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EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVE
Quis magistros ipsos docebit? . |
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30 November, 2023
Government-education censorship alliance is the greatest threat to democracy
Revelations that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) created "disinformation" groups at Stanford University and the University of Washington to censor political speech leading up to the 2020 election should outrage and alarm every American. Free exchange of ideas is the lifeblood of a democracy and the unholy alliance between the government and higher education institutions must be fully exposed and broken up to preserve our Constitutional Republic.
Under this partnership, higher education institutions acted as conduits between the government and Big Tech to remove speech that government officials found unacceptable to achieve their political ends. Researchers would review ‘misinformation’ reports submitted by federal officials, compile lists of offending posts, and then submit them to social media companies with specific recommendations. These recommendations reduced the post's discoverability and led to shadow bans and even suspension of accounts. Approximately 35 percent of the content they flagged was removed from social media platforms.
The effort targeted those who held opinions that went contrary to prevailing narratives, especially regarding corruption allegations against Biden, the integrity of the 2020 election, and COVID mask and vaccine policies. Countless Americans were censored, silenced, and shadow-banned during the 2020 election cycle. It was part of a concerted effort to exert control over our behavior and dictate what We the People are allowed to say, see, and hear. And it worked.
The House Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government and the Twitter Files have exposed the far-reaching impact of the Election Integrity Partnership between the government, Stanford, and the University of Washington. The 2020 election could have been much different if factual information wasn’t covered up. Just consider how one in six Biden voters surveyed stated that they would not have voted or changed their vote if they had known about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and the Joe Biden corruption allegations.
Given the ‘success’ of this project, the Biden administration expanded the government-higher education alliance in June 2021 through the National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism. Since then, a plethora of new partnerships between the government and higher education have emerged to shape our perceptions and opinions. For example, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded $5 million taxpayer dollars to the University of Wisconsin to develop a system that can detect and "strategically correct" what the government perceives as misinformation. This is in addition to $7.5 million awarded to ten other universities to work on similar censorship-type programs, and $40 million awarded to 15 higher education institutions under the "Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant."
All of these programs reflect the ever-expanding authority of the federal government and are part of a broader effort to exert control over our thoughts and opinions. This goes against the fabric of our Constitution, and our universities should not be working to advance dehumanizing social control tools and tactics at the behest of the government.
While the Biden administration asserts the National Strategy aims to prevent domestic terrorism, it is a clear attempt to control behavior. Under the strategy, even the slightest criticism of the government and its policies can be labeled anti-government and/or anti-authority sentiment. Anti-government and anti-authority sentiment are never defined, allowing a wide net to be cast. This limitless power has resulted in various groups being targeted, including parents at school board meetings, traditional Catholics, and Trump supporters.
The heart of the American experiment lies in the freedom to speak openly and criticize the government without fear of retribution. When we are no longer free to exercise our liberties, tyranny is inevitable – and this is the greatest threat to democracy.
The good news is that we’re not powerless. We can and must take steps to curtail this insidious alliance. First, any institution that assists the government should not be allowed to evade accountability, including higher education. Those affected by the censorship efforts of the Stanford "disinformation" group should pursue lawsuits against the institution. By holding higher education institutions accountable, they will be less willing to aid the government in turning Orwell’s 1984 into a reality.
We also need to hold government officials accountable. Any bureaucrat who knowingly and willfully aims to deny our constitutional rights should be fired and prosecuted. Under Title 18 U.S.C. § 242 — Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law — prohibits the willful deprivation of rights while acting under the pretense of law. Also, Title 18 U.S.C. § 241 — Conspiracy Against Rights —makes it illegal to violate constitutional rights through force, intimidation, or threats.
The alliance between ideological zealots within government and academia must be dismantled. We must defend our God-given liberties and the principles that define our nation. Our Constitutional Republic is at stake, and the time for action is now.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/government-education-censorship-alliance-greatest-threat-democracy
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Night of the Living Ed: Zombie Public Schools, Drained of Pandemic Lifeblood, Haunt the Land
A significant but unknown number of public schools across the U.S., particularly in big cities, have lost so many students in the last half-decade that many of their classrooms sit empty. Gone is the loud clatter of students bursting through crowded hallways and slamming lockers.
The harm from these half-empty schools is inflicted directly on all students in a district. Without enough per-pupil state funding to cover their costs, they require financial subsidies to remain open, forcing district-wide cutbacks in academic programs.
“I visited one school that takes up an entire city block but there were only five classrooms used, plus a library, a computer room, and an afterschool room,” said Sam Davis, a member of the Board of Education in Oakland, California. “As our budget officer said, if you don’t have enough students for two teams to play kickball, there are a lot of other academic activities that are not going to be sustainable either.”
But nothing in public education is more controversial and difficult than closing a neighborhood school. The protests that recently flared up in cities like Oakland and Denver over proposals to shut low-enrollment schools, which also tend to be the worst academic performers in districts, are just a prelude of the reckoning to come, according to interviews with school leaders, researchers, educators, and charter officials.
The permanent closure of schools slowed drastically during the pandemic, even though many urban districts suffered a major exodus of students, with double-digit losses in New York City and Los Angeles. Many hollowed-out districts have temporarily sidestepped the tempest of shutting schools because Congress provided them with a historic windfall of pandemic-related funding and wide latitude in spending it, said Georgetown Professor Marguerite Roza, who directs the Edunomics Lab.
But the $190 billion lifeline – called the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund – ends next September. So school leaders are facing mounting pressure to shrink their oversized districts, setting up the next battleground over public schools.
“Many districts have too many schools, not enough kids, and are propping them up with federal relief funds,” Roza said. “And they haven’t laid the groundwork for closures when the funding goes away. Imagine the anger and protests when families learn suddenly that their schools are on the list to close.”
With aid flowing during the pandemic, districts shut an average of 810 schools a year in 2021 and 2022, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That’s far less than the 1,350 average from 2011 to 2020, a difference that underscores the magnitude of the problem of zombie schools.
Why Schools Are Hard to Close
In the business and nonprofit sectors, wasteful spending is typically reined in by downsizing operations into fewer buildings and personnel. But public schools often find protection from the calls for efficiency. The first wave of pandemic-era proposals to shut schools in several districts has been countered by a formidable coalition of local advocates, forcing school boards to backpedal on their consolidation plans.
Families are leading the protests at school board meetings. Some have sentimental ties to neighborhood schools that go back generations, and others cite transportation issues in switching to another location that’s further from home. Teachers unions have joined the fight in Oakland and other cities, arguing that closures pose unfair labor practices. And racial justice advocates have succeeded in reframing the issue as a matter of equality rather than wasteful spending since nearly all the schools to be closed serve mostly black and Latino kids.
Districts like Seattle that aim to shutter schools often cite reasons that are out of their control. The birth rate has been dropping since 2007, according to federal data, chipping away at enrollment. Families are also leaving cities like Los Angeles and Chicago because of the rising cost of living and concerns over crime and homelessness. San Francisco, for instance, lost 7.5% of its population between 2020 and 2022, according to the census.
But public schools share in the blame. With test scores on the Nation’s Report Card in decline since 2012, families have been quitting traditional schools in search of a better education and a safer environment at charters, micro, and home schools. Charter enrollment, for instance, grew 7% from 2020 to 2022, while district schools lost 3.5% of students, according to the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools.
School districts can’t do anything about the birth rate. But many of them do control the fate of charters. In Los Angeles and other cities facing closures, school boards that formerly encouraged the expansion of charters have grown hostile toward them and blocked their expansion, in part to preserve their own enrollment.
How Zombie Schools Hurt Education
Some districts are now devising proposals to close under-enrolled facilities because of the financial burden they create.
Even a school at half capacity needs a principal, support and food service staff, custodians, and sometimes a nurse, librarian, and counselor. Education is highly labor-intensive, with compensation comprising at least 85% of a school’s expenses, Georgetown’s Roza says.
Since zombie schools don’t cover their own expenses, superintendents have to pull resources from other schools and programs to subsidize them. Funding for art, music, special education, and advanced placement classes may be cut, affecting students throughout the district.
“In the end, districts have to spread resources too thinly, across too many buildings, and nobody gets served well,” Roza says.
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UK: KCL’s sinister diversity and inclusion policies
Last week the King’s College London LGBTQ staff network, called Proudly King’s, demonstrated its intellectual level and its view of women by tweeting a picture of a woman holding a banner saying ‘TERF FART (Feminist Appropriating Radical Transphobes)’. If you thought that endorsing this kind of behaviour would make you less likely to be promoted to professor, you might be surprised to see the King’s academic promotion criteria.
To apply for promotion to Reader or Professor, academics at King’s must write five pages on research, teaching and administration and one further page devoted to ‘Inclusion and Support’. Academics are told to use this section to describe how we ‘create an inclusive environment’ and ask us to discuss ‘activity undertaken to support the university’s equality, diversity and inclusion ambitions’. The guidance gives examples, including participating in Proudly King’s and with other groups such as ‘Athena Swan, Race Equality and Stonewall LGBTQ groups’.
Exactly why King’s wants its academics to participate in Stonewall activities is unclear. Stonewall has compared women campaigning for sex-based rights to antisemites; lesbians campaigning for sex-based rights to racists; and described calls for ‘respectful debate’ as questioning ‘trans people’s right to exist’. Stonewall has even campaigned against the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) because of its attempts to uphold women’s sex-based rights.
It is wholly inappropriate for a university to single out one particular political perspective for special treatment in their promotion process. It sends a clear message that speaking against this political perspective is frowned upon, with an inevitable chilling effect on freedom of speech.
It also raises obvious legal concerns. The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act places a duty on universities to secure the academic freedom of their staff to express their views without ‘the likelihood of them securing promotion… being reduced’. The Equality Act also outlaws indirect discrimination against staff who hold protected gender-critical beliefs.
Academic freedom is central to the functioning of a university. Without it, research has no credibility. If staff prioritise the political preferences of the EDI team over impartiality and scientific integrity, their research is worthless.
This is not a hypothetical issue. Examples of activist interference in science abound. The question on trans status in the last census was made all but useless by choosing a wording that was attractive to activists but all but incomprehensible to non-native English speakers. The Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) pursued an activist-led approach to gender medicine that ignored routine and consistent data collection meaning that outcomes could not be accurately tracked. For years sports bodies pursued a fantasy approach to science where testosterone levels were deemed the only significant difference between males and females.
By embedding bias within the promotions process, King’s leadership are embedding a pattern of discrimination within the university against gender-critical beliefs. For example, earlier this year a research ethics committee at King’s objected to my plans ‘to find the views of athletes and volunteers on the question of when males should be allowed to compete in the female category in athletics’ because, by using the words male and female, I was guilty of ‘misgendering’. Perhaps right now my colleagues on that ethics committee are using this as an example of their commitment to inclusion as they complete their promotion applications.
Given its dubious legality, why did King’s implement this promotion process? King’s decision-making process has not been made public, but, to me this question seems easy to answer. As part of their Stonewall Workplace Equality Index submission King’s were asked ‘Does the organisation proactively recognise contributions to LGBT inclusion activity during employee performance appraisals?’ King’s answered this by directly quoting the offending guidance from our promotion application.
King’s won a gold award from Stonewall in the Workplace Equality Index. King’s was also 14th in Stonewall’s Top 100 employers, and second in higher education, just behind Cardiff university. Cardiff is a tough act to follow, mind: they defended violent threats to staff who dared to suggest the university leave Stonewall’s schemes as ‘free speech‘ even after one academic had their car window smashed.
King’s defence appears to be that the LGBTQ network is not the only way we might show our inclusivity. Other options suggested in the guidance include our staff network Elevate which ‘specifically addresses the challenges and barriers faced by those who identify as women and as non-binary’. King’s says that it is ‘proud of the work’ done by Elevate, but looking at their website Elevate appears to be little more than a shell. The ‘Projects’ and ‘Events and Activities’ sections of its website say simply ‘more details coming soon’. Its list of senior sponsors is ‘TBC’. Its only output to date appears to be a menopause toolkit featuring a menopause policy which omits the words woman and female entirely.
Women seeking promotion at King’s can also consider working for our Athena Swan network. Athena Swan is an award scheme in higher education that once promoted women in science, but which now promotes gender-identity theory. Athena Swan have removed the word woman from their founding principles, and even advised universities to even stop collecting data on the sex of staff until it was pointed out that this guidance was unlawful.
There is a clear pattern. All officially sanctioned opportunities at King’s for women to campaign for equal pay and promotion, also appear to require them to campaign against their sex-based rights.
This is unfortunate as there is plenty of work to do at King’s on equal pay and promotion. In my own department of mathematics, there are 31 professors. Only two are women.
Science, and science at King’s has a long history of discrimination against women. Rosalind Franklin is one of King’s most celebrated alumna. Her ‘Photograph 51’ taken in 1952 revealed the helical structure of DNA. However, Franklin did not enjoy her time at King’s, not least because men would not admit women to their common room. Women have been admitted to our common room for some time now. Perhaps it is time to take the next step and also allow them to speak.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/11/kcls-sinister-diversity-and-inclusion-policies/
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29 November, 2023
Conservatives warned about long-term negative results for childrens education, and The New York Times finally gets it.
In yet another instance of conservatives being able to say we told you so, the New York Times editorial board recently discovered that The Startling Evidence on Learning Loss Is In. The editorial observes, The school closures that took 50 million children out of classrooms at the start of the pandemic may prove to be the most damaging disruption in the history of American education.
Golly, who knew? (That was rhetorical.)
Meanwhile, back in the spring of 2021, the Times pushed the opposite position. In an op-ed published in April of that year originally titled Parents, Stop Talking About the Lost Year, author and Times columnist Judith Warner argued that concerns over months-long pandemic school closures and the negative impact on childrens education were overblown.
At some point, the Time updated and softened Warners title to How to Help Your Adolescent Think About the Last Year, but the teaser still expressed the original sentiment: Hint: Its not a lost year. Also, the screen time with friends? Its good for their mental health.
The article went on to downplay the whole problem. Experts say some of [parents] worries are justified but only up to a point, Warner said. Theres no doubt that the pandemic has taken a major toll on many adolescents emotional well-being. And theres no question that witnessing their loneliness, difficulties with online learning and seemingly endless hours on social media has been enormously stressful for the adults who care about them the most.
Despite all of this, [therapist and school counselor Phyllis] Fagell, much like the dozen-plus other experts in adolescent development who were interviewed for this article, was adamant that parents should not panic and that, furthermore, the spread of the lost year narrative needed to stop. Getting a full picture of whats going on with middle schoolers and being ready to help them they agreed, requires holding two seemingly contradictory ideas simultaneously in mind: The past year has been terrible. And most middle schoolers will be fine.
Note that last sentence: most middle schoolers will be fine.
Evidently not. Indeed, the Times editorial board is now ringing the alarm bells over a generation of Americans behind in their education. School shutdowns have, the editors say, set student progress in math and reading back by two decades and widened the achievement gap that separates poor and wealthy children. So, which is it? Middle schoolers will be fine, or American educational progress has been set back 20 years?
As our own Mark Alexander observed early on: The school shutdowns, which have enormous impact on families, are based in part on the lowest common denominator factor the parent who is going to send their child to school sick because it was not convenient to keep him or her home. And when Americans begin to figure out the economic consequences of the state and local actions which have shuttered schools, events, and businesses, there will be political HELL to pay.
The scribes at the Times and all over mainstream media were big proponents of shutting down schools for the entirety of 2020 and beyond as they perpetuated the flawed notion that protecting the most vulnerable the elderly and immune-compromised meant sacrificing the future development of the least vulnerable school-age children.
Ironically but predictably, the Times is arguing for more government funding and intervention to fix the very problem the government caused.
Poor leadership was most clearly displayed in Democrat-run states, which opted for totalitarian, one-size-fits-all polices that maximized negative impacts across all of society rather than using a sensible conservative approach that used targeted actions aimed at protecting the most vulnerable while also seeking the least social disruption. Of course, the Times and other Leftmedia outlets decried the latter approach as equating to wishing death on others.
Three years on, and theyre acting like they have just been exposed to the notion that taking kids out of school would have seriously negative consequences down the road. And the most ridiculous thing about it is their call for more government solutions for Americas learning loss crisis. The Times editorial board geniuses write, A collective sense of urgency by all Americans will be required to avert its most devastating effects on the nations children.
Now they tell us.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/102420-nyt-revisionist-history-on-school-closings-2023-11-28
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Christian School Sues State After Being Banned From Sports Over Transgender Policies
A Christian school in Vermont filed a lawsuit against state officials after it was banned from participating in the states sport leagues because over its stance on biological females competing against biological male transgender athletes.
As Townhall previously reported, Mid Vermont Christian School (MVCS) forfeited a basketball tournament after refusing to compete against a team that included a transgender player.
We withdrew from the tournament because we believe playing against an opponent with a biological male jeopardizes the fairness of the game and the safety of our players, Vicky Fogg, the head of MVCS, said in a statement at the time.
Allowing biological males to participate in womens sports sets a bad precedent for the future of womens sports in general, Fogg added.
Shortly after, the Vermont Principals Association, which oversees school sporting events, announced that MVCS would be ineligible to participate in sporting events and other activities done through the organization, which Townhall also covered.
The VPA again reiterates its ongoing support of transgender student-athletes as not only a part of building an inclusive community for each student to grow and thrive, but also as a clear expectation by Vermont state law(s) in the Agency of Education Best Practices, and in VPA Policy regarding transgender student athletes, the announcement said.
According to Catholic News Agency, in the lawsuit, MVCS argues that the ban is a violation of the schools First Amendment rights. The lawsuit reportedly asks the court to readmit the school into the sports league and allow the school to participate in the tuition program.
Vermont has an infamous record of discriminating against religious schools and families, whether it be withholding generally available public funding or denying them membership in the states sports league because they hold religious beliefs that differ from the states preferred views, Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Ryan Tucker, who is representing the school in the lawsuit, said in a statement to CNA.
Tucker added: the states unlawful exclusion of Mid Vermont Christian from participating in the tuition program and athletic association is the latest example of state officials trampling on constitutionally protected rights.
Reportedly, two families whose children attend the school have joined the lawsuit, claiming that their children have been negatively affected by the states policies.
Vermont, through its education agency and sports association, has engaged in unconstitutional discrimination by requiring a Christian school and its students to surrender their religious beliefs and practices in order to receive public funds and compete in sports, ADF counsel Jake Reed told CNA, adding that the students who attend MVCS are losing out on valuable tuition reimbursement and being excluded from playing competitive sports and participating in academic competitions.
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How Can We Stop Serving Students So Poorly?
In 1942, there were 108,579 public school districts in the United States. By the 2020-21 school year, there were only 13,187.
That massive consolidation of school districts was propelled by the belief that economies of scale created by larger school districts would lower costs and serve students better. Those presumed efficiencies have not, however, been demonstrated in practice. As Stephen Coffin summarized, Large urban school districts generally have not been accountable for improving school and student performance...they have been constrained by their overly large scale...The typical large urban school district needs to be right-sized or disaggregated.
Why has school district consolidation failed to perform as advertised? Because centralized administration creates more adverse incentives that overwhelm any advantages they might have.
One important reason is that teaching is an idiosyncratic art, practiced differently by people with different capabilities and approaches. One such difference is that younger teachers are closer in age to their students, but know fewer relevant illustrations than older teachers, who have often accumulated larger stores of knowledge over time, which faces them with a different issue: determining what works best for a particular class. Further, some seem to be far better story-tellers than others.
As with other differences, these imply that there is no single set of teaching guidelines that can be imposed from above by a centralized decision-making authority, and attempting to do so will serve students poorly.
Centralized bureaucratic systems also tend to undermine teachers accountability to those for whom it is most important. They make teachers accountable to administrators rather than students and their parents.
Noting the incentives created by large, centralized school districts, not to mention the many controversies that have arisen in public education helps us understand the increasing support for breaking up some of the largest school districts, which would reduce the monopoly power of their school boards. At issue? What is taught and how. Merely breaking larger monopolies into smaller monopolies, however, does not necessarily mean parents and students will end up with any more power over policies.
That inherent difficulty helps explain the growing support for charter schools, which are not subject to the same rules of traditional public schools. But as Thomas Sowell documents in Charter Schools and Their Enemies, even the far superior performance of charter schools in apples to apples comparisons may not be enough to withstand the increasing political dangers threatening charter schools under the flag of reform, which threatens to undermine the urgent task of educating young people in the skills that will determine what kind of future they will have available as adults.
Sowell illustrates both the remarkable success of charter schools and the hostility they face at the hands of public school teachers and administrators, their unions, schools of education, and politicians seeking union backing. For all of this there is one simple explanation: It is successful charter schools that are the real threat to the traditional unionized public schools.
With charter schools so heavily opposed by the public school establishment, producing far too few spaces for those who wish to enroll in them, voucher programs may serve parents better. The portability of those resources could powerfully invigorate accountability by letting money move along with students when they leave poor teachers and schools for better ones. When resources dont accompany students, financial punishment is visited upon more effective schools who must teach more people without more funds to do so. When resources do accompany those students, parents have far greater incentive to be involved, as their ability to redirect resources allows them to benefit from superior academic performance on behalf of their children.
Very large school districts have failed to serve parents and students, but have increased the rewards given to those responsible for that failure. Efforts to break them up have faced resistance, and even when break-ups are achieved, top-down policy making often undermines the potential payoffs. Efforts to improve things with charter schools have shown some great results, and vouchers are attractive as a means to make educators more responsible to parents than to administrators. But we are still in the early stages of a very long struggle, and there are no quick, easy fixes.
With the powerful opposition every effort at effective educational reform faces, what we need are ways to decisively sever control of schools from the hands of special interests. And that effort faces the wild card of a sharply declining population of school age students, which can provide yet another excuse to further consolidate educational provision that is already too centralized. It is a daunting task, but our childrens future justifies facing it head on.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14747&omhide=true&trk=title
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28 November, 2023
Teachers Conference Lecture Declares Math a Tool of Oppression
Math can oppress students of color due to the inequitable system it was developed under, according to a slide presentation at the University of Oregons 2023 mathematics conference reviewed by The Daily Signal.
Oregon high school math teacher Jered Ratliff delivered a lecture called Mathematics as a tool of oppression at the Northwest Mathematics Conference in Portland on Oct. 14, which was sponsored by the University of Oregon.
Recent politicization of mathematics has driven questions about its pedagogy in our schools, but these questions fail to recognize mathematics as a potentially oppressive tool, Ratliffs description of the lecture reads. Mathematics is our single most powerful academic building block, but the power it holds frequently allows it to inhibit discovery and societal good.
Ratliff is interested in exploring intersectionality of social justice and global power dynamics created by math systems, according to his biographical information on the math conference website.
The math education system in America was developed 200 years ago when only the children of white landowners were educated, according to Ratliffs presentation.
Its not saying that specific questions or standards themselves are racist, a slide depicting a text conversation between Ratliff and a friend from a few years ago reads. But if the way we are teaching continually leaves people of color behind, why wouldnt I want to dismantle the process that is least somewhat responsible for that inequity?
Ratliff continues to say that math proficiency doesnt mean superiority. Only 30% of Oregon students tested as proficient in math in 2022, according to the Oregon Department of Education.
