On Fridays, via Zoom, I teach a small English class of rising Ninth Graders who are in the Gifted and Talented Program in Fairfax County Public Schools. Yes, they truly are advanced students!
I soon discovered, however, that these students are remedial when it comes to their study of classical literature — even the study of American Classical Literature, which is, comparatively speaking, easy to read and understand.
We have in our literature book Of Places, an Abeka Book that I chose for these private classes, a selection titled "Adapted from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving, the Father of the American Short Story. When I made that assignment, I discovered that my students knew absolutely nothing about Washington Irving and his works. Indeed, they had never even heard of Rip Van Winkle!
Recently, during class time, I introduced my students to the video below of an abridged version of "Rip Van Winkle." All of the students loved it!
"A deliberate neglect?"
ReplyDeleteYes.
“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” - George Orwell
You mean a moral lesson NOT involving "discrimination" or the "evils of slavery"? Are there any others? ;)
DeleteAll you're doing by teaching them these "moral lessons of white supremacy" is neglecting to teach them the narrower moral lessons of the evils of discrimination and white supremacy, the one your students are incapable of absorbing and so must be repeated ad nauseum using the Ludovico technique. Your lessons are like the background music, the Turkish March section of Beethoven's Ode to Joy.... the part that your white student misfits use to "identify" with in a society and which gives them "pleasure". You're not teaching them the "closed ideological frame" of post-modern progressivism. You're "widening/expanding the ideological container".
DeleteStick to the officially prescribed Ludovico technique... 12-16-18 years in the chair are needed to effect the correct social cure.
DeleteThe ONLY legitimate section of Beethoven's 9th is the Turkish March section... the rest of the symphony should be thrown into trash where it belongs!
DeleteThere are only TWO moral foundations, CARE and FAIRNESS. Any others are pure bunk.... so stop wasting your time.
DeleteThe Progressive Left needs to have dictatorial power for 20 years before they'll understand the need for Haidt's 4 "other" moral foundations.
DeleteMuch like RvW, the "woke" have gone to sleep on them for now.
DeleteFor obviously some moral values are more necessary for justifying "change"...and completely different 'others' to justify "not changing" and preserving what you have.
DeleteThe newspaper aids the former, the Bible, the latter.
DeleteFor the rest of us, there's Acxiom. :)
DeleteSo cue the soft lights and piano music.
DeleteNow, let us all rise for our new national anthem!
Delete
ReplyDeleteIt seems odd these kids were never introduced to Irving. How about Charles Dickens or Herman Melville?
Could it be that maybe what peaked our interests and ability to read and research further was confined to our school library? Maybe Rip and Pip to these kids were rather “meh” compared to Mindcraft and YouTube or Spider-Man.
I’m reasonably sure kids today are still doing book reports on Great Expectations and such here across the river.
I realize the latest and greatest right wing craze is to join Betsy DeVos on crushing public schools to hand over to billionaires such as herself but maybe a start would be to look at Fairfax County Schools.
A good start would be school choice, with parents taking their chunk of public funding to whatever school they wish. This is an industry crying out for competition.
DeleteFairfax reflects the "DC bubble"... not the rest of the nation at large.
DeleteAs for DeVos, she's a feminist idiot... DeVos is chairwoman of the Windquest Group, a privately held operating group that invests in technology, manufacturing, and clean energy. DeVos and her husband founded it in 1989.[28] With a commitment of $100 million, Betsy DeVos's family was one of the largest investors—and losers—in blood-testing company Theranos.[45]
DeleteDeVos and her husband were producers for a Broadway run of the stage play Scandalous: The Life and Trials of Aimee Semple McPherson, in 2012, based on the life of the famous evangelist and featuring a book and lyrics written by Kathie Lee Gifford. The show ran for three weeks, closing in December 2012[46] after receiving negative reviews.
...with an overly high ESG rating. :(
DeleteSF, it doesn't make sense that abolishing or defunding public schools would somehow give the results you suggest. For 1, it would be an increased finical burden on parents as it would cut out taxes being paid by people like me who no longer have kids in school. It would be more expensive because DeVos et al would now want a profit on that business whereas the government doesn't.
DeleteAnd where would accountability come from, expecting the billionaires to do the right thing? Local school boards and parent input would become a thing of the past.
This is not an industry crying for competition. It's an industry that the gullibles are being told is crying for competition by rich people looking to cash in.
^^Doesn't know what a Charter School" is or how they work^^ Probably doesn't believe in non-profits or "benefit corporations" either unless they're affiliated with a Leftist-sanctioned NGO.
