Lives in a Shoe

Education Fraud: Education in the U.S. 2017 Report

Earlier this month, the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress, aka The Nation's Report Card, was released. It's not a pretty story. Only 37 percent of 12th-graders tested proficient or better in reading, and only 25 percent did so in math. Among black students, only 17 percent tested proficient or better in reading, and just 7 percent reached at least a proficient level in math.

The atrocious NAEP performance is only a fraction of the bad news. Nationally, our high school graduation rate is over 80 percent. That means high school diplomas, which attest that these students can read and compute at a 12th-grade level, are conferred when 63 percent are not proficient in reading and 75 percent are not proficient in math. For blacks, the news is worse. Roughly 75 percent of black students received high school diplomas attesting that they could read and compute at the 12th-grade level. However, 83 percent could not read at that level, and 93 percent could not do math at that level. It's grossly dishonest for the education establishment and politicians to boast about unprecedented graduation rates when the high school diplomas, for the most part, do not represent academic achievement. At best, they certify attendance.

Read the rest, by Walter Williams.

Jordan Peterson Has Been Denied Receiving His Grant To Investigate Identity and Political Correctnes

The Barrister at Maggies:
Academia is becoming a dangerous profession these days. Toe the party line or else. It's not an environment for free-thinkers. Seems like Mao's Cultural Revolution. Academics feel intimidated, and they need their jobs. Seems like Mao's Cultural Revolution. Academics feel intimidated, and they need their jobs so they behave like fearful mice.

Also see Mark Steyn (Macleans), Charlie Hebdo, FIRE...

I'll set links in a bit later. 

 

 

 

Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson

I was talking to my nephew Kurtis about this very thing yesterday.

 

Walked in the Classroom, Cool and Slow...

The chief writing instructor at the University of Washington, Tacoma, is trying to dismantle the rules of grammar because he believes they are racist—and the college has given its endorsement to his campaign.

Posters that appeared this week in the college’s writing center are part of a new effort to teach students that the conventional rules on how to structure sentences and form ideas in written language are perpetuating inequality and “white supremacy.”

Grammar, according to the posters in the writing center, can “justify placing people in hierarchies or restricting opportunities and privileges because of the way people communicate in particular versions of English.”

Professor Inoue also holds seminars on how to identify and correct “white supremacy” in grading writing assignments; self-help workshops for actual (yet self-identified) grammar Nazis.

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Sorry, Huskies.  Will take a while to live this down. 

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They'll Miss this Great Sale

I am told that Chinese students at UC San Diego are protesting the scheduled visit by the Dalai Lama on the grounds he is "oppressive and offensive".

When You've Lost Scott Adams...

Speaking of Hitler, I’m ending my support of UC Berkeley, where I got my MBA years ago.I have been a big supporter lately, with both my time and money, but that ends today.

I wish them well, but I wouldn’t feel safe or welcome on the campus. A Berkeley professor made that clear to me recently. He seems smart, so I’ll take his word for it. I’ve decided to side with the Jewish gay immigrant who has an African-American boyfriend, not the hypnotized zombie-boys in black masks who were clubbing people who hold different points of view. I feel that’s reasonable, but I know many will disagree, and possibly try to club me to death if I walk on campus.

Berkeley and Hitler | Scott Adams' Blog

 

Winter School Class Descriptions

One day school.  Each class is one hour or so, plus a prime rib or veggie lunch.  Go and take a look.  Of 170 different classes there is bound to be something you want to try.  George is teaching two classes and I am on the board of Livestock Advisors.  

Our committee puts this on each year, last Saturday of January.  This year it's January 28th, Stanwood High School.

 

For Hallie

Wikipedia entry here. 

Some paragraphs from the article (Freedom U: A unicorn of a university in Central America) but read the whole thing

UFM offers bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, and doctoral degrees. The subjects range from architecture to dentistry to psychology to law. A recent addition is a film program. But everyone takes fundamental courses, a core, in liberal economics and philosophy.. 

The university was founded in 1971 by Manuel Ayau and a group of like-minded partners. They were Guatemalan entrepreneurs, and they called themselves “rebel improvisers.” They were fed up with the persistent socialism and poverty in their part of the world. They wanted to create at least an island of liberalism...

They named their university after Francisco Marroquín, who lived in the first half of the 16th century. He was the first bishop of Guatemala, and a pioneer in education. He was especially interested in the education of colonial girls and Indians. He was also interested in free trade and other elements of what would be known as classical liberalism...

 

 

Academic Gibberish Watch --

WE HAVE ANOTHER WINNER! “Glaciers, gender, and science: A feminist glaciology framework for global environmental change research.” “Yes, I too was sure this was a parody, but in fact the lead author is the associate dean at the University of Oregon.”

- Ed Driscoll

Universal Pre-K. Wait -- What?

Why Grit is Highly Overrated, The Globe and Mail:

The most significant predictor of how kids will do in school is how their parents did in school. Nothing the education system has tried so far has changed that. The latest confirmation comes from a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It assessed the data from test results in the U.K., where everyone takes a universal exam at the ageof 16. The researchers focused on the test scores of 2,321 twin pairs, who are part of a long-term study to determine the various influences of environment and heredity on behaviour and life outcomes. Their conclusion is both good news and bad news for those who think intelligence is highly overrated. They found that educational achievement does indeed depend on far more traits than just IQ. The bad news: Those traits are highly heritable, too.

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At this point, a lot of folks will be inclined to stick their fingers in their ears and say “Na, na, na, I can’t hear you.” Fifty years of social science, education theory, parenting beliefs and progressive thought depends on the blank-slate view of human nature, which holds that kids are unformed lumps of clay who are entirely shaped by their environment. Despite the evidence all around us, it is not polite to say this isn’t so. It is not polite to say that people differ in their innate abilities, and that there’s not a whole lot we can do about it. Better to pretend we live in Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average and could probably go to Harvard if only they had the right social advantages...