Ratliff is involved with Oregons Math Alignment Project, which released a series of modules on equitable math practices to disrupt the systemic inequities of schooling. Discussion questions in the modules encourage teachers to consider how their potential bias might inadvertently reinforce inequities.
In the October presentations description, Ratliff said he would share about maths tremendous, often subtle, power that is more often used to stifle than it is to inspire.
My dream is to see math fully and mutually used as a tool not to subvert but instead for liberation, he wrote in the sessions description.
Ratliff told The Daily Signal he is seeking ways to make math better.
Ive always loved math, Ratliff said in an email. Ive taught it in high school for 16 years. I dont think it is racist. I do think its oppressive to many people, and I believe that is largely because I have yet to find how we have addressed the rapidly changing world by also innovating our math learning, discovery, and education.
From 1650 to present-day America, mathematical discovery has often been rooted in American colonialism, chattel slavery, and so-called subjugating systems, Ratliff said. He elaborated on this idea in his essay that was the basis of his Northwest Mathematics Conference presentation last month.
One of the conference slides said the U.S. was once at the forefront of innovations benefiting humanity but shifted from innovator to subverting and stymying progress. Thus, America is an agent of re-oppression.
Ratliff listed three steps to flatten the so-called math hierarchy in his slideshow: Identify a structure or system with mathematics as its basis, identify those in positions of power in this structure, and identify those traditionally at the mercy of this structure in order to dismantle the hierarchy.
The University of Oregon did not respond to The Daily Signals request for comment.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/11/17/teachers-conference-lecture-declares-math-tool-oppression/ ?
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I Goes to Kollege
The American university, the crown jewel of the US economic engine and enabler of social mobility and success, has been reduced to a Maoist reeducation camp. The time has come to deal with this socially destructive institution.
With the destruction of many of the ancient European universities during World War 2, American schools took their place as the premier locations for learning and research. The recent movie, Oppenheimer, reminded Americans of the success of the Manhattan Project. Virtually all of the major researchers involved in the development of the bomb came from universities from coast to coast: Princeton, Columbia, Harvard, University of Chicago, University of Wisconsin, and UC Berkeley to name a few. Even the major corporations that supplied key materials for the Manhattan Project had top US-trained researchers producing the needed high-purity graphite, explosives, metals and other critical components throughout the life of the program. The university was the leader in research and development. It was the envy of the world.
Lets fast-forward 80 years, and what is the university today? One would minimally expect that a high school graduate going to college would attain the following skills in four years (and not seven). Generally, they do not.
*General knowledge. A college graduate should be well-enough informed to discuss, say American history or basic concepts in science. During my days at Harvard, the Core was in place to guarantee that all students were exposed to major academic disciplines beyond their fields of concentration.
*Thinking skills. Much of what we do beyond college has nothing to do specifically with the courses we take. If we have gained skills that allow us to think, reason, analyze, and classify, we are hopefully prepared to succeed in a chosen profession. One of the most exceptional experiences I had at Harvard was completely unplanned. I had a tutor with whom I would periodically meet to discuss a research project of mutual interest. One day, as we sat in his office, a colleague told him that they needed to immediately determine an applicant's acceptance/rejection status for a Ph.D. at Harvard Medical School. I asked to excuse myself, but the second professor told me to stay put. He told my tutor that the student had outstanding grades, great recommendations, and high GRE scores. My fellow turned to him and said, There is nothing in her record to suggest an ounce of creativity. With that, she was rejected, and my whole view on approaching research was changed.
*Professional training. Unlike in Israel, where a student enters directly into medical or legal studies without a four-year university prologue, US students generally do not receive any professional training at college. Engineers and computer scientists necessarily do, but many of those pursuing professional degrees can study government or literature and only focus on professional training later. One can debate which system is better, but the fact is that there are lots of students graduating with heavy debt loads and no marketable skills to earn the money they need to pay off their loans. Theres a reason why AOC, Joe Biden, and others want you to pay off the student loans that others took out.
It is no coincidence that large and sometimes violent protests against Israel are taking place at US universities. Instead of focusing on the topics above, the universities have devolved into Maoist reeducation centers. DEI, intersectionality, white privilege, trans athletes in womens sports, race-separated dorms, and graduation ceremoniesthese foci have made universities play-acting centers for children who are simply not serious. The $64,000 I paid for four years at Harvard in the mid-80s is about what one year would cost. Student families paying such enormous sums might expect their children to receive a high-quality education. Instead, they are taught that groups that have been historically discriminated against and less prosperouswomen, minorities, gays, etc.--are victims and cannot, repeat, be victimizers or racists.
On the other hand, generally, successful groups such as whites, Asians, and Jews are perpetual victimizers and can never be victims. And so it was that the day after a Holocaust-level massacre of Jews in Israel proper, 31 Harvard-recognized organizations declared that any violence in the region was the fault of Israel (=Jews). Their ideologically rigid system does not allow for Jews to be victims. However, there is no shortage of horrendous videos of Jews being shot, beheaded, burned to death, and taken into captivity. The Palestinian terrorists, falling into the victim category, cannot be victimizers. So even when they recorded their murder of innocent kids at a rave, the kids must be the guilty party. They cannot allow themselves to go against the intersectionality system, so they say that Israel did the killing or that nothing really happened.
The professors who have taught this tripe for generations will be the last people to stick their necks out to tell their Frankenstein students that they are wrong. The only redemption for white students is to join the victims in genocide-encouraging marches to at least show that they are on the right side. The university has fallen from intellectual greatness to ideological insanity in the space of only a few decades.
As some have pointed out, the same ones who rallied for BLM after George Floyd died are the same ones who show up for climate rallies and are now carrying placards demanding the death of 8 million Jews in Israel. They always have to join the victim groups in order not to be, heaven forfend, considered a victimizer.
The greater problem for the Republic is that all of the important people are university graduates. The story of the guy who went from the mailroom to CEO (Barry Diller, Dick Grasso) is a thing of the past. All CEOs, politicians, and news staffers are the products of the modern university. They generally do not shed their ideology as they move from college out into the real world. One woman wrote in the Spectator that all of her friends support the Hamas terrorists, and she believes this outcome is a result of their getting their news from Tik Tok, YouTube, and Instagram.
And thus you have your massive 300,000 person pro-terrorists marches in London, and similar if smaller events in the US, Australia and continental Europe. Israel was dumb enough to treat Yaha Sinwar for cancer; he returned the favor by planning and organizing the slaughter of 1,200 peopleand the educated world is on his side. The universities refuse to stop the marches and threats to Jewish students not for First Amendment reasons; rather, this is the world outlook they have given their students. It would be like a coach complaining when his football team won.
To rein in the universities and make real change first requires the US government to leave the student loan business. Let banks and universities determine the risks of giving loans to students who wish to study imperial basket weaving in Inner Mongolia between 1100 and 1150. The next step is to condition any federal grants or aid, of which universities receive billions of dollars each year, on the performance of graduates in the work market. A college graduate should ultimately be able to support himself or herself. The Obama administration actually wanted to measure university performance by analyzing how well graduates fared, but the plan was nixed.
The time has come to tie governmental largess to the success of schools in giving their students an education that can help provide for them for the rest of their lives. If a certain percentage of graduates are not employed or underemployed, the school in question will not receive federal research funding until the situation is rectified. A university without federal funds might rethink its grievance studies programs that produce nothing for American society but are therapeutic for pampered yet somehow aggrieved students and faculty.
Some law firms had already statedbefore 10/7that they would not take Ivy League graduates due to their new training. There are many anecdotal stories of college graduates lacking basic writing or thinking skills. The university was once the domain of the privileged; now, it is where an American student goes when he or she turns 18. We need to fix the universities to make our society more successful, productive, and cohesive. And if the universities resist, tax their endowment income. The university has become a destructive force in US society. The time has come for a correction.
https://townhall.com/columnists/alanjosephbauer/2023/11/27/i-goes-to-kollege-n2631642
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Australia: From the ski lodge to the sea: our kids will never be free
Kevin Donnelly
As to why so many students wagged school last week protesting about the supposed man-made climate catastrophe and why so many will protest this week against Israels right to defend itself against the evil and barbaric invasion by Hamas there are numerous reasons.
In 2006, Al Gores misleading video (in that it contains known errors) An Inconvenient Truth became routine viewing in schools across Australia spreading climate alarmism. One of the three cross-curricula priorities in the national curriculum is sustainability, mandating a deep green environmental perspective on all subjects.
Based on a revisionist view of history involving feminist, Marxist, and post-colonial theories students are taught, Western Civilisation is guilty of imperialism and white supremacy and that there is nothing unique or worth defending about liberal democracies like Australia or Israel.
Israel is seen as an artificial state created by white imperialists that has no right to exist. Hamas terrorists, instead of being evil and inhumane, are lauded as freedom fighters dedicated to liberating Palestinians from years of subjugation.
Students chanting from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free have no idea of where the Jordan River is or appreciate the land of Israel is the ancestral home of the Jews. Its no wonder they are so easily duped.
Schools have long since stopped teaching students to think rationally and logically. Clear thinking has been replaced by emotion and cant. Emotion is the deciding factor determining how young people respond to argument and debate about contemporary issues.
I think, therefore I am has been replaced by I feel, therefore I am right and any who believe otherwise are condemned as politically incorrect and cancelled for committing thought crime. The prevalence of cognitive dissonance adds to the heady mix of irrationality and ignorance.
To be human is to search for meaning and a sense of belonging as well as a commitment to something that gives purpose and direction. While the search for wisdom and truth as well as religious belief once provided that need, we now live in a world where subjectivism, ennui, and uncertainty prevail.
For many students climate alarmism is a religious faith where Greta Thunberg is the messiah and whatever the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change dictates reads as holy script. That the world is about to end is taken as beyond doubt leading to young girls terrified they can never be mothers.
Students marching in solidarity with banners declaring free Palestine, Israel is a terrorist state, and the river to the sea, Palestine will be free find purpose and meaning that gives their vacuous lives direction.
As argued by GK Chesterton, When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.
It is also vital to realise climate change alarmism and antisemitism are just two examples highlighting how schools have been turned into re-education camps where students are indoctrinated with mind control and group think.
Kindergarten children are taught gender and sexuality are fluid and dynamic and not God-given and biologically determined. Boys are taught men are inherently violent and misogynist and the curriculum, instead of patriotism and nation-building, teaches guilt, and self-loathing.
Why this has happened is clear. Drawing on Antonio Gramscis concept of cultural hegemony, over the last 40 years the cultural-left has taken control of the school curriculum and infected vulnerable students with neo-Marxist critical theory and Woke ideology.
After the second world war, Marxist academics argued to win the West, the focus had to be on infiltrating and capturing capitalist societys ideological state apparatus (ISA). As argued by Louis Althusser:
But now for what is essential. What distinguishes the ISAs from the (Repressive) State Apparatus is the following basic difference: the Repressive State Apparatus functions by violence, whereas the Ideological State Apparatuses function by ideology.
Althusser argues cultural-Marxists must take control of key institutions, including family, church, political and trade union organisations, the media, schools and universities. Turbocharged by the late 1960s Cultural Revolution, the lefts long march has succeeded beyond expectations.
Given schools have become neo-Marxist-inspired indoctrination camps, its understandable why thousands of parents across Australia are either home-schooling their children or establishing their own community schools.
Such an education is often religious in character where students are taught to be culturally literate, intellectually robust and morally and spiritually grounded. Instead of vague and ephemeral values, schools are committed to teaching virtues including love, courage, moderation, wisdom, and justice.
Instead of promoting language control, group think and mob hysteria, such an education is also based on rationality, reason and common sense. Much-needed attributes in this time of intellectual dishonesty and conformity and where intolerance is re-badged as tolerance.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/11/from-the-ski-lodge-to-the-sea-our-kids-will-never-be-free/
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27 November, 2023
A Brave Voice in the Leftist Academic Wasteland
MARK ALEXANDER
If you keep up with the leftist race hustlers who have weaseled their way into academies of higher education, you know the name of Ibram Xolani Kendi, a.k.a. Henry Rogers. Hes the noisy self-centric purveyor of the critical race theory fraud, which metastasized from the specious and historically fallacious 1619 Project. Over the last decade, Kendi has been employed by six universities, including the State University of New York (Oneonta), the University at Albany (SUNY), Brown University, the University of Florida, American University, and since 2020 he has been indoctrinating his lemmings as a professor of history at Boston University. BU now hosts his so-called Center for Antiracist Research.
Kendis most articulate and respected adversary is a name you probably dont know David Decosimo, a Princeton-educated scholar and now head of Boston Universitys Institute for Philosophy and Religion. He is a fearless defender of Liberty against academic tyranny, and he stands among scholars on the frontlines of opposition to the suppression of free expression now plaguing our academic institutions.
David is also family, both of us being descendants of Tennessees George Gillespie, the Revolutionary War colonel and leader of the Overmountain Men. Thus, it should come as no surprise that among so many professorial types who have bowed to the woke leftist orthodoxies of DEI, ESG, etc., Decosimo has not folded.
While David has become a lightning rod for leftist cancel culture, until recently most of his objections to the Kendi culture at BU were confined to objections within the academic channels. That began with his remarkable objections to BUs hiring of Kendi in a 2020 letter to then-BU President Robert Brown, in which he raises the issue: How exactly BU defines antiracism is essential for preserving our research and educational missions and commitments to open inquiry, academic freedom, and free speech. He notes, If racism is defined in problematic ways, then in the name of antiracism deeply problematic things follow, not least the betrayal of a universitys research and teaching mission and its commitments to academic freedom.
In other words, the hiring of Kendi is a full-frontal assault on free speech, another nail in the coffin of free thought in the academy.
Fast-forward to eight weeks ago, when the facade of Kendis Center for Antiracist Research started to crumble. As our analyst Thomas Gallatin observed: Riding the outpouring of antiracism virtue signaling, Kendis center received millions of dollars in donations. Of note, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey gave $10 million. Not only was Kendi riding high off his book sales a book in which he promoted critical race theory as if it were the Gospel but he was also raking in millions from white leftists seeking any way to purge themselves of white guilt.
At the time of Dorseys donation, Kendi declared, Your $10M donation, with no strings attached, gives us the resources and flexibility to greatly expand our antiracist work.
But after burning through some $43 million in donor funds in three years, Kendi has, predictably, produced next to nothing. Such is the case when race hustlers get a pass on accountability, largely because of what George W. Bush decried as the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Four weeks ago, as Kendis outfit neared collapse, BU launched investigations into financial irregularities.
Kendi critic and Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Christopher Rufo concluded: It was very clear that Ibram Kendi was a fraud in 2020. His signature idea was to use the government to discriminate against people of one racial group to benefit people of another racial group, which he called anti-racist discrimination. But for any neutral or dispassionate observer, it was simply racism in a new direction. He has nothing to offer to the debate, and Im glad to see his research center implode. Its the ultimate vindication for those of us who said that critical race theory was not a solution to Americas problems and that Ibram Kendi was a false prophet of a dangerous philosophy. This is really poetic justice and I think marks the end of this chapter in the left-wing racialist saga.
Of course, anyone raising an objection over that lack of accountability risks being labeled RACIST.
The Washington Posts Tyler Austin Harper was more direct, noting, Kendis fall is a cautionary tale so was his rise, and concluding, Though I dont condone Kendis race grift, I do understand how easy it would be to become a grifter. Grifter indeed. Even Kendis fans at The New York Times were ducking and covering, noting that his staff blamed Kendi for his imperious leadership style and questioned both the centers stewardship of grants and its productivity.
Which brings me back to his BU critic, David Decosimo.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Decosimo went very public with his condemnation of Kendi, but also the leadership of BU and other academic administrations, writing: The debacle that is Boston Universitys Center for Antiracist Research is about far more than its founder, Ibram X. Kendi. It is about a university, caught up in cultural hysteria, subordinating itself to ideology. Mr. Kendi deserves some blame for the scandal, but the real culprit is institutional and cultural. Its still unfolding and is far bigger than BU. In 2020, countless universities behaved as BU did. And to this day at universities everywhere, activist faculty and administrators are still quietly working to institutionalize Mr. Kendis vision. They have made embracing diversity, equity and inclusion a criterion for hiring and tenure, have rewritten disciplinary standards to privilege antiracist ideology, and are discerning ways to circumvent the Supreme Courts affirmative-action ruling.
That would be the SCOTUS ruling in June against the toxic euphemism known as affirmative action in college and university admission practices more accurately referred to as affirmative discrimination.
Decosimo concludes: Most of those now attacking Mr. Kendi at BU dont object to his vision. Their anger isnt with his ideologys intellectual and ethical poverty but with his personal failure to use the money and power given to him to institutionalize their vision across American universities, politics and culture. Whether driven by moral hysteria, cynical careerism or fear of being labeled racist, this violation of scholarly ideals and liberal principles betrays the norms necessary for intellectual life and human flourishing. It courts disaster, at this moment especially, that universities cant afford.
Of course, BU found no issues with the management of Kendis Antiracist Center, and of course Kendi decried the investigation as racist. He complained, It is unfortunate that individuals near and far spread a false narrative about a Black leader taking or mismanaging funds.
Thus, I am sure BU will restore Kendis standing and his center will rise from the dead as some shadow of its former self, a fellowship model that allows Kendi to save face while still being its chief grifter.
If BU administrators had any academic integrity, they would sunset Kendis charade before it suffers the same fate as its kissing cousin, the race-bait Marxist front, Black Lives Matter, which also raised tens of millions but folded in disgrace.
But it will be without at least one courageous trustee, William Bloom, who recently resigned in protest, declaring: Kendi was attracted to BU more by the socialist anarchism of Howard Zinn than the civil rights championed by Martin Luther King Jr. Critical theory, like Mr. Kendis antiracism, seeks to achieve the alchemy of group equity by the law (social justice) instead of equality before the law (justice). Critical theorists want to disrupt and dismantle what they feel is a rigged system. This includes the U.S. Constitution. Until we can cure human nature, however, we had better uphold the ideals of our founding.
In his 1901 book Up From Slavery, Booker T. Washington concluded: Great men cultivate love. Only little men cherish a spirit of hatred.
Six decades later, that theme would be renewed by civil rights leader Martin Luther King. In 1963, King concluded his timeless I Have a Dream speech by asserting the need to focus on character over color: I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. And if America is to be a great nation this must become true.
Today, despite the fact that the Democrat Party claims Kings legacy, and Democrats argue they are the sole protectors of his dream, they have turned Kings message upside down, as if King had declared people should be judged by the color of their skin, not the content of their character. In doing so, they also turned his dream into a nightmare. Their failed statist Great Society programs have enslaved generations of poor, mostly black Americans on urban poverty plantations that are plagued with violence.
Fact is, the most consequential systemic racism in America is the institutionalization of the Democrat Party platform, which has, by design, kept poor people in bondage to the welfare state and, consequently, is the blueprint for the most enduring racial exploitation architecture in America. Democrats are the historical architects and political beneficiaries of systemic racism.
What are the odds that Kendi will be teaching that lesson?
https://patriotpost.us/alexander/102200 ?
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Harvard as the Fourth Reich
Harvard is an entirely antisemitic university. The president says soothing words to her Jewish audiences and does not have the internal fortitude to punish the little monsters that the American educational system has created, and her university nurtures.
If there were any positive outcomes of the Covid disasterdisease and responseit might be that parents became aware of what their children were being taught. Parents casually walking behind their kids while the latter were learning via Zoom heard discussions of sexual orientation, the US as a terrible country, and the demented concepts of intersectionality that made those parents and their kids the bad guys. The revolution against school boards started after the Covid lockdowns as parents realized that the educational system was bending their childrens minds and filling them with gross lies and distortions.
The pinnacle of American education is the university. The US has no shortage of colleges and universities. Still, with few exceptions, all of them are left-wing bastions of American hatred, white person hatred, and a distorted understanding of history and Americas role in it. Universities consistently poll at over 90% donations to Democrats, and self-identification is overwhelmingly as liberal or progressive. In my very first Harvard lecture, a professor lamented the lack of age diversity at the universityall of the students were in their early twenties, as opposed to during the time of the GI Bill when there was an extensive range of ages and experiences associated with returning soldiers who went to college at Uncle Sams expense.
Todays colleges can boast students from all fifty states and dozens of foreign countries, but there is virtually no intellectual diversity based on polling. What does it help if people from Nebraska and Alaska, as well as Italy and Australia, all support a completely open border and reparations for blacks, which ostensibly would include billionaires Tiger Woods and Oprah Winfrey? The left is obsessed with color, and maybe last name and their concepts of diversity are literally skin-deep. Joe Biden made that clear when he said that his choice for Supreme Court would be a black woman. What happened to the best candidate? What happened to meritocracy? The left does not believe in it, only in victimhood and reverse bigotry, which is bigotry.
Townhall, kindly let me share a letter that I sent to the current president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay. President Gay is completely incompetent. Students at Harvard and other universities are actively promoting the genocide of the Jewish people in Israel. From the river to the sea can only mean killing all of the Jews and replacing them ostensibly with Palestinian Arabs. As seen from the violence at the University of Michigan on Saturday, the studentsemboldened by a lack of any punishmentare becoming more aggressive and violent. Their calls for Israels eradication or a ceasefire to benefit Hamas in their eyes, justify whatever means they apply against school administrations, police, and, of course, Jewish students.
The absurdity of gays and trans marching with the same Islamists who would throw them off of rooftops to mark parking spaces below is lost on what must be the dumbest generation in American history. They refuse to understand the history of the Israel-Palestinian fight, and theyve reached a point of denying that an attack occurred on 10/7, or yes, it occurred, but Israel instigated it, or there may have been an attack, but women were not raped, and no babies were beheaded, etc. Even when the videos come from Hamas, the clueless cultural warriors will always bend the facts against the Jews. My lawyer and others have pointed out that Me Too and other womens groups have said nothing about Israeli women being raped, murdered, or taken into captivity where they are suffering who knows what horrors. Oh, theyre just Jewswho cares?
Below is a letter I once again sent to the supposed president of Harvard, and again, she did not respond. Harvard, in allowing Muslim and left-wing students to run free to express their wish for the death of the Jews, is a fully antisemitic institution. The Harvard Crimson, independent of the university but no less leftwing in its writing, should change its name to Der Sturmer. I feel sorry for the Jewish students who started or returned in the Fall and were oblivious to the hatred just under the surface of the manicured campus.
There were no doubt missed signs. Articles in the Crimson blaming Israel for Palestinian terror; new groups making antisemitic statements on their websites. But then came a massacre of Jews, and the hatred exploded like a volcano, and Ms. Gay and her equally neutered colleagues for five weeks have refused to hold the Jew-haters accountable. This is ultimately their dreamthe intersectional teaching of three decades jumping from the page to the protest line: the oppressed Palestinian (terrorists) against the oppressing (murdered) Jews! If Harvard professors could, I would imagine that many of them would join the protesters, of whom they are no doubt quite proud for showing those Jews what they think of them.
Below is the letter. I would not send a dog to Harvard or any American university until they are completely taken apart and rebuilt. How long before Ten Thousand Men of Harvard is replaced with the Horst Wessel Song or Harvard Uber Alles? Maybe the Harvard Corporation should be taking measurements for black outfits with eagles and swastikas.