Delete"And where would accountability come from"
DeleteDoesn't believe in free markets, either.
Joe answered for me. Ronald is obviously ignorant of this topic.
DeleteTo be clear JC, DeVos just recommended abolishing the Dept of Education. We've heard this from Rand Paul, Ron Paul, Ted Cruz, Joni Ernst, Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee and others.
DeleteIf that were to actually happen (which it very well may), there wouldn’t be any oversight over anything. States could break civil rights laws at will. There would be no one to administer Pell Grants. Data consistency and quality, if any, would vary from state to state and there would be no agency to monitor how states spent their federal funding. Title X would be gone and states could discriminate at will.
This is another area of where the batshit crazy right have no plans of what they wish for. It reminds me of their chants to abolish the IRS which is dumber than a coal bucket because we couldn't remain a functionable country if we did. You might change the name of the IRS, maybe regulate its powers or even do a complete overhaul but you cannot "abolish" and agency that collects tax revenue. How could we have a military? And this applies to the EPA and others.
States could break civil rights laws at will.
DeleteNo one would complain to DoJ OCR? Who knew?
PEL grants? And we subsidize higher ed (privileges for the smart and able) why?
Who supervises all these feds, Ronnie?
how states spent their federal funding. The states couldn't tax for ed? Who knew?
DeleteThe IRS originates from the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, a federal office created in 1862 to assess the nation's first income tax to fund the American Civil War. The temporary measure provided over a fifth of the Union's war expenses before being allowed to expire a decade later. In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified authorizing Congress to impose a tax on income,
DeleteThere were no schools before 1913? Who new?
You Brits really should stop playing in our backyard.
Delete...and please Title X? It started in 1970.
DeleteJoe, your history tutorials are nice and all but fall short of addressing today. The IRS of a century and a half ago or schooling a century ago or title x a half century ago is inconsistent and irrelevant.
DeleteI get it you hate non-corporate socialisms of any sort bulling the plug on the Dept of Ed today with no plan would be plain stupid just as it would to abolish the IRS today. It's like when I hear republicans wanting to turn the EPA over to states as if there's some invisible wall on state lines to stop airborne garbage or how toxins dumped in the Ohio River in Cincinnati OH would never consider entering Louisville KY before going to Evansville IN and on to St Louis.
Abolishing the Dept of Ed has consequences the basket doesn't like to discuss. You guys sound dumber than a box full of Herschel Walkers.
Maybe the US Government should just hire HR Block to collect the revenue and thereby recover 1/2 of the administrative costs of doing income taxes. Think?
DeleteMost of the US federal government is run by... CONTRACTORS. Shocked? You haven't a clue, Ronnie. If you spent 1/2 as much time worrying about how the City of London CORPORATION is run, you'd do twice the good you do when worrying about how to run the US government operates.
DeleteHas a graduate of a federally funded public school ever landed a spacecraft on the moon?
DeleteI hear republicans wanting to turn the EPA over to states as if there's some invisible wall on state lines to stop airborne garbage or how toxins dumped in the Ohio River in Cincinnati OH would never consider entering Louisville KY before going to Evansville IN and on to St Louis.
DeleteAbolishing the Dept of Ed has consequences the basket doesn't like to discuss. You guys sound dumber than a box full of Herschel Walkers.
I'm pretty sure even Herschel Walker knows the Mississippi River flows from the north to the south, so toxins from Cincinnati in the Ohio River will never flow upstream from Cairo, IL to St. Louis if they even made it that far down the Ohio River.
I tell you this so that next time you want to insult the intelligence of a black man you don't come off like a buffoon that flunked geography.
RJW says "How can we have a military?" No worries, our military is now more interested in gender and pronouns and making sure females can get abortions and, if they're keeping the baby, we are designing special flight suits for our pregnant officers instead of just giving them a bigger one! .....I'm thinking the Chinese army isn't quite as interested in any of that so, "CAN we have a military?" Doubtful.
DeleteTC, I’ll concede I was shooting from the hip rather than Mapquesting but my 150 mile geographic error across 4 states no more disqualifies my argument than a “there they’re their” glitch and it fails in comparison to Walker’s incoherent book report of a book he obviously never read- regardless of his race.
DeleteBut, I suspect you knew this.
A says “ RJW says "How can we have a military?"
DeleteTo clarify, I asked how can we have a military without an agency in place to collect tax revenue to pay for it.
