Category Archives: education

Deliberate Segregation

Posted on by
Reply

This particularly insidious form of racism is being perpetrated by Western Washington University in Washington State.

Western Washington University has designated the fourth floor of Alma Clark Glass Hall as housing reserved for its “Black Affinity Housing program,” becoming the latest school to adopt such a program.

This is the racist segregation of 70 years ago brought back—deliberately and with careful…thought.

Washington State University rationalizes its move with this impressive bit of Newspeak:

Black Affinity Housing residents, representing all diverse identities, pride themselves on fostering a sense of belonging for all residents by creating a safe environment for open, honest, and sometimes challenging dialogue[.]

Because diversity is served by segregating blacks from all non-blacks at the school.

And:

…the opportunity to live in a shared space…with others who have a shared identity, specifically a marginalized identity.

By carefully marginalizing all others.

Right.

Tech in the Classroom

Posted on by
Reply

In a Wall Street Journal article centered on the classroom distractions provided by the smart watches students bring into their classrooms, Julie Jargon asked,

Which tech option makes more sense for students, smartwatches or phones?

I say neither of the above. Technology that jams the radio signals these devices depend on so that only 911 calls can get in or out is the option that’s needed. The kids need to stop being pupils and need, instead, to be students, and their parents need to step back and let them.

That move by the parents is, of course, entirely different from the parents’ need to be actively involved in their kids’ education itself, from monitoring the schoolwork they bring home (or should be bringing home) to monitoring the curriculum the school and teachers are pushing and correcting that curriculum where necessary.

The Dumbing Down of America

Posted on by
Reply

Ain’t gonna study, study reading no more, ain’t gonna think, think of writing no more
Ain’t gonna fight, fight the math no more, we’re giving them up, we’re gonna let them go

With apologies to Willie Dixon, that’s Oregon Governor Kate Brown’s (D) position on the education of Oregon’s—America’s—children.

Governor Kate Brown, the Oregon Democrat, signed a bill last month with little fanfare that drops the requirement that high school students prove proficiency in reading, writing or math, before graduation, a report said.

This dumbing down, this selling short, our children is abusive to our children and from that, as well as from the elimination of any pretense of education, is dangerous to our nation.

Woking Kindergartens

Posted on by
Reply

Bailey’s Elementary School for the Arts and Sciences in Falls Church, VA, put a woke video on its Web site in which kindergartners were used to push an anti-police agenda. The video, it turns out, was part of a summer curriculum that also included critical race “theory,” Black Lives Matter stuff, and news articles critical of white parents.

After a hue and cry, the video (but only the video, apparently) was taken down from the Web site.

A spokesperson for the Fairfax County Public Schools, just outside Washington, DC, said the video had been posted by mistake and was removed as soon as officials became aware.

Sure it was a mistake. And maybe there’s some beachfront property north of Santa Fe that folks might be interested in, too. Or maybe the mistake was in getting caught.

There’s a larger set of questions, though, a set that’s not being asked, especially by the Fairfax County Public Schools. That set includes the circumstances under which the video was made in the first place, why it was made, who made it.

And whether the persons who made the video still are employed by Fairfax County.

Oh, and whether the BLM and trashing white parents sewage also was taken down, or why not.

Reading Between the Lines

Posted on by
Reply

In an article centered on the relationship between law school student debt and law school graduates’ working income (short answer: law students, in the vast main, borrow far more than their subsequent incomes support), there appeared this statement by a University of Miami law school graduate on why she chose UM and huge debt over a “lesser” law school that offered her a significant scholarship:

You go to any courthouse in Miami and the judge went to UM, the judge is a teacher at UM, there’s some sort of connection to UM[.]

There is this expectation that judges will be swayed by personal relationships, by school tie relationships, far more than they will be by the merits of the case before them and text of the law(s) governing that case.

Sadly, that expectation is both widespread and at least partially valid.