Claudine:
You were right. The title "President" is not appropriate for you.
I knew that you would not respond to my more recent notes. I am not some heavy donor who needs entertaining or some "thought leader" who needs to be kept on the Crimson side. Just one of tens of thousands of Harvard graduates, a little dot on the Harvard canvas.
I have been asked by several people if you would tolerate students wearing Ku Klux Klan regalia, holding signs showing a noose, and chanting, "From the Mississippi to the Sea, the East Coast must be black-free." Would you let such vile protests take place on Harvard property? If black students said that they were terrified for their lives and some even refused to leave their dorm rooms while others were cornered in the Yard, would you run to form a committee to look into bigotry and discrimination? If you can tell me with a straight face that you would let such a protest take place, I will be incredulous. If you tell me that you would shut down such bigoted displays that hurt so many with the full force of Harvard police and whatever other resources you needed, then I would beg to ask why the Jews do not merit such a courtesy from you? There are hundreds if not thousands of books and treatises on antisemitism in Widener library, if you can get past the braying crowds calling for Genocide 2 for the Jewish people. Your job is not just to keep Jewish students and donors close; your job is to do the right thing--that is what "Veritas" demands. I am afraid that if you do not punish those whose actions go far beyond any "free speech" standard, you will join the other post-Derek Bok mediocrities who never rose to greatness as presidents of what once was the finest university in the world. I have only met one person in my life who had never heard of Harvard, and fortunately she introduced me to my wife.
As is well documented, Jews marched with and supported blacks during the civil rights movement of the 1960's. Blacks have never supported Jews in great numbers in our times of need. There have always been exceptions, but for the most part large black organizations have never stood with the Jew when his future was in danger. I come from Chicago and remember Rev. Jackson's "Hymie Town" and of course Louis Farrakhan praising Hitler or Al Sharpton leading a pogrom against the Jews of Crown Heights. The original BLM charter called Israel an apartheid state, and I wrote to your predecessor about a Palestinian American rower who used his Harvard position to spread lies about Israel killing babies at a BLM rally in Washington. Some Israeli rabbis are telling Jews to leave America. I would suggest that Jewish students should leave Harvard as the administration wishes them well but will not act against those who have expressly called for their injury. I had thought of returning to interviewing students here on behalf of Harvard, but I would not wish to be culpable for sending a Jewish student to a place where a crazed fellow student in a keffiyeh can freely call for the death of my Israeli student and his family.
Leadership sometimes demands making unpopular decisions. Being forceful when hatred has taken over the campus is needed today. Cowardice is something best left for Yale.
Sincerely,
Dr. Alan Joseph Bauer
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The kids broken by lockdown: How Australia's gruelling stay-at-home orders during Covid have left an entire generation of schoolchildren 'too anxious' to go outside
The implications of Australia's harsh Covid lockdowns during the pandemic are now threatening 'end the lives' of students left too anxious and afraid to go to school.
Melbourne had the longest pandemic lockdowns in the world and the city has become the epicentre of a new condition known as 'school refusal'.
Year 10 student Sarah Turner, 16, is one of those deeply affected by the Covid lockdowns in Melbourne, missing 50 per cent of school in the past two years.
'It wasn't until the lockdowns where we were at home a lot that I started not wanting to go out and find, getting really anxious about going out,' she told 60 Minutes on Sunday.
Gabby, a 13-year-old boy who also lives in Melbourne, is another child affected by this and often he just can't face the idea of going to school.
Mental health social worker John Chellew's clinic treating children with a dread fear of going to school, and their families, has never been busier. 'I'm dealing with children who have pretty much shut down and gone on strike and who are locked in their bedrooms and there's massive conflict in the home,' he said.
The situation can sometimes lead to horrifying, desperate thoughts. 'Children have lost the will to live and are really threatening to end their lives,' Mr Chellew said.
It's not that the children have lost the desire to be educated, it's that the overwhelming anxiety they feel has led to them refusing to go to school.
Sarah used to love school. 'I was very outgoing and did a lot of things before the lockdowns,' she said. But things changed. 'It felt like it was kind of impossible to go to school. It wasn't like a choice kind of thing. It was like, I just felt like I physically couldn't go for this fear,' she said. 'I feel faint and sick and weak and I get heart racing and shaking and stuff like that.
'Some of my hardest days I'd just be having panic attacks all morning and I couldn't, like, move or I'd get, even if I'd get to school in the car, I couldn't get out or I'd get out and I just felt like frozen.'
There is no one type of child affected by the condition. 'It's an issue that affects kids aged five through to 17 school age from all walks of life and from neurodiverse and neurotypical backgrounds,' Mr Chellew said.
Gabby's parents, Christel and Gabor try to keep to their cool on days when he can't face school.
His dad explained what the worst scenario is for them. 'I'll drive him (to school) but he goes into like a really bad case of anxiety, I guess. 'He bangs his head against the seat and it's, yeah, it's not a good experience.'
Though Gabby tries his best to do his schoolwork from home, it has affected his grades.
Sarah understands what Gabby goes through - sometimes she just finds the idea of going to school unbearable. 'A lot of people just telling me to push through and just do it, or a lot of accusations that it's just because I don't wanna go,' she said.
'I would say that they don't know actually what it's like, and it's a lot more physical than you think. 'It's very isolating and it stops you from actually doing things you want and it's not like you don't want to do it.'
The number of students so ridden with anxiety they can't go to school has grown substantially in recent years.
By some estimates, one in three families with school aged children are affected by it.
Sarah's mum, Kirsty, is happy that school refusal is now being openly discussed and is no longer being treated as a made-up issue with straightforward treatment.
But it has changed the Turner family's life. 'It's been a full time job sort of over and above normal parenting,' she said.
'I haven't been able to go back to work. I was pretty much a 24/7 carer besides just being her normal mum and you know, became a bit of a mind coach for her as well at times.'
She said people who tell her to just drop Sarah at the school gate and drive away simply don't understand.
'I think we're talking about a whole generation of young people here that have fallen behind, and I think the impacts will stay with them unless we do something about this quickly,' she said.
Slowly, but surely, though, things are getting better for both Sarah and Gabby.
'I'm making a lot of progress,' Sarah said. She has been going to school more lately, which she said has made her 'very proud'.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12792247/Covid-lockdowns-schoolchildren-anxious.html
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26 November, 2023
Catholic womens college in Indiana to consider applicants that identify as women
Saint Marys College in Notre Dame, Indiana recently declared it will consider allowing biological males to attend the university if they have a history of identifying as women.
President Katie Conboy told the faculty in an email on Tuesday about the change in policy, according to the Notre Dame student paper, The Observer.
Saint Marys will consider undergraduate applicants whose sex assigned at birth is female or who consistently live and identify as women, Conboy emailed.
While the college is still reportedly determining the practices that will follow from the policy change, admissions will begin considering transgender applicants in fall 2024.
A campus newspaper reported that Conboy previously assembled a Presidents Task Force for Gender Identity and Expression that is tasked with coming up with recommendations for housing and possible education surrounding Catholic identity and womens college identity.
Conboys email reportedly quoted His Holiness Pope Francis to justify the policy.
Pope Francis advocates for love as the appropriate approach to those who are different from ourselves: Love, then, is more than just a series of benevolent actions. Those actions have their source in a union increasingly directed towards others, considering them of value, worthy, pleasing and beautiful apart from their physical or moral appearances. Our love for others, for who they are, moves us to seek the best for their lives, the email reportedly said.
Earlier this year, Pope Francis told journalist Elisabetta Piqu for the Argentine daily newspaper La Nacin, that Gender ideology, today, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations.
Why is it dangerous? Because it blurs differences and the value of men and women, he added.
He also noted that there is a major difference between caring for people who identify as transgender versus actually endorsing their values, noting the contrast between what pastoral care is for people who have a different sexual orientation and what gender ideology is.
The college received blowback for its decision from current students and some alumni.
St. Marys College is no longer Catholic, Saint Marys student Claire Bettag, a junior, told The Daily Signal. It is no longer a womens institution. This is fraudulent misrepresentation at best. Every student should be entitled to a refund for fraudulent misrepresentation. An attorney should file a class action lawsuit against the college. They have abandoned their faith, and theyve abandoned the women. No woman should be forced to share a bathroom or living quarters with a man.
Some alumni spoke out against the schools decision on social media.
This decision is blasphemous & a complete rejection of the Church and its teachings on gender and sexuality, Clare Anne Ath wrote.
I chose @saintmarys because of its mission to serve as a Catholic, womens college, education reform activist Shannon Pahls wrote. This decision is a complete abandonment of that. Extremely disappointed in my alma mater.
Im deeply disappointed as a @saintmarys alum in this decision. The school has betrayed its Catholic mission, The Federalist Society Vice President and Director of Lawyers Chapters Lisa Budzynski Ezell wrote. In a separate post, she said the policy shift is not a surprise and that I hope other alumnae will speak out and withhold donations.
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Lack of Discipline in Schools is the Problem
Students are not showing up in public school today, as attendance is no longer desired by parents. Many public schools have become places of indoctrination by the Left, or downright dangerous to attend.
No one can continue to blame this on Covid-19, when schools shut down. Absenteeism is severe long after the pandemic subsided, as in Nevada where more than a third of the students are chronically absent.
Only 42% of American adults are reportedly satisfied with schools, a 20-year low. Disillusionment with costly higher education is increasing and that may have a spillover effect on attitudes toward secondary education too.
This disappearance of students in classrooms is not merely a few teenagers skipping out for some fun, which is not new. Elementary students who need to be learning fundamental skills during that period of their life are not being taken to school.
Just five years ago only 7% of elementary public schools had chronic absenteeism by 30% of students. But in 2021-22, the percentage of the elementary public schools having chronic absenteeism shot up to 38%.
Last month the New York Times reported that the schools run by the Department of Defense for about 66,000 children of service members have been doing better than public schools in all 50 states, as measured by the widely followed National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exam. Most of these schools are on American military bases.
The Department of Defense Education Activity schools were first in our nation on the NAEP reading and math assessments in 2022. These schools were the only state or jurisdiction to show an increase in performance in any grade or subject that year.
The U.S. Army has a larger minority population than America as a whole: 46% compared with 40%. The outperformance by secondary schools on military bases compared with other public schools is due to better discipline.
A total of 45% of students in these Department of Defense secondary schools are in low-income families, which is higher than the national average of 38%. Moreover, one-third of the children in military families move each year due to transfers of their parents, which is a hardship.
The military knows how to discipline its members, without permitting bad behavior until expulsion becomes necessary. Corporal punishment, such as swatting a misbehaving student, was allowed nationwide by the U.S. Supreme Court for public schools in Ingraham v. Wright (1977), yet states outside the South ban it.
In public schools 77% of teachers are female today, in sharp contrast with how our military is run. The overwhelming percentage of those public school teachers are liberal and opposed to any physical punishment of any kind for bad conduct.
Studies show that physical penalties for misbehavior are not any more harmful than other forms of punishment, such as repeated yelling. Many of the same students who are violent toward other students and teachers also play in violent sports like football, which create a far greater risk of injury to them than any physical discipline would.
Bringing back sensible discipline to public schools is way overdue, and would be a better focus of the never-ending special sessions in Texas where Gov. Greg Abbott just called for a record-breaking fourth legislative session on education. Even if vouchers for private schools were to pass there, the vast majority of students would remain in declining, undisciplined public schools.
A third of teachers encounter threats by students annually, yet effective punishment is not allowed. Instead, liberals are permissive about misconduct until violence occurs, and even then sometimes fail to impose appropriate penalties.
While forbidding any meaningful discipline, public schools ultimately expel students but only after an egregious rampage. The single biggest reason for the increase in homeschooling is a fear by parents for the safety of their children in public schools.
Yet rather than restore order in schools, the failed approach of Vice President Kamala Harris while she was the district attorney for San Francisco was to prosecute parents for truancy, the outdated criminalizing of non-attendance at school. When she campaigned for California attorney general she promoted enacting a state law to punish parents when their children missed more than 10% of public school.
We are putting parents on notice. If you fail to take responsibility for your kids, we are going to make sure that you face the full force and consequences of the law, Harris threatened parents.
Harris, Biden, and the entire Democrat Party pander to teachers unions who should be blamed for turning schools into dens of crime, drugs, and liberal ideology. A study by the libertarian Cato Institute during Covid showed that delaying the reopening of schools was not based on valid concerns about the virus and safety, but on how powerful the regional teachers unions were.
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High School Reportedly Cancels USA Day Because Its Too Politicized
A high school in Massachusetts canceled USA Day from its spirit week activities to avoid politics, according to multiple reports.
Reportedly, the principal of Wellesley High School, Jamie Chisum, sent a letter to the school community explaining that the patriotic-themed day was canceled because the topic had become politicized (via Boston 25 News):
The high school Administration decided not to go forward with that spirit theme because it felt really different than the other themes kids came up with for the week. We felt that the topic has been politicized beyond our school and we wanted to avoid politics. Weve had Mismatch Monday, Tropical Tuesday, Western Wednesday, Team Jersey Thursday and today was Fitness Friday. Monday is Monochrome Monday and Tuesday is Pajama day. Spirit Week is intended to be a light and fun way for our students to get excited about our pep rally and Thanksgiving Day football game.
We acknowledge that the impact for some people has been just the opposite of our intention and that we have inadvertently politicized this activity. I am definitely sorry for any negative effect this has had on kids and families. "
Each day of the week consisted of a different theme leading up to the schools Thanksgiving football game, according to Boston 25 News. Some themes included Throwback Thursday and Wild West Wednesday. Instead of hosting USA Day on Friday, the school replaced it with Fitness Friday.
Olivia Spagnuolo, a member of the schools Student Unification Program, told Boston 25 News that the group was tasked with coming up with the themes.
The administration was not going to let this happen, Spagnuolo said of USA Day.
It wasnt a topic for discussion, she added. They said it was not allowed because it separated people at the school.
One parent who spoke to Boston 25 News said the decision to cancel USA Day was absurd.
I think its absurd, said one parent picking up their child. I think its sad and depressing were at this state that celebrating the United States is political.
This month, Townhall reported how an elementary school in Redmond, Washington replaced its annual assembly to commemorate Veterans Day with a Peace Assembly, to recognize International Day of Tolerance.
A parent who spoke to Seattle outlet KTTH said that in recent years, the school had moved strongly away from our traditions and American history. He added that we should be taking the time to show our children and our community that we have brave men and women who are willing to stand up and fight for our freedom and the peace that other places in the world can only dream of.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/madelineleesman/2023/11/20/high-school-cancels-usa-day-n2631439
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23 November, 2023
Faithful Catholic Colleges See Unprecedented Enrollment Numbers, Financial Support
As most collegiate institutions grapple with disappointing enrollment, a slew of faithful Catholic colleges are reporting surprising enrollment numbers and financial support.
Their success is heralded by the Newman Guide, a list of higher education options consulted by Catholic parents throughout the world, as evidence of the positive impact that authentic Catholic education has upon society. The Newman Guide recognizes colleges that are determined to provide a thoroughly faithful Catholic education (and removes colleges from the list when they fall short).
We keep hearing people refer to a Newman movement because these faithful Catholic colleges just keep growing and setting the example of how to attract families today, Patrick Reilly, president and founder of The Cardinal Newman Society, told The Daily Signal.
These colleges are traditional and counter-cultural at a time when most of American education is corrupted and on a path of self-destruction, he added. In addition, the Newman movement includes faithful Catholic educators who long for and search for the environment these Catholic colleges provide.
According to a release from the organization, Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina saw its largest incoming class ever (1,654 students) for the 2023-2024 school year, a 10% increase from last years enrollment numbers.
Meanwhile, in Kansas, Benedictine College boasted a record undergraduate class of 2,213 students, marking a 121% growth for the college over the past two decades.
The Catholic University of America, located in Washington, D.C., saw its highest number of applications and deposits in the last five years, the Newman Guide release said. The Franciscan University of Steubenville welcomed 772 new freshmen, its largest class since its founding, and the North Dakota-based University of Mary had its largest freshman class (559) in its history.
Wyoming Catholic College, which launched in 2007, has reported rapid growth over the past decade, while the California-based Thomas Aquinas College hit capacity at its California campus and the Virginia-based Christendom College reached its 550 total student body size cap, according to the Newman Guide.
A light shines brightest in the darkness, and increasing numbers of Catholic families are choosing the faithful Catholic colleges recommended in The Cardinal Newman Societys Newman Guide! the organization said in a release.
Most of these colleges are enjoying unprecedented enrollment numbers and financial support in the 2023-2024 academic year, and all are displaying the enormous impact that authentic Catholic education can have in the Church and in society, the organization added.
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The Antisemitism of the University Double Standard
A central feature of antisemitism is the application of a double standard by treating Jews differently from how other groups would be treated in similar circumstances. By this definition, antisemitism is a common practice at universities.
My recent experience at the University of Arkansas helps illustrate the problem. When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, I was the head of an academic department there.
We were told by senior administrators that this election result might be traumatizing to faculty, staff, and students who were not U.S. citizens, so we were instructed to reassure foreign nationals that the university cared about them.
To accomplish this, senior administrators provided us with funds to take these foreign nationals out for lunch to listen to their concerns. The irony that we were using the money of Arkansas taxpayers to buy lunch for people who might feel unsafe because of the democratic decision of those same taxpayers didnt occur to the universitys leaders.
If buying a group lunch to comfort them over an election result is how the University of Arkansas shows that it cares about foreigners, then its recent actions suggest that the university manifestly does not care about its Jewish faculty, staff, and students.
In the wake of the worst atrocity committed against Jews since the Holocaust during World War II, which was followed by mass protests on college campuses nationwide in support of that mass slaughter, rape, and kidnapping, the University of Arkansas didnt offer to take its Jewish affiliates out to lunch.
Instead, the university organized a panel to discuss the Israel-Hamas war that featured two professors from the schools King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies who are stridently anti-Israel. One professor praised the chanting of the genocidal slogan From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. The other says another Iran-backed terrorist organization, Hezbollah, shouldnt be considered as one because it provides social services.
Do you see the double standard? The university buys lunch for foreign nationals to address the imaginary trauma of a democratic election result, but Jews who are experiencing actual physical threats get treated to a university-organized hate rally.
The differential treatment of Jews isnt confined to the University of Arkansas. It is pervasive in higher education.
Following the May 2020 death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police, universities across the country cancelled classes and examssometimes particularly exempting black studentsfor fear that the event was too traumatizing to expect students to focus on their studies.
At UCLA, a professor actually was removed from teaching and placed on leave for failing to agree to a request that he postpone an exam for black students in his class.
By contrast, Jewish students currently are walking past protests, often involving faculty members, to attend classes and take exams in courses taught by those same professors who were just chanting for intifada, or the Palestinian uprising.
Some of the heavily armed Hamas terrorists piloted paragliders to invade Israel on Oct. 7.
After one flyer promoting a pro-Palestinian rally featured the image of a paraglider, the executive director of the Jewish student organization at Cal State Long Beach, Chaya Leah Surfin, colorfully put it this way: Look at what my Jewish students on campus have to deal with. Those paragliders were used to murder 300 Jewish young people. Only the Jews have to put up with this s.
When she asked university administrators for help protect Jewish students, they recommended counseling services.
The double standard in how universities treat Jews isnt characterized only by a refusal to protect Jewish students from real threats that might legitimately interfere with their studies. It also is marked by the excessive coddling of other groups who are imagined to be completely incapable of managing even remote sources of stress.
Universities expect too much of Jewish students to handle genocidal chants and physical assault and too little of foreign nationals to handle an election result and black students to handle police misconduct in a city across the country.
Of course, no group of students should have to experience distress. But when these incidents happen, universities should respond to them consistently. Subjecting Jewish students to harsher treatment and expressing little concern for their difficulties is precisely what antisemitism looks like.
Higher education has an antisemitism problem and its about time that colleges and universities address it by developing consistent policies and practices for all groups of students on campus.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/11/09/the-antisemitism-of-the-university-double-standard
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New brand of secularism a shortcut to bad ideas
JANET ALBRECHTSEN
The NSW Teachers Federation is sponsoring the first Secularism Australia Conference early next month, featuring inspirational pro-secular speakers who will share their vision for secularism in Australia.
Though December is a busy month, I am willing to put up my hand to offer my vision for secularism in Australia. I suspect it will be different from the vision of the scheduled speakers.
I can offer a reality check about how secularism a noble idea to forge tolerance that emerged in the aftermath of the religious wars has morphed into its own version of ideological zealotry that mirrors the worst parts of some religions.
The one issue that should be on the agenda is how to return to the best of secularism, rather than stay on the current path where some tenets of this modern secularism are even more doctrinaire than established religions.
I might raise another point with the audience, too. Why on earth is the NSW Teachers Federation a union with the stated purpose to protect and improve teachers working conditions and salaries, within the public education system throwing in its lot with a line-up of speakers whose politics are, lets just say, hardly centrist?
If a teachers union hosted a conference that featured Pauline Hanson as a speaker, there would be an uproar about the politicisation of the union. Its no different when you host speakers who include Fiona Patten, Jane Caro and Van Badham.
But the critical issue remains the blind spot many secularists have when it comes to defending modern secularism, in large part because they are the problem. These people would benefit greatly from a few words about how secularism has strayed far from its original purpose.
British social reformer and newspaper editor George Holyoake, who coined the phrase in the mid-19th century after rejecting Christianity and being imprisoned for blasphemy, believed reason and science, not faith and commandments, were a better guide to the physical, moral and intellectual development of man.
Similarly, modern secularism has lost touch with the ideas of French scholar Jean Bauberot, whose model of secularism revered freedom of thought, conscience and religion, opposing discrimination against people on the basis of their religious or non-religious views.
Modern secularism has become untethered from its historical moorings. The separation of church and state is proving harder to abide by when the new secular religion is infused in everything the state does.
Likewise, the fine idea that there should be no religious tests applied to people wanting to hold public office has been turned on its head.
These days you could be squeezed out of a job for holding religious views. It happened to former Essendon chief executive Andrew Thorburn. You could be booted out for not agreeing with trans orthodoxy, for challenging the idea that the science is settled about gender transitioning. That happened to former Age columnist Julie Szego.
As American writer Ross Douthat said a few years ago, If you dislike the religious right, wait till you meet the post-religious right. Modern secularists who loathe traditional religion have taken their quasi-religious model to new heights with a list of ever-expanding commandments.
Though the latest census shows almost 10 million Australians, or 39 per cent, have no religion up from 8 per cent in 1971 people still hanker for a moral code to live by.
As formal religious commitment falls away, the vacuum is being filled with a new quasi-religious rule book, largely political and secular but couched always in moral terms.
And its hard to escape this new religion. While you cant be forced to go to a church, a synagogue or a mosque, you will find a new class of proselytisers busy imposing their commandments in workplaces, schools, universities, sporting clubs and local councils, and most other institutions. There are new moral rules about diversity and inclusion (which normally mean excluding certain categories of people); about accepting climate science (where we are told the science is settled); about gender transitioning; on preferred pronouns; on the definition of a woman; on acceptable forms of humour; on welcomes to country; and so on.
There is nothing wrong with a secular-based moral code. The real question is how it is enforced, how doctrinaire it becomes and how dissenters are dealt with.