Nope, RJW. You don't get to insult the intelligence of a whole bunch of people with a basic geography error that not only misplaces entire cities but assumes rivers are flowing in the wrong direction.
DeleteI didn't even get into the science of "toxins from Cincinnati" are not the cause of acid mine drainage from mines in Kentucky, although that would have skewered your attempts to blame other states for the mismanagement of natural resources in your own state.
It's kinda like left-wing snobs in Boston who can't tell the difference between a fishing harbor and a medical waste dump trying to tell others how to "save the planet."
One more advantage to privatized schools: I doubt even the most shameless corporation would extort $190 billion from taxpayers while their employees (teachers) refused to go to work, they shut down their facilities, and the customers (students) fell behind by at least one year.
DeleteA Little House on the Prairie school house would be better than the federal monstrosity disguised as an 'education system' we have now.
Parents are voting with their feet, even without the ability to shift their share of tax dollars with them.
DeleteIf parents could take their funding with them, it would collapse government run schools, and that would be a bad thing how?
https://www.npr.org/2021/12/15/1062999168/school-enrollment-drops-for-second-straight-year
A Little House on the Prairie school house would be better than the federal monstrosity disguised as an 'education system' we have now.
DeleteThe Little House on the Prairie school met in a church building, as did most schools back then. In fact, until the 1930s, public education in the US was largely the domain of churches and the government, at least the overarching federal government, had little to nothing to do with the endeavor. Public education being one of those nice things the Constitution left to the states and the people.
...as was much "charity" work that didn't involve giving free needles to drug addicts.
DeleteAt some point people are going to have to realize that "charity" is best done by private citizens, not corporations or the State.
DeleteTC, abandoned underground KY mines, like the KY “Valley of The Drums” is another reason the EPA needs to be regulated on a federal level. The Bhopal disaster at a Union Carbide plant in India in 1984 was a game changer for the need of federal evolvement here. It doesn’t matter if you think I was picking on Ohio or if I’m a snob from Boston or if I missed St Louis by 150 miles.
Delete“A Little House on the Prairie school house would be better than the federal monstrosity disguised as an 'education system' we have now.”
And
“If parents could take their funding with them, it would collapse government run schools, and that would be a bad thing how?”
This is the problem with the Tucker followers. Rather than trying to make better what you’ve been told is so bad, you want to burn it to the ground.
Want to get into the liabilities, wages, insurance, fire codes and so on of the Little House school from say, the nun taught Catholic school I attended from those today?
Here in Owensboro KY, Catholic tuition for a family with 2 kids is around $10k. And that doesn’t include book fees or the constant other fees or the expected purchases of fundraising. It doesn’t include Parrish picnic fundraising and contributions. And, the Catholic Dioceses isn’t looking for a profit.
So I think these people might find those fundings they took with them to be a bit short.
Maybe they can utilize the Sharron Angle approach and barter with chickens?
Ronald's response is just what we would expect from an indoctrinated Rachel maddow gulper.
DeleteWe all notice how Ronald just skipped right over The total failure of our public school system these last 2 years. They have an extra almost 200 billion from the government, and our children are one year behind, and many are probably lost forever.
That is not something you can fix. That is something you burn down
Speaking of indoctrination and "skipping right over", that "year behind" omits school closings during a pandemic (or, mild cold if you like) that we were told would be gone in 2 weeks.
DeleteThe attack on public schools have been a Republican objective for years and has grown over the Trump era. These past 2 years you claim of failure have been more of you being spoon-fed culture wars.
When the rich man puts buzz words in your ear that says "the government screws everything up", that means they want them out of the way so they can cash in.
TC, abandoned underground KY mines, like the KY “Valley of The Drums” is another reason the EPA needs to be regulated on a federal level. The Bhopal disaster at a Union Carbide plant in India in 1984 was a game changer for the need of federal evolvement here. It doesn’t matter if you think I was picking on Ohio or if I’m a snob from Boston or if I missed St Louis by 150 miles.
DeleteThe trouble is you don't really mean what you say. Why do Missouri's vehicle carbon emissions standards have to rise when California and other west coast states are burning down every forest and tree they can get a hold of?
Needless to say, "pollution from Ohio" is not the cause of pollution from Kentucky. You want a system that passes the buck, the same what California is passing on their environmental wreckage costs to states that aren't burning their own trees down.
Ronald,
DeleteYou are stupendous. And not in a good way. You deny the majority of our public schools completely failed our children? Really?
You think parents leaving, students checking out permanently, teachers refusing to teach is all "rich mans buzz words?"
