Tag Archives: schools

Can the Churches fix the Schools? The Education?

16 Wednesday Aug 2017

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Gary North, architect of the Ron Paul Curriculum (K-12) asks: Why Is There No Free Online Catholic Education?

It certainly makes sense to ask. The traditional schools slowly close due to this and that reason yet millions of families still favor the religious education over the government schoolhouse alternative.

North sees a possible inter-denominational bidding war for the attention/enrollment of young Christian scholars. It could all start Catholic:

What about the Southern Baptists? If they thought the Catholics were going to do this, there would be a bunch of Southern Baptists who would give it a shot. It would appall them that the Catholics would do it without a challenge from Southern Baptists.

October 31 is the 500th anniversary of Luther’s nailing of the 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg church. If Missouri Synod Lutherans thought the Catholics were about to offer a free online K-12 curriculum, they would organize to match them, course for course.

Presbyterians are the scholars of the Protestant world. If conservative Presbyterians thought that the Catholics were going to do this, they would form a study committee in each Presbyterian splinter denomination. Within five years, there would be a decision to start a curriculum by reach group. Within less than a decade from this decision — though not much less — there would be at least five Presbyterian curriculums online.

Then the Dutch would match them. The Dutch would not tolerate American Presbyterians horning in on Calvinist private schools run by school boards dominated by parents.

Then “word of faith” cable-TV Pentecostal pastors would see a profit opportunity: Holy Ghost-directed education. They would organize online programs. Their ministries would own the programs.

What we need is interdenominational competition. We need denominationally committed Christians who will not tolerate any of those other denominations getting away with this. Obviously, they’re not willing to fight the public schools. They are all perfectly willing to let the public schools steal their kids’ minds. This has been true in the United States ever since the 1840’s. But the thought that the Roman Catholics were going to do this would outrage Protestants.

Therefore, I call on some mother superior to leave a legacy behind. I call on some Catholic bishop to get his act together, educationally speaking. Get that free online curriculum up and running! Show those Protestants a thing or two!

If 20 million families then pulled their kids out of tax-funded schools, maybe a majority of voters would start voting “no” on school bond ballot propositions. Would that be so bad?

A very interesting idea and concept. More than rebuilding American education, this might just help the churches save themselves – from themselves.

BTW, if you and your kids are tired on the local K-12 experience, consider the RPC.

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RPC.

Thanks and thanks again, Dr. North.

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Not 25 Years but Close Enough: The Time has Come

02 Wednesday Aug 2017

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In Grutter v. Bolliger,  539 U.S. 306 (2003), the Supreme Court somehow upheld the continuing discrimination of affirmative action in higher education. In that particular case, it directly regarded law school admission at the University of Michigan. White students, like Barbara Grutter, were (are) systematically denied opportunities based on the color of their skin despite having superior test scores, grades, and IQs.

Sandra Day O’Connor, in delivering the majority opinion, wrote: “The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.” Grutter, at 310.

It’s only been 14 years but that is close enough, long enough (too long really). The Trump Administration is ready to direct the DOJ to uphold the honest principles that Justice Thomas urged in his Grutter dissent:

I therefore can understand the imposition of a 25-year time limit only as a holding that the deference the Court pays to the Law School’s educational judgments and refusal to change its admissions policies will itself expire. At that point these policies will clearly have failed to “‘eliminate the [perceived] need for any racial or ethnic'” discrimination because the academic credentials gap will still be there. [citation omitted] The Court defines this time limit in terms of narrow tailoring, [internal citation omitted] but I believe this arises from its refusal to define rigorously the broad state interest vindicated today. [internal citation omitted]. With these observations, I join the last sentence of Part III of the opinion of the Court.

For the immediate future, however, the majority has placed its imprimatur on a practice that can only weaken the principle of equality embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Equal Protection Clause. “Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.” Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 527, 559, […] (1896) (Harlan, J., dissenting). It has been nearly 140 years since Frederick Douglass asked the intellectual ancestors of the Law School to “[d]o nothing with us!” and the Nation adopted the Fourteenth Amendment. Now we must wait another 25 years to see this principle of equality vindicated. I therefore respectfully dissent from the remainder of the Court’s opinion and the judgment.

The time is now. The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division will begin pursuing schools engaging in this hideous practice.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing to redirect resources of the Justice Department’s civil rights division toward investigating and suing universities over affirmative action admissions policies deemed to discriminate against white applicants, according to a document obtained by The New York Times.