We are increasingly told a matter is settled, that certain things must be done and said. If you have a different view, you are not just wrong, you are immoral. In which case you risk being treated as a blasphemer. These secular clergymen and women will describe words and ideas they dont like as a form of violence to justify new forms of censorship. If you offend a commandment, you will be hounded for an apology, only to discover that the sanctimonious secularists among us dont believe in redemption.
In Victoria, you risk five or 10 years jail for saying a prayer for someone that falls foul of the Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act. JK Rowling is not alone in being lynched by online mobs for believing only biological women are women. Comedians are routinely censored for cracking a joke that offends some secular god of wokeness. This year, employees were forced to shut up if they opposed the Indigenous voice.
Public teachers unions are full of these secular activists. They rail against formal religious instruction in public schools while they fully support teachers proselytising their new secular religion in the classroom. It means the core purpose of the teachers union to advocate for teachers pay and conditions is often sidelined by political zealotry.
This overt politicking doesnt improve our public education system either.
When the union is overrun by leaders indulging in personal political and cultural agendas, why would we be surprised when teachers condone or even encourage students to go on protest marches instead of learning more English or maths? How can a dead white male such as Shakespeare possibly offer a kid anything when there is a direct line between teachers evangelising in the classroom and students bludging school to join a climate emergency march?
The vast gulf between the goals and values of teacher activists and mainstream Australia is on display almost every day. We saw it in the voice referendum when activist teachers urged students to adopt a position resoundingly rejected by Australia at large. At some schools teachers handed out Yes badges and only Yes speakers were invited to address students.
This is politics dressed up as morality, pure and simple.
Last week, in a statement about the Israel-Gaza war, the NSW Teachers Federation said the actions of the Israeli government cannot be justified in any way. Its bad enough that this terrible conflict is tearing Australia apart without teachers making it worse by inflaming immature school students who have taken to the streets screaming for a free Palestine without any understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Im guessing no one in the NSW Teachers Federation is inclined to point out that, as the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, Israel is the only state in this unhappy region that guarantees freedom of religion, abortion rights, same-sex marriage and a host of other rights that the teachers union rightly regards as fundamental. Or to point out that Hamas, a terrorist organisation that beheaded babies, raped young women, and murdered and kidnapped other civilians, didnt come from nowhere. Hamas defeated its rival political party, Fatah, in the 2006 elections.
So, lets not kid ourselves. A serious conference about secularism ought to explore the darker side to modern secularism where inconsistencies run rife and ideology is often more doctrinaire than any formal religion.
If the NSW Teachers Federation would like to make room for some intellectual diversity, I might be free to discuss these issues, along with the hypocrisy of modern secularists banging on about the evils of any form of religious instruction in public schools while using the public classroom as their own secular pulpit.
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22 November, 2023
Rewarding merit, hard work are keys to school success as NYC District 2 proved
New York City public schools sent top educators to Baltimore last week to learn how to implement a new literacy curriculum.
Yes, you read that right: Baltimore! Next well be sending cops to Chicago to brush up on homicide prevention.
The citys educators chose Baltimore a city where only 19% of students are proficient in literacy to learn about Wit & Wisdom, one of Chancellor David Banks new reading curriculums.
They mightve been better off simply visiting Manhattan School District 2, which covers the Upper East Side down to Battery Park City.
The heartbreaking educational failures in Baltimore, particularly the staggeringly low reading scores, mean generations of students have been deprived of the simple joy of reading books and of course, of meaningful employment in any job that requires literacy.
As a mom of four public-school students in District 2 schools, a member of numerous Parent Associations and School Leadership Teams and a former president and current member of the districts Community Education Council, I well know of its remarkable history and formidable academic strengths.
For decades, educators from around the country, and indeed the world, have been flocking to District 2 to learn from our teachers about our teaching methods.
The year before the COVID pandemic cruelly and unnecessarily closed schools and suspended state testing, District 2 achieved a 75% English Language Arts proficiency rate, the citys highest.
Student success has been longstanding and consistent.
District 2 teachers and staff were encouraged to aim for excellence and to reward hard work and merit in students, and it resulted in an impressive array of highly coveted schools with innovative programs and incomparable strengths.
The districts oft-discussed screened middle and high schools were the creation of Anthony Alvarado and were explicitly designed to staunch the 1980s attrition of public-school families departing the school system.
Chancellor Banks is facing the exact same crisis today, as over 120,000 families have fled the city public-school system and kindergarten enrollment numbers plummet.
School closures and mergers are now on the agenda, thanks to lower enrollment.
But instead of looking to the obvious and aiming to replicate the successful methods to attract and retain families, Banks team of crony advisers devised a $21 million ad campaign to boost enrollment.
When District 2 actively emphasized merit, hard work and academic achievement and freed schools to deliver their impressive results, families stayed and enrollment exploded.
The boom was so large it required several new elementary schools, and the district even built a new middle school with the largest student capacity.
Yet when these priorities came under attack from the anti-merit policies of former Mayor Bill de Blasio and his identitarian-obsessed Chancellor Richard Carranza, who replaced good practices with lottery-number admissions schemes and social-justice narratives that pitted people against each other based on skin color families fled.
Wit & Wisdom, the curriculum city educators were sent to learn about in Baltimore, is one of three reading curricula Banks offered district leaders.
Many educators were surprised District 2 selected it, as its not considered the strongest of the trio.
On the other hand, they and parents were thrilled to see the end of the disastrous era of Lucy Calkins Reading Writing Workshop, which rejected phonics and left so many families seeking literacy support outside school hours.
Banks focus on literacy and his willingness to get rid of an entrenched program failing so many students and families is commendable, but its insufficient.
He also needs to realize that one-size-fits-all planning that seeks to achieve equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity will cheat a lot kids and turn away many parents.
The chancellor should ensure that superintendents in high-achieving districts listen to both the departing parents as well as those whove stayed, when we say, end the lottery and restore and rebuild honors programs.
If given the opportunity, students in District 2, and districts all over this city, can and will dazzle us with their skills, willingness to work hard and achieve great results.
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Michigan Tech University professor Carl Blair is slammed for blasting conservative students as 'childish, stupid, homophobic, dumb, racist twits'
University bosses have ordered a liberal professor at Michigan Tech to calm down after he launched into a furious rant about his freedom-loving students commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Dr Carl Blair was triggered when the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) staged a 'Freedom Week' on the Houghton campus to mark the 34th anniversary of the Cold War's end.
Events entitled 'Celebrating Our Veterans' and 'The Victims of Socialism' prompted the archeology professor to lash out at students in class, seemingly unaware that one was recording him.
'It was childish, stupid, homophobic, dumb, racist twits,' he told them, 'that's the polite version.' 'It was wrong, it was tacky, stupid, uncollegial, really bad taste, and it shows what a bunch of ying yangs they are,' he continued.
'You know, it's too bad you all have to deal with things like that. Wasted half my morning dealing with things like that. It's annoying.'
To promote their event the group constructed a model of the graffiti-splattered Berlin Wall erected by Communist East Germany in 1961 to stop its citizens fleeing to the West.
Its fall in 1989 was widely celebrated around the world and marked for many the end of the Communist threat to Europe.
But that too sparked fury at the former mining school where one student tried to destroy the group's exhibit.
'We stand by free speech on all campuses across the United States,' the group said in a statement. 'We do so in the face of insults from a professor and others who think First Amendment protections only apply to their worldview.
'The student who vandalized our display has the right to free speech, but went too far, endangering people and damaging property.'
The university was the scene of a furious row two years ago when computer engineering professor Jeffrey Burl claimed he had been 'systematically discriminated against for 40 years for being a white man'.
He demanded an apology from the college after it passed a resolution criticizing 'anti-Blackness and systemic racism' in both the university and society.
'Simple statistical analysis will demonstrate that Michigan Tech's hiring practices are biased against white males,' he wrote.
'At Michigan Tech, I have seen no signs of discrimination against women and people of color.'
Dr Blair, who specializes in Roman and Anglo-Saxon England, describes himself on the university website as 'the most experienced experimental archaeology metal smelter in the world'.
But he has attracted mixed reviews on the student website ratemyprofessors.com with one describing him as 'Incredibly pretentious and rude', and another calling him 'straight up insufferable'.
'All he did was talk about how great socialism could be and was so confused as to why people fear communism,' claimed a third.
Blair claimed his targets in YAF were deliberately being provocative to trigger a clampdown by university authorities.
'There are, quite bluntly, certain faculty members who are hoping the students will be censored for this,' he said.
'Because then they can go off and say and pretend "Oh we're victims, you're restricting our, you know, freedom of speech, we should have, we have a constitutional right to be insulting, violent and threatening. How dare you restrict our speech?"
'That's not what college should be about,' he continued.
'You know, it should be a place where you could learn, experience, do interesting things, have interesting opportunities hint, hint, study away uh, rather than wasting your time and having to address idiots. 'They're idiots out there. Sorry, that's life.'
The university has refused to be drawn into the row, but it issued a barbed hint that Blair should mind his manners.
'As a flagship technological university with a strong research focus, Michigan Tech vigorously supports freedom of speech and academic freedom,' a spokesman told Fox News. 'With this, we expect an environment of respect and civility, even more so within our classrooms.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12758289/Michigan-Tech-Carl-blair-YAF-berlin-wall.html
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Universities caned over woke degrees for trainee teachers
Universities are indoctrinating trainee teachers in wokeness and political activism, with only 10 weeks of a four-year degree dedicated to teaching children literacy and numeracy, the first national audit of education degrees reveals.
The Institute of Public Affairs has analysed 3713 teaching subjects in education degrees offered by 37 Australian universities. One-third of all subjects relate to what the IPA describes as woke theories of identity politics, decolonisation and social justice.
Just one in 10 subjects relate to teaching children how to read, write and learn mathematics.
Bella dAbrera, the director of IPAs Foundations of Western Civilisation Program, said only 218 subjects covered the teaching of mathematics, 43 subjects involved phonics-based reading instruction, and 37 subjects covered grammar skills.
She blamed the woke training of teachers for the failure of one in three Australian students to meet basic standards of literacy and numeracy in this years NAPLAN (National Assessment Program, Literacy and Numeracy) test.
Instead of being taught how to master core academic curriculum such as reading, writing, mathematics, history and science, prospective teachers are being trained by university experts to be experts in critical social justice, identity politics, and sustainability, she said. We are setting Australian students up for failure by spending so little time teaching our teachers core literacy and numeracy skills, while university courses focus on woke issues and activism.
The system is clearly failing both trainee teachers, as well as the students they go on to teach, and it is in urgent need of reform.
The IPA audit found that university teaching degrees included 1169 subjects in critical social justice, compared to 371 subjects that instructed how to teach literacy and numeracy skills.
The University of Canberra offers a unit in Indigenous education that criticises the way anthropocentrism promotes economic prosperity.
It is well evidenced that social and ecological wellness in Australia has been in accelerating decline since contact where colonial processes and Western perspectives have elevated rational, analytical ways of knowing and robust anthropocentrism, most recently to prioritise individualism, economic prosperity and global competitiveness, the unit description states.
Monash University offers a study unit on rethinking Indigenous education that introduces trainee teachers to radical thinking and alternative models of education Student will engage with Indigenous and black scholarship that envisions the abolition and replacement of existing models and practices of settler colonial education, it states.
Monash Universitys bachelor of education instructs trainee teachers to theorise social justice The unit aims to develop in you a strong grasp of the concept of cognitive justice, and the associated notions of epistemic and epistemological justice, it states.
Student teachers at Monash also learn to teach mathematics through a social justice lens.
At Victoria University, students who want to learn how to teach children of different backgrounds are required to use a critical pedagogy framework to challenge dominant discourses that perpetuate notions of privilege, power and oppression.
Federal, state and territory education ministers have ordered universities to change their education degrees by mandating that new teachers are trained to teach children English and mathematics, and to manage classroom behaviour but universities will not be required to teach the core content until the end of 2025.
Dr dAbrera said Australian teaching degrees had replaced core skills and knowledge with woke ideology and political activism. As a result, teacher training is woke and notoriously lacking in evidence-based preparation for the realities of the classroom.
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21 November, 2023
CLEAN SWEEP: Every Leader Involved in Botched Response to Loudoun Girls Room Rape Is Now Gone
A reckoning has come for Virginias Loudoun County, where the school board had a father arrested after he demanded answers regarding the rape of his daughter in a girls restroom.
The school board, the superintendent, and even the local prosecutor, whom the parents blamed for letting the assailant escape the sex offender list, have all been ousted or declined to run for reelection, according to preliminary election results.
Commonwealths Attorney Buta Biberaj, a Democratic prosecutor bankrolled by the George Soros-funded Justice and Public Safety PAC, lost her reelection campaign last week. Biberaj conceded to Republican Bob Anderson on Wednesday.
Biberajs defeat comes after the county elected an entirely new school board. As The Daily Signal previously reported, only two of the incumbent school board members ran for reelection, and both lost their races.
The prosecutor and school board ousters come after the school board itself previously fired Superintendent Scott Ziegler after a grand jury compiled a report into the sexual assaults and alleged school board cover-up.
The story traces back to May 28, 2021, when a 15-year-old male student forced a girl to commit sex acts at Stone Bridge High School. The same student went on to sexually assault another girl in the girls restroom at Broad Run High School on Oct. 6. The Loudoun County Juvenile Court had found the perpetrator not innocent of charges of forcible sodomy and forcible fellatio. The student also pleaded no contest to charges of abduction and sexual battery on Oct. 6.
Then-Superintendent Ziegler said in a June 22, 2021, school board meeting that the predator transgender student or person simply does not exist. After that statement, Scott Smith, the May 28 victims father, spoke out and was arrested and eventually convicted on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. (Virginias Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, would go on to issue a complete pardon to Smith after he won election campaigning on parental rights.)
The assailant avoided the sex offender registry and Smith blamed Biberaj for allowing it to happen.
We were always concerned that Ms. Biberaj would not vigorously protect our daughter and seek justice for her and the other victims throughout the court proceeding, Smith said in January 2022. And, it now appears that our fears have been proven true by her utter failure to follow even the most basic statutory procedures required to ensure that our daughters predator would be placed on the Virginia Sex Offender Registry list.
In December 2022, a special grand jury released a separate report on Loudoun County Public Schools handling of the 15-year-old gender-fluid students multiple alleged sexual assaults.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican, requested the grand jury in April. Loudoun County residents on the grand jury panel heard from over 40 witnesses and examined over 100 pieces of evidence.
The grand jurys report states that Loudoun County Public Schools failed at every juncture and that the school system as an organization tends to avoid managing difficult situations by not addressing them fully.
The panel also suggested unsuccessfully that the report be released to the public, to provide as much information as possible.
Ian Prior, a Loudoun County father and parental rights advocate, celebrated the apparent ouster of Biberaj, Ziegler, and the entire 2021 school board on Tuesday. He also noted that Ziegler had been convicted of retaliation in a special education teachers firing, and that Smith and his wife filed a $30 million Title IX lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools.
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Iowa Governor Explains How Hawkeye State Won School Choice Revolution
I truly believe that school choice will make the most consequential change for our education system in decades, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds says.
The Heritage Foundation feted the state of Iowa in Des Moines on Thursday for the states dramatic rise on Heritages Education Freedom Report Card after a flurry of reforms.
In January, Reynolds, a Republican, signed the Students First Act into law, creating education savings accounts for K-12 students in the state. By June, some 29,025 students had applied for the program.
Not only that, she signed into law a parental rights bill that prohibits instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in K-6 public schools and prohibits school libraries from having sexually explicit materials on bookshelves.
For making these groundbreaking reforms, the Hawkeye State won The Heritage Foundations 2023 Education Freedom Award, wrote Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts and Lindsey Burke, director of Heritages Center for Education Policy, in a column for the Washington Examiner. Due to the new laws pertaining to transparency, teacher freedom, and school choice, Iowa jumped an impressive 13 spots on Heritages Education Freedom Report Card relative to the states 2022 standingthe largest improvement of any state in the country.
Reynolds spoke at the Heritage Report Card Honors Event and explained how her state rose so quickly in the rankings.
Im extremely proud of the work that weve done in recent years to ensure that every student in our state has an equal opportunity to succeed in school and life, she said.
Reynolds explained that the success of education reform in the state was the product of many different groups, including conservative legislators and school choice advocates, particularly parents.
Because of that collective effort, nearly 19,000 students in Iowa were approved this fall, she said.
Reynolds noted that when she was raising her own children, she wasnt worried that what they would be taught in school would run counter to her beliefs. If there were concerns, she said, the schools were responsive in addressing the problem.
Its truly concerning to see how far weve drifted off course in just the last few years, the Iowa governor said.
She explained that children across the country have been dealing with massive learning deficiencies due to widespread COVID-19 lockdowns in other states. During this time of mass online learning, Reynolds said, many parents learned that what was happening in classrooms was actually counterproductive.
The reality is that COVID simply pulled back the curtain on issues that had fueled, I think, behind the scenes for years by some of the teachers unions, by higher education, and progressive activists, she said.
The American public school system failed children when it should have provided the stability and calm during the storm in a time of crisis, Reynolds said, and that led to swift changes.
She provided an overview of the significant changes made in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. After an initial school choice bill failed, Reynolds said, she and the state Legislature continued to push hard for transformational change:
We successfully enacted a lot of other things, like laws to expand open enrollment, laws to remove restrictions on voluntary transfers from high-poverty school districtsreally, to encourage charter school startups, so we started to move in that direction.
We expanded the tax credit benefits to up to 75% of every dollar that was donated to the school tuition organizations to help more families afford private tuition, to make that choice of where they wanted to send their child. We [also] banned critical race theory.
With those changes, Reynolds said, Iowas education crusade for freedom was under way.
Iowa jumped up from No. 22 on the 2022 Heritage Education Report Card to No. 9. Reynolds said shes happy with the improvement, but wants to keep improving the states school system so it can catch up to that of Florida, which was ranked No. 1.
We have [Florida] in our sights. You know, weve gained 13 spots. Were going to be in the top five, if not higher next year, right? No. 1, were coming after you, she said.
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The root cause of the insanity on college campuses is older than you may think
Americans are finally catching on that the oppressor-oppressed narrative being taught in our schools and universities is not a conspiracy theory disseminated by conservatives. Its real. Jewish students having to barricade themselves in a college to escape a mob in Manhattan, of all places, has opened peoples eyes to the threat woke ideology represents to civilization.
Too bad it took a grotesque massacre and mass rapes in the Holy Land to do it. But now that we have peoples attention, lets connect the dots.
The oppressor-oppressed worldview that paints democratic Israel as the "oppressor" and Palestinian terrorists as the "oppressed," so prevalent on college campuses, is pure Marxism.
In the first page of "The Communist Manifesto" of 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels explain that "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." They add:
"Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."
Capitalism and democracy are based on competition, but competition requires compromise and that gives each side something.
In the economic sphere, buyer and seller haggle over a price (or in most cases, millions of buyers and sellers known abstractly as "the market" do) to come up with a "market-clearing price" that allows buyer and seller to walk away with some measure of satisfaction.
In a democracy, one party or side seldom gets all it wants. And if the system is correctly structured, as the founders strived to do with the American system of government, there are checks and balances. The legislature, the executive, and the judiciary check each others powers (and the legislature itself is divided into two chambers).
Not so in Marxs "oppressor and oppressed" view. There you end up with a "revolutionary reconstitution," which Marx himself promised would be ruthless. "This cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads," he averred in the manifesto.
A few months later, Marx wrote, more ominously, "There is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror."
Blood will run its a feature, not a bug, of Marxism.
College students fighting against antisemitism on campusVideo
What we are seeing right now is no longer economic Marxism, but cultural Marxism. In 1888, Engels added a footnote to the Manifestos first page which explained the two classes that were contending.
"By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour. By proletariat, the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live."
The problem was that, as Marxists from the end of World War I in 1918 to the 1960s were able to document, the actual proletariat had very little interest in "revolutionary reconstitution of society at large." In the 1920s in Europe, and in the 1960s here in America, they wanted better working conditions, and maybe a week or two at the beach every year.
But they didnt want to "abolish" the family, the nation state, property or God, as Marx had called for. In fact, they wanted to become richer and move up a class. It turned out that Marx had never spent much time with actual workers, and didnt understand them. He was the original limousine Marxist.
In the 1960s, the Marxist theorist Herbert Marcuse derided the workers for being such bad revolutionaries. "They find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen equipment," wrote the despairing Marcuse.
But then Marcuse witnessed the riots of the 1960s, and wrote that in his words the revolution would come from the "ghetto population." The vanguard of the revolution, he added, would therefore have to come from "the substratum of the outcasts and outsiders, the exploited and the persecuted of other races and other colors."
Since then, the revolutionary locus has been placed not in economic classes, but in cultural identities.
Marx had written in 1859 that revolutions would inevitably come when "the material forces of production in society come into conflict with the existing relations of production." But Antonio Gramsci, one of Marcuses cultural Marxist precursors, added in 1930s that "popular beliefs and similar ideas are themselves material forces."
NY college refuses to condemn antisemitism Video
Eric Mann, the former Weatherman terrorist who recruited BLM founder Patrisse Cullors at the age of 17 to train her into Marxism, later added: "Given the social formation of the U.S. as a settler state based on virulent white supremacy, the racialization of all aspects of political life operates as a material force in itself."
Thats how we get from economic Marxism to the mess we have today on U.S. campuses. "Pedagogy of the Oppressed," for example, the Marxist tract penned by Paulo Freire, has "achieved near-iconic status in America's teacher-training programs," according to Sol Stern.
Many of us have been explaining for years, in books, papers, op-eds, media interviews, and speeches, that what we are seeing is "cultural Marxism." That, too, has been dismissed. Google "cultural Marxism" and the very first entry is a Wikipedia page that informs the reader that "The term Cultural Marxism refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory."
Theyll have a harder time hiding the truth now.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/root-cause-insanity-college-campuses-older-think ?
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20 November, 2023
Oregon Training Teachers to Dismantle Racial Systemic Inequities in Math Classes
The Oregon Department of Education is instructing teachers on the keys to dismantling systemic inequities in the math classroom. High school math teachers should support equitable discourse and foster positive mathematical identities, according to a series of teacher training slideshows from the Department of Education reviewed by The Daily Signal.
The Department of Educations Math Project released three Ambitious Math Teaching Modules in August with 19 sessions on equitable math practices. Ambitious teaching attends to student thinking in an equitable and responsive manner, the slides say.
Understanding the systemic inequities of schooling, how to disrupt them, and the nature of and strategies to enact ambitious math instruction are central to being successful with this reform, the overview of the math teaching modules reads. The modules offer a focus on equitable teaching practices and how to ensure success for all students, especially students of color, emergent bilingual students, and students from families of low income, all of whom have been historically underserved by schooling.
The Oregon Math Project recommends that teachers reduce rules which that imply that certain skills and knowledge are valued more than others and instead prioritize the rights of the learner.
What if instead we organized classrooms around ways to value one anothers ideas and learning? a slide asks.
Traditional math education harms students sense of identity by gatekeeping math from students of lower ability levels, according to the modules.
Society views mathematics as a valued and high-status subject, a slide says. Schools perpetuate this through the gatekeeping structures which control students access to mathematics.