You are a propagandized fool trapped in the leftwing prog hopium bubble.
There is a reason why they call themselves a TEACHER'S union and not a student's union.
Anonymous, either identify yourself or STFU.
DeleteSF, what you refuse to acknowledge is that the so-called conservative party have bled public schools and teachers with their assaults of 1000 cuts.
Here in KY, we went through for years of Republican Bevin who demeaned teachers at every chance-abiding by the Trump/DeVos/Republican playbook. And the solid red state tossed the bastard out. Do you want me to get into how KY republican have legislated towards schools and teachers since they took power (Democratic Beshear's veto is meaningless as it can be overridden in KY with a majority vote)?
You haven't presented a single argument to support your accusations of school failures. You've ignored (as always) how your proposals of abolishing the Dept of ed would pan out.
All I'm hearing is some Little House on The Prairie buffooneries which is an impossibility in 2022.
Your rubber/glue accusations of indoctrination is all you have while you deflect and ignore like a crazy uncle in the basement.
Every time the culture war promoters and the plutocratic social Darwinists point a finger your way for assistance in their scams, you start barking.
Ronald,
DeleteYou have no right to demand anything from others posting here. What does it matter who it is?
You have failed to rebut what they said, just as you continue to ignore how our government run schools have gobbled hundreds of billions and set our children back 1-2 years, not to mention the cognitive and psychological damage.
If a foreign nation had done the damage to our kids that government schools have done, it would be an act of war.
Stop wearing your ass cheeks for earmuffs.
...butt they fit so well...
DeleteI actually agree with you SF that I have no right to demand anything of anyone here. I’ll strive to see it doesn’t happen again.
DeleteHopefully you’ll respect my discretion to ignore comments from anonymous posters, regardless of the relevance or validity of their comment. After all, I’m not privy to their IP address as you are. So I’ll likely again, “fail to rebut what they say” from anyone lacking the testicular fortitude of identifying themselves.
Which brings up the fact that you’ve failed to explain these hundreds of billions and 1 to 2 year set backs and psychological damage you speak of, as if it’s common knowledge that only the AmericanNonThinker EpochTimes MAGA nut rabbit hole dwellers would accept as reasonable to return to 1 house early western school houses and chicken for check ups medical care.
Ronald,
DeleteLooks like your butt cheeks do double duty as blindfolds...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/covid-19-has-left-millions-of-students-behind-now-what/
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/01/special-childrens-mental-health
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2022/03/03/the-pandemic-has-had-devastating-impacts-on-learning-what-will-it-take-to-help-students-catch-up/
https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/look-up-how-much-covid-relief-aid-your-district-is-getting/2021/09
I just provided you links to back up my comment, and not one of them from foxnews or Tucker Carlson. In fact, they are all progressive or government-friendly sources.
You are a purblind propagandized fool.
You accuse everyone to your right of being indoctrinated and repeating talking points, but it's you who can't escape your indoctrination and leftwing talking points. You are a walking, blathering example of psychological projection.
@RJW
Delete"Anonymous" was me, responding to you with a reply that included a quote from you directly addressing me, in an exchange on the topic of pollution that we were having.
I'm sorry my reply went out anonymously, and I'm sorry it didn't include a slow moving ball bouncing over each syllable with a sing-along to keep you on track. I thought you were smarter than a box of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezeses.
Does it really matter "who" replied, though?
I mean, forget the watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside) not bitching about the carbon emissions from goddamn perennial forest fires across the western United States. These so-called "green conscious" blowhards even enjoy protests that intentionally burn city blocks to the ground. Common sense and consistency never even make it to the "intersection" of their cross-eyed and mouth-breathing politics, much less jump the gaps between the synapses in their brains. Care about the Earth? Please. The Earth is one volcanic eruption away from shutting all you dipshits the F up.
DeleteBelay that. Mother Nature is racist, see.
Forest "Management." Another fail brought to us by the federal government that has let far left loonies dictate policy for decades.
DeleteThick underbrush and dead trees fuel epic wildfires? As Farmer John would say, Who knew?
TC, what threw me was how illogical your comment was. You generally make more sense than that. I could expect suggesting that MO should lower their emissions standards because people from CA are running around sitting themselves on fire from a fly by troll but that just didn't sound like you. And the denial of the ability of pollutants and toxins of 1 state becoming a problem with another didn't convince me either.
DeleteI get the disdain of Fed involvement but do we abolish the EPA and leave it to states? Do we abolish the IRS? How about the FDA? We all know Tyson truck loads of Salmonella and arsenic fed chickens would stop on a dime at the state boarder, right?