The document, an internal announcement to the civil rights division, seeks current lawyers interested in working for a new project on “investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions.”

The announcement suggests that the project will be run out of the division’s front office, where the Trump administration’s political appointees work, rather than its Educational Opportunities Section, which is run by career civil servants and normally handles work involving schools and universities.

The document does not explicitly identify whom the Justice Department considers at risk of discrimination because of affirmative action admissions policies. But the phrasing it uses, “intentional race-based discrimination,” cuts to the heart of programs designed to bring more minority students to university campuses.

Supporters and critics of the project said it was clearly targeting admissions programs that can give members of generally disadvantaged groups, like black and Latino students, an edge over other applicants with comparable or higher test scores.

The project is another sign that the civil rights division is taking on a conservative tilt under President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. It follows other changes in Justice Department policy on voting rights, gay rights and police reforms.

Roger Clegg, a former top official in the civil rights division during the Reagan administration and the first Bush administration who is now the president of the conservative Center for Equal Opportunity, called the project a “welcome” and “long overdue” development as the United States becomes increasingly multiracial.

“The civil rights laws were deliberately written to protect everyone from discrimination, and it is frequently the case that not only are whites discriminated against now, but frequently Asian-Americans are as well,” he said.

I once brushed off the possible chance to work for the DOJ. This is one of the few times I wish I had gone through and was still there. I’d volunteer in a heartbeat.

End it!

More on American Miseducation

27 Thursday Jul 2017

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As a writer few things are as irritating as hearing more and more people say something to the effect of: “I haven’t read a book in years. Who reads?!” It’s so bad that I actually find it difficult sometimes to explain to certain people what I do.

Saying one is a writer won’t do as it generally begets only stares and stupid questions. Further explaining how letters are shaped into words, those words forming sentences, etc., with the final product landing in a magazine, a book, or a blog doesn’t always help either. Again, “Who reads?!”

I’ve toyed with the idea of just telling those 2 or 3 (4? 5??) SD south that I’m a wizard, using powerful magic to do things they can’t understand. In reality it’s kind of the truth anymore.

And it’s not so much a problem of sheer stupidity as it is one of ignorance. People just don’t know because they’re no longer educated. Otherwise useful minds sit idle because they lack the spark plugs the schools were supposed to install. Today the mechanics have another agenda.

We’re now two or three generations into the new education. The results are disastrous.

Yesterday, via a VD post, I pointed out that, nationally, college IQ scores have dropped nearly a whole SD in the past half century. I checked the comments on Vox’s post later and found this:

This from USA Today:

In 1998, the number of high-school graduates with A averages was 38%.

In 2016, the number had risen to 47%. That’s nearly half of all graduates.

Curiously, SAT scores over the same period fell 24 points.

More students than ever, nearly a slight majority, earn “excellent” grades even as the whole IQ slips and SAT scores fall? Huh?

This is the dumbing down in action as expressed through the grading metric. The schools are cognizant of the fact of their failure and so they compensate by adjusting marks upward. And they have failed, by and large.

Back to my original gripe: they don’t even teach real language comprehension or use anymore. Linda Schrock Taylor explains:

Literacy failures continue to compound with each generation as mis-educators focus on everything except the core problem: The Devastation of Language and Literacy.

The vast majority of Americans no longer Hear, Speak, Spell, Read, or Write English with competency, let alone with skill. The destruction of Americans’ ability to precisely understand and use their own language is at the root of every problem that faces our nation: school failure; dearth of general knowledge; limited horizons; shallow, inaccurate thought processes; poor communication skills; unemployability; criminality; and the development of this shallow, polarized society in which we live. Still teachers are wasting precious educational time, and damaging young brains, with flashcards and sight word memorization.

We have no reason to expect any noticeable change, whether a Hobby Educator, or a Degreed Educator, is at the helm of the money wasting, regulation imposing, U.S. Department of Education. The True Educators have mostly died off or been spiritually beaten into silence. Thus far, no one in power has been willing to 1) accurately identify the Core Problem and its breadth, 2) agree to fund only proven traditional methods, and 3) demand absolute use of successful teaching methods. Only by doing these three things can America solve the Core Problem at each level and thus RESET the learning and intellectual abilities of all Americans: Preschool; Elementary; 6-12th Grades, and Adult.