The Department of Education told The Daily Signal the modules were developed through a grant with Oregon State University, which worked with the Teacher Development Group, a Portland-based math education nonprofit. The education department piloted the modules during the 2022-2023 school year.
The departments Math Project defines equity as the inability to predict mathematics achievement and participation based solely on student characteristics such as race, class, ethnicity, sex, beliefs, and proficiency in the dominant language.
Meanwhile, only 30% of Oregon students scored proficient in math in tests administered by the state education department in 2023. Proficiency means the student is on track for college or workforce readiness after graduation.
Obviously, in light of the already failing math scores, Oregon bureaucrats are more concerned with the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion mantra than providing students with solid academic instruction, Oregon mother and Executive Director of Parents Rights in Education Suzanne Gallagher told The Daily Signal.
The Oregon Department of Education is instructing teachers on the keys to dismantling systemic inequities in the math classroom. Pictured: A screenshot of Oregons teacher training slideshow discussing revealing and addressing bias in the classroom.
The Math Project has four guiding principlesfocus, engagement, pathways, and belongingall focused on engineering a more equitable math system.
The belonging principle presents math as a means to help students develop positive math identities.
Participation in mathematical learning builds students identities as capable math learners and fosters a positive self-concept, reads a slide about the principles. Students cultural and linguistic assets are valued in ways that contribute to a sense of belonging to a community of learners.
The slides say social-emotional learning in math classes should focus on mindset, perseverance, risk-taking, relationships, and attitude.
While claiming to equip children with the ability to manage emotions, feel empathy for others, and maintain positive relationships, social-emotional learning integrates controversial critical race theory throughout the education system.
Math classes should shoot for an equity goal as well as a pedagogical one, according to the education department. Math teachers must surface the importance of changing the way we teach to reach diverse students by giving access.
Oregon has a history of lowering its education standards. On Oct. 19, the Oregon Board of Education voted unanimously to remove requirements for students to be proficient in reading and writing in order to graduate.
According to the Oregon modules, math teachers should encourage students to consider the equity/justice implications of how people and things have been grouped, categorized, or measured when teaching lessons on data and statistics. An example of such a math problem asks students to determine whether the income gap between white and Black people is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same.
According to the Math Project, teachers should evaluate how their expectations of their students math performance is shaped by biases and perspectives on learning.
One module covers teaching practices that sustain so-called ambitious math teaching, including selecting and sequencing students ideas to advance mathematical and equity-oriented goals.
Discussion questions on the slides encourage teachers to consider how their potential bias might inadvertently reinforce inequities.
Addressing biases in instructional practices is a team sport; we need one another to help identify biases, hold one another accountable, and transform the teaching and learning of mathematics to a place focused on building from students strengths, a quote from a University of Florida professor on one of the slides reads.
Parents rights activist Gallagher said that though the beauty of math is that each problem only has one correct answer, Oregon public schools swindle taxpayers by inserting opinion into math.
Oregon families have been shortchanged, Gallagher said. Their kids will not be able to hold a job without basic math and reading skills. Parents should demand local school boards raise the standards, even if the ODE [Oregon Department of Education] wont.
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Chaplains BDSM Workshop Faces Blowback at Christian College
There are a lot of queer clergy
From Memphis comes word that Rhodes College alumni were whipped into a frenzy over a BDSM lecture that was set to be hosted by the school's chaplain.
Rhodes is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church USA and many alumni are wondering just what sort of kinky stuff is going on in the pews at their highfalutin college?
Beatrix Weil, the chaplain at Memphis-based school, had posted a message inviting students to attend a seminar titled, "BDSM 101." And, no, that's not an acronym for "Best Darned Spiritual Mentor."
"Chaplain Beatrix will host a local dominatrix to share wisdom on how to safely, sanely, and consensually learn about bondage, discipline/domination, sadism/submission, and masochism," the announcement read.
And now many parents and donors are wondering what in the name of John Calvin is going on at Rhodes College? The answer to that question can be found in my book, "Culture Jihad: How to Stop the Left From Killing a Nation."
There's no question that Rhodes has taken a hard left turn in recent years and has earned a reputation as being the Berkley of the Mid-South. Maybe even just a smidge to the left of Berkley.
But even nominal Presbyterians draw the line at whips and leather chaps. "We canceled the proposed event Friday as soon as it came to our attention," a college spokesperson told me. "It was not a college-sanctioned event."
I'm not quite sure that's going to smooth things over with the donors, parents and alumni.
"There is no justifiable excuse for a chaplain hosting / teaching BDSM," one irate parent said. "What adults do in their bedrooms is their own business. They dont need a religious leader giving them a safe space. If I were a Rhodes alum, Id be contacting the president, expressing my disgust, withholding donations, and asking for Chaplain Beatrix to step down."
I spoke to one alum who graduated in the 1980s and she said the school has gone under a radical transformation.
"I had to start throwing the alumni magazine away," she said. "What in the world is going on there? It's not the same school I attended. A chaplain teaching bondage and domination does not compute."
There are already rumblings that some high-profile donors may withhold donations, a move that has taken hold at a number of Ivy League schools in the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Israel.
Many public and private universities shed their moral compass years ago, so the only way to appeal to their good nature is by threatening to empty their bank accounts.
As for the chaplain, it's really no surprise that she's a Presbyterian perv. Her social media pages are a treasure trove of liberal lunacy, as one observer noted.
There's a photo of Chaplain Beatrix reading "Heather has two Mommies" during a "Banned Books" event. She was also spotted wearing a "black girls lives matter" t-shirt (which could be construed as either cultural appropriation or white savior complex -- unless of course she identifies as a chaplain of color.)
And then there was the LGBTQIA+ affirmation party hosted by Chaplain Beatrix and other religious leaders who "support and affirm people of all gender identities and all sexual orientations." "Glitter provided," the announcement noted.
Theres no doubt Rhodes College is Presbyterian in name only, but by golly they sure did nail the doctrine of total depravity.
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College History Textbooks Spread Misinformation about the Great Depression
The Great Depression was the most significant macroeconomic event of the past century, but dont expect to find an accurate portrayal of its causes in your college history classroom. The most commonly assigned college-level US history textbooks contain obsolete and economically erroneous explanations of the 1929 stock market crash and its aftermath.
In a new study I co-authored with Jeremy Horpedahl and Marcus Witcher, we examined nine widely used US history textbooks and evaluated their accounts of the Great Depression. We then compared those narratives to assessments of the same event by economists and economic historians. The results show that historians are largely unaware of the leading economic explanations for the Depression.
Most economists attribute the crash to a decade-long quagmire to a series of bad economic policy decisions in the 1920s and 30s. As former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke conceded, the Fed is now widely recognized as having botched its response to the unfolding events of 1929-1933. Through a string of erroneous policy decisions and inaction, the Fed created the conditions for a monetary contraction and directly exacerbated a collapse of the banking system. Other policy blunders, such as the steeply protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930, added fuel to the fire by triggering a global collapse in international trade. And in 1932, President Herbert Hoover signed a massive hike in federal income tax rates in a misguided attempt to close the budget deficit. Contractionary fiscal policy during a Depression is seldom a good idea.
Other consensus economic explanations of the Depression do borrow elements of Keynesian theory, suggesting that the 1929 crash and aftermath illustrated a contraction in aggregate demand. This proposition has been heavily contested since Keynes first advanced it in the 1930s, but it remains a part of mainstream economic theory. To illustrate the range of economic explanations for the Great Depression, we summarized ten of the most commonly used college-level economics textbooks below.
Turning to the nine most-common US history textbooks, we found a very different story. Monetary explanations of the Great Depression were seldom mentioned at all. Only two of the nine texts mentioned the role of Federal Reserve policies. The protectionist policies of Smoot-Hawley were largely omitted. US history textbooks even neglected doctrinaire Keynesian explanations rooted in an aggregate demand contraction.
Instead, all nine history textbooks attributed the Great Depression to a class of explanations known as underconsumption theory. Briefly summarized, underconsumption holds that economic production outpaced what most consumers could purchase given their low pay, triggering a contractionary event in the form of the Depression. This argument attained popularity in the early 1930s, and was used to justify many of the economic planning and regulatory programs of Franklin Delano Roosevelts New Deal. Economists today overwhelmingly reject underconsumption theory. Even Keynes expressed skepticism of the notion, and attempted to prod the Roosevelt administration over to an aggregate-demand-based theory of the unfolding events. For the past 80 years, few if any economists have seriously entertained underconsumption as a viable explanation of the Great Depression.
As our study shows, US history textbook authors remain badly out-of-touch with the economic literature about the Depression. They also augment their obsolete underconsumption explanation with other political appeals.
Eight out of nine US history textbooks attributed the Great Depression to rising income inequality. Only one economics textbook made a similar argument, the explicitly heterodox CORE open access e-book. Tellingly, none of the history textbooks offered a coherent causal mechanism by which inequality supposedly caused or triggered the Great Depression. They simply asserted it to be the case.
The table below shows the range of causes listed in the nine US history textbooks. Note that it contains barely any overlap with the depiction of the same events by economists.
So what are we to make of this odd situation? The comparison of the two charts shows that US history instruction, including at the college level, is badly out of sync with the scholarly literature on the Great Depression. History textbooks show little cognizance of the leading economic explanations for this famous event, and display almost no awareness of how this literature has developed over the past 80 years.
The resulting treatment of the Great Depression in US history textbooks does little to educate students about the actual causes of the Great Depression. It does, however, privilege obsolete political arguments from the early 1930s that were used to justify the New Deal.
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https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14730&omhide=true&trk=rm
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19 November, 2023
"Diversity, equity, and inclusion", what a joke! It is one thing the Left do NOT believe in
Tony Kinnett
As mobs extolling diversity, equity, and inclusion violently attack Jewish and white students at K-12 schools and on college campuses across the nation, I regretfully write: Told you so.
In 2021, when I was still the science coordinator for Indianapolis Public Schools, then the largest public school in Indiana, I had seen the eerie effects of race-based education on the students sitting under it.
I watched with horror as black students were told they always would be inferior because of systemic racism and white supremacy; white students were told they were responsible for the evils that plagued all minorities; and Hispanic and Asian students either were ignored or pandered to, depending on the day.
None of these racial accusations was founded on reproducible or quantifiable evidence, but the rage of Marxist philosophers like Herbert Marcuse and Paulo Freire, who claimed that a social or ethnic groups oppression was because of the success of others. Such arguments ignore the history of the United States, a rising tide that lifts all boats via individual freedoms and the adventurously Abrahamic American dream.
No, historical data didnt matter to teachers who were more concerned with social justice and equity than meeting the needs of students suffering from the consequences of fatherlessness and social media addiction. Instead, many liberal teachers hastened to the messianic cries of teacher unions that pushed critical race theory in the form of patently false historical narratives like The New York Times 1619 Project, in which Nicole Hannah-Jones simply made up entire portions of a narrative in order to paint the United States as a deeply racist place.
When I watched history and English teachers in dozens of classrooms tell students that those who didnt take up the banner of decolonization were fascists, bigots, and Nazis, I made a prediction.
On Oct. 5, 2021, I sent these tweets:
Students are watching as many teachers paint political opponents as white supremacists and domestic terrorists. This teaches them that those who disagree are a serious moral evil, and that they are in danger. This will lead to mob violence, and it will be horrific.
If students believe that someone in their class who disagrees with them is a racist, terrorist, Naziand see the student continuing to live unchallengedthe only solution will be violent & intimidating force against the individualfor the sake of the group.
I cited a then-recent incident in which two white, male students were swarmed by angry, liberal students for sitting in a multicultural space at Arizona State University.
My call was echoed by hundreds in the education reform space who were witnessing similar, equally disturbing scenes playing out before their eyesbut to little avail. The beast of racial rage continued to grow as this poison festered under the Biden administration, which praised its new hires and appointees for their skin color and sexual preferences rather than for their qualifications and achievements.
Racial attacks increased in frequency and brutality as parents began rushing to pull their children from schools.
In March 2022, students at a Florida middle school faced battery and hate crime charges after police said they attacked white students using racial taunts and slurs.
This past February, elementary students at an Ohio public school forced white students to say black lives matter and beat those who didnt.
The leaked manifesto from the transgender shooter who killed three adults and three children at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, was filled with a bloodlust to kill privileged white kids.
This kind of filth isnt relegated only to white students. It affects other students from ethnic groups that Black Lives Matter chapters have described as colonizers as well.
Four 11-year-olds were harassed and received death threats at Manhattan Beach Middle School in California because they are Jews.
BLM and LGBTQ+ groups consistently echo ethnic-cleansing statements and voice support for Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization that raped and murdered about 1,200 Israeli citizens Oct. 7.
On Oct. 12, an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside a Columbia University library.
On Nov. 6, a student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst was arrested for allegedly hitting a Jewish student and spitting on an Israeli flag during a vigil for the more than 240 Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
On Nov. 10, two Jewish college students in Ohio were assaulted and a Jewish center near Ohio State Universitys Hillel Wexner Jewish Student Center was vandalized.
These acts of violence have increased to the point that theyre costing students their lives.
Students at Rancho High School in Las Vegas posted a video of a fight on Nov. 1 in which student Jonathan Lewis was stamped and kicked to death by a group of 15 black students.
Less than a week later, Jonathan died in a hospital. His father says he was beaten to death for confronting the assailants, who had stolen something from a smaller boy before promptly throwing the smaller boy in a trash can.
Conservative activist, commentator, and podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey responded: Disturbing how common this seems to be.
Stuckey is correct.
Leading liberals, including those inside the Biden administration, appear to have little desire to condemn racism as a whole; they put effort only into cataloging and heaping scorn on crimes committed against Muslims or black individuals.
After the young woman who identified as a man slaughtered children in Nashville, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre warned against transphobia. After the surge in antisemitic assaults, Jean-Pierre warned against Islamophobia.
The White House hasnt published initiatives against racial discrimination, equally condemning racism of any sort, but has chosen to decry only white supremacy. The White House hasnt published a condemnation of antisemitism amid the greatest wave of violence against Jews since the Holocaust, but it did launch a full initiative against Islamophobia.
The Left has been carefully selective in the types of racism it endorses and decriesand our children have picked up on the message. These lessons theyve taken to heart have already resulted in the assault and death of innocent students in just a few short years.
Children listen and learn when Teen Vogue writer Najma Sharif posts What did yall think decolonization meant? vibes? papers? essays? losers, in response to Hamas Oct. 7 attacks. Children listen and learn when BLM chapters praise Hamas slaughter of Jews as an equal struggle with that of black Americans.
I told you they would.
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Leftist Illinois lawmakers just axed states sole school choice program
Since the pandemic exposed the corruption and decline of public schools throughout the country, school choice programs have become more popular than ever, especially among lower-income families who typically cannot afford to send their children to non-public schools. This has led to states passing an avalanche of school choice bills, with some even offering universal school choice via education savings accounts.
While the sudden rise in school choice programs is welcome news for many Americans, there has also been a backlash in several blue states, where lawmakers and teacher unions are scrambling to prevent school choice from gaining a foothold.
Take Illinois for example, where state lawmakers recently axed the Prairie States lone school choice program: the Invest in Kids Act.
In 2017, the Illinois Legislature passed the Invest in Kids Act, which allowed private donors to provide money to six state-approved private school scholarship funds in exchange for a tax credit. Since its inception, the program has granted 40,940 private school scholarships. This year alone, the program has awarded scholarships to 9,656 students.
Most of the students who have received scholarships from the Invest in Kids Act reside in Chicago. More than half are black or Hispanic. And, all students receiving scholarships live in households that have incomes below 300 percent of the federal poverty level. In other words, the Invest in Kids Act was specifically designed to lend a helping hand to families living in poverty-stricken neighborhoods, where local public schools are failing to keep students safe and academic achievement is lagging.
According to a recent poll, 63% of Illinois voters support the Invest in Kids Act, including 67% of Independents and 60% of Democrats. Nearly seven in 10 Black and Hispanic voters also support the program, which will end at the close of 2023.
As expected, most of the pushback to extending the Invest in Kids Act beyond 2023 came from teacher unions. For instance, Illinois Education Association (IEA) President Al Llorens celebrated the decision to sunset the program, saying, It is a new day in Illinois. We are incredibly grateful to our lawmakers for choosing to end the voucher scheme known as Invest in Kids. This program sent millions of taxpayer dollars to private schools and was created under the guise of helping students of color, but we now know the funds went primarily to white students.
Likewise, the Chicago Teachers Union applauded the decision to end the program, calling it a significant milestone in the fight for anti-racist, gender affirming, pro-immigrant, equitable and fully funded public schools.
In blue states like Illinois, teacher unions wield vast power and they are unafraid to exercise that influence, especially when it comes to dismantling competition from non-public schools.
Unfortunately, the teacher unions war on school choice produces collateral damage that has a disproportionately negative impact on low-income families who remain stuck in poor-performing and unsafe public schools.
The teachers unions incorrectly claim that voucher programs like the Invest in Kids Act diverts money from public schools, which they constantly claim are woefully underfunded. However, this is simply not true. Illinois public schools spend, on average, nearly $18,000 per pupil whereas the private school scholarships granted under the Invest in Kids Act averaged $5,900 per student. Since the Invest in Kids Act was passed in 2017, Illinois has increased public school funding by more than $2 billion. Moreover, Illinois spent $39.1 billion on public education last year, of which 99.8 percent was allocated to public schools and 0.2 percent was left for school choice.
And, if non-public schools are such a threat to the very existence of public schools, why do 39% of Chicago Public School teachers send their own children to private schools? Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who voiced opposition to the Invest in Kids Act after initially supporting its extension while campaigning, along with many of his Democrat colleagues in the Illinois Legislature, also send their children to private schools. Whats good for the goose is good for the gander.
In Illinois, about 85% of students attend public schools, but only 38% of families think K-12 public education is headed in the right direction. Based on the results 2023 Illinois School Report Card, which shows Illinois public schools are failing miserably to properly educate the next generation of Illinoisans, this is hardly surprising.
The solution to a deteriorating public education system, which has operated as a near-monopoly for decades in Illinois, is more, not less, competition. All Illinois families, regardless of their household income, deserve the chance to send their children to the school that best fits their unique needs and circumstances, whether that be public, private, or charter.
https://www.thecentersquare.com/illinois/article_852362ac-8492-11ee-9036-77752cf7d7df.html
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Aussies major private school claim sparks fierce debate
Note the last paragraph below. It is the major reason I sent my son to a private school
A young business owner has caused a stir after claiming there is a huge difference between private school and public school educated Aussies.
Zane Marshall, founder of marketing agency Lux Social, recently took to TikTok to claim that a whopping 70 per cent of CEOs in Australia all attended private schools.
He claimed that, despite what people say, private school students have a big advantage when it comes to finding success after school.
While Mr Marshall noted the level of education also plays a huge part, he believes the networking opportunities provided to privately schooled students are what really sets them apart and gives them the biggest advantage those who go through the public system.
When I compare my friends that went to private schools, they all went off into really high paying job or got these amazing opportunities early on through their network from the private school, he said.
Whether it was sporting team, whether it was a friend of a friend that they went to school with, someones uncle, someones dad they all got really great opportunities through the network in the school.
But Mr Marshall believes the most important advantage of private education is the high level of confidence and self-worth instilled in them by their teachers. I didnt get that at public school, he claimed.
The young Aussies claims sparked a major debate among viewers, with the video racking up over 1500 comments.
There were many who completely disagreed with Mr Marshalls assessment, with some pointing out a lot of the families who send their kids to private school already have the connections he spoke about, along with the money to support their career aspirations.
Yeah its not the education.. its the fact that most people going to private school are ahead economically already and easy to climb the ladder, one commenter said.
Unfair advantage. Taxpayers shouldnt pay a cent to private education, another wrote.
One commenter claimed her brother went to private school and, while he is financially successful, he is suffering trauma from his school years.
I went to a public school absolutely killing it with zero connections, another said.
One person also claimed: I think its only fair that you mention the highest university drop our rate are those from private school.
However, there were still plenty of people who agreed with Mr Marshall, with many former private school kids chiming in on the debate. All my corporate jobs have come about from my private school connections so I agree, one wrote.
Spot on! I went to a private school and I walked into jobs because of the school I attended, another said.
One person believed private education was worth the money because it drills into students the importance of being well dressed and having high public standards.
Private schools hold kids to a much higher standard than public schools. Kids will naturally aim higher after school with more confidence, another said.
Others went was far as to claim that private schools dont tolerate the same behaviours as public schools, therefore students actually get the chance to learn.
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16 November, 2023
Arab Muslim Foreigners and Illegals Stoke Campus Anti-Semitism. What are they doing in our country?
Dov Fischer
When a bunch of animals at Massachusetts Institute of Technology barred entrance to Lobby 7, the main access to the university, illegally trespassing, MITs gutless president initially announced she would suspend the criminal trespassers. Then, presumably after consulting with whatever DEI and Black Lives Matter consultants she needs to please, she melted faster than the Wicked Witch of the West during Hurricane Hillary. No suspension.
Why the change? Uh, visa concerns.
I have been writing this for years because, as an Orthodox rabbi, I have a built-in anti-Semitism Geiger counter. The outbreak of overt Jew hatred on American campuses directly results from our vast importing of Arab and other Muslim foreign and illegal students. Just look at Europe. We have known since 9/11 that they dont belong here, and their visas would be canceled if suspended from school.
We bring in Muslim Arab students from Saudi Arabia, they attend our air pilot classes, and then we wonder why we lost 2,753 at the World Trade Center and 224 at the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. In 20212022, we took in 18,206 from Saudi Arabia; 11,779 from Nepal; 10,597 from Bangladesh; 9,295 from Iran (!); 8,772 from Pakistan; and 5,923 from Kuwait. Thats over 60,000 just from those. Foreign students are golden geese for universities because they pay full freight, no affirmative action or other scholarships.
We have heard about the 30-plus Harvard student groups who signed their support for ISIS-Hamas. Not everyone at that campus supports Islamist terror. First, there are the Chinese kids who miraculously manage to get in despite the racist Harvard Chinese Exclusion Acts, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 600 U.S. 181 (2023). They almost all are serious-minded, nose-to-the-grindstone, hard-working STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) students who will outshine their peers after grad school. Also the Koreans, the Japanese, and the Vietnamese students. Obviously, the Zionists (synonymous with all Jews, except the standard Trotsky wing who cling to us Jews like parasitic barnacles). Most Harvard students are focused on getting great grades and making a great life.