SF, your every link points to COVID as the culprit rather Department of Education. Yes, it was an unprecedented quagmire. Yes, money flowed in every direction. Yes, there was and will continue to be mental issues. And yes, it was an era of a loss of learning progression.
If anything, it appears that DoE was doing fine UNTIL the disruption. What also was found that the learn-at-home-in-your-jammies approach didn't cut it.
What it looks more like to me is an orchestrated effort of the right wing and billionaires to use COVID as an excuse to achieve a goal they've been after for years.
But again (why is it I constantly have to use "but again"), how is abolishing the DoE suppose to pan out? You say parents should pay out of pocket rather than being taxed but that just doesn't add up. We've discussed above how churches took care of early American schools but that ain't gonna happen today. Non-profit churches here are charging a fortune while relying on fund raising, donations, and grants. And 1 more time-they are not looking for a profit.
But I guess Besty DeVos High doesn't need no stinken
regulations. Those kids will do just fine at Trump University.
Ronald,
DeleteYou fall into a common trap by blaming it on circumstances, as if human beings, expert so-called are completely helpless little babies and powerless to do anything in the face of some set of events.
Unlike people in government who get paid despite how badly they are failing and flailing and doing nothing, people in the real world confronted with difficult circumstances have to come up with a plan and overcome those circumstances. This is also what people in money making industries have to do.
So Ronald, it's no wonder that you and people like you have no problem with government, because you expect so little from it
DeleteLord have mercy, Silver's got his tap shoes on.
DeleteSF,
DeleteKudos to you for your comment @ July 19, 2022 at 6:41:00 PM CDT!
FJ,
DeleteAnd kudos to you for your response @ July 19, 2022 at 6:50:00 PM CDT!
AOW,
DeleteThank you. I know I'm wasting my breath on the completely indoctrinated and hermetically sealed Ronald, but I put those comments and links up for the benefit of rational thinking people who may stumble upon his regurgitated rote progressive propaganda.
SF, you wear your AOW skirt well.
DeleteTC, what threw me was how illogical your comment was. You generally make more sense than that. I could expect suggesting that MO should lower their emissions standards because people from CA are running around sitting themselves on fire from a fly by troll but that just didn't sound like you.
DeleteYou peg me wrong. I bash Trump, alot, *because* he's a leftist scumbag. I can shift gears and bash other leftists.
In 2020, just the wildfires in California *alone* accounted for 2% of the total carbon emissions of the entire US.
Including the 5+ million acres of US forests and woodlands that have gone up in smoke since January 1st of this year so far, over 110 million acres of forests have been burned up in wildfires since January 1st of 2012.
10 years ago, America had 171,875 more square miles of forestlands than we do now, because of wildfires. If carbon emissions are the root cause of "climate change," and trees scrub carbon emissions out of the air, then burning trees are releasing all of that carbon back into the air.
My point was if "Greenies" actually gave a shit about protecting the environment, they would, you know, give a shit about protecting the environment. Cars in Missouri didn't produce 2% of America's carbon emissions in 2020. California next to a god-damned ocean not figuring out that water puts out their fires did that.
TC, You have to forgive Ronald. He didn't have your IP address, so he couldn't argue effectively. lol
DeleteTC, your political views nor the emission statics and forest acreage data have anything to do with why I found your response illogical. I agree that ""pollution from Ohio" is not the cause of pollution from Kentucky" however that doesn't mean that some rogue state (use my state of KY if you like), without federal regulation, could indeed harm other states which is why EPA rules should not be left up to individual states.
DeleteIn general conversations when I hear someone wanting state control over Departments such as education, I often ask them about the IRS, FDA, EPA and others. Why? Because we have to have some way of collecting tax revenue. WE FRIGGIN HAVE TO. To leave an individual states the discretion to send contaminated food all over the country is nuts. Same with hazmats.
And it's the same with education for reasons I've outlined.
SF, I know you really hate to answer anything that raises suspicion about what you want to be true but when you say parents should be able to take "their chunk of public funding to whatever school they wish", what chunk are you talking about. I'm assuming the taxes they are now paying?
Because what you've continued to ignore while blaming the Dept of Ed for COVID is that "chunk" is not going to be anywhere near enough to get into any school, much
less whatever school they wish. Can't happen.
Ronald,
DeleteSince you seem to be doing some type of poorly executed Socratic method, feigned ignorance thing, I'll type slowly.