If the kids (and adults) don’t know the language, they can’t read. If they can’t read, they can’t learn. Schools were supposed to be about learning. They’re not, not now. And God help the overly intelligent child trapped in one:

There is little room for intelligent, independent thinkers in today’s public educational system. The toll taken by Collectivist agendas on these Individualist types of children and adults is simply too profound; too damaging. Public education has lost sight of the goal of education. Educators rave on about how the STATE needs to make sure that children have their basic needs met before they can be expected to learn; all the while forgetting that historically children arrived, often underfed and poorly clothed, at drafty one-roomed schoolhouses where uncertified teachers educated individuals who would create and build one of the truly great civilizations on Earth. Now it is questionable whether most graduates are capable of understanding that which they have been bequeathed, let alone have the competencies and knowledge to restore and maintain America.

Once parents understand the dangers of, and the agenda and history behind, state schooling, many will refigure their budgets, reassess their priorities, and remove their children from a system where puppet masters with invisible strings pull all people and all policies towards Collectivism. The only hope is that the remaining Individualists will fight all attempts by the collective to ensnare their children and attempt to teach them to: share; hold back; fail with the group, underachieve; then willingly work to clothe and feed the lazy and the elite few at the top.

I detect in Taylor’s assessment a great optimism that the damage done may yet be reversed. I hope so. That was why I purchased Out of the Ashes, by Esolen, yesterday. I’m the introduction and the first chapter into it – haven’t even made it to the education section(s) – and it’s incredible.

In writing this I was thinking about including a quote from that but, honestly, every sentence is quote-worthy. It also hints at a latent optimistic appraisal of the situation.

For now, I suggest you get a copy. It’s well worth it. I’ll have more, and a review, once I finish reading the whole book. Reading: what a great thing.

literacy-map

Jalisa Danielle.

*The foregoing criticism obviously does not directly concern this audience.

The Schools, Failed or Failing

06 Thursday Jul 2017

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Another Gary North column! North points out the near-utter failings of government primary and secondary schools. He finds it interesting that some liberals are now giving up in the same despair that took hold with conservatives eons ago.

Conservatives have been irrelevant to the educational process in the United States ever since the end of World War II. Their constant laments have changed nothing. Hirsch should learn from their experience. There is no reform of the public schools that will make them better. They will continue to erode academically. The American Federation of Teachers will continue to run the show in their tenured security until online education leaves nothing of the public schools except third-rate teachers of students whose parents are not concerned enough to pull them off of what is clearly a sinking ship.

It could not have happened to a more deserving crew.

Conservatives conserve nothing. Liberals offer nothing. Schools teach nothing. Students learn nothing. An ambitious writer could pen: “Nothing: the State of American Education.”

North predicts the replacement of the schools but stops just short of calling for their abolition. That really can’t come soon enough.

It’s not, of course, just the lower schools afflicted with the nothingness and departure from intellectual pursuits. Professor in-the-know, Walter E. Williams, again laments the collapse of colleges as learning environments, reciting a few recent examples of the buffoonery.

Who is to blame for the decline of American universities? Mansfield argues that it is a combination of administrators, students and faculties. He puts most of the blame on faculty members, some of whom are cowed by deans and presidents who don’t want their professors to make trouble. I agree with Mansfield’s assessment in part. Many university faculty members are hostile to free speech and open questioning of ideas. A large portion of today’s faculty and administrators were once the hippies of the 1960s, and many have contempt for the U.S. Constitution and the values of personal liberty. The primary blame for the incivility and downright stupidity we see on university campuses lies with the universities’ trustees. Every board of trustees has fiduciary responsibility for the governance of a university, shaping its broad policies. Unfortunately, most trustees are wealthy businessmen who are busy and aren’t interested in spending time on university matters. They become trustee!s for the prestige it brings, and as such, they are little more than yes men for the university president and provost. If trustees want better knowledge about university goings-on, they should hire a campus ombudsman who is independent of the administration and accountable only to the board of trustees.

The university malaise reflects a larger societal problem. Mansfield says culture used to mean refinement. Today, he says, it “just means the way a society happens to think, and there’s no value judgment in it any longer.” For many of today’s Americans, one cultural value is just as good as another.

Williams is right as usual. There is a larger social context to the decline. However, the failing schools and the failing culture go hand-in-hand, a perpetual motion disaster in progress. “Mansfield,” in the column, is Harvard senior professor of government, Harvey Mansfield.