So who are the 30-plus hate groups? Think of the 60,000 who do not belong here, denominated two paragraphs above, as you scan the list:
African American Resistance Organization
Bengali Association of Students at Harvard College
Harvard Act on a Dream
Harvard Arab Medical and Dental Student Association
Harvard Chan Muslim Student Association
Harvard Chan Students for Health Equity and Justice in Palestine
Harvard College Pakistan Student Association
Harvard Divinity School Muslim Association
Harvard Middle Eastern and North African Law Student Association
Harvard Graduate School of Education Islamic Society
Harvard Graduate Students for Palestine
Harvard Islamic Society
Harvard Law School Justice for Palestine
Harvard Divinity School Students for Justice in Palestine
Harvard Jews for Liberation
Harvard Kennedy School Bangladesh Caucus
Harvard Kennedy School Muslim Caucus
Harvard Kennedy School Muslim Womens Caucus
Harvard Kennedy School Palestine Caucus
Harvard Muslim Law School Association
Harvard Pakistan Forum
Harvard Prison Divest Coalition
Harvard South Asian Law Students Association
Harvard South Asians for Forward-Thinking Advocacy and Research
Harvard TPS [Temporary Protected Status] Coalition
Harvard Undergraduate Arab Womens Collective
Harvard Undergraduate Ghungroo
Harvard Undergraduate Muslim Womens Medical Alliance
Harvard Undergraduate Nepali Students Association
Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee
Middle East and North African Graduate School of Design Student Society
Neighbor Program Cambridge
Sikhs and Companions of Harvard Undergraduates Society of Arab Students
Three questions:
What are they doing in our country?
Who decides to let them in?
How do we get them out?
Count the number of pro-Hamas groups above with the name Muslim or Arab in it. Then Nepali, Chan, Bangladesh, Bengali, and Pakistani. Many of them are duplicates, overlapping paper lions. Its like the Biden familys interlocking corporations. Several of those groups will all share mostly the same people. Its not 33 groups, really. And how many of them are here illegally? There you go, Occams razor: all explained.
Suddenly, its not what it seemed. Its not 31 groups of ROTC students and business majors. Not to mention the feared Harvard Undergraduate Ghungroo. What is that? A game like Parcheesi or Jenga? Heck with them.
And then the African American Resistance Organization. Oh, how scary and intimidating! Wait till they try to get jobs with that on their rsum, and the job interviewer is a White privileged Christian woman named Karen or a member of my synagogue. African Americans who got DEId into Harvard, proclaiming themselves The Resistance? What a joke!
So whos left? Yeah, they all are, but who remains? Now that we have that handful of Saudis, Kuwaitis, and other hate-America Muslim and Arab students composing those 613 interlocking Muslim and Arab Palestine student groups, plus the TPS Dreamers (i.e., illegal immigrants), who else? The two South Asian groups? Guess whats in South Asia? Yep: the same Pakistan, Nepal, Bengali/Bangladesh, and Sikh crowd. Been there, done that earlier. Thus, all the 30-plus groups basically are from a handful of hate-America Arab and Muslim countries, plus temporary protected status students who do not belong here in the first place, plus one Ghungroo (whatever a new non-binary gender?), plus the de rigueur group of sicko Jews for Liberation who basically attack Israel to aggravate their hated parents because Mom and Dad gave them at age 13 a $100,000 bar mitzvah party with half-naked strippers, then a $250,000 Ivy education, but never spent time listening to them when they were growing up so now they finally have their attention.
This drek permeates student bodies because universities no longer focus primarily on expanding students minds through encouraging inquiry and engaging in the dialectic. None of that thesis, antithesis, synthesis stuff. Not even teaching the logic of the Woody Allen syllogism conveyed by Boris Grushenko in Love and Death:
Socrates is a man.
All men are mortal.
[Therefore] All men are Socrates.
Instead, todays universities are cash cows. Harvard, for example, has an endowment of $51 billion. Last year, it took in $5.8 billion. Of that, $2.6 billion was from private donations. The average tenured professor at such places makes $150,000$200,000 a year. Harvards average $193,400 for full-time tenureds is comparable to Stanfords average $206,300, and both are below MITs average $240,000. UC Berkeleys average is $176,100 and University of Michigans $165,200. Most of these people do not earn but sure do make a lot of bucks. It is a racket in many, if not most, cases because the professors enjoy an arcane benefit: tenure they cannot be fired, no matter how incompetent, as long as they do not physically endanger or engage in moral turpitude.
Under tenure, they can teach or not teach whatever they like. They can read Dr. Seuss rhymes or Harry Potter to their math or political science classes, presumably to convey voices of oppression. They create one-sided, loaded syllabi with reading lists chock-full of Marxist theory and anti-American, anti-White critical studies. The universities, secured by (i) their tax-exempt endowments, (ii) inflated salaries for those of their tenured professors who do not earn it, and (iii) tenure itself, devolve into dens of iniquity and sloth: moral and intellectual sloth.
https://spectator.org/arab-muslim-foreigners-and-illegals-stoke-campus-anti-semitism/
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Campus antisemitism shows its time to track the foreign cash flowing into US universities
It should be common sense that no one gives away $11 billion without expecting something in return. Why, then, are so few questions asked about the rivers of money flowing into American universities from foreign donors?
It has become painfully obvious what they are buying: the hearts and minds of young Americans.
The spectacle playing out on campuses today has shocked Americans of all political persuasions: antisemitic threats projected onto buildings, Jews huddled in the library to escape a mob, university administrators eager to contextualize terrorism.
This is not your garden-variety wokeism, like squabbling over pronouns or safe spaces. This is something else.
But where is it coming from? The answer can be found, as always, by following the money.
Since 1986, US universities have received at least $11 billion from Arab states, not to mention billions more from China, and they have largely hidden this funding from the public.
There is much to criticize about the university leaders who lap these funds up, but most of us had little faith in them to begin with.
More surprising is the lack of scrutiny from the US government, which is bound by law to review and assess these sources of foreign influence.
The Higher Education Act of 1965, for one, mandates that schools report twice each year any foreign gifts and contracts of $250,000 or more, yet universities mostly ignore the obligation, and the Department of Education fails to enforce it.
A new Network Contagion Research Institute report finds that at least 200 American colleges and universities illegally withheld information on approximately $13 billion in undisclosed contributions from foreign regimes, many of which are antisemitic or authoritarian.
In 2020, the Trump administration forced the DoE to investigate these funds.
The final report noted countries hostile to the United States are targeting their investments to project soft power, steal sensitive and proprietary research, and spread propaganda.
It concluded, There is very real reason for concern that foreign money buys influence or control over teaching and research.
Indeed, the latest research shows universities that accept money from Middle Eastern donors have, on average, 300% more antisemitic incidents than those that do not.
Whatever concern the government had about this under Donald Trump seems to have vanished under President Biden.
Yet understanding and mitigating this influence is the governments responsibility by law and not just at the DoE.
The Department of Justice is also legally bound to promote transparency with respect to foreign influence on American public opinion, policy, and laws under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
That law requires those acting as agents of foreign entities to register publicly so the American public can properly scrutinize their words and actions.
Its time to apply FARA to the American universities under the influence of foreign cash.
FARA dates back to 1938, when the government sought to counter Nazi propaganda.
Imagine if that propaganda had wormed its way into the minds of Americas youth, who formed the bulk of our fighting force.
It would have crippled our war effort.
Under FARA, the government required proliferators of that propaganda to register as foreign agents.
Today, universities accepting foreign funds should register too and not just in relation to anti-Israel influence.
China is also infiltrating our top schools with the purpose of stealing technology and cutting-edge research and limiting what American students learn about the Chinese Communist Party.
The dangers are not hard to imagine. Republicans and Democrats agree that China is the greatest military threat to the United States this century.
Unlike the Chinese and the antisemites, American universities are not known for playing the long game. Theyll take the money today without asking what it means for tomorrow.
Now we are staring the consequences in the face, and they are ugly indeed.
Washington must not trust the universities to hold themselves accountable.
It should require them to report foreign funding sources and register under FARA if they are unduly influenced.
Americans have a right to know which countries are buying the next generations support and which universities are selling it.
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Australia: Glib advertising no substitute for classroom reform
Be that teacher is a new $10 million advertising blitz by federal, state, and territory governments that aims to elevate the status of the teaching profession, to celebrate its impact, and to inspire more individuals to consider teaching as a fulfilling career path.
The campaigns objectives, to reshape the public perception of teachers and to encourage aspiring educators, may well be necessary, but it will do nothing to address the reasons behind our drastic teacher shortage or stem the exodus of teachers from the profession.
To encourage new recruits, the campaign offers up the testimony of eight dedicated teachers. Their stories regarding the connections forged with students, emphasise the transformative power of a great teacher and the enduring satisfaction teachers can derive from their vocation. Its genuinely positive and convincing stuff.
However, the campaign runs the risk of doing more harm than good. By not seeking to address the systemic problems within the education system, Be that teacher obscures the challenges faced daily by teachers in the classroom.
Lack of teacher-heart is not the problem in the Australian education system. The problem that demands urgent attention is what awaits a teacher in the classroom, namely, a steady decline in academic standards and a workforce in crisis. It is a crisis generated by a lack of relevant training, unsustainable workloads and unnecessary paperwork keeping teachers from their actual job. On top of this, parents with often unrealistic expectations, and unruly sometimes violent students exacerbate the problem.
Any campaign to attract teachers that fails to address these issues will do little to solve the teaching crisis.
Australian classrooms are one of the most problematic in the OECD. The 2018 OECD Programme for International Student Assessment results (PISA) showed while most countries registered an improvement in classroom behaviour, Australias had deteriorated. Australian classrooms ranked among the unruliest in the world, at 70th out of the 77 countries surveyed.
It is unsurprising that students feel empowered to antagonise and disrupt when our National Curriculum is an ideologically driven document explicitly urging students, from their earliest years, to dissent and participate in acts of civil disobedience. The idea that self-restraint and discipline are outdated vestiges of a bygone era has hardly helped.
Moreover, when a student misbehaves, the subsequent administrative demands on the teacher are daunting. The investigation and detailed documentation of the incident itself is followed by a teacher-led roundtable discussion with those involved employing restorative practices and further meetings with other staff and parents. Every one of these conversations must be documented. Hours of time, taken away from actual teaching or lesson preparation, are required every time there is an incident of almost any kind.
Many parents, too, have become increasingly and unrealistically demanding. It is not uncommon for parents to reject the schools view of a matter and for a teacher to endure complaint, hostility and even abuse. And, of course, all the meetings arising from a complaint must be documented. Unsurprisingly, the school environment can quickly deteriorate, marked by a general lack of trust and respect.
The abandonment of the principle of in loco parentis has led too many parents to the belief that it is their right to intervene on their childs behalf whenever they want. This sense of parental entitlement has created a situation where 59 per cent of teachers report they spend five hours or more, every week, just dealing with parents.
Teachers are on the receiving end of a staggering and increasing rate of abuse. A study by La Trobe Universitys Paulina Billett, Rochelle Fogelgarn and Edgar Burns, found that 80 per cent of surveyed teachers had experienced bullying and harassment in the preceding 9-12 month period, and more than half reported this behaviour coming from both students and parents. No other workplace would tolerate such an incidence of bullying.
Many teachers struggle to manage disruptive behaviours and maintain a conducive learning environment. The lack of adequate support and training in behaviour management perpetuates the problem, undermining the learning experience for both students and teachers. Initial teacher training, notably Woke and notoriously lacking in evidenced-based preparation for the realities of the classroom, leaves new teachers floundering and vulnerable, which in turn contributes to burnout.
The workforce shortage has also led to high numbers of teachers taking subjects they have no training in, known as teaching out of field, which is another contributing factor to the decline of educational quality and student outcomes.
The public perception of teaching being a 9am-3.30pm job with long holidays, if it was ever true, has never been further from the truth. The profession is under extreme strain, with teachers routinely describing their workload as excessive, unrealistic, and unsustainable. A recent Monash University survey suggests almost half of the teaching workforce is considering leaving the profession.
While the Be that teacher campaign celebrates exceptional educators, the $10 million spent will in no way address the real problems underlying the teacher shortage, and will only overshadow the pressing need for sweeping system reform.
For the teaching profession to be genuinely elevated and, crucially, for workplace conditions to improve, comprehensive reform is urgently required
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/11/glib-advertising-will-not-enable-that-teacher/
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15 November, 2023
Iowa Leads Way on Education Freedom
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, families bear the twin burdens of inflation and indoctrination.
Parents continue to witness their children being taught divisive, radical ideologies that portray their country as intrinsically racist, place social justice above fundamental subjects such as reading and math, and even divide children by race. All this while academic proficiency drops off a cliff.
The soaring costs of living make alternatives such as private school or homeschooling increasingly unattainable for middle- and working-class families. But now, after a decade of battling the failing public education system, parents finally have a reason to hope.
Just two years ago, not a single state had universal school choice. Today, nine do.
To understand how groundbreaking this education renaissance is, just look at the state of Iowa.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, began 2023 by signing into law the Students First Act. This measure allows all Iowa families to receive funds in an education savings account, or ESA, to attend the school of their choice.
By the 2025-26 school year, every single child in Iowa will have access to an ESA to craft a learning option that works for them. Its not just a discountthis year, the ESA amount is approximately $7,500 per child, which covers the entirety of private tuition for most elementary school students in the state.
Any leftover funds may be used to pay for other education-related services and products, such as tutors and textbooks. This marks a much-needed reprieve for parents who have watched their children struggle within an outdated system that lacks accountability and flexibility.
Iowas law is the nations third universal education choice program, following closely behind West Virginia and Arizonas ESA expansions in 2022. Six other states have since adopted similarand, in some cases, more expansivepolicies this year: Utah, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina.
But Reynolds didnt stop at school choice, either. She also signed into law a commonsense parental rights bill, SF 496, which prohibits instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools in grades K-6 and forbids school libraries from stocking sexually explicit materials. The law also requires libraries to post their card catalogs online for the sake of transparency.
Critically, the Iowa law incorporated components of the Given Name Act, prohibiting schools from hiding information from parents about a child going by a different name or pronoun at school.
In a separate measure, the governor signed into law a bill that provides flexibility to traditional public schools, removing some regulations pertaining to teacher and librarian hiring and burdensome reporting requirements to the state.
For making these groundbreaking reforms, the Hawkeye State won The Heritage Foundations 2023 Education Freedom Award. Due to the new laws pertaining to transparency, teacher freedom, and school choice, Iowa jumped an impressive 13 spots on Heritages Education Freedom Report Card relative to the states 2022 standingthe largest improvement of any state in the country. (The Daily Signal is Heritages news and commentary outlet.)
Florida retained its first-place position, and Arizona stood strong in second place, thanks in large part to the options for universal education savings accounts in both states.
Rounding out Heritages top five states for education freedom were Utah, Arkansas, and Indiana, all of which contain universal or near-universal school choice for families.
On the flip side, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Oregon rounded out the worst-performing five states in Heritages ranking.
More states, including Texas, are recognizing the pivotal role played by school choice in maximizing academic transparency and accountability. Reynolds is among those leaders who recognize that these reforms go hand-in-glove.
Transparency and parental involvement in a childs education are vital, but without meaningful choices, they lack teeth. The ultimate accountability lies in the power of families to direct their childs education if their current, government-assigned school fails to meet their needs.
Parents should be in the drivers seat of their childrens education. Yet right now, too many families are confined to a system that doesnt align with their values or the specific needs of their children.
Iowa is among those states that are breaking away from the monopoly enjoyed by the education establishment. And Iowas road map is now available for more states to follow.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/11/13/iowa-leads-way-on-education-freedom
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MIT Has a Pro-Hamas, Anti-Semitic Problem
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has a student body that is one-third foreign nationals. They flock to MIT for the reputedly excellent math and engineering programs. However, an inexcusable clash started by pro-Palestinian (read: pro-Hamas and anti-Semitic) protesters, who physically prevented Jewish students from getting to class, turned more volatile with the arrival of counterprotesters. The administration feared that violence would erupt, and so it gave all the students a choice: Leave now or get suspended.
Many student did comply. Those who did not participated in "talks" with the admin and staff. After threats of suspension were made and the students didn't obey, one would think that punishment would be carried out immediately.
Not so.
MIT President Sally Kornbluth later wrote an explanation: "Members of my team have been in dialogue with students all day. Because we later heard serious concerns about collateral consequences for the students, such as visa issues, we have decided, as an interim action, that the students who remained after the deadline will be suspended from non-academic campus activities. The students will remain enrolled at MIT and will be able to attend academic classes and labs."
In other words, because these students would lose their visa and be deported, MIT lessened the punishment and allowed them to continue to go to classes with the Jewish students against whom they hold such animus.
This is what has been allowed to continue in MIT classrooms because these "protesters" weren't punished. It's been a week since the initial volatile protest, and they are using their privilege of still being allowed to attend classes to interrupt students trying to learn and teachers trying to teach. There are no real consequences because MIT is afraid the malcontents will be deported. The exasperated expressions on the students' faces in the linked video says it all.
It prompts the question: Just how many of these anti-Semitic protesters are foreign nationals? If one were to judge by Kornbluth's decision, the answer must be many or most.
If that's the case, then MIT really is failing its student population in extraordinary ways. Foreign nationals are not American citizens; they have to abide by the same rules as all the other students. If they cannot abide by those rules, they should not attend school in the U.S. MIT has let these dangerous and threatening students reign as the cry-bullies they are, and the tiny Jewish population (and those other students who are just there to learn) are subject to the tyranny and whims of these anti-Semites and the apathy of their administration. It is shameful.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/102122-mit-has-a-pro-hamas-anti-semitic-problem-2023-11-14
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Moms for Liberty Co-Founder Has a Message for Teachers Union Boss Mocking Parental Rights
Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice laid out her strategy for the David and Goliath struggle to win school board elections in the face of the teachers unions stranglehold, following another historic election cycle in which the 3-year-old organization racked up 50 wins, but fell short in many other races.
We got 50 people elected to school board [seats last] Tuesday, which is really exciting, Justice told The Daily Signal Podcast in an interview Thursday.
While some news outlets focused on the many races in which Moms for Liberty-endorsed candidates lost, Justice emphasized the wins, putting them in context.
Moms for Liberty didnt exist three years ago, she noted. For us to have now been able to elect in 2022 and 2023 365 school board members who are liberty-minded individuals standing up for parental rights, putting the focus back on the basics in American public education, stopping this woke indoctrination that weve been seeingits very exciting.
Justice pushed back against criticism from American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, who mocked Moms for Libertys supposed failures.
My answer back is those are 50 seats that we wouldnt have won if we didnt exist, and that Randi should hold my beer, because were just getting started, she said.
The Moms for Liberty co-founder noted that 83% of the school board candidates her organization endorsed had not previously run for office.
She also mentioned the money. The teachers unions spend a lot of money in school board races, she said. Since 2023 was an off-year election, the races were about local politics, local elections, and teachers unions have really run the game on these elections for a very, very long time.
It is a bit of a David-and-Goliath moment in American politics, but were really excited because were getting the word out, Justice said.
She laid out her takeaways from the election, a game plan to win even more seats going forward.
The takeaways are: Lets teach people how to run campaigns, how to run for office, how to help their friends run for office, but also, financially, we need to be able to support these races, the Moms for Liberty co-founder said. She mentioned her organizations political action committee and super PAC.
In Florida in 2022, when we were able to put just a little bit of money into the races, I think we spent about $50,000 through a political committee in Florida in 2022, she said. Our success rate was 80%. So, its really a learning moment for us in 2023, and were excited for 2023.
Justice emphasized the resilience of her local Moms for Liberty leaders. She recalled one chapter leader in whose county every Moms for Liberty-endorsed candidate lost, but who decided she wasnt going to give up.
Thats the message of Moms for Liberty: Were just getting started, she said. Of course, wed like to win all the races, but 50 seats on a school board in a single day is nothing to turn your nose up at.
She emphasized the importance of keeping a joyful warrior spirit because our kids are watching us.
Am I going to be angry and frustrated and give up, or am I going to model perseverance and be relentless in the pursuit of defending America and our children? she asked.
Justice also addressed Moms for Libertys key parental rights issues, noting that the COVID-19 pandemic gave parents the ability to see behind the education curtain. Parents raised concerns about falling education standards, top-down pandemic requirements, and what she called indoctrination.
They came to the school districts and the school boards. They were shut down, she recalled. The idea that people within the community couldnt go and have their voices heard in front of elected officials was infuriating.
Justice raised the alarm about Marxist critical theorywhich analyzes society along oppressor-oppressed linesbeing laced into every element in our childrens day. She also lamented that reading standards have fallen drastically.
There is no future for America with an illiterate society, she said.
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14 November, 2023
New York considers ditching Regents exams as HS graduation requirement
A cheaters' charter
New York State education bosses are considering ditching the Regents exam as a graduation requirement for high school students, leading to some education advocates accusing them of dumbing down standards.
The New York State Education Department on Monday presented the Board of Regents with the recommendations on graduation measures which included giving students the option of taking the Regents exam to graduate.
Mona Davids of the NYC Parents Union said moving away from the Regents exam requirements to earn a diploma signifies an insulting lack of faith in the abilities of students of color.
This is a continuation of the soft bigotry of low expectations from our black and Hispanic students, said Davids, who was part of a 2014 lawsuit challenging New Yorks tenure laws that shield ineffective teachers from losing their jobs.
They dont think our kids are smart enough to pass the Regents exams. Theyre lowering the bar. It is racist to look down on our kids.
Its dodging accountability for educating our students. They dont think our students are educable.
A state education policy veteran, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The Post that New York was heading in the wrong direction, away from accountability for whether poor and mostly minority students are learning.
How are we going to monitor success? How are parents going to know if students are learning if we move away from exams? This is going in the exact opposite direction, said the source.
If implemented, the move would mark a significant shift in state education policy, which has required high schoolers to take and pass the Regents exams before earning their diplomas for more than a century.
We must remove barriers and facilitate equitable access to education by addressing the individual needs of students, increasing opportunities for work-based learning or college readiness programs, and providing students with practical skills and experiences that enhance their employability and post-secondary education opportunities.
Under the commissions proposed roadmap, students would still have the option of taking the Regents exam to graduate, but they could also be allowed to demonstrate their proficiency in different ways, such as various forms of performance-based assessments, like essay writing or developing portfolios of their work.
These assessments would be developed in partnership with teachers and ultimately approved by the state before implementation.
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Globalists Panic As Homeschooling Explodes Across US
Globalist spokesmen in media and government are voicing concern over a huge boom in homeschooling across the USA that has the trend becoming more mainstream
An analysis from the Washington Post last week found that the number of homeschooled children in the US has jumped from 1.5 million in 2019 to as many as 2.7 million this year some estimates say 3.7 million suggesting that many children did not return to schools when they reopened during the pandemic.
The analysis which looked at 60 percent of the school-aged population in 7,000 school districts across 32 states and Washington, D.C. found that homeschooling defies political, geographical and economic borders.
For example, while Republican Florida has the largest homeschool population with 154,000 homeschooled children, Democratic New York is showing the fastest growth with nearly 52,000 children homeschooled, more than double since 2017.
New York City boroughs Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx saw the highest growth rates with the homeschool population in some districts surging over 300 percent in the last six years.
The trend is also gaining popularity even in areas with high academic achievement. Last year over 60,000 children were homeschooled in districts which ranked in the countrys top fifth for scholastic aptitude.
Floridas Hillsborough County has become the nations homeschool capital with 10,680 homeschoolers in the district.
Today, Hillsborough home-schoolers inhabit a scholastic and extracurricular ecosystem that is in many ways indistinguishable from that of a public or private school, reports the Washington Post. Home-schooled kids play competitive sports. They put on full-scale productions of Mary Poppins and Les Miserables. They have high school graduation ceremonies, as well as a prom and homecoming dance.
But Hillsborough officials are displeased with the trend.