The idea is simple. You can go find all kinds of variations of it with a little yahoogling. In a given school district, City, county, state, whatever, x number of tax dollars are spent per student. A common school choice schema would figure out what that amount is, and when a parent moves a student from one school to another that amount of money goes with the student.
Did I type slowly enough for you, or do you need me to break it down further?
And all the "chunks" have to flow through the Federal government... because the State's can'r be trusted...and education is like pollution, knowledge drifts across borders and contaminates the minds of the children of KY with the teachings to children in Utah.
DeleteRon is the offramp for every discussion because he'd rather discuss "who's at fault" for problems and place blame/ scapegoat than determine actual causes and discuss solutions. He's got "two excuses" for everything. No. 1 - "Trump" and No. 2 "Republicans" and one cure... more federal government.
Delete... that DOESN'T include No. 1 and No. 2 above.
DeleteFree socialist snowplows for EVERYONE!
DeleteHow much did you pay in federal income taxes last year, Ronnie? Betcha it wasn't even close to what I paid.
Delete:P
DeleteI'm having a hard time believing Ronald is really this dense. It's a matter of shifting tax money to each school dependent on the number of students in the school.
DeleteInto your earlier comment, I ignore nothing. Yes COVID is a real thing that went on for a couple of years, but within a few months we knew that children and adolescents and young adults were not vulnerable the way older people are. We also knew that there was very little effect to masking, and we knew that the online stuff was failing.
The teachers union and the federal bureaucracy took something manageable and turned it in to a horrible catastrophe..
Getting rid of the federal Dept. of Education would free up $500 million tax dollars in salaries annually.
Delete...and $25b in annual spending.
DeleteMoving the goal post from “parents taking their chunk (and mine) of public funding to whatever school they wish” to a “school dependent on the number of students in the school” a bit but whatever.
DeleteOkay, no tax savings, just squeezing some billionaire investors in for a piece of my chunk. Get government out keep grabbing my chunk plus some. Got it.
From your own admission we had “something manageable” which from your overall arguments and links, went to shit due to COVID.
I don’t know about your schools but over here, students have returned to classrooms and it’s back to business as usual. And from what I’ve been told, programs are in place and available to help students who fell behind during the shutdown.
Where’s the logic in “something manageable” being no longer manageable after such a disruption when everything is returning to that pre-managed level. And by what logic is there that squeezing in billionaire investors will be some cure all?
As I’ve mentioned, DeVoss, Cruz, Paul, et al have recently ramped up their efforts of fulfilling a goal of gutting the DoE using COVID as an excuse. On cue, the right wing media steps in to help. On cue, you abet what’s being fed to you, as you always do.
Yet, I’m the indoctrinated one?
Thersites... as to the "savings"... you assume those jobs, work functions, buildings, etc would cease to exist? I'm not challenging the idea that we might save some coin, but if you're looking at total budget and thinking all that would come back, it won't/can't happen.
DeleteI was looking at average salary times number of civil servants. I excluded all savings from "contract" employees and included them in the $25b number. Even if other federal agencies hire these people, they won't be in DoEd. More power to them if its' something "productive" for a change.
Deleteps - I'd also void Title 34 of the CFR.
DeleteGetting rid of FAFSA and other student loans should render thousands of liberal college professors unemployed as well. Think of the "boon" to private sector industries. ;)
DeleteI wonder how many of these ex-profs will open "trade schools"? lol!
DeleteWanna know the real insult? People who graduate from college and the work in the public sector for 10 years earn "loan forgiveness". Their salaries when compared to private sector workers are much on higher on average with Cadillac+ benefits. The people who work in the private sector get "bupkiss" in benefit perks.
DeleteBy May 2020, we knew covid was not a threat to school age children and adolescents, and there was plenty of field evidence children were not spreaders.
DeleteOther nations kept the schools open and their kids did not fall behind.
Our government schools failed our children and our parents. Even tony liberal bastions like Northern Virginia and San Francisco realize that, and as a result, they recalled school board members and punished politicians.
Thersites,
DeleteKnow what would really collapse the useless college departments all over the US?
Licensing and certification tests upon graduation.
"plenty of field evidence children were not spreaders."
DeleteWhat evidence was that? In my experience, children do infect each other and adults.
There were no (or scant few) "spreader events" in the schools that did stay open.
DeleteBy this, I mean a symptomatic child was no more a spreader than a symptomatic adult. There was also scant evidence that an asymptomatic child spread the disease.
We had very early indications through the data that Covid was like a very severe flu that hit the elderly, the overweight and those with poor health. Children were the least vulnerable.
sf, True, but the biggest contributor...
