Category: Education

Good for the goose

I have to agree with the education secretary on this one. Why should private schools be excluded from these funds? Not all private schools are for the “wealthy”; many are charter schools that compete with public schools, and are some parent’s only hope for their children to receive an adequate education.

NAACP Sues Betsy DeVos Over Federal Aid Money For Private Schools

I realize that it’s not in the best interest of the public school teacher’s unions to have competition for their members, but competition leads to improvements in cost and quality. Why should the public schools not have to compete?

Wrong problem

It annoys the daylights out of me when people whine about their student debt:

Saddled With Student Loans, Bestselling Author Worries, ‘I Don’t Want To Die Poor’

The typical complaint is how they can’t make enough money to pay off their college loans. How is this different than any other bad financial decision, and why should it be of any concern to others? If someone paid more for a house than it was worth, would you congratulate them on their poor decision and offer to pay off their loan? Or just pity them for their lack of common sense?

If you chose a degree that will not pay for itself, maybe you chose the wrong degree (or the wrong college). Maybe you should have contemplated the return on your investment before incurring the debt. It costs approximately $48K/year to go to Howard University, the school attended by the subject of NPR’s article; maybe they should have selected one of the many excellent and low-cost public schools instead. But the reality is that it’s not the loan that is the problem; it’s the decision to pay more for an education than it’s worth.

Maybe they should ask for a refund…?

Active Shooter Drills

Active shooter drills are not about protecting our children; their purpose is to traumatize children and their parents so as to increase their fear of school violence. And it works: A Pew Research report indicates that the majority of students and parents are now concerned about the possibility of a school shooting, even though such events are quite rare.

A recent U.S. Secret Service study investigated targeted school violence – excluding gang and drug-related events or events with an external criminal nexus – during the 10 year period from 20o8 through 2017. They found 41 targeted school violence events – of which only 25 involved a firearm – accounting for 79 injured and 19 killed. Considering that the U.S. has more than 95,000 k through 12 schools serving almost 50 million students, death or injury from such events are truly rare. Compare these numbers to the 2364 teen drivers killed and 300,000 injured in 2017 alone; on which do you think we should be concentrating our efforts?

Given the rarity of these events, why do some schools terrorize parents and students with active shooter drills using fake blood, mock injuries and simulated shooters firing blanks? Could it be that the political agenda driving these active shooter drills is more important to some than actually protecting children? Could it be that these drills are simply anti-gun political propaganda aimed at current (parent) and future (student) voters, possibly to gain support for anti-gun legislation?

It’s time we stop using our schools and children as political pawns to undermine the 2nd amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Instead, let’s start working on truly effective programs to eliminate school violence. Threat assessment, as promoted by the Secret Service and discussed in this article from NPR, is a much more effective method of preventing school violence.

Some excerpts from the Secret Service study:

  • Most attackers were victims of bullying.
  • 39% of attacks used bladed weapons; 61% used firearms.
  • Firearms were most often obtained from home or a close relative.
  • Many attackers had received some form of mental health treatment.

“Humanizing” math?

Seattle schools are planning to “…encourage students to explore how math has been appropriated by Western culture and used in systems of power and oppression…”

How about we teach them math instead? If everyone learns math, then it can’t be used in “…systems of power and oppression…” now, can it?

You can’t make this stuff up:

Seattle Schools Lead Controversial Push to ‘Rehumanize’ Math

What about us?

Bernie Sanders wants to wipe out all student college debt – amounting to somewhere in the vicinity of $1.6T. Mind you this is money owed to the American taxpayer, who only loaned the money to these students to assist them in their education – not to pay for it outright. Talk about “buying votes”; given the number of students with student debt (roughly 45 million), it seems that Bernie’s going to win in 202o…

But, wait! I have a few questions, Bernie:

1) What about the rest of us? What about those of us who responsibly attended college by choosing a useful (pronounced STEM) degree program, one where scholarships and fellowships were available, and who worked through school so as to not have any or minimal debt upon graduation? Is it our reward for being responsible citizens that we are saddled with paying the debt of those who weren’t?

2) Why not go further, as long as you are printing money, and pay off everyone’s mortgage, too? That will penalize us further, those of us who have lived within our means and scrimped/sacrificed/saved so that we could own our homes outright. Why not saddle us with the debt of those who partied, vacationed, and spent beyond their means rather than pay off their homes?