Its a tremendous imbalance, said Hillsborough County School Board member Lynn Gray, who says she worries about homeschoolers academic preparation and lack of exposure to diverse points of view.
I can tell you right now: Many of these parents dont have any understanding of education, she said. The price will be very big to us, and to society. But that wont show up for a few years.
But studies show that homeschoolers outperform their state-educated counterparts in nearly all areas. Standardized tests reveal that homeschoolers on average score over 30 percentage points higher than public schoolers in core studies such as reading, language and math.
SAT test results show that homeschooled children score higher than state-educated children by as many as 70 points in critical reading and 48 points in writing. They are also more likely to achieve higher GPAs.
Minority children who attend homeschool also show higher results than their counterparts. Black homeschooled students, for example, have been shown to outscore Black public schooled students by 2342 percentage points.
According to government figures, 41 percent of homeschoolers are Black, Asian, Hispanic, and others (i.e. not White/non-Hispanic).
Most homeschoolers also report being excited about life and satisfied with their work, joined by a minority of public schoolers.
As school districts lose students to the homeschool method, governments and teachers unions are looking for ways to show more impressive numbers and boost enrollment.
The Oregon State Board of Education, for example, has dropped essential skills and standardized testing requirements, which it said was necessary to fight racism. This decision was ardently backed by the Oregon Education Association, the states 40,000-strong teachers union, which stands to lose members if graduation and enrollment rates falter.
Following the decision, Oregon public high schools boasted an 81.3 percent graduation rate last year despite only 43 percent of students being proficient in English and less than 31 percent being proficient in math.
The picture is bleaker in Baltimore where standardized test scores for 2021 revealed that 85 percent of students are not proficient in math and four out of ten public high school students earn lower than a 1.0 GPA.
At one public high school, students were found to read at an elementary school or kindergarten level.
But higher academic achievement among homeschoolers including minority children has not stopped media operatives from painting homeschool as a racist initiative.
It may seem harmless, but the insidious racism of the American religious rights obsession with homeschooling speaks volumes, writes @AntheaButler, MSNBC tweeted.
Last month comedian John Oliver dedicated a segment on Last Week Tonight to slamming homeschools. Without data to show that homeschooled children are disadvantaged, Oliver argued that homeschools should be regulated by the state to ensure that homeschooling parents are moral and safe for their children.
Oliver is joined by other media figures in his opposition to homeschooling.
Imagine putting homeschool mom in your bio and not understanding youve just ruined the lives of five innocent children, tweeted MSNBC host Joe Scarborough last year.
https://principia-scientific.com/globalists-panic-as-homeschooling-explodes-across-us/
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Primary school pupils are told to 'read woke' and study books that claim white people began racism
Schoolchildren have been encouraged to 'read woke' and study books that claim white people invented racism, it has been revealed.
Titled 'Read Woke', the project has supplied books to primary schools which claim racism was invented by white people.
It is part of a literacy project funded by a Scottish government grant that has been piloted to help 'enlighten' pupils on racial issues.
The programme includes a volume that asserts that it is impossible to be racist against white people, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
Dr Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, founder of the campaign group Don't Divide Us, urged schools to bin the material.
She told the paper: 'This initiative is normalising politically radical and partisan beliefs. It will do nothing to help teachers teach pupils how to read, and has little to do with education more generally.
'Our advice to schools is to either put the books in the recycling bin, or keep them for the next CPD and invite speakers from Read Woke and Don't Divide Us to discuss why this is/is not suitable curriculum content.'
The Read Woke website for South Ayrshire says the initiative 'will awaken our students to a range of important issues, enlighten them, and encourage them to think critically and with empathy when forming opinions'.
Piloted in 2021, the project was adopted from the idea of Cicely Lewis, a US librarian, and is said to have been supported by funding from Scotland's School Library Improvement Fund.
A book on the reading list for secondary pupils titled 'This Book is Anti-Racist' tells youngsters that 'being racist against white people is not a thing'.
It also offers advice on how to raise concerns about 'the dominant culture of white supremacy' in the classroom.
Elsewhere, the book My Skin Your Skin by Laura Henry-Allain also features on the primary reading list devised by the project.
It tells children that 'racism started a long time ago when white people wanted to have more control over people who were not white.'
And that 'an example of racism is when white people think they are better than people from other races.'
South Ayrshire Council was contacted for comment.
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13 November, 2023
Woke Elementary School Reportedly Cancels Veterans Day Assembly
A school in Redmond, Washington reportedly replaced its annual assembly to commemorate Veterans Day with a Peace Assembly, according to a report from Seattle outlet KTTH.
Reportedly, Benjamin Rush Elementary in the Lake Washington School District holds a Veterans Day assembly every year. But, this year, the schools administration decided to recognized the International Day of Tolerance instead (via KTTH):
Families did not have much time to learn about the change, which was jarring to those who expected a Veterans Day assembly. The Peace Assembly appeared in the schools newsletter on October 29 and November 5, but it did not explain what it was.
I was extremely disappointed and yet not surprised, one Benjamin Rush Elementary father told The Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. He asked for anonymity to prevent reprisals for speaking up. For years the Veterans Assembly has been a highlight at the school and one of the few midday assemblies that gathers a fairly large audience of parents to come hear the speakers.
The school ditched the patriotic songs for those centered around the assemblys theme of Tolerance, Acceptance and Kindness. Some of the songs to be performed are Live in Peace, Peacebuilder Pledge Song, Amani Utupe Na Ustawi and Namaste.
Students will spend most of the assembly singing songs, with each grade level performing two songs that they learned while attending music classes at the school, a district spokesperson said of the Peace Assembly in a statement to The Jason Rantz Show on KTTH.
To the father who reached out to The Jason Rantz Show on KTTH, this seems like a slight of veterans who fought those who threatened peace.
The father who spoke to KTTH host Jason Rantz explained that in recent years, the school administration has moved strongly away from pride in our traditions and American history. He added that we should be taking the time to show our children and our community that we have brave men and women who are willing to stand up and fight for our freedom and the peace that other places in the world can only dream of.
At least ten other schools will host their annual Veterans Day assembly. Reportedly, Benjamin Rush Elementary is the only one breaking from the tradition.
I remember three years ago, sitting next to a parent who had recently moved to America from Germany, the father explained. She was sitting there with tears in her eyes. Afterward, she explained to me that she was blown away with the patriotism and American pride.
The father added that that kind of experience will now be missed.
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Rabbis at woke colleges describe unnerving antisemitism as campuses become hotbeds of hate
Thousands of rabbis gathered Sunday in Brooklyn for its famous annual Chabad event including hundreds on the front lines at some of the wokest, rabidly antisemitic campuses in the nation.
Several rabbis who attended the photogenic event in Crown Heights and helm Jewish centers at liberal US colleges described to The Post how their campuses have been transformed into dangerous hotbeds of hate since the Hamas slaughter in Israel on Oct. 7.
Its been disturbing, unnerving its been a shock to students to see that kind of immediate chutzpah, where the demonstrators came out even before the blood dried up, to shout with such audacity on the campus with no qualifications at all, said Rabbi Levi Haskelevich, the Chabad rabbi at the University of Pennsylvania for the past 23 years, referring to protesters supporting the Palestinian cause.
Haskelvich was recently recorded in a viral video helping a student put on tefillin, or leather straps containing sections of the Torah for praying, while a group of pro-Palestinian students marched past shouting Palestine will be free from the river to the sea.
rabbis
We have students who are into their PhDs who said from the moment of the attacks they could not find a safe place on campus, he said.
In the five weeks since Israel was rocked by the surprise terror attack, some US campuses have been flooded with violent pro-Hamas rallies and horrifying assaults on Jewish students.
Prestigious institutions including New York and Columbia universities in the Big Apple have roundly received failing grades for their responses to the recent spate of antisemitism.
But as hate swirls around them, many Jewish American students have seemed to regain a sense of pride in their religion and background, the rabbis said.
The rabbis said there has been a lot of chaos on campuses as clashes between students over the Israel-Hamas war worsen.
Rabbi Shmuly Weiss, who has been Chabad rabbi at McGill University in Montreal since 2007, said that after receiving a donation of 100 Star of David necklaces, students who had never worn one quickly opted to put one on.
Its not just about Israel theyre stepping up and saying, You know what? Im going to be a proud Jew. Students are scared, but theyre embracing this tense situation that were in. Theyre very, very proud of their Judaism, Weiss said.
Still, Chabad Rabbi Shlomo Elkan at Oberlin College in Ohio said some students there were so scared after Oct. 7 that they urged him to cancel the campuss Chanukah menorah lighting ceremony.
The students feared the ceremony would be read as too pro-Israel from the school, he said.
To try to ease tensions, there have been conversations on campus involving both Jewish leaders and the student head of the Muslim Student Association, Elkan said.
We had a meeting last week with [the] Students for Palestine [group] talking about these issues in an effort to bring the temperature down, the rabbi said. It was a small crowd, 20-something people, but thats where change really starts.
Rabbi Meir Chaim Posner, who has been Chabad rabbi at Yale University for the past eight years, said he has noticed a rise in the quiet insidious stuff such as discrimination and singling Jewish students out on campus.
Many, many students have close friends that suddenly dont understand or dont appreciate or dont affirm what theyre going through in terms of their sense of mourning, in terms of their sense of pain, Posner said, referring to the aftermath of Oct. 7.
And then in the weeks after, theyll find a close friend who is actively supporting Hamas, the rabbi said
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Congress is planning to turn up the heat on major universities about their funding
Republicans in Congress are planning to turn up the heat on major universities to fully disclose how they receive billions of dollars from shady foreign sources, and explain whether these countries are looking to influence the American college experience with a hefty dose of leftist and anti-Israel propaganda, The Post has learned.
The expected move follows a bombshell report released this past week that shows billions of dollars from foreign governments, many of which are authoritarian, including those in the Middle East, are sloshing around the budgets of our elite schools.
The report stated there is a correlation between where the money was spent and campus antisemitic activity.
According to my sources on Capitol Hill, GOP lawmakers also believe these foreign donations are at the heart of the increasingly radical pedagogy at those hallowed universities a contributing factor in the disgusting displays by student groups at these schools celebrating the brutal Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks against Jews near Gaza.
Why foreign countries like Qatar, China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates care so much about American higher education is an obvious question. One answer: Plenty of students from those countries attended American universities.
Yet it doesnt take a conspiracy theorist to imagine that places like Qatar and China, in particular, would like to use the college classroom to advance their strategic interests, which dont really align with our own.
Qatar, for instance, is nominally a US ally, but it also is the home of Hamas leadership.
China is, well, China, and that has plenty of GOP lawmakers worried that both countries are using their clout with elite colleges for nefarious means.
Congress will be putting pressure on universities to show how much money is coming from these types of sources, said one Wall Street executive involved in the matter.
The House recently advanced legislation for heightened disclosure on foreign contributions to American universities; hearings are a possibility.
What are they getting?
Lawmakers also want to know what the countries are getting in return for their investment, the executive added.
The exec says many in Congress believe the universities taking this foreign cash may also be skirting the law.
Colleges are required to disclose the sources of donations that hit $250,000 or more cumulatively.
Yet many dont, he says, at least not on a timely basis.
Moreover, colleges often dont provide full information on the donor identities.
The report from the Network Contagion Research Institute on foreign cash flowing to US campuses found that, from 2015 to 2020, institutions that accepted money from Middle Eastern donors, had, on average, 300% more antisemitic incidents than those institutions that did not.
Its not surprising that UPenn the source of massive antisemitic protests following Oct. 7 is high on the list of receiving funds from these suspicious sources, but it wasnt alone.
According to the report: Eight Ivy League schools were disproportionately represented in the highest-funded institutions from what it called undocumented origins.
Among those, Cornell (2nd) and Harvard (3rd), Yale (6th), Stanford (14th), Columbia (16th) and the University of Pennsylvania (18th) placed in the top twenty overall.
Does that funding lead to weaponizing the academic experience to produce antisemitic monsters?
Paul Kamenar, an attorney for the National Legal and Policy Center, lays out a case that it does. The money comes into the schools funding professors and their programs that are left-wing as hell, he tells me. Schools get various grants to teach students from a leftist perspective.
Following the money trail should turn up some interesting results.
Back in 2020, Kamenars organization did an amazing deep dive into the funding of a think-tank known as the Penn Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
A think tank named after Sleepy Joe Biden is almost comical; what isnt funny is UPenns curious funding source after the center was created: Communist China, the same country that quashes dissent of all kinds, engages in religious persecution and has imperialistic ambitions.
Coincidence? Maybe, but Kamenar says his groups investigation found some disturbing coincidences.
As millions of dollars of Chinese money flowed to UPenn, Penn Biden began inviting Chinese government officials as speakers to its conferences.
One conference during the early days of COVID glossed over Chinas role in the spread and likely creation of the deadly virus that led to a worldwide pandemic, instead bizarrely focusing on Hungarys allegedly xenophobic reaction to it by restricting Chinese nationals from coming into the country.
Leftism in the guise of academic freedom has been a problem for some time, of course.
For years, universities have degraded courses in Western Civilization, branding them remnants of an educational system run by dead (and racist) white men.
They were replaced by increasingly woke core requirements.
Syracuse University is typical of the radicalizing of the college learning experience.
Its so-called course requirement for undergraduate students includes classes in Magic and Religion, Gender in a Globalizing World and Popular Culture in the Middle East.
What do you think? Post a comment.
Try not to laugh when you discuss that course load, but theres an Orwellian quality to whats being passed off as an academic experience these days.
Those soft subjects also include brainwashing in leftist, anti-American and anti-Israel dogma, critics say.
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12 November, 2023
'If the KKK Were Doing This...' Nikki Haley Exposes Key Point About Campus Responses to Anti-Semitism
During Wednesday night's third RNC debate, this one held in Miami, candidates were asked about how to address anti-semitism after the October 7 terrorist attack that Hamas perpetrated on Israel, specifically anti-semitism on college campuses. This was to be expected, not merely because of the current events going on, but because the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) was co-hosting the debate.
"Jewish students across the country are threatened and under attack," Matt Brooks, the CEO of RJC pointed out. "What do you say to Jewish students on college campuses who feel unsafe given the dramatic rise in antisemitism? And what do you to say to university presidents and college presidents who have not met the moral clarity moment to forcefully condemn Hamas terrorism?"
When it was former Ambassador Nikki Haley's turn to speak, with co-moderator Lester Holt asking her "what do you say to Americans who are simply afraid right now in this current environment that were talking about," she made a telling point about how college campuses have reacted.
Haley said the situation means "the country is all out of sorts," going on to share it made her "so angry," as she listed out examples of anti-semitism students have faced, including at Cooper Union where Jewish students were "barricaded in the library" and another student. threatened to "shoot up the kosher dining hall," as was the case at Cornell University.
She also had a message for those college presidents who have been so to action. "And this is what I would say about our college presidents is if the KKK were doing this, every college president would be up in arms," Haley declared. "This is no different. You should treat it exactly the same. Anti-semitism is just as awful as racism and weve got to make sure theyre protected."
Colleges have been so quick to condemn racism and other forms of hatred against students part of other communities. This even includes protecting students from conservative student groups, as was highlighted during a House Judiciary Hearing on Wednesday.
The responses from supposed elite institutions when their students have been faced with anti-semitim, however, such as Harvard and Columbia, have been shameful. When students who had signed onto Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) statements blaming Israel for the October 7 attack had been identified, those schools rushed to protect the identified students. Alumni and donors have thus pulled support from these and other institutions not doing enough to protect Jewish students.
Haley had a message for these protesters, too, including when it comes to what Hamas terrorists support. "And for everybody thats protesting on these college campuses in favor of Hamas, let me remind you something. Hamas said, 'Death to Israel and death to America.' They hate and would kill you too," she reminded.
"And the idea that theyre talking about genocide for the Jewish people, thats not the values of America. Thats not us. Were better than that. We dont need to celebrate terrorists, we dont need to celebrate genocide. We dont need to celebrate violence towards anybody. We need to go back and soul search in our country and remember what we are about and we are about taking care of people, not going and making them live in fear because some other terrorist activity says they want to destroy them," she said in her message to Americans.
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Donors Power of Purse Sends Loud Rebuke to Colleges Shameful Silence on Pro-Hamas Protests
Students from across the U.S. and Europe have taken to the streets to defend the indefensible or contextualize that which no context can justify; that is, mass killings and gang rape in the Holy Land on Oct. 7. Many of their elders now wonder how kids they raised to be civilized seem to be stumped by how to react to such barbarism.
Society will need to answer that question, but even before that, some people with the power of the purse and the power of the law are doing something to correct the moral confusion that has gripped universities in the aftermath of Hamas horrendous massacre of Jews.
In the U.S., billionaire alumni are withholding donations from elite schools. Some politicians, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have also tried to establish some order in state universities.
The donors have attracted the most attention, because cutting off money will hurt the universities. Elite Ivy League collegessuch as Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, etc.have endowments in the billions of dollars, so the departure of a few donors will hurt them less than state colleges.
But most of the attention during these crises is often shed on the Ivies, and they have been among the worst equivocators in a time that calls for moral clarity. Its also unknown whether there will be a cascade effect, with smaller donors now reconsidering their contributions.
Its fun to wear the sweat pants with your schools logo and put its decal on the back of your car, but many will draw a line at antisemitism and mass rape.
Plus, the donors have published their letters, embarrassing university leadership. Among the best has to be the one that billionaire David Magerman sent to the University of Pennsylvania because of the tepid response to the crisis by the universitys president, Liz Magill.
Over the past month, I have been deeply embarrassed by my association with and support for the University of Pennsylvania, Magerman wrote in the letter on Oct. 15, adding:
The leadership of the university has failed to demonstrate the values I expect from an institution that purports to educate young adults and prepare them for a lifetime of leadership and to be emissaries for good in the world.
Magerman noted that Marc Rowan, another billionaire donor to Penn, has called for your firing as a response to your failures in leadership, but I feel your firing is unnecessary, because it is wholly inadequate.
If in fact the University of Pennsylvania as an institution has such a misguided moral compass that it can fail to recognize evil when it is staring us all in the face, I dont think replacing you will accomplish anything. Frankly, I dont think there is anything anyone can do to redeem the school, short of rebuilding its moral foundations from the ground up.
That last line captured how many Americans, not just those in the donor class, are reacting to the moral confusion coming from campuses following the Hamas massacre. Something must be done to the universities to rebuild them as moral centers that will engage in truth-discovery and instruct future generations on whats best in our societies. Right now, to many, it is clear that universities have become the opposite; namely, places where a Marxist professoriate indoctrinates young minds.
One politician who has tried to do something is DeSantis, who has instructed the chancellor of the Florida university system, Ray Rodrigues, to deactivate the pro-Palestinian group National Students for Justice in Palestine, which has organized the most antisemitic demonstrations in U.S. campuses following the massacre.
Aiding DeSantis in this effort is a Students for Justice in Palestine toolkit that defends the Hamas atrocity, billing it as Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. It also says that We as Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement. Seizing on the appearance of that statement as a declaration that Students for Justice in Palestine does not only support the terrorists, but are in fact part of them, DeSantis nudged Rodrigues to disband the groups chapters at Florida universities.
In Europe, whose universities rely less on individual donors and where there is less federalism within countries (the European Unions growth has been such that government by nation-states is now called federalism, but this is problem to be tackled another day), it has been the national governments and cities that have taken the lead.
Thus, in France, President Emmanuel Macron on Oct. 12 had his interior minister ban all pro-Palestinian demonstrations, in order to contain the growth of antisemitic acts. Just as French police started using tear gas to dispel pro-Hamas demonstrations, Macron went on television and said, Let us not bring ideological adventures here [to France] by imitation or by projection. Let us not add national fractures to international fractures. Let us stay united.
And the government of the German capital, Berlin, is strictly enforcing a ban on pro-Hamas demonstrations in a bid to avoid the scenes of tens of thousands of protesters defending terrorists in British cities.
These actions by donors, governors, presidents, and mayors are welcome, but as necessary as they are, theyre treating symptoms, not curing the disease. After calm returns, society will have to ask itself, what have we allowed to happen among the young and the immigrant populations?
Great care was taken in decades gone by to instill in them national values. Now we see what happens when we cease doing that.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/11/06/american-universities-the-face-of-hamas-terrorist-attacks
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2 LA charter school teachers removed for teaching 1st graders about genocide in Palestine in class at synagogue
Two teachers have been removed from a Los Angeles area charter school located at a synagogue after teaching a lesson to first graders about genocide in Palestine, according to school officials.
The teachers were ousted from the classroom but not fired from the Citizens of the World Charter School, which has classrooms at Adat Ari El Synagogue in the San Fernando Valley, KTLA reported.
Senior Rabbi Brian Schuldenfrei told reporters at a press conference on Friday that tensions at the school first emerged after certain teachers reached out to the schools principal about Israeli flags hoisted around campus following Hamas Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel.
I know that this is a time to hold your community close, and perhaps the flags are intended for that but do you know how long they will be up? the principal, Hye-Won Gehring, emailed Schuldenrei after the teachers asked when they would be removed.
Schuldenfrei said he found the email offensive and likened it to asking Americans to take down American flags after the September 11th terrorist attacks. Gehring later apologized, he said.
He later learned that the same teachers who complained about the flags had taught a human rights lesson to first graders at the school and posted about it online.
After the lesson, one of the teachers proudly shared on Instagram, and I quote, LOL but I did a lesson on the genocide in Palestine today w my first graders, Schuldenfrie said. The teacher went on to boast: My fav was a kid who was like What if they just gave the land back to Palestine and find somewhere else to live.
The teacher added a heart emoji to the end of the post, he added.
The world needs to know that anyone who calls for the eradication of Israel is expressing a pernicious form of antisemitism, a denial of the right of Jews to live in our ancestral homeland, Schuldenfrie continued. The heart emoji is perverse punctuation, dressing up hate in the guise of love.
CWC executive director Melissa Kaplan apologized and vowed that the school would fully investigate the incident.
CWC unequivocally condemns the social media posts by our staff members, including the use of the word genocide to describe Israels [response to the attack], Kaplan said in a statement. CWC unequivocally condemns the disturbing suggestion that Jews should leave the region, and we unequivocally condemn any lesson that creates bias or fear among our students.
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10 November, 2023
Woke Teachers Trying To Ban Classic Novel From Schools To Protect Students
"To Kill a Mockingbird" is a famous ANTI-racist novel
The Washington Post reports that progressive teachers in in Washington state are attempting to get To Kill a Mockingbird, authored by Harper Lee, banned in schools in order to protect students.
The report notes that The Mukilteo School District teachers are adamant that the classic novel, published in 1960, is outdated and harmful.
Set in the deep South during the Great Depression, the book deals with themes of racial injustice, gender roles, and rape to name a few. While it was awarded the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was voted the best book of the past 125 years by New York Times readers in 2021, it has long been criticised for use of racial slurs by characters, with critics also suggesting the novel relies too heavily on stereotypes.
The report notes that Students shared their discomfort with the way the 1960 novel about racial injustice portrays Black people, adding One Black teen said the book misrepresented him and other African Americans Another complained the novel did not move her, because it wasnt written about her or for her.
The Post adds that another student spoke about how a White teen said the n-word aloud while reading from Mockingbird, disobeying the teachers instructions to skip the slur.