Harvey Mansfield has been in higher education for a long time. In fact, he’s been a faculty member at Harvard since 1962. Yet, after all those years, the conservative professor of government isn’t hopeful about future of his trade.

“No, I’m not very optimistic about the future of higher education, at least in the form it is now with universities under the control of politically correct faculties and administrators,” he said.

His remark came during a 35-minute interview in April in his fourth floor office at Harvard, where the 85-year-old Mansfield lamented universities for losing their aspiration, describing them as bubbles of staunch liberalism ruled by faculties that have failed to make universities reach their potential.

‘Bubbles of decadent liberalism’

Once America’s pride, Mansfield argues universities are no longer the marketplace of ideas nor the bastions of free speech.

“Now [universities’] sole function seems to be to attack a free country and to try to narrow freedoms to privileges, for those who have been designated victims,” he says.

What universities have become are “bubbles of decadent liberalism,” that teach students to look for offense when first examining an idea.

Bubbles to protect snowflakes seem as useless as snowflakes protecting the bubbles. It all would appear rather pointless. Maybe that’s the point of education in modern America – there isn’t one.

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Free Pik.

So, what’s to be done about it? Systemically, I suspect more of the same -always the statists’ answer. Keep dumbing it down under, as North predicts, the whole thing falls and melts away (like so many snowflakes in the sun). For us, it’s high time to think about better options for our children.

I’ve had some recent inquires of late regarding college path choices for teenagers. This being a pet subject of mine, my jaded curiosity is piqued. Therefore, I think my first substantial Patreon piece is going to be an advice guide for those looking to educate their children or for older children looking to further their learning. Look for that when you see it – and to see the whole thing, you’ll likely need to become a Perrin Patron.

*Perrin’s Patrons – like Arnie’s Army but on Patreon. Please visit Perrin on Patreon and pledge your support.

Valediction 2017

20 Tuesday Jun 2017

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The news from government schools and the standardized “education” industry grows worse by the month.

“Valediction,” as used above, means saying farewell.

Valedictoria: a student, typically having the highest academic achievements of the class, who delivers the valedictory at a graduation ceremony.

The Valedictorian, with the highest academic achievement, gets to say farewell to the school on behalf of the graduating class. And we now bid farewell to valedictorians in American government high schools.

Unfortunately, as the AP points out today, that is exactly what seems to be happening at high schools all around the country as the title of “valedictorian” is being eliminated and/or bestowed upon so many kids in each graduating class that it’s rendered meaningless.

“More and more schools are moving toward a more holistic process. They look deeper into the transcript,” Gottlieb said.

Wisconsin’s Elmbrook School District has for several years ranked only the valedictorian and salutatorian, and only then because the state awards scholarships to schools’ top two graduates, according to Assistant Superintendent Dana Monogue. The change has been accepted by colleges and community alike, Monogue said.

“We are encouraged by any movement that helps students understand that they’re more than a score, that they’re more than a rank,” she said.

One school in Tennessee awarded the “valedictorian” title to 48 kids or roughly 25% of the entire graduating class.

Tennessee’s Rutherford County schools give the valedictorian title to every student who meets requirements that include a 4.0 grade-point average and at least 12 honors courses. Its highly ranked Central Magnet School had 48 valedictorians this year, about a quarter of its graduating class.

At another school in Maryland, the AP highlights the woes of a concerned mother who wonders how ranking might affect her teenager’s confidence.

The day rankings came out at Hammond High School in Columbia, Maryland, students were privately told their number — but things didn’t stay private for long.

“That was the only thing everyone was talking about,” said Mikey Peterson, 18, who shrugged off his bottom-third finish and will attend West Virginia University in the fall.

A spokesman for the Howard County, Maryland, district said schools recognize their top 5 percent so students can include it on college applications and hasn’t considered changing.

“There was a big emphasis on where you landed,” said Peterson’s classmate Vicki Howard, 18. “It made everything 10 times more competitive.”

Peterson’s mother, Elizabeth Goshorn, said she can’t walk into his school without hearing good things about her affable son, but worries about how rankings can affect a teenager’s confidence.

“It has such an impact on them as to how they perceive themselves if you’re putting rankings on them,” she said.

Try as you might, ignoring the principles of basic mathematics does not mean that they cease to exist. And while your enabling parents, high schools and colleges may share your view that ranking people on the basis achievement is racist, sexist and/or any other number of adjectives you may wish to throw out there….again, we assure you that the real world does not care.

Life is competitive and your relative performance versus your peers will ultimately determine your success in life irrespective of how “triggering” that fact may be. The sooner you realize that fact, the sooner you’ll be able to move out of mom’s basement.

The feelings of the snowflakes and the incessant demands of the SJWs destroy another tradition.

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I was not, if I recall ancient history correctly, valedictorian at “my” government high school. We had some very smart kids and very industrious. I’m confident my IQ placed at or very near the top. But my efforts*, while better than average, fell far short of the top slot. I can’t remember who received the honor, and honor it is (was), but I wasn’t the least bit upset about it. I’m happy when people succeed.

Now it’s gone – or going. Maybe it’s time to bid farewell to the schools. A class of valedictorians probably will require remedial education in college and, later, in life. What’s the point?

* My efforts continued to slide in college, as my IQ also surely declined… I rebounded in law school; still not top spot but with honors. I also got a shout out by name, from the faculty speaker, for my achievement. That, I think was rebel-rousing… Hmmm…

A Day WITH Migrants

17 Friday Feb 2017

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Much has been made of the lauded “Day Without Immigrants”. I think this refers to a day (maybe today) when non-American invaders slack off with the crime, terrorism, and general nuisance. They seem to think people will notice the lack and want more. I’m not sure how this helps them.

Anyway, the dwindling ranks of taxpaying citizens in Los Angles were recently treated to a Day WITH Immigrants, courtesy of the “students” at Grover Cleveland High “School”.

“Students” Brawl:

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CBSLA.com.

This video shows scenes reminiscent of a third world prison riot. One would not be able to convince Grover Cleveland that this was, in fact, America.

And it isn’t. The student body at GCHS is only about 17% American. This mirrors the demographics of the entire Los Angeles Unified “School” District. This is the new Amerika, that post-1965 dystopian melting pot everyone is talking about. And it is spreading.

Soon, your child’s zoo school could host such exciting events. Except, perhaps, for one day per year without the joy of multiculturalism. It may not be an education (most assuredly will not be) but it will be an experience. Make sure your kids wear helmets.

American Schools: Not Dead Last, But Dying

16 Friday Dec 2016

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Fred Reed suggested that Donald Trump appoint John Derbyshire as Secretary of Education. He won’t even though there are few candidates better suited for the job. Maybe he won’t because there are few better suited.

Back to ponderous wisdom. Bright kids learn to read by reading, by going to the library and coming back with ten books, by reading voraciously, indiscriminately, clandestinely reading under the covers at night with flashlights. You don’t teach them to read. You get out of their way. In fact, you don’t teach them much of anything. They do it.

Coming back to the plight of John’s kids and Spanish, I ask myself what I actually learned in high school. Almost nothing. I took required courses in economics, geography, Latin, Spanish, English, some kind of history (that I cannot remember what sort of history suggests that it did not add materially to my store of knowledge), government–and and came as blank as I had begun. While I wasn’t bright enough to attract tour buses, I was some above average–and yet, apart from math, learned no more than the dumbest kids. If Tommy (name redacted) hadn’t stolen the senior-civics exam, I would still be in high school.

I did profit from two years of algebra, one of plane geometry, and typing. Why? Because I was interested. I can still do long division of polynomials. What I really most learned in school (my high school transcript may not fascinate you. Patience. I am coming to a point) was physiology. For some reason it interested me and I inhaled textbooks, to lasting effect (eosinophils, neutrophils, basophils, large and small monocytes…see?)

From which we conclude: Kids will learn what interests them. They won’t learn anything else. This is why hackers of fifteen years break into secured networks but do not know whether Columbus discovered America or the other way around.

So what is the point of school?

As far as the schools go in modern society, the point is plain: to manufacture good, little, obedient worker drones. Schools are a good place to indoctrinate children into state worship. That’s child abuse. They also mandate forced, unpaid attendance at dull, prison-like indoctrination centers. That’s slavery. And they provide employment for pedophiles, social justice warriors, and other otherwise unemployable folks (and, yes, a few dedicated teachers, sometimes and in a very few places). That’s make-work stimulation. Finally, the schools serve as outlets for tax dollars better spent elsewhere by the productive and the property-owning. That’s communism.

So, we pay for and our children endure: abusive, make-work, communist slavery. In America. In the 21st century.

Derbyshire has previously called for abolishing public education. That’s an ideal approach. It probably won’t happen anytime soon. It will happen someday. But even that’s not enough to fix the real problems.

With a few customized exceptions, schools, period, do a poor job of educating anyone. (Home schooled and privately tutored children do the best – period). Regardless of what kind of primary school you went to, rattle off three things you learned after, say, third grade. If you recall anything, it’s likely something you taught yourself.

It’s not just you. It’s all humanity. The system needs a total conversion. What we have today just does not work. It produces 40th rate results.

The U.S. Department of Education just released its 2015 Performance of U.S. 15-Year-Olds vs. The Rest of the World study report. We did terrible in all categories. I say “we” because we all bear some responsibility. I am atoning by writing this call for change.

The Department of Education didn’t exist until the late 1970s. It educates no-one and never has. At best it is a system for tracking its own failures. At worst it’s a massive, national expose on the theme of abusive, communist slavery. The results of this stupidity:

U.S. kids tie for 40th place in math:

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25th place in science literacy:

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24th in basic literacy:

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Previous research has shown that the U.S. spends more on education than just about any other nation on Earth. We’re not getting our monies’ worth. It’s not a money problem. It’s a problem of both people and their thinking (or distinct lack thereof).

One will note that the countries that outshine us are uniformly either Asian or European or Euro-based countries (i.e. New Zealand). It’s not just the education system that’s failed. Since 1965, immigration policies haven’t helped either. I’ll be blunt: the introduction of 60 million lower IQ immigrants from the third world is dragging down our averages.

Look at the three U.S. States listed under “reading”. Massachusetts students, resembling the demographics of Norway more than Mexico, would tie for second place. North Carolina students would be in the top ten. Puerto Rico’s students place below Mexico. There’s probably a politically correct reason why they didn’t independently display results from Wyoming and Vermont.

If they broke it down by regions, counties, and cities the results would be more dramatic. I imagine there are whole broken schools systems that can barely compete (if we can call it that) with places like Somalia.

A proper system would have a place for all levels of interest and aptitude. Primitives with no interest in Western Civilization and no ability to get there would stay put in their own native lands. Lower level students could be fast tracked through to either vocational training or some form of employment. Average students would remain average. And gifted children would breeze through unhindered and learning what they like at their own pace.

This “Utopian” dream greatly resembles the way things have worked in advanced countries for millennia. This would cost a fraction of what we spend now. It would improve civic responsibility and interest. It would free our children to both be children and to become adults. And it would send numerous bureaucrats to the soup lines.

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Juno News.

The choice is ours: unproductive torture or enlightenment. Do we really care about the children? Society? Civilization?

The Truth Is No Defense

27 Thursday Oct 2016

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More cultural news from Europe – none of it good.

It is now perfectly acceptable to indoctrinate native, presumably Christian school children in the wonder ways of Allah.

PUPILS at a primary school were forced to chant “Allahu Akhbar” and “there is no God but Allah”, an appalled father has claimed.

The father of the pupil at the girl’s primary school in German ski resort Garmisch-Partenkirchen discovered that his daughter had been forced to learn the Islamic prayer when he discovered a handout she had been given.

He claimed she had been “forced” by teachers to memorise the Islamic chants and forwarded the handout to Austrian news service unsertirol24.

Just to be clear, it is wrong to have a Christmas tree, nativity scene or any mention of Christianity at the same German schools as that would violate the wall of separation between sense and education.

Next semester I hear the school will expand the lessons to include sexual assault, knife skills, and creative sidewalk truck driving. Diversity in education benefits everyone. No price is too high to include everyone’s views and cultural observations. Well, not all of them, it seems. There is a price for honesty in observation.

Nearby in Austria a popular newspaper editor is charged with a hate crime after printing the truth about the recent invader …er… visitors from Syria and other non-Western countries.

On 25 October 2015, Christoph Biro wrote of the masses of migrants who were travelling through the Styrian countryside and remarked on the assaults and property damage committed by migrants, reports Kurier.

Calling the majority of the migrants “testosterone-driven Syrians”, Mr. Biro recounted the multiple reports of migrants carrying out, in his words, “extremely aggressive sexual assaults”.

He also detailed Afghan men had slashed the seats of the trains that were transporting them to Germany because they refused to sit where Christians had previously sat.

The commentary provoked a negative reaction at the time with 37 complaints lodged against Mr. Biro. He took four weeks off from his position at the time, claiming that he had lost perspective and proportion of the situation.

Just because your country is overrun with anti-Christian bigots, rapists, and terrorists doesn’t mean anyone really wants to know about it. Get with the 21st Century, man. Your readers want to know when the jihad affirmation tour is coming to their elementary schools.

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German school field trip exploring refugee benefits for commerce and transportation. Pamela Geller.

And he’s being criminally prosecuted will possible jail time at stake. Other people on the Old Continent have been imprisoned for similar truth speech.

At least America has the First Amendment. For now. And in legal theory. The SJWs do everything in their power to inflict all punishment short of incarceration. Free speech isn’t free and common sense isn’t common.

How much more of this do y’all want?

Stupid Is As Stupid Does. Or Doesn’t. Or Just Can’t.

26 Wednesday Oct 2016

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The other day I was mildly concerned about college students trying to find those elusive safe spaces. Turns out, that may be all they’re capable of. Either schools are not teaching or humans are becoming mentally retarded as the default setting. The esteemed Dr. Walter Williams explains:

Do you wonder why Sen. Bernie Sanders and his ideas are so popular among American college students? The answer is that they, like so many other young people who think they know it all, are really uninformed and ignorant. You say, “Williams, how dare you say that?! We’ve mortgaged our home to send our children to college.” Let’s start with the 2006 geographic literacy survey of youngsters between 18 and 24 years of age by National Geographic and Roper Public Affairs.

Less than half could identify New York and Ohio on a U.S. map. Sixty percent could not find Iraq or Saudi Arabia on a map of the Middle East, and three-quarters could not find Iran or Israel. In fact, 44 percent could not locate even one of those four countries. Youngsters who had taken a geography class didn’t fare much better. By the way, when I attended elementary school, during the 1940s, we were given blank U.S. maps, and our assignment was to write in the states. Today such an assignment might be deemed oppressive, if not racist.

According to a Philadelphia magazine article, the percentage of college grads who can read and interpret a food label has fallen from 40 to 30. They are six times likelier to know who won “American Idol” than they are to know the name of the speaker of the House. A high-school teacher in California handed out an assignment that required students to use a ruler. Not a single student knew how.

An article on News Forum for Lawyers titled “Study Finds College Students Remarkably Incompetent” cites a study done by the American Institutes for Research that revealed that over 75 percent of two-year college students and 50 percent of four-year college students were incapable of completing everyday tasks. About 20 percent of four-year college students demonstrated only basic mathematical ability, while a steeper 30 percent of two-year college students could not progress past elementary arithmetic. NBC News reported that Fortune 500 companies spend about $3 billion annually on training employees in “basic English.”

If this generation can’t use rulers, how long before some future cohort won’t even be able to speak? How, then, will we hear and understand their feeble cries for safe spaces and social justice?

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The College Fix.

Given these observations, one sincerely hopes it’s the system and not the brains that have failed. Either way things are looking a little less than hopeful.

Oh, Man! PC at Princeton

18 Thursday Aug 2016

Posted by in News and Notes

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American colleges have failed outside of math and the hard sciences. Princeton and the Ivy League lead the charge downhill. In a time when these “schools”really should shut down, Princeton is stilling charging downward.

The HR Department at the former university is calling for the elimination of the word “man”. It’s not clear if this is in response to a belligerent feminist or daffy trans-vegetable, upset about the existence of men, or purely because the administrators are insane. The truth matters little.

“Consistent with style guidelines issued by Princeton’s Office of Human Resources and Office of Communications, and as endorsed by the Institutional Equity Planning Group as a preferred University practice, HR has developed these gender inclusive style guidelines, to be utilized by all HR staff members in HR communications, policies, job descriptions, and job postings,” the memo states.

They’ve produced a chart of Newspeak for the inclusively delusional:

Princeton Office of Lunacy.

These are the same people who want “him”, “her” and “his” replaced with “ze”, “zir”, “zed” or something. I suppose one can just make up their own language these days. You can’t call it manufactured language… How about “zip”, as in “zip up the straightjacket”. Is that too manly?

AibKaRpET

Photo: cliparts.co.

These schools used to pride themselves for provided quality education. Now, they provide nothing at all; the pride turned to vanity and then to mental illness. There is the comedy factor but it isn’t worth the Ivy League tuition. For the betterment of mankind they should man up and call it quits.

Do not send your children to these factories of academic failure.