your poor decisions will weigh heavily on the minds of your betters, as they sacrifice to pay for your failures? That your life is a check written against the productivity of others?

Sadly, it’s just business as usual in D.C.; buying votes with your money has become commonplace, and I don’t see it ending soon. Funny (or, actually, not so funny), the following paraphrased quote seems apropos – although I don’t know its source (it has multiple citations; not sure which is correct):

A democracy will to exist only up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves gifts from the public treasury.

Here’s my personal take along the same basic theme:

A democracy will to exist only up until the time that politicians discover they can buy votes using the public treasury.

Don’t think we’re there yet? Maybe this previous Biden quote from the 2020 election cycle will convince you that we are well on our way:

“If you send Jon and the Reverend to Washington, those $2,000 checks will go out the door,” Biden said Monday while campaigning in Atlanta on the eve of the election. “And if you send Sens. Perdue and Loeffler back to Washington, those checks will never get there. It’s just that simple. The power is literally in your hands.”

And so it continues, the slide into fiscal insolvency in the name of “democracy”. A slide towards a failed economy and eventual dependence on the government. A slide where productivity is punished (why should one work to line the pockets of others, when they can be moochers, looters and freeloaders themselves?) as we become ever more dependent on politicians for our daily alms via redistributed wealth. But what happens when the wealth runs out? This can only end in a despotic, “We know better than you” totalitarian oligarchic government whose power is obtained and held based on public dependence. And it is democrats/socialists leading the way – not Trump. Who’d have thought?

I find it interesting that some still claim it’s the conservatives who will lead us down the path of tyranny, of totalitarianism. Have we already forgotten that Hitler was not a conservative, but was instead a socialist (he was the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party, aka the NAZI party)? Have we already forgotten that Kim Il sung’s totalitarian state was named the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea? Or that the communist regime of East Germany was similarly named the German Democratic Republic (GDR)? Just as how Democrats have convinced Americans that it was the Republicans who fought for the oppression of African-Americans (it wasn’t – it was southern Democrats who fought for slavery, oppression and Jim Crow laws; it was Republicans fighting against them), Democrats are also implying that it is the Republicans and other conservatives who are leading us down the road to totalitarianism. But it’s not – it’s the progressive left, as usual.

I went to college. I did not incur debt. I reduced my costs by attending a community college for 2 years before transferring to a 4-year university; I also worked throughout my graduate education. I was a responsible adult who earned a useful degree in a STEM discipline without incurring debt so as to not be a burden on others. As a result I am now to be saddled with the debt of the irresponsible – the debt of students who earned a useless degree in a worthless field and who now don’t want to pay back the money they were loaned in good faith.

What a fool I am; I could have been a moocher! Maybe next time…

Even SF has “woken” up to the woke

Who knew this was possible in Krazy Kalifornia?

San Francisco voters recall 3 school board members

Recalled San Francisco School Board Commissioner Alison Collins isn’t accepting lightly that maybe voters are just tired of her racist politics:

“We now know what it costs to buy an election in San Francisco,” she said…

Yeah – that explains why almost 78% of voters tossed Ms. Collins to the curb. In addition, almost 74% voted for the recall of board president Gabriela Lopez and almost 71% for the recall of board vice president Faauuga Moliga (results as of 2/17/22 16:01:22).

When you lose by these margins in a liberal city like San Fransisco, it’s hard to blame the opposition party. But that didn’t stop local politicians, who blamed the losses on “closet Republicans”. But I’ve got to ask: is it really wise – in a liberal, progressive, LGBTQ stronghold like San Francisco – to refer to your opposition as being in the “closet”?

Really?

 

 

Out of the frying pan, into the fire

I don’t agree with this CSU proposal to end the use of standardized testing.  It’s simply not the correct response to a disparity in test results.

California State University takes step toward permanently dropping ACT, SAT from admission requirements

I do agree that students from more affluent backgrounds tend to perform better on these tests, but evidence points to the cause as simply being the additional resources afforded affluent youths. In short, higher tests score are the result of being better prepared – both for the standardized tests and for college; higher test score are good.

By eliminating the test requirements, two things will happen:

1) Students in general won’t prepare for these tests, and as a result will be less prepared for college; and
2) More affluent students will simply go to better colleges where their test scores matter.

This is just another example of how dropping the bar to the lowest common performance level – not exactly something that will drive American excellence – will have significant unintended consequences. It will make the average American student dumber while widening the performance and prosperity gap between affluent and poor youth.

While I applaud the effort to increase college prospects for less advantaged youths (after all, it’s not their fault that their family is poor), we need to remember that education is a scarce resource. As such, it must be allocated to those who will do the most with the opportunity.  In this case the solution is not to lower the bar; we must instead maintain the bar while improving the study and test resources available to poor or disadvantaged students.

To do otherwise is a disservice to the student.

China’s gonna kick our ass…

I have been watching a documentary on Amazon entitled “China’s New Silk Road”. In it a man’s 11 year old son is watching an English presentation of a mathematics course. He’s learning about the chain rule for calculus.

He’s learning calculus at 11 years of age.

We can’t even get our union public school teachers to show up for class; they’d rather work remote – maskless from a beach in Florida – while trying to get 12th graders to pass a 10th grade test so that they can graduate high school.

Enough is enough. Screw the “voting rights” (aka “Democrats Forever”) bill; pass a bill granting universal school choice instead. Let’s give the teacher’s union some competition so that we can RAISE the bar rather than lowering it.

And we’d better act soon. If not, let’s at least start teaching Mandarin and Cantonese in our public schools so that our students are prepared to be good little communist slaves to their new overlords.