Tag Archives: education

Academic Preparedness

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New York City has a program, Expanded Success Initiative, that was intended to improve the city’s K-12 “black and Latino males'” (apparently, the girls just don’t matter in New York City) performance.  It’s failing; although, the piece at the link is more optimistic than that.

Students…reported better school relationships and more fair treatment than peers in comparable schools outside the program.[]

Socialization does matter in a child’s development; however….

[A]cademic outcomes and suspension rates remained roughly similar to those in the comparison schools.

Academics are the primary purpose of schools.  ESI improved nothing important.

But here’s the kicker, completely missed by the WSJ piece:

Among the first cohort of black and Latino males in the initiative, about 71% graduated high school, 17% hit state benchmarks signifying college-readiness….

In what universe do these numbers make sense?  Leaving aside the poor graduation rate, how does a student graduate from high school without being prepared for higher education?  I’ve long disputed that college is a necessary next step for high school graduates, but a student not academically prepared for that step isn’t prepared for community college or trade school, nor is he (or she!) prepared to go straight into the work place in any job other than ditch digging or burger flipping.

Teachers Unions

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…and their strikes’ impacts.  Look at the Arizona teachers union strikes, for instance.

Arizona parents scrambled to find alternative arrangements for their children as the state braced for a third day of teacher walkouts.

It’s estimated that at least 800,000 Arizona students have been affected by the strike that started Thursday, with some school districts in the state closed until further notice.

It isn’t only the children that these strikers are holding hostage for their demands.  It’s the parents, too, who must take time off from work to take care of their children with those kids denied access to schools and education.

The teachers unions complain about low pay.  They’re ignoring, though, the even lower pay of many of those parents who are being harmed by these teachers union strikes.  Jennifer Goehring, a nurse, a former teacher, and a union supporter but not of the strikes:

It’s holding the parents hostage because they are having to scramble to find people to watch their kids.  It’s placing an undue hardship on families just trying to stay afloat. I don’t like the kids being used as pawns.

Goehring, by the way, alternates with her husband to watch their children and several others whose families couldn’t take off work during the walkout.  Others, plainly, are trying to fill in to ameliorate, at least a little, the damage the teachers unions are causing.

And this:

Churches, community centers, youth clubs, food banks, and community organizations are offering free and discounted services to help take care of students.

Who’s paying for all of this support for those parents and their children?  It isn’t the teachers unions, who are causing the expenses.  Bet on it: they won’t reimburse these facilities after the fact, either.

A Lesson About Discrimination

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A few days ago, The Wall Street Journal ran a piece about a teacher and a principal who taught a 1968 lesson about racial tolerance, using the equally arbritrary blue eyes-brown eyes discriminant as the teaching prop.

A Letter to the Editor response decried both the lesson and the pride in it that was conveyed in that article.

…one of the most disturbing and emotional things I had ever experienced. Teachers whom I once looked up to were subjecting me to irrational and arbitrary treatment based on my eye color. … My father … called my school’s leadership and received a complete apology.

How sad, that letter writer and his father missed the point of the lesson and missed precisely that “disturbing and emotional thing” that real victims of irrational and arbitrary treatment experience.

On the other hand, a commenter in the Letters thread asked this:

Does this same reasoning that this was child abuse apply to the teachers lecturing about “white privilege” and setting up situations to guilt trip children based on their skin color?

How sad, too, that that discrimination is actively practiced today.

Somebody Else

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Blue Mountain School District Superintendent David Helsel, who had originally intended to arm his students with river rocks so they could throw them at intruders and thereby resist a mass shooting, has altered the plan.  He’s decided to add armed—that is, with firearms—security to his district’s protection technique.  Helsel claimed that the publicity driven by social media and the resultant NLMSM’s attention drove him to the change.

This unfortunate circumstance has increased our concern regarding the possibility that something may happen because of the media attention.

Because, like Flip Wilson’s Geraldine, it’s always somebody else’s fault.  I don’t like the NLMSM, as the half-dozen of you who read this blog know.  But it’s not the NLMSM’s fault.  It’s not social media’s fault.  Any fault is that of the ones who actually do the deeds, contributed to by those who should have known better but chose to take no preventive action.

It’s personal responsibility, not that of “others,” and Helsel seems not to get that.  This is what we have teaching our children.

An Example

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This is part of what’s wrong with today’s American higher education.  The numbers appear in a Wall Street Journal article about the possibility of ex-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson becoming chancellor of the University of Texas system.

The system has an enrollment of more than 230,000 students, an $18 billion annual budget, and more than 100,000 employees.

That’s ridiculous.  There’s no reason for having an employee for every two students.  How much better would the students’ education be were some of those $18 billion redirected toward books and lab equipment and classroom facilities and away from excess payroll?  How much more opportunity would there be were some of those $18 billion redirected toward lower tuition and housing fees and away from excess payroll?