Somewhere I once read an unverified quote that seems to accurately describe what is happening in the United States. This unverified quote essentially made the claim that a democracy only remains viable until the people realize that they can write themselves a check out of the treasury. This appears to be what Bernie (and others) are attempting to do; the trick is to make sure that more people benefit from the giveaway of public funds than those who will suffer for it, thus insuring voter support.

It is the 16th amendment that is largely responsible for this dilemma, as until its ratification direct taxes were required to be apportioned based on population. With the advent of the progressive tax system the 16th amendment enabled, it became possible to provide the majority of people with a benefit where their contribution in taxes was far less than the benefit received.

The Constitution was designed to protect against the “…tyranny of the majority…” by including specific rights for the people and limitations on government. Unfortunately, Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 of our constitution just wasn’t clear enough, as evidenced by ratification of the 16th amendment. Hopefully, we’ll get it right next time.

Preparation, or indoctrination by terror?

Schools have increasingly been implementing mass shooting protocols and drills, ostensibly to protect school children by preparing them for such an event. But are these really for the benefit of the student, or are they instead an attempt to sway future voters by indoctrination through terror? With some of these drills using plastic “bullets”, simulated gunfire and fake blood, one has to wonder – particularly given the low probability of such an attack.

Since 1999, there have been 11 mass school shootings in the US (as of 4/2019), involving the deaths of 127 people. These are sad statistics, but do they warrant terrorizing students with fake mass shooting drills? Some have wondered whether these drills will have a greater overall negative impact than not.

There are approximately 84000 public schools in the United States; this amounts to a 1 in almost 8000 chance of having a school shooting at any given school over the last 20 years and a one in approximately 150,000 chance in any given year. In addition, with approximately 55 million kindergarten through 12th grade students in the U.S. the odds of being shot in a mass school shooting in the last 20 years is roughly one in 433,000, and in any given year less than 1 in 8 million.

One has to wonder what is the end goal of those who would subject students to the terror of active shooter drills, particularly when there are much more likely and serious issues to address. For instance, 382 teenagers died in 2016 as the result of traffic accidents where the teenage driver had a BAC level of 0.08 or greater; this amounts to 3 times as many killed in 1 year as the result of alcohol than those killed in all the school shootings over the last 20 years. Even though these accidents have a much greater impact on the lives of students, authorities don’t run simulations of accidents or force students to attend faux funerals for the mock dead.Why, then, do they stage fake active shooter drills?

So I ask again – what is the purpose of these simulated mass shooting drills? To truly protect our students, or to precondition future voters against 2nd amendment rights? You must decide for yourself; I have already come to my own conclusion.

Indoctrinating students is wrong

A teacher in Houston gave his seventh grade students an assignment that allegedly appeared to disparage President Trump – much to the chagrin of some parents.

The school district says this has matter has been settled without specifying what – if any – disciplinary action has been taken. I wonder what disciplinary action would have been taken if this teacher had instead done the same with respect to a liberal candidate?

Trump-related school assignment prompts anger, death threats against Houston-area teacher: report

Student loan debt

Interesting article from NPR on student loan debt, and how the cost of student debt is the cause behind millennials delaying the purchase of their first home:

Heavy Student Loan Debt Forces Many Millennials To Delay Buying Homes

However, I disagree. It’s stupidity that’s the cause of millenials having to delay purchasing a home, but its not entirely their fault.  They were not prepared in high school for the rigors of college (or life in general, for that matter). Basic life planning, budgeting, and cost-benefit analysis tools would have served the students featured in this NPR article well, and could have helped them avoid their current predicament. (Of course, if we taught them these skills in high school then socialism would be doomed… they might demand a balanced federal budget, or worse – become Libertarians!)

For instance, the article notes that 40% of those who start a 4 year college program have not yet finished after 6 years. It’s not that college is too expensive; it’s that students aren’t planning well and some schools aren’t holding students to a 4 year plan. Think of it: 6 years of school costs 50% more than 4 years; that’s a lot of money. A little better planning, both by the students and the schools who admit them, could go a long way in making college more cost-effective; all a student has to do is graduate on-time. It can be done; approximately 75% of U.C. Berkeley students graduate in 4 years, and 90% within 6 years.

Another case noted in the article is that of a student who simply spent too much on an education with limited market potential. You don’t pay twice as much to build a house than it will be worth; so why do we consistently do it with regards to our education? Again, a little planning and cost/benefit analysis would have gone a long way in preventing such unsustainable student debt. Maybe that’s the college prep course we need to add to our high school curriculum.

So, before we start yelling about how college is too expensive maybe we should look at why; the results might surprise.