“We Cannot Read…”

Posted on 1 April 2023 by eehines

…every book we make available in our libraries…. This is the claim—and he’s actually serious—by Andrew Cluley, Ann Arbor School District spokesperson, in response to queries concerning why his K-12 libraries are blithely adding gender- and “white supremacy”-oriented books to their stacks. The librarians do, supposedly, read the reviews and descriptions carefully.

It’s possibly true—remotely so—that librarians are unable to read, beforehand, all of their book selections to high school libraries. Maybe, though, the school district’s high school librarians should slow down their library additions so they can read their additions, and not simply rely on reviews and descriptions written by others. Firsthand knowledge instead of secondhand claims.

This is a preview of “We Cannot Read…”. Read the full post (205 words, estimated 49 secs reading time)

Public School Ownership

Posted on 20 March 2023 by eehines

In an op-ed centered on the question of who owns institutions of higher education like universities, Richard Vedder, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Ohio University, identified seven categories of people who claim ownership of these institutions:

The board. Most schools, public or private, are overseen by a legally constituted governing board.
The politicians. At public institutions, state government usually is the legal “owner” of the school.
The administrators. A school’s president and senior bureaucrats are vested with executive responsibility, which resembles ownership.
The faculty. The professors who administer academic offerings and conduct grant-inducing research often feel the school belongs to them.

This is a preview of Public School Ownership. Read the full post (456 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

It Takes a Village?

Posted on 9 February 2023 by eehines

One is trying to come for the children of Idaho (among other places).

School districts throughout Idaho have been adopting policies to keep parents in the dark about their children’s gender identity and sexual orientation at the instruction of the Idaho School Boards Association (ISBA), according to school district policies and email correspondence obtained through FOIA requests by Parents Defending Education, which were shared with Fox News Digital.
Policies adopted on “Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation” in the Buhl, Challis, Marsh Valley, Middleton, and Wilder school districts say an employee could be demoted or even fired for violating a student’s confidentiality on LGBTQ issues.

This is a preview of It Takes a Village?. Read the full post (227 words, estimated 54 secs reading time)

Mistaken?

Posted on 2 February 2023 by eehines

In a Fox News article centered on Congressman Chip Roy’s (D, TX) proposed legislation that would bar Federal funds from going to schools that teach critical race theory (the foolishness doesn’t deserve capitalization), Cato Institute’s Colleen Hroncich had this in objecting to Roy’s proposal:

For starters, the federal government has no constitutional role in education[.]

Plainly, the Federal government does have a role, Constitutional or otherwise, in education—hence the existence of those federal funds to schools that Roy’s proposal would block.

Alternatively, Hroncich is correct, and all Federal funds transfers to schools should stop.

This is a preview of Mistaken?. Read the full post (152 words, estimated 36 secs reading time)

“Society’s” Needs

Posted on 30 January 2023 by eehines

Linn-Mar Community School Board (the district is on the outskirts of Cedar Rapids, IA) member Rachel Wall thinks she knows more about what “society’s needs” are and what should be taught “society’s” children than those children’s parents do. She posted—and she was deadly serious—on Facebook

The purpose of a public ed is to not teach kids what the parents want. It is to teach them what society needs them to know. The client is not the parent, but the community[.]

That got her enough public pushback, including calls for her resignation, that Wall added a post that she actually insisted was clarifying:

This is a preview of “Society’s” Needs. Read the full post (430 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Lloyd Austin’s, Mark Milley’s Woke Military

Posted on 12 December 2022 by eehines

A concerned mother posted on her Facebook page an objection to posters at her 7-yr-old child’s elementary school, posters that depicted different kinds of sexuality, including the virtues of being “polysexual.”

Lt Col Christopher Schilling, of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst—McGuire AFB—responded with threats and by siccing his Joint Base security and the local town’s police on the mother for her effrontery.

The current situation involving [the mother’s] actions has caused safety concerns for many families. The Joint Base leadership takes this situation very seriously and from the beginning have had the Security Forces working with multiple state and local law enforcement agencies to monitor the situation to ensure the continued safety of the entire community.

This is a preview of Lloyd Austin’s, Mark Milley’s Woke Military. Read the full post (268 words, estimated 1:04 mins reading time)

Colleges and College Majors

Posted on 27 November 2022 by eehines

There appears to be a big difference between generalist (I’m being generous here) college majors and specialist college majors, based on the level of post-graduation, on the job satisfaction of the graduates with their majors.

Among arts and humanities majors, nearly half wished they’d studied something else, while STEM graduates tended to feel they made the right choice.

Note that this is far from a properly done survey, limited as it is to just two cities. However, there’s a large hint here, if today’s colleges and universities will pay attention. Or even if they won’t.

This is a preview of Colleges and College Majors. Read the full post (153 words, estimated 37 secs reading time)

Progressive-Democrat Lies

Posted on 29 October 2022 by eehines

These two are especially egregious in this final runup to voting in two weeks.

The first is by Joe Biden, our Progressive-Democrat President:

The most common price of gas in America is $3.39, down from over five dollars when I took office[.]

No, the most common price of gas in America as of the week ending January 25, 2021, the week Biden was inaugurated, was $2.39 [hit the full history XLS link for “U.S. Regular Gasoline Prices*(dollars per gallon)”, and select Data 3 in the resulting spreadsheet]. (Lots of good data on the US Energy Information Administration site.) Biden knows the actual price of gasoline, both then and now.

This is a preview of Progressive-Democrat Lies. Read the full post (354 words, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)

Apologies

Posted on 23 October 2022 by eehines

Elliot Kaufman had an op-ed in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal that talked about the utility of apologies from Stanford University and the various failures of that school in its serial mistreatment of Jews along with the several machinations the school used to push that mistreatment.

I’m less interested in apologies from schools like Stanford than I am in changes in the schools’ behavior.

Such changes, though, won’t be possible without a complete turnover in school management, from the President/Chancellor/what-have-you on down through middle management, along with removal/replacement of Department Chairs and their seconds, and elimination of frivolous departments like the plethora of DEI and related claptrap.

This is a preview of Apologies. Read the full post (184 words, estimated 44 secs reading time)

Snowflakes

Posted on 7 October 2022 by eehines

A New York University chemistry professor—at NYU after four decades at Princeton—has been fired because his students, many of them doctor wannabes, circulated a petition complaining about how hard his class was. Their petition read in pertinent part,

We are very concerned about our scores, and find that they are not an accurate reflection of the time and effort put into this class….

This is a preview of Snowflakes. Read the full post (274 words, estimated 1:06 mins reading time)

A Plebe's Site

Quam bene vivas referre, non quam diu.

Category Archives: education

“We Cannot Read…”

Like this:

Public School Ownership

Like this:

It Takes a Village?

Like this:

Mistaken?

Like this:

“Society’s” Needs

Like this:

Lloyd Austin’s, Mark Milley’s Woke Military

Like this:

Colleges and College Majors

Like this:

Progressive-Democrat Lies

Like this:

Apologies

Like this:

Snowflakes

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this: