Curtis Dahlgren
Ivy league castroti, ports-for-peace, trickle-down insanity (part 2)
By Curtis Dahlgren
"Colleges keep complaining that students are coming to them unprepared. Instead of raising admissions standards, however, they keep accepting mediocre students lest cuts have to be made in faculty and administration." — Patrick Welsh (USA Today, The Forum, 3/8/06)
CAN HIGHER EDUCATION GO ANY LOWER? In a game of one-upmanship with Harvard, Yale University admitted a former Taliban official with a fourth-grade education as a "special student." Is this the end-result, finally, of the doctrine that "every child has a right to go to college"? If so, a real sheepskin is worth more than a diploma from your favorite state university.
For years, it has been "settled opinion" that everyone "should" have a college degree and health insurance, but (BELIEVE IT OR NOT) some people choose to have neither (and as I said last week, the "wrong" choice is "heresy"). As my opening quote above indicates, however, I'm not alone in believing that we probably have TOO MANY KIDS GOING TO COLLEGE.
And if I may say so, this Taliban guy is not the first foreign "student" to get favorable treatment because he poses less "threat" to the academic careers of the Establishment professors than highly qualified Americans would.
A recently released study revealed that over one-half of American students who actually plan to apply to college — and who take the ACT test — are not prepared for college freshman reading. This isn't even taking into account the rest of the students who got high school diplomas, or got "gold star" certificates for "hanging out" until commencement, or got booted out of school, or dropped out, or flunked out. It's not a pretty picture.
You probably heard about that other news item recently: only one-fourth of all Americans can name even two of the five First Amendment freedoms. A MAJORITY, however, can name two members of the Simpson family (a family that is not only fictional, but animated for Pete's sake).
The OpEd by Mr. Welsh, who teaches English In a Virginia public school, said that "Failure in the classroom is often tied to lack of funding, poor teachers or other ills. Here's a thought: Maybe it's the failed work ethic of today's kids . . " ("For once, blame the student").
A novel idea, I must admit. His essay goes on: "'Schools play into it,' says psychiatrist Lawrence Brain [no pun], who counsels affluent teenagers throughout the Washington metropolitan area. I've been amazed to see how easy it is for kids to manipulate guidance counselors to get them out of classes they don't like. They have been sent a message that they don't have to struggle to achieve . . . '
"Kids who had emigrated from foreign countries . . . often aced every test, while many of their U.S.-born classmates from upper-class homes with highly educated parents had a string of Cs and Ds."
THEN I TURN TO PAGE 9D AND FIND THE FOLLOWING HEADLINE: "Schools use relaxation techniques to fight kids' test stress."
"Schools are taking exam anxiety more seriously now that standardized tests have become crucial to determining their performance under the federal No Child Left Behind law . . . Teachers and counselors are really working to not get kids all worked up about testing and make it part of the normal school day . . . Teachers have long given students practice exams and refresher classes, but now stress reduction — even yoga — is being offered . . . "[!]
As Mr. Welsh says in his Forum article, "Maybe every generation of kids has wanted to take it easy, but until the past few decades students were not allowed to get away with it." Yes, maybe our kids are a bit TOO "relaxed."
MEANWHILE BACK AT THE TEACHERS' UNION HALL —
THE TRICKLE-DOWN INSANITY HERE is an attitude that "more money" will solve everything. By example, the college and university Schools of Education have promoted this attitude. If the students seem to be "screaming" more these days if they don't get the grade they wanted, maybe it's because the teachers are screaming more and more for their own perks. In Wisconsin the other day, a pickup truck — with signs in the back opposing a school referendum — was fire-bombed.
By the way, the guys arrested for torching those churches in Alabama were — guess what? — COLLEGE STUDENTS, weren't they? But even though there's no way of telling how much anti-Christian propaganda they've heard in their college and/or high school classes, the law enforcement authorities have given no hint that it was a "hate crime" — just "a joke gone bad" is how I heard it reported on the "news." They were only small, rural Baptist churches after all (it's not as though they were "holy shrines" or anything). TSK, TSK.
Is it asking too much to have a sense of proportion these days? I mean, is it worse to flush a page down a toilet (allegedly), or burn the book by burning the whole church down? To call that a "joke gone bad" is like saying Abraham Lincoln's last day was a "play gone bad"! 9/11 was a typical day at the office "gone bad"? Hurricane Katrina was a breeze gone bad? The North Carolina car-pedestrian incident was a hit-and-run gone "bad"? http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004727.htm
[My personal opinion is, what set off the church-burnings was the confirmation and seating of Justice Alito the week just prior to that. I think it was a temper tantrum more than a "joke." http://crime.about.com/b/a/250375.htm]
TO SHIFT GEARS JUST A LITTLE: You could say that the Dubious Port deal was "business-as-usual" gone bad. Never mind the "merits" of the proposal; did they think that they could spring that one on us in the middle of the night and we would all just go, like, "Swell, cool, neato"? The four main promoters of the idea were, in ascending order, Jimmie Carter, Mad Albright, Bob Dole, and Sponge Bob Squarepants. And they say Mr. Squarepants is so upset with the Congress now that he might start inhaling.
The main spokesman on the other side of the ocean is a guy by the name of Michael Moore (not exactly reassuring). This could have become a Teapot Dome scandal "gone bad." http://www.michellemalkin.com/archives/004728.htm I have just one dumb question: How many suitcase nukes can you get into a ship? [All of them.]
In the end, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "MONEY OFTEN COSTS TOO MUCH." Or as Don Henley put it, "YOU DON'T SEE NO HEARSES WITH LUGGAGE RACKS."
WHAT CAN I SAY? A THORN BY ANY OTHER NAME IS STILL A THORN, ROSE.
Speaking of Trickle-down Insanity, I read at LiveScience.com that Princeton University did a "study" (surprahse, surprahse); it revealed that kindergartners can spot a lie better than fourth-graders [or the rest of us]. That's a heart-warming story, except I wonder what is Princeton doing dabbling into the minds of our kindergartners IF NOT TO FIND OUT BETTER WAYS OF GETTING THEM TO ACCEPT A LIE?
Washington Irving (1783-1859) said, "I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories." Charles Darwin often asked himself the same question — in the middle of the night!
But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last. — Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) said, "I do not know what I appear to the world [to be], but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."
[It is both a shame and a sham that Darwin — and today's "stem-cell researchers" — never grasped such enormous humility.]
"History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn," said Edmund Burke (1729-1797).
And Groucho Marx said, "I find television very educating. Every time someone turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."
Four final dumb questions:
1) If Al Jazeera did a leveraged buyout of CNN, would we even notice the difference (asks Michael Savage)?
2) If we out-sourced kindergarten to Hooked-on-Phonics, would the teachers' unions burn down the school house? *
3) If there's "no money in it" for American companies (management of port facilities)," is it time to do something about the longshoremen unions?
4) On what basis can we trust port security to the White House when it has no interest whatsoever in the "security" of the border with Mexico?
CONCLUSION:
On the ports issue, what we have seen in our national leadership is not just a "failure to communicate" — or a bad draw of the cards — but a serious matter of (as Thomas Jefferson put it), "entangling foreign alliances." [Lamentations 1:2]
P.S. * When I was a kid, we learned how to read in kindergarten. We only had six weeks of kindergarten. Do the math: Those 30 days of kindergarten probably cost the taxpayers of the district about ten bucks — TOTAL!
Today, we spend $10,000 per pupil per year and little Johnny can't read. But boy can he swear! And he's making babies before he ever hears the word "Constitution" in "Social" studies.
And the teachers' union commercials on radio and TV during NFL games tell us that we have "GREAT SCHOOLS." Even the kindergartners don't believe it!
© Curtis Dahlgren
"Colleges keep complaining that students are coming to them unprepared. Instead of raising admissions standards, however, they keep accepting mediocre students lest cuts have to be made in faculty and administration." — Patrick Welsh (USA Today, The Forum, 3/8/06)
CAN HIGHER EDUCATION GO ANY LOWER? In a game of one-upmanship with Harvard, Yale University admitted a former Taliban official with a fourth-grade education as a "special student." Is this the end-result, finally, of the doctrine that "every child has a right to go to college"? If so, a real sheepskin is worth more than a diploma from your favorite state university.
For years, it has been "settled opinion" that everyone "should" have a college degree and health insurance, but (BELIEVE IT OR NOT) some people choose to have neither (and as I said last week, the "wrong" choice is "heresy"). As my opening quote above indicates, however, I'm not alone in believing that we probably have TOO MANY KIDS GOING TO COLLEGE.
And if I may say so, this Taliban guy is not the first foreign "student" to get favorable treatment because he poses less "threat" to the academic careers of the Establishment professors than highly qualified Americans would.
A recently released study revealed that over one-half of American students who actually plan to apply to college — and who take the ACT test — are not prepared for college freshman reading. This isn't even taking into account the rest of the students who got high school diplomas, or got "gold star" certificates for "hanging out" until commencement, or got booted out of school, or dropped out, or flunked out. It's not a pretty picture.
You probably heard about that other news item recently: only one-fourth of all Americans can name even two of the five First Amendment freedoms. A MAJORITY, however, can name two members of the Simpson family (a family that is not only fictional, but animated for Pete's sake).
The OpEd by Mr. Welsh, who teaches English In a Virginia public school, said that "Failure in the classroom is often tied to lack of funding, poor teachers or other ills. Here's a thought: Maybe it's the failed work ethic of today's kids . . " ("For once, blame the student").
A novel idea, I must admit. His essay goes on: "'Schools play into it,' says psychiatrist Lawrence Brain [no pun], who counsels affluent teenagers throughout the Washington metropolitan area. I've been amazed to see how easy it is for kids to manipulate guidance counselors to get them out of classes they don't like. They have been sent a message that they don't have to struggle to achieve . . . '
"Kids who had emigrated from foreign countries . . . often aced every test, while many of their U.S.-born classmates from upper-class homes with highly educated parents had a string of Cs and Ds."
THEN I TURN TO PAGE 9D AND FIND THE FOLLOWING HEADLINE: "Schools use relaxation techniques to fight kids' test stress."
"Schools are taking exam anxiety more seriously now that standardized tests have become crucial to determining their performance under the federal No Child Left Behind law . . . Teachers and counselors are really working to not get kids all worked up about testing and make it part of the normal school day . . . Teachers have long given students practice exams and refresher classes, but now stress reduction — even yoga — is being offered . . . "[!]
As Mr. Welsh says in his Forum article, "Maybe every generation of kids has wanted to take it easy, but until the past few decades students were not allowed to get away with it." Yes, maybe our kids are a bit TOO "relaxed."
MEANWHILE BACK AT THE TEACHERS' UNION HALL —
THE TRICKLE-DOWN INSANITY HERE is an attitude that "more money" will solve everything. By example, the college and university Schools of Education have promoted this attitude. If the students seem to be "screaming" more these days if they don't get the grade they wanted, maybe it's because the teachers are screaming more and more for their own perks. In Wisconsin the other day, a pickup truck — with signs in the back opposing a school referendum — was fire-bombed.
By the way, the guys arrested for torching those churches in Alabama were — guess what? — COLLEGE STUDENTS, weren't they? But even though there's no way of telling how much anti-Christian propaganda they've heard in their college and/or high school classes, the law enforcement authorities have given no hint that it was a "hate crime" — just "a joke gone bad" is how I heard it reported on the "news." They were only small, rural Baptist churches after all (it's not as though they were "holy shrines" or anything). TSK, TSK.
Is it asking too much to have a sense of proportion these days? I mean, is it worse to flush a page down a toilet (allegedly), or burn the book by burning the whole church down? To call that a "joke gone bad" is like saying Abraham Lincoln's last day was a "play gone bad"! 9/11 was a typical day at the office "gone bad"? Hurricane Katrina was a breeze gone bad? The North Carolina car-pedestrian incident was a hit-and-run gone "bad"? http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004727.htm
[My personal opinion is, what set off the church-burnings was the confirmation and seating of Justice Alito the week just prior to that. I think it was a temper tantrum more than a "joke." http://crime.about.com/b/a/250375.htm]
TO SHIFT GEARS JUST A LITTLE: You could say that the Dubious Port deal was "business-as-usual" gone bad. Never mind the "merits" of the proposal; did they think that they could spring that one on us in the middle of the night and we would all just go, like, "Swell, cool, neato"? The four main promoters of the idea were, in ascending order, Jimmie Carter, Mad Albright, Bob Dole, and Sponge Bob Squarepants. And they say Mr. Squarepants is so upset with the Congress now that he might start inhaling.
The main spokesman on the other side of the ocean is a guy by the name of Michael Moore (not exactly reassuring). This could have become a Teapot Dome scandal "gone bad." http://www.michellemalkin.com/archives/004728.htm I have just one dumb question: How many suitcase nukes can you get into a ship? [All of them.]
In the end, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "MONEY OFTEN COSTS TOO MUCH." Or as Don Henley put it, "YOU DON'T SEE NO HEARSES WITH LUGGAGE RACKS."
WHAT CAN I SAY? A THORN BY ANY OTHER NAME IS STILL A THORN, ROSE.
Speaking of Trickle-down Insanity, I read at LiveScience.com that Princeton University did a "study" (surprahse, surprahse); it revealed that kindergartners can spot a lie better than fourth-graders [or the rest of us]. That's a heart-warming story, except I wonder what is Princeton doing dabbling into the minds of our kindergartners IF NOT TO FIND OUT BETTER WAYS OF GETTING THEM TO ACCEPT A LIE?
Washington Irving (1783-1859) said, "I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories." Charles Darwin often asked himself the same question — in the middle of the night!
But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last. — Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) said, "I do not know what I appear to the world [to be], but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."
[It is both a shame and a sham that Darwin — and today's "stem-cell researchers" — never grasped such enormous humility.]
"History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn," said Edmund Burke (1729-1797).
And Groucho Marx said, "I find television very educating. Every time someone turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."
Four final dumb questions:
1) If Al Jazeera did a leveraged buyout of CNN, would we even notice the difference (asks Michael Savage)?
2) If we out-sourced kindergarten to Hooked-on-Phonics, would the teachers' unions burn down the school house? *
3) If there's "no money in it" for American companies (management of port facilities)," is it time to do something about the longshoremen unions?
4) On what basis can we trust port security to the White House when it has no interest whatsoever in the "security" of the border with Mexico?
CONCLUSION:
On the ports issue, what we have seen in our national leadership is not just a "failure to communicate" — or a bad draw of the cards — but a serious matter of (as Thomas Jefferson put it), "entangling foreign alliances." [Lamentations 1:2]
P.S. * When I was a kid, we learned how to read in kindergarten. We only had six weeks of kindergarten. Do the math: Those 30 days of kindergarten probably cost the taxpayers of the district about ten bucks — TOTAL!
Today, we spend $10,000 per pupil per year and little Johnny can't read. But boy can he swear! And he's making babies before he ever hears the word "Constitution" in "Social" studies.
And the teachers' union commercials on radio and TV during NFL games tell us that we have "GREAT SCHOOLS." Even the kindergartners don't believe it!
© Curtis Dahlgren
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