This post is a series of a few short takes on education. It just happened that a few stories hit on the same day, and they each warranted a few words. The story on the new college planned in California has me particularly excited! Without further ado…
Jon Gabriel writes over at Ricochet.com on educational shortcomings of Millennials:
America’s educational system is failing millennials. Badly. Here are the disturbing results:
•Literacy: Out of 22 participating countries, U.S. millennials ranked third from the bottom, beating only Spain and Italy.
•Numeracy: U.S. millennials ranked last, tied with Spain and Italy.
•PS-TRE: U.S. millennials also ranked last, along with the Slovak Republic, Ireland, and Poland.
That’s where school choice comes in. Instead of flooding resources into our broken system, we need to change the paradigm. Parents, not government bureaucrats, should have the freedom to choose the best education for a their child. We need to encourage healthy competition among schools and education styles so that all programs have an incentive to improve.
Meanwhile, in New Mexico, a high school is going to have a Communism-themed prom
Unfortunately, the article doesn’t treat us to any details of how exactly the theme will be woven into prom night, so I’m wondering how authentic they’ll try to make it. For starters, they could murder the previous prom king & queen, and take any students who disagreed with this theme and have them dragged off in the middle of night to have them imprisoned and tortured before being shot against a wall right before the prom. Then on Prom Night only the class officers will be allowed into the main room and served any kind of food. The rest of the class can sit outside and go hungry knowing that their sacrifice is for the greater good – this could truly be a fantastic educational opportunity!
In other news, Kyle Olsen’s EAGnews reports that ‘Let’s Move’ director fires back at student in ‘ruined Taco Tuesday’ dispute”1
Seven-year-old St. Joan of Arc School student Richard “Trip” Klibert wrote to the first lady explaining what happened at his school after the federal school lunch rules were implemented.
“Thank you for trying to make my school lunch better, but you have ruined Taco Tuesday. Please bring back the old taco shell. I miss them. Also, the pizza is terrible. If you would like to try the new tacos, I will buy you lunch,” the boy wrote, according to the Times-Picayune.
Now, “Let’s Move” program director and senior White House nutrition director Deb Eschmeyer has weighed in, poo-pooing Klibert’s complaint.
Asked about the “whole wheat taco” story, she responded, “I really don’t let that faze me because I have been doing this on the ground for so long,” according to Yahoo Food.
“And a lot of times it’s easier to profile a fight, that’s a sexier story, when actually the food service infrastructure is trying really hard to meet the standards, and 90 percent of the schools have met the standards.”
That is likely Klibert’s point: His school is meeting the standards and he’s suffering the consequences.
Yes, this condescending arrogance that fails to address the boy’s complaint is what we can expect to see more of in our health care and now internet oversight!
And The College Fix’s Jennifer Kabbany reports on how a College in California becomes nation’s first accredited Muslim university.
An accredited institution makes it possible to open many doors and creates local, regional, national and international academic relations. In a short period of time, Zaytuna College will be be ready to welcome students from across the globe and provide the much-needed context to understanding Muslim circumstances in the West, as well as provide diverse opportunities to engage in conversations with faith and civil society partners that are dedicated to seeing and bringing forth a different world.”
I know that some conservatives might be leery of Zaytuna College’s religious affiliation, but I think that this is one of the greatest developments for academia in recent times. I am looking forward to when various feminist groups conduct their Slut Walks across campus, when the first transgender student complains about inadequate bathroom facilities, and is there any doubt that any Jewish students, along with any organizations that they may form will be welcome with open arms? Yeah we know that won’t happen, as who leftists like to antagonize is inversely related to how likely said groups are to hurt them. But one can dream!
In the Sunday Washington Post, the President of the University of California, Janet Napolitano, (yes, THAT Janet Napolitano) tells us that higher education is not in crisis. While the article has enough bad ideas to warrant its own post and doesn’t address how we bring down spiraling costs (unlike the author of this brilliant post), one part she wrote bears mentioning:
Too many states, including California, spend more money on prisons than on higher education.
Interesting that she laments that they are not spending as much on education as on the prison system. perhaps she would like to speak out against the unions that are spurring the California prison system’s growth?
And this is not a new story, but I never got around to writing about it when it was in the news. Last year the football players at Northwestern University got an idea to unionize. Although the vote took place nearly a year ago, the NLRB has impounded all of the ballots, suggesting that the vote created an outcome that the NLRB didn’t like:
The day Northwestern football players voted on unionization in April, the ballots were impounded, carried away from Ryan Field in two shiny silver locked boxes. Seven months later, they have yet to be counted. College sports look markedly different anyway. N.C.A.A. governance has been overhauled; universities and conferences have pledged greater scholarship protection and better health care; a federal judge has ruled that players can be paid for the use of their images.
Writing over at Duke Basketball Report, JD King opines as to why some players might have had a change of heart.:
But as powerful as the team concept is, self-interest always plays a role. So when members of the team realized, after the fact, that being classified as employees meant that things which are taken for granted – scholarships, training room and weight room privileges among them – could be reclassified as benefits and taxed – that changed things too.
And this is where a successful union campaign could have been a thing of beauty. Instead of just having all expenses covered for them, the football team could have been given paychecks for the dollar amounts of what their scholarships would have covered. Of course, the football players would then see their paychecks slashed through various taxes taken out, along with union dues of course. And if their now after-tax paychecks aren’t quite enough to cover their once unseen but completely paid room and board expenses, well then those players would have gotten a practical lesson far more valuable than anything they could learn in the classroom.
Cross posted from Brother Bob’s Blog
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1 I didn’t care for the headline, though. I get the Internet age of clickbait and that’s part of any headline is written. But while the director’s response was incredibly smug, I don’t think it was as incendiary as the phrase “fires back” warrants.
I see that schools in most red states are not as good as blue states. I feel sorry for students that get educated in those states Why are the red states at the bottom educationally? Is this because libs hate those states?
Who controls the state legislatures in those states, or more specifically, the cities that always have the worst schools?
It’s a basic school exposition. 600-700 words I am just so drained and procrastinated so much that I am simply wore out from doing as such much in so little time and I am totally befuddled. It is only a general reflection that gets some information assignment writing reviews about our encounters out in the Field of training.
good post. site