Tag Archives: decline

Little Avail: The College Problem

25 Thursday Jul 2019

Posted by in News and Notes

≈ Comments Off on Little Avail: The College Problem

Tags

, ,

Books and papers have already been written on this predictable outcome in higher education.

An astonishing number of students start college in America without finishing it: Roughly 40 percent of college enrollees don’t go on to get a degree within six years of starting to work toward one.

The good news is that in recent decades things have gotten a bit less bad. By one calculation, at four-year state schools that didn’t make the top 50 public universities in U.S. News & World Report’s rankings, the graduation rate within six years rose from about 40 percent for students starting in the early 1990s to about 50 percent for students starting in the late 2000s. (The phenomenon was not limited to non-elite schools.)

When Jeff Denning, an economist at Brigham Young University, started looking closely at the data on college-completion rates, he was a bit perplexed by what, exactly, was driving this uptick. He and some of his BYU colleagues noticed that a range of indicators from those two decades pointed in the direction of lower, not higher, graduation rates: More historically underrepresented groups of students (who tend to have lower graduation rates) were enrolling, students appeared to be studying less and spending more time working outside of school, and student-to-faculty ratios weren’t decreasing. “We started thinking, What could possibly explain this increase?” Denning told me. “Because we were stuck with not being able to explain anything.”

An academic technocrat who can’t explain anything. Might that be part of the problem? Emerson had all this ages ago: “One of the benefits of a college education is to show the boy its little avail.”

Roadblock to Reality

19 Wednesday Jun 2019

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns, Other Columns

≈ Comments Off on Roadblock to Reality

Tags

, , , ,

Walter Williams questions the decline of black academic culture in New York City.

It’s taken as axiomatic that the relatively few blacks admitted to these high-powered schools is somehow tied to racial discrimination. In a June 2, 2018 “Chalkbeat” article (https://tinyurl.com/y64delc3), de Blasio writes: “The problem is clear. Eight of our most renowned high schools — including Stuyvesant High School, Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Technical High School — rely on a single, high-stakes exam. The Specialized High School Admissions Test isn’t just flawed — it’s a roadblock to justice, progress and academic excellence.”

Let’s look at a bit of history to raise some questions about the mayor’s diversity hypothesis. Dr. Thomas Sowell provides some interesting statistics about Stuyvesant High School in his book “Wealth, Poverty and Politics.” He reports that, “In 1938, the proportion of blacks attending Stuyvesant High School, a specialized school, was almost as high as the proportion of blacks in the population of New York City.” Since then, it has spiraled downward. In 1979, blacks were 12.9% of students at Stuyvesant, falling to 4.8% in 1995. By 2012, The New York Times reported that blacks were 1.2% of the student body.

What explains the decline?

He is, as usual, on to something. However, I sense the presence of a scheme (within a scheme) along the lines of the Asian Students v. Harvard case. At any rate, this is another great advertisement for homeschooling.

Move Over, $900 Hammer

13 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns

≈ Comments Off on Move Over, $900 Hammer

Tags

, , , ,

The last story I linked had some specs on the USA v. Iran. One was about the air power of each country. They sold the F-35 as some super-duper TIE Fighter of the future. Here’s the truth:

But startling reports by trade publication Defense News on Wednesday revealed flaws that previously only builder Lockheed Martin, the military, and the plane’s foreign buyers knew about.

The newly-exposed problems underscore the potential fragility of American air power as the armed services work to replace more and more old fighters with as many as 2,300 F-35s while also reconfiguring to confront the increasingly deadly Chinese and Russian air forces.

The problems might also help to explain why acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan reportedly described the F-35 program as “fucked up.”

…

…“It is infeasible for the Navy or Marine Corps to operate the F-35 against a near-peer threat under such restrictions,” Defense News paraphrased the documents as saying.

The test reports Defense News obtained also reveal a second, previously little-known category 1 deficiency in the F-35B and F-35C aircraft. If during a steep climb the fighters exceed a 20-degree “angle of attack”—the angle created by the wing and the oncoming air—they could become unstable and potentially uncontrollable.

To prevent a possible crash, pilots must avoid steeply climbing and other hard maneuvers. “Fleet pilots agreed it is very difficult to max perform the aircraft” in those circumstances, Defense News quoted the documents as saying.

The implications are chilling. In a dogfight with a Russian or Chinese jet that can exceed a 20-degree angle of attack, an American flying and F-35 could be at a serious disadvantage.