DeleteRJW's religion.
Delete@RJW TC, your political views nor the emission statics and forest acreage data have anything to do with why I found your response illogical. I agree that ""pollution from Ohio" is not the cause of pollution from Kentucky" however that doesn't mean that some rogue state (use my state of KY if you like), without federal regulation, could indeed harm other states which is why EPA rules should not be left up to individual states
DeleteGoing back to your first argument and correcting for geography and the direction that rivers flow, you argued that without federal regulations, pollutants and toxins "from Cincinnati" would enter the Ohio River and spread downstream across four states (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky) to toxify and poison everything along its path to (Cairo, IL) before dumping into the Mississippi River. I say bullshit because even before federal interventions (the Clean Water Act, for example) and at the heights of Rust Belt industrial production and polluting long before said federal regulations, the Ohio River NEVER became the Ganges River in India or the Yellow River in China, two of the most horrifying riparian nightmares on Earth. You could probably run your weed eater or outboard motor on a boat with Ganges and Yellow River water. I'd drink, swim, bathe, and fish for food on just about any point of the Ohio River save for Kentucky acid mine runoff country and still worry more about if the Rams will make it back to the Super Bowl with their schedule this year (they probably will). The Ohio River may be the "most polluted river in America" by American standards before, without, or even with federal regulations. No serious person is putting any American rivers on the list of "world's most polluted rivers." Could the Ohio River ever become as bad as the Ganges? Maybe, but it would take a shit ton of idiot left-wingers and "snobs from Boston" that think a harbor is a medical waste dump to do it. With an average IQ of 100 in America, it's just statistically likely we don't have enough leftists in the Midwest to pull off full blown California-scale environmental stupidity. Federal regulations didn't keep the Ohio River safe to drink, swim, bathe, and eat from. Good ol' common sense did, and has. Could the Ohio River be even more clean? Sure, but now you're straining for gnats while the people of Flint, Michiganistan are doing their purification baths with lead plumbing pipes. In fact it's not even a curiousity that a map of places in the US that have the greatest risk of brain damage from water- and paint chip particulate-borne lead poisoning overlaid upon a map of areas where the IQ points per square mile are low enough to make said areas irrevocably Democrat dominated, it is literally the same map. You can do the same with a map of crime statistics, a map of homelessness, a map of poverty, and so on.
Which leads me to not take you seriously. If you're really out to solve America's problems, why in the blue f**k would you even consider putting a Democrat in charge of the effort?
"On Fridays, via Zoom, I teach a small English class of rising Ninth Graders who are in the Gifted and Talented Program in Fairfax County Public Schools. Yes, they truly are advanced students!"
ReplyDeleteI know what you do is wonderful and you are an exceptional educator. If they applied what you do for the gifted for those inellectually disabled students we would have a better society.
However after being in Virginia twenty years come September I know at least in Virginia that will never happen. This is one of the top ten worst states for teaching the intellectually disabled in the nation.
I loathe Virginia for that. My son's future has been handicapped and if you are not gifted or 'of means' you get NOTHING.
It is wonderful what you do AOW, but it is a harsh reminder to me of what my son has been cheated out of by Virginia.
Let me put a plug in for the Liberal Arts Major in College. A continuation of what a good public school should be offering. I have no regrets.. Philosophers, Logic, Western Civ, Music, Art, Geography. all have enriched my life and given me a better understanding of the world. At least give a taste in the lower schools.
ReplyDeleteI understand History as a major has been dropped at many colleges. And we wonder why we are where we are.
I agree with you Bunker that at one time education was very good. Teaching history does not just enable your understanding of your past but hopefully gives insight into not repeating the past in some cases.
DeleteHistory as a major in colleges has been dropped and in addition now many highschools do not have history courses leaving history to the grammar schools. Soon that will be gone too.
Oh man... Rip Van Winkle is one-way time travel sci-fi!
ReplyDeleteDo you get into the old Irish folktales of the Dullahan (the Headless Horseman) that inform the Legend of Sleepy Hollow?
or of Henry Hudson...Legend has it that every twenty years, since 1609, Henry Hudson and his crew return to bowl ninepins with the gnomes of the Catskills Mountains. The crash of the pins is heard in the form of thunder. Sometimes this thunder is so loud that it can be heard all the way down the Hudson River Valley in New York City.
DeleteDuring stormy weather, Captain Henry Hudson may appear on his ship, the Half Moon, riding out a storm in New York Harbor. Hudson is the original "Flying Dutchman," doomed to meander the seven seas for eternity.
I thought that was Captain Fokke
DeleteDutchman models:
DeleteFokke was 1678
Hendrick van der Decken was 1641
Hudson was 1611
I'll stick with Hudson. ;)
American myths don't have to match German ones. ;)
Delete...and I always found it strange how 100 years after Hudson's visit, the Four Indian King's who met Queen Anne all had "Dutch" names, too... with one in particular who called himself Peter Brant, grandfather to Joseph.
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DeleteWe keep hearing how the Republicans are BANNING BOOKS.....If ONLY more people looked into the reasons before they mocked it...how about age appropriateness? AOW, I sub'd a class reading Huckleberry Finn in the 11th grade...we were to read out loud....the kids kept saying X for the N word and I finally asked why and they said their teacher didn't want them saying the word.........I figure by age 16 they'd all (Blacks in class, too, there) understood that it's what people used back then and aren't we glad we don't anymore? I also heard that a library in Tennessee closed because the staff was tired of pushing liberal books....the truth is the books are pushing LGBTQ lit to kindergarteners, 1st grade, etc. But the headline is about Conservatives BANNING BOOKS! This stuff is
ReplyDeleteamazing....What second grader even CARES if Billy has two Mommies? What child would even ASK? Age appropriate, truth about race........we need to read classics, not ideological agendas.
Screaming book band is one more example of Democrat definitional abuse in order to scare people. Banning age inappropriate material from school libraries is not a book ban.
DeleteAre Hollyweird Liberals "banning movies" by implementing an age-specific movie rating system that prevents 12 year olds from watching PG-13 movies? Perhaps we need a rating system for books where more than one allusion to Joey's 2 "daddies" pushes the book from G to PG-13.
DeleteLiberals want "changed" moralities and conservatives want "stability" in morals (see moral foundation theory reference above) . Libertines will argue that preventing them from grooming our kids condemns their sex-lives to an unhealthy state of unreality, but to that, I respond, too bad. Our kids are more important than your pleasures.
DeletePlato, "Cratylus"
Whether there is this eternal nature in things, or whether the truth is what Heracleitus and his followers and many others say, is a question hard to determine; and no man of sense will like to put himself or the education of his mind in the power of names: neither will he so far trust names or the givers of names as to be confident in any knowledge which condemns himself and other existences to an unhealthy state of unreality; he will not believe that all things leak like a pot, or imagine that the world is a man who has a running at the nose. This may be true, Cratylus, but is also very likely to be untrue; and therefore I would not have you be too easily persuaded of it. Reflect well and like a man, and do not easily accept such a doctrine; for you are young and of an age to learn. And when you have found the truth, come and tell me.
It's not like the classics don't reflect or promote ideology. I'm a leftist, and even I can't read Dickens without thinking he should ease up a little on the liberal activism.
DeleteI expect the real life 2nd grader with two mommies appreciates the representation, and her classmates maybe bombard her with fewer questions etc. Most other 2ndbgraders wouldn't care, but why does every child have to care about every book in the library?
Read Orwell's "Inside the Whale"? Everyone has an agenda now except Henry Miller. Voltaire's "Candide" is passe.
DeleteWhy does every child have to care about every book?
DeleteYour side is the side that says "silence" is racism. Your side is the side that says you can't remain silent AND be "an ally".
Why are people politicizing books, liberal, conservative, racist. It should be considered the time a book is written, in which era and be looked upon as a piece of the past, history, a time long gone. It should be revered not criticized. Who wants to be the book police aside from Millenials?
ReplyDeleteThick underbrush and dead trees fuel epic wildfires? As Farmer John would say, Who knew?
ReplyDeleteB-but chlorofluorocarbons from volcanoes and earthquakes are organic. That's why they cost so much.
We need to carbon tax the shit out of the San Andreas fault line. Who owns it?
Gym of the week-
ReplyDelete"We Republicans refused participation in the committee’s investigation for the express purpose of enabling us to cast it as a partisan exercise and therefore illegitimate.
-----Kevin McCarthy on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show Wednesday night.
Hard to believe. I never read any of Irving's books, but knew something about him and his works. These children must have NEVER played the card game Authors, one of my favorites. He lived in Spain and had broader exposure that he worked into some of his stories - Tales of the Alhambra. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteAs an adult I made a point to make up for the missing classical pieces one audio book at a time, and I covered much from Plutarch to Dickens when I could appreciate them more.
BAYSIDER