In other words, it’s a $400 Billion brick that’s too heavy to even toss at an enemy. I think the acting  SEC-DEF’s vulgarity is spot on. Just another example of American superiority. Don’t think the Russians, Chinese, and Iranians haven’t already seen this. But! It’s not that bad. So what if our planes aren’t airworthy, melt in the sky, or creep along at a Wright Brother’s speed? America has a mighty strength! So says the corrupt manufacturer:

Diversity and inclusion are the foundation of our culture, and reflect our values of doing what’s right, respecting others and performing with excellence. By leveraging our employees’ unique talents and experiences, we deliver innovative, affordable solutions and unparalleled customer value.

And, that explains that.

Losing Two Wars at Once

13 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns

≈ Comments Off on Losing Two Wars at Once

Tags

, , , ,

There’s the ever-so-wanted by the neocons war in Iran, which America cannot win.

And here’s why – he writes:

1. Iran is a REALLY BIG COUNTRY – it is 3–4 times larger than Iraq, with a much larger population.

2. The terrain is more like Afghanistan, ringed with mountains, not deserts. It isn’t a good place for tanks to run amok.

3. Worse, the Strait of Hormuz is REALLY narrow, especially the shipping channel. Nearly all of it can be fired upon from Iran with short-range missiles or can be attacked from shore with small boats. There is NO WAY to try to sail tankers out during war times.

4. Iran is right – they probably CAN block the Strait in the event of war. No business wants to come under missile attack while in transit.

There are many more reasons, on both sides. Russian ASMs on the one, post-modern NOT-America on the other…

Then, more alarming, there’s the open invasion of the US Homeland, which America apparently cannot stop.

Today, there are anywhere between 11 and 22 million illegal aliens living across the country — the majority of which are concentrated in states like California, New York, Florida, Texas, and Illinois.

Since December 21, 2018, DHS has released a total of 204,500 border crossers and illegal aliens into the interior of the country, with all of them going to four American communities: San Diego, California; Phoenix, Arizona; El Paso, Texas; and San Antonio, Texas.

Tick, tick, tick.

Peace Be With You

12 Wednesday Jun 2019

Posted by in News and Notes

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, ,

Unless, of course, you live in third world Amerika. The US Imperial Homeland ranks 128th out of 163 countries on the Global Peace Index. Among other perplexities:

“Our most striking finding is that in the problem spots of the world, there are a number of places where the situation is improving and getting better,” Steve Killelea, founder and executive chairman of the index, told The Washington Times in an interview.

Probably because those countries are sending their worst offenders – all women and children “refugees” – to America and Europe. Notice how much worse the US is than the worst of the Old Continent. Notice just how low America ranks, period. Odds are, you don’t need much explanation as to the whys.

THE FULL INDEX

Import the third world, become the third world.

And, just wait until 2033 (or possibly sooner).

Screenshot 2019-06-12 at 4.49.43 PM

Like Africa, but with more TV channels.

Not Just Hollywood: A List of 180 Companies to Boycott

11 Tuesday Jun 2019

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns

≈ Comments Off on Not Just Hollywood: A List of 180 Companies to Boycott

Tags

, , ,

Most of these I’ve never heard of. The only one I can remember doing business with (past tense) is Slack. Take a look:

The top executives of more than 180 companies have signed a letter that says abortion is essential in order for people to be successful in their businesses.

“When everyone is empowered to succeed, our companies, our communities and our economy are better for it,” the executives [CLICK HERE>] say in the letter posted on a newly launched website titled “Don’t Ban Equality.”

Know your enemies. Thanks for the list, Moloch!

New York State of Slime

10 Monday Jun 2019

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns

≈ Comments Off on New York State of Slime

Tags

, , ,

Be careful what you wish for, New York. You might get it and more. Of course, they’re selling this as “liberation” of women and immigrants.

Sex work would be broadly legalized in New York state under a first-of-its-kind bill introduced by state legislators on Monday.

A group of lawmakers first called for legislation in February, but on Monday they finally came forward with a 13-page bill that would bring dramatic changes to the sex trade in the state.

The bill, written with advocacy group DecrimNY, would make it legal to both buy and sell sex under certain circumstances and modifies laws around facilities that are used as places of prostitution.

“For us, this is a bodily autonomy issue — our bodies, our choice — but more than that, it’s an economic issue. And it’s personal,” Jessica Raven, one of Decrim NY’s organizers, wrote in a Daily News op-ed Monday.

Two of the bill’s sponsors, state senators Jessica Ramos and Julia Salazar, have said that 9 out of 10 people arrested in sex-work-related massage parlor raids are immigrants, with most being undocumented Asians.

So, they did the same thing in Germany a while ago. And, over there, certain women discovered a downside to all the freedom. Able-bodied women, on public assistance, were told that prostitution was a career choice and that if they did not try it their benefits would be terminated. It makes perverse sense: many of the women are sexually active, as evidenced by their growing broods. Ergo, they should make money turning their hobby into a business and save the doll a few bucks. Rock. Hard place.

One assumes, this being NY, that any affected immigrants will keep safely feeding at the trough and that any completely unexpected children resulting from the profits can be safely terminated (at any time).

Escape from New York, more of a motto than a movie.

The War on Books

08 Saturday Jun 2019

Posted by in News and Notes

≈ Comments Off on The War on Books

Tags

, , , , , , ,

VP offers some shocking (if predictable) insight into the removal of books from institutions of higher “learning.”

Less intelligent, but more ignorant

The Great Enstupidation of the United States proceeds apace:

When Yale recently decided to relocate three-quarters of the books in its undergraduate library to create more study space, the students loudly protested. In a passionate op-ed in the Yale Daily News, one student accused the university librarian—who oversees 15 million books in Yale’s extensive library system—of failing to “understand the crucial relationship of books to education.” A sit-in, or rather a “browse-in,” was held in Bass Library to show the administration how college students still value the presence of books. Eventually the number of volumes that would remain was expanded, at the cost of reducing the number of proposed additional seats in a busy central location.

Little-noticed in this minor skirmish over the future of the library was a much bigger story about the changing relationship between college students and books. Buried in a slide deck about circulation statistics from Yale’s library was an unsettling fact: There has been a 64 percent decline in the number of books checked out by undergraduates from Bass Library over the past decade.

Yale’s experience is not at all unique—indeed, it is commonplace. University libraries across the country, and around the world, are seeing steady, and in many cases precipitous, declines in the use of the books on their shelves. The University of Virginia, one of our great public universities and an institution that openly shares detailed library circulation stats from the prior 20 years, is a good case study. College students at UVA checked out 238,000 books during the school year a decade ago; last year, that number had shrunk to just 60,000.

One can make a very good case for outlawing so-called “higher education” now, as the Christian university created to educate young men has now devolved into a worse-than-useless factory for transforming young women into barren SJW debt-slaves.

 

This is a continuation of the trend from middle and high schools, in keeping with the general dumbing down. In some of those schools, what books are left are being caution-taped off to protect students from any random ideas.

IMG_20190524_073529540 - Edited

Picture by me. I was not kidding, sadly.

Indelible Evidence

08 Saturday Jun 2019

Posted by in Other Columns

≈ Comments Off on Indelible Evidence

Tags

, , ,

As the IQs fall and other dsygenic markers manifest, we see signs. Some are literally tattooed on people. I marked this story but forgot about it: U. Miami study links tattoos to mental issues.

People with tattoo are more likely to be diagnosed with mental health issues and suffer from sleep problems, findings of new research have revealed.

In a survey-based study published in International Journal of Dermatology on Jan. 24, Karoline Mortensen, from the University of Miami, and colleagues investigated a potential association between tattoo and negative health-related outcomes and risky behaviors.

They found that having tattoos was not significantly related to overall health status. Nonetheless, their survey, which involved more than 2,000 adults in the United States, found that people who have inked skin were more likely to suffer from mental health issues and sleep problems.

Compared with their non-tattooed counterparts, people with tattoos were also more likely to have a higher number of sex partners in the past year. They also tend to be smokers, and likely to have spent time in jail.

Brain scanning might help explain the correlation. Then again, was a study really needed to reach this conclusion?

Yes, yes, pedants, I’m sure yours is special…

Folktale Fiction for the Fallen Nation

06 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by in News and Notes

≈ Comments Off on Folktale Fiction for the Fallen Nation

Tags

, , , ,

Ann Coulter writes about the rejection of truth in the burning remains of the West.

New York City public school teachers recently revealed that they have been instructed to reject “objectivity,” “written documentation” and “perfectionism” by Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, as part of his effort to “dismantle racism.” Carranza identified these values as tools of the “white-supremacy culture.”

…

In our new country, nonsense like “objectivity” and “written documentation” are mere tricks, chicanery, hocus-pocus, used against “communities of color” — as Schools Chancellor Carranza explained — in order “to win victories for white people.”

And, here, the schools are behind the curve, as Coulter observes. But, we do need some new victories. Each Coulter column counts as one.