The teachers filed a motion challenging the place of the novel on the list of approved books, and successfully got it removed from ninth-grade classes.
To Kill A Mockingbird centers on whiteness, the teachers wrote, further claiming that it presents a barrier to understanding and celebrating an authentic Black point of view in Civil Rights era literature and should be removed.
Commentators note that while the novel might contain difficult themes, it has a place in history, adding that its not explicit sexual material or gay porn, which has been found and challenged in many schools, prompting leftists to accuse conservatives of pushing book bans.
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Jewish billionaire Henry Swieca quits Columbia board over abhorrent threats to Jews on campus
Jewish billionaire and philanthropist Henry Swieca quit the Columbia University board of directors over what he called the Ivy League schools moral cowardice for allowing a blatantly anti-Jewish sentiment to thrive on campus.
To my deep regret the reputation and integrity of Columbia University, and by extension Columbia Business School, have been significantly compromised by a moral cowardice that appears beyond repair, Swieca said in a resignation letter made public this week, Fox News reported.
This is abhorrent, he wrote in the scathing letter. Any other minority group on campus would never have to face anything close to this level of intimidation and hatred of Jewish and pro-Israel students experience.
Swieca added, To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
His resignation comes amid a disturbing outburst of pro-Palestinian fervor on Ivy League campuses in the wake of the sneak attack on Israel by radical Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 and the subsequent retaliation by the Jewish State in the Gaza Strip.
Columbia has been among the most active, with pro-Hamas protests and confrontations on campus.
Late last month more than 100 Columbia professors signed a letter defending pro-Palestinian students who backed the Hamas attack on Israel, calling on administrators to stop making statements that favor the suffering and death of Israelis or Jews over the suffering and deaths of Palestinians.
Earlier in October, an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside the university library after questioning someone who was ripping down posters of Israelis taken hostage by Hamas.
A massive pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia University on Oct. 12 was one of several anti-Jewish events and troubling incidents at the Ivy League schools Manhattan campus since Oct. 7.
Last week, Columbia finally launched an antisemitism task force to deal with the terribly resilient unrest amid spiking anti-Israeli sentiment a move concerned critics said was too little too late.
Swieca, 66, who founded Talpion Fund Management, received a masters degree in business administration from the Morningside Heights university, said it raised deep concerns about the school.
With blatantly anti-Jewish student groups and professors allowed to operate with complete impunity, it sends a clear and distressing message that Jews are not just unwelcome, but also unsafe on campus, he wrote in the Oct. 30 resignation letter.
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Australia: Surge in foreign students puts nations best interests to the test
Existing arrangements of dubious benefit to Australia
JUDITH SLOAN
Last week I wrote about the unexpected surge in the number of migrants coming to this country and its impact on the housing market.
The largest group by far among overseas arrivals is international students who undertake a variety of courses at different levels, with 50 per cent undertaking university courses and one-third attending vocational education.
Its worth taking a look at the numbers to understand how large the recent inflows have been and note the impact of changing regulations attached to international student visas. The key figure is the number of temporary student visas on issue.
According the most recent figures there were 665,000 visas in September, the highest number ever recorded. The pre-Covid peak was 555,000 in other words, 100,000 fewer. Note here that a decade ago there were 340,000 temporary student visas on issue.
While India and China are the source countries with the largest numbers of international students, rapid growth is apparent from Bhutan, Pakistan, Nepal, Colombia, The Philippines, Brazil, Thailand and Vietnam.
The university with the highest number of international students is Monash, although Sydney has the highest proportion of international students at close to 50 per cent. It is interesting to note that the universities with the highest number of international students are in Sydney and Melbourne and include the University of NSW, RMIT, Melbourne and Deakin.
The overall story is one of runaway and uncontrolled growth in international student numbers, pumping up population growth and putting pressures on the cities to which they flock. A very large number of these students intend to stay in Australia permanently or for at least a decade.
Recent changes to the student visa conditions have made Australia an even more attractive destination given the guaranteed graduate visas and liberal work rights attached to student visas. The additional resources given to the Department of Home Affairs have sped up significantly the process of granting visas.
The federal government recently decided that bachelor degree graduates could stay for four years, up from two; masters graduates could stay for five years, up from three; and PhD graduates could stay for six years, up from four. International students no longer are required to hide their ambition to stay in the country to obtain a visa
So what should we think about the rapid growth of international students? Is this an example of a successful new export industry generating jobs and higher incomes for Australia? Should the government facilitate this industry? Alternatively, should the government consider a range of restrictions to ensure the flow of students is more manageable and the quality of the students is as high as possible? Should we expect international students largely to return home?
Just on a point of definition, it is a bit of a stretch to call international student education an export industry generating foreign currency, as is the wont of the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Notwithstanding the visa conditions in relation to financial capacity, most international students have to work here to pay student fees and living expenses. There is no sense in which this is an export activity.
University administrators are fond of claiming international students generate all sorts of benefits for local students as well as the universities themselves. In point of fact there are many anecdotes to the effect that the educational experience of local students has suffered significantly.
Think here overcrowded tutorials with students who dont speak English well and assignments for groups formed by lecturers to include international students.
There is also some evidence that the English language skills of international students dont always improve during their time in Australia as they mix only with those from their own countries.
Needless to say, the additional revenue from international students has been welcomed by the universities. Their leaders make the point that the (perceived) failure of the federal government to fund their activities properly has left them with no choice but to accept more international students.
We have seen some of the results in the form of an extremely well-paid and growing cohort of university administrators and lavish new buildings and facilities.
Money also has been spent on research to lift the international rankings of Australian universities, in part to guarantee the flow of new international students. Weirdly, the percentage of international students is part of some of the ranking calculations.
We know a lot less about international vocational education there are substantial numbers of private colleges, some of dubious quality. We do know that students from China enrol disproportionately in the top universities, with students from other countries over-represented in lower-ranked (and cheaper) universities and vocational colleges.
It is much easier for international students to obtain a visa for study at a university than vocational education. There is a much higher rate of rejection for vocational education applicants.
As a result, migration agents have been advising students to apply to study at a university and then switch to the much cheaper vocational education option. In fact, some of the vocational colleges are mere ghosts set up to facilitate this manoeuvre. The government has attempted to clamp down on this trick.
When it comes to what happens to international students when they graduate, the work of Bob Birrell and Katharine Betts has demonstrated that international graduates of Australian universities who stay are much less likely to hold professional or managerial positions relative to their local counterparts.
This is an important finding because it puts paid to the notion that international students are important in filling skill gaps: most of them actually work in semi-skilled jobs.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that for many international students, obtaining a student visa is a relatively straightforward means of achieving permanent residence in Australia and easily beats being an illegal entrant to other developed economies. It may involve some upfront expense, but the scope to earn money by virtue of the liberal (and essentially unpoliced) work rights is a huge attraction. To be sure, there is scope for international students to be exploited as workers here but that may have been the case for them back at home.
What we really need is a rigorous assessment of the benefits and costs of international education for the country to assess where we go from here. Its time to apply the brakes and ensure the visa arrangements, as well as the conduct of our educational institutions, work for the national interest rather than for sectional ones.
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9 November, 2023
In Houston, public school teachers are quitting in droves
Thousands of Houston ISD students have lost a teacher already this school year as the district experiences a spike in educator resignations.
About twice as many teachers left HISD in the first six weeks of school this year than has been typical in recent years, according to data obtained by the Houston Landing through a public records request.
The records show 170 teachers resigned during the first six weeks this school year, while an average of 84 left during the same time span from 2019 to 2022. As Texas largest district, HISD employs roughly 13,000 teachers, meaning the early-year resignations account for about 1 percent of HISDs classroom instructors.
The new data confirm the number of teachers who have resigned so far this year is a stark outlier from recent precedent. A late October analysis from the Houston Chronicle suggested a similar jump, but only compared this years figures to one previous year of resignation data.
Including all staff, 559 employees resigned from HISD in the first six weeks of school this year, compared to an average of 346 during the same period from 2019 to 2022.
The numbers come as HISD begins its third month of classes under Superintendent Mike Miles, who was installed in early June by Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath amid sanctions against the district. For months, teachers unions and some outspoken educators have characterized the new environment in HISD as toxic, but until the resignation numbers came into focus, few concrete data points existed to back up those claims.
Of the 170 voluntary teacher departures, 93 came from schools Miles is overhauling this year under his New Education System.
In a written statement, HISD did not address a question over whether the resignations might signal higher levels of teacher frustration this year.
HISD has adopted a culture of high expectations and accountability, spokesperson Jose Irizarry said. All across the district, there are teachers, principals, and other staff who know this is true and understand the urgency.
Though the departures represent just a small share of educators in the district, they still could be an indicator of increased discontent among the ranks of HISDs teachers and staff. Mid-year resignation is one of the most extreme actions a staff member can take, and teachers who do so can be barred from teaching in a Texas public school district for a year. HISD declined to specify whether it will pursue penalties against teachers who do so.
Long considered a polarizing leader, Miles has a history of angering educators. Before becoming HISD superintendent, he served as superintendent of Dallas Independent School District from 2012 to 2015, and his reforms prompted many teachers to leave.
Over his time at the helm of Dallas ISD, the rate of teacher turnover nearly doubled, jumping from 12 percent in 2011-12, the school year before he assumed his role, to 21 percent in 2014-15, the year he left, according to state data. The statewide average rate of educator churn in that span hovered around 16 percent.
Meanwhile, the results of a survey posted on a prominent HISD Facebook page suggest many teachers still in the district may already have one foot out the door. About half of the roughly 860 respondents who self-identified as HISD teachers said they are planning to leave at the end of the school year or earlier. Another third said they are unsure, while only 14 percent said they plan to stay in the district next year.
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Private University Bans Pro-Palestine Organization
Last week, Townhall reported that many students at Columbia University staged a walkout from one of former first lady Hillary Clintons classes to shame the school for how they believe it allowed its students who signed a statement against Israel to be publicly shamed. Since Hamas launched its attack on Israel last month, Columbia University students had been vocal in how they do not support Israel.
Brandeis University, a private school based in Massachusetts, banned a student chapter of the National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) on its campus. According to The Hill, Brandeis is the first U.S. university to ban this group.
A university spokesperson confirmed to The Hill this week that the school banned the student chapter for the national organization. The reason behind this move was SJPs support of the terrorist organization Hamas.
SJP has called on its chapters to engage in conduct that supports Hamas in its call for the elimination of the only Jewish state in the world and its people, the schools spokesperson said in its statement to The Hill. Such expression is not protected by Brandeis principles of free speech.
Students are welcome to express their support for Palestinians in a manner that complies with our rights and responsibilities, the spokesperson concluded.
Brandeis was founded as a nonsectarian Jewish university in 1948. Following its decision, the school sent a letter to SJP, which was obtained by The Jewish Insider:
This decision was not made lightly, as Brandeis is dedicated to upholding free speech principles, which have been codified in Brandeis Principles of Free Speech and Free Expression, the letter said. However, those Principles note that The freedom to debate and discuss ideas does not mean that individuals may say whatever they wish, wherever they wish, or however they wish, and that, the university may restrict expressionthat constitutes a genuine threat or harassmentor that is otherwise directly incompatible with the functioning of the university.
The letter continued, The National SJP has called on its chapters to engage in conduct that supports Hamas in its call for the violent elimination of Israel and the Jewish people. These tactics are not protected by the Universitys Principles. As a result, the University made the decision that the Brandeis chapter of the National SJP must be unrecognized and will no longer be eligible to receive funding, be permitted to conduct activities on campus, or use the Brandeis name and logo in promoting itself or its activities, including through social media channels.
The letter further states that students who choose to participate in conduct that supports Hamas will be considered to be in violation of the Universitys student code of conduct.
Students who wish to express their support for the rights of Palestinian civilians may form another student organization, through established procedures, that complies with University policies, the document continues.
Last month, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Louis D. Brandeis Center sent a letter to 200 colleges and universities asking them to investigate students organizations of SJP for for potential violations of 18 USC 2339A and B, and its state equivalents, that is, for potential violations of the prohibition against materially supporting a foreign terrorist organization, The Hill reported.
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A Third Try in Texas for School Choice
Gov. Gregg Abbott has called a third special legislative session in an attempt to push through three priorities that previous sessions have defeated, surprisingly with some Republicans joining with most Democrats in opposition.
School choice is one of those priorities. The last session bowed to scare tactics by the powerful teachers unions and Democrats who promoted claims that allowing parents to send their children to private schools or use tax dollars to underwrite the costs of educating their children at home would force some public schools, especially in rural areas, to close.
That's looking at the issue the wrong way. The real issue is what is being taught in many public schools which minimize fundamental subjects like reading, math, science and history in favor of a progressive worldview.
Examples abound. Rachel Hale is a self-described parent advocate for Texas Education 911, an affiliate of Parents United for Freedom (PUFF). Full disclosure: I spoke at a PUFF fundraising dinner, organized by my granddaughter.
Hale delivered remarks loaded with examples of the introduction of subjects - and worse - that has outraged growing numbers of parents in Texas and increasingly throughout the country.
She mentioned a bill that passed with the objective of removing "pervasively vulgar books out of school libraries." Opponents have sued to keep the law from taking effect. See how this works? One side gets to introduce anything it wants under the cloak of "academic freedom," while objecting parents are denounced as censors and inexperienced when it comes to education.
Hale offers another example of the condescending attitude some public educators and activists have for parents: "... in the summer of 2021 the Texas House Public Education Committee held two days' worth of hearings on 'parent empowerment,' yet parents were not able to testify until the end of each day after Amazon, the Texas Education Agency, school superintendents and vendors - all of whom had unlimited time to speak and begged for more money ... and were only allowed two minutes.
"Right after this most recent regular session ended, a 'special commission' was formed. ... They spent two days hearing invited testimony only and guess who didn't make the list - parents!!!"
Still another example from Hale about where too many public schools are headed: "Child Protective Services were called on a parent in Lewisville ISD (when) her elementary age son responded a certain way after using the Rhitim App for three days in a row. Rhitim is an emoji-based survey that asks questions where the students respond with happy or sad faces. The survey was given right before lunch and asked the students if they were hungry. He of course answered with a sad face. After the third day of the same answer to the same question, it triggered CPS intervention."
In the Tioga Independent School District, parents complained of an "inappropriate relationship" between a teacher and their daughter. The school, the parents said, did nothing and renewed the teacher's contract for another year. Two days after graduating, their daughter left home and moved in with the teacher and his wife.
There's much more and parents must continually educate themselves if they want to avoid further indoctrination and potential danger to their children. Electing new school board members will help and this pro-parent group is focusing on local school board elections next May in hopes of flipping four seats now held by liberals.
Perhaps, if they can manage to get some of these horror stories before the special legislative session it might convince fence straddlers to allow parents the same opportunities they and other well-off parents have when it comes to choosing where to send their children to school and what is being taught in them.
https://townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/2023/11/07/a-third-try-in-texas-for-school-choice-n2630856
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8 November, 2023
Rep. Rudy Yakym Puts University DEI Departments on Notice for Anti-Semitism
In light of the October 7 terrorist attack Hamas perpetrated against Israel, colleges and universities around the country have alarmingly failed to rise to the occasion to call out anti-semitism taking place on their campuses. Rep. Rudy Yakym (R-IN), though, is looking to put them on notice, specifically when it comes to what, if anything, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) officers are doing about it, as Townhall has learned.
On Monday, Yakym sent a letter to 110 college and universities' DEI officials. Included among them are those where there have already been instances of anti-semitism on campus so far, such as Harvard, Cornell, Cooper Union, UPenn, UC Berkeley, George Washington University, George Mason, Georgetown, and Yale.
Jews have not merely been targeted by Hamas with "unspeakable war crimes," as the congressman's letter points out, but the ensuing "global convulsion of antisemitism," with the letter adding "sadly, America's university campuses have not been immune."
"Israeli and Jewish students and faculty across the country have expressed concern at the current climate on campuses. There are too many examples of threats or acts of physical violence, verbal harassment, intimidation, graffiti, stalking, and other menacing actions directed at Israeli and Jewish students and faculty. Some have even been forced to barricade themselves in rooms for safety," the letter goes on to add, mentioning one such example that took place at Cooper Union.
Yakym's letter also refers to what efforts there's been from President Joe Biden and his administration. In a recent statement provided to the Times of Israel, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates noted "an extremely disturbing pattern of antisemitic messages being conveyed on college campusesthat call for the annihilation of the state of Israel; for genocide against the Jewish people." As Bates' statement aptly pointed out, "Delegitimizing the State of Israel while praising the Hamas terrorist murderers who burned innocent people alive, or targeting Jewish students, is the definition of unacceptable--and the definition of antisemitism."
In one of the 110 letters, in this case to Dr. Sherri Charleston at Harvard University, which Townhall obtained, Yakym's letter raises concerns that these DEI officers are not living up to their responsibilities.
"As the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Harvard University, you appear to be the individual principally responsible for advancing the ideal of inclusion, ensuring that all students and faculty, regardless of nationality or faith, feel accepted in the campus environment and student body," Yakym's letter points out. "However, at least one or more incidents on your campus in recent weeks raise questions about the climate of inclusion fostered by the Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging for Israeli and Jewish students and faculty."
Harvard has been a particularly noteworthy example as of late, and not merely because it is supposedly an elite institution. As Townhall covered at the time, Harvard's Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) came out right away with a statement blaming Israel for the October 7 attack. As the identified students face consequences for their actions, such as through rescinded job offers, the university put out a task force to protect those students. Meanwhile, pro-Israel students walking through campus are attacked while demonstrating, as was the case last week when Ibrahim Bharmal, the editor of the Harvard Law Review, confronted a student.
Billionaire donors and alumni, such as Bill Ackerman, have been expressing their displeasure with Harvard and other Ivy League institutions, through letters and even pulling back their donations. Other alumni in Congress, including House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), have also called out their alma mater.
Yakym is thus asking Dr. Charleston and other DEI officials a series of questions, expecting a response by December 8. Many of his questions refer to alarming anti-semitic chants, some of them even calling for the destruction of Israel and Jews, that have actually been heard at protests, including on college campuses:
1. Does the Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging maintain an official, written definition of antisemitism?
* If yes, how does this definition compare with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliances working definition of antisemitism?
* If no, why not? How does the Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging evaluate allegations of antisemitism and any potential need for education and awareness about antisemitism?
2. For each of the below statements: Does the Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging classify it as antisemitic? Do you believe that it increases or decreases feelings of inclusion and belonging among Israeli and Jewish students and faculty?
* From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
* Globalize the Intifada.
* One solution, intifada, revolution.
* Glory to our martyrs.
* Zionism hands off our universities.
* Decolonization is not a metaphor.
* We dont want Israel to exist. We dont want these Zionist counter-protesters to exist.
* Zionism has no place on our campus.
3. For each of the below descriptions of images: Does the Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging classify it as antisemitic? Do you believe that it increases or decreases feelings of inclusion and belonging among Israeli and Jewish students and faculty?
* A trash can with the Star of David in it, captioned, Keep the world clean
* An invitation or a poster with a paraglider, hang glider, or paratrooper, which were employed by Hamas as it engaged in the mass slaughter of Israeli civilians on October 7
4. There have been many incidents of students or faculty tearing down posters of men, women, and children believed to have been kidnapped on October 7 or who are otherwise still missing. Does the Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging believe that such actions increase or decrease feelings of inclusion and belonging among Israeli and Jewish students and faculty?
5. How many full- or part-time employees are in the Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging and affiliated entities overall? Of those, how many full- or part-time employees are dedicated to educating and raising awareness about antisemitism, handling allegations of antisemitism, and/or promoting inclusion of Israeli and Jewish students and faculty?
6. Please describe specific actions taken by the Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging to educate and raise awareness about antisemitism since October 7, 2023.
7. Please describe the resources the Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging is providing to Israeli and Jewish students and faculty to ensure they feel included and safe in the campus environment and student body.
8. Please describe resources you are providing to Israeli or Jewish students and faculty to ensure they do not face threats of physical violence, verbal harassment, intimidation, and other actions that directly or indirectly encourage exclusion from the campus environment, including any mechanism to report such incidents should they occur.
"Americas colleges and universities should be equipping the next generation with the skills they need to be better citizens, not fueling the ugly scourge of antisemitism. Taxpayers, parents, and concerned Americans deserve to know how these higher education institutions are responding to some of the most vile and blatant antisemitic displays in recent memory happening on their own campuses," Yakym told Townhall in a statement. "These schools talk about 'inclusion' a lot its up to them to show they are doing everything they can to ensure their Jewish students and faculty feel safe and accepted on campus in the wake of Hamas' barbaric terrorist attacks."
Yakym voted with the majority of House members last week to pass a resolution from Stefanik and Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT) to condemn anti-semitism on college campuses. It also specifically called out "the support of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations at institutions of higher education, which may lead to the creation of a hostile environment for Jewish students, faculty, and staff." Twenty-three members voted against the resolution, including 22 Democrats.
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Cambridges China complicity
UK-China Transparency (UKCT) was formally launched this week (see Notes, 16 September). Its aim is in its name. There is sadly little transparency about UK-China dealings, especially in our universities. I first reported this problem early in 2020 when I investigated the behaviour of Jesus College, Cambridge, and its China Centre, run by the CCP apologist Professor Peter Nolan. It is probably not a coincidence that the three founders of UKCT Sir Bernard Silverman, Martin Village and the young freelance reporter Sam Dunning are all Jesus alumni. The more they looked, the more uncomfortable they became about their colleges advancement of CCP networking and propaganda and its role as the ramp for the courting of the Chinese regime by the whole of Cambridge University.
To coincide with the launch, UKCT has published its investigation of Cambridges extensive research links with Huawei, which are cumulatively worth 28 million since 2016. These actually increased after the government opted in 2020 to ban Huawei from core parts of the 5G network. (New engagements are now paused; earlier ones persist.) The work includes sensitive areas with surveillance applications like face and speech recognition. In one case, research papers have been co-written with Huawei and scientists linked to Chinas military. Where Cambridge has been compelled to disgorge records, it has sometimes redacted details about the nature of the research.
At the launch, there was discussion of how, under Xi Jinping, the general situation continues to worsen. One theory is that the various property company collapses in China this year serve his turn because they weaken his rivals, including the late Deng Xiaopings family. He may believe it is better for China to let foreign investment fall and create a siege economy. This approach has been christened West Korea.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/11/cambridges-china-complicity/
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Australia: Fears merit-free hiring in universities and public service could lead to cronyism
A large part of the original rationale for using tests and exams was to give people without personal contacts an equal chance of being hired. Looks like that is being lost. Will hiring now be dependent on whom you know, not what you know? That's pretty sad in a university
Merit-based hiring has been abolished for academics and public servants in Queensland to stamp out unconscious bias, sparking concern about jobs for mates.
Both the Queensland government and Queensland University of Technology are dumping the word merit from their selection policies, and will instead hire staff based on suitability. Job applicants will have their achievement rated against opportunity.
In a proposed new hiring policy that has angered some academics, QUT will ensure that an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander employee vets any applications from Indigenous jobseekers.
The new rules would require selection panels to assess the extent to which the person has abilities, aptitude, skills, qualifications, knowledge, experience, and personal qualities relevant to the carrying out of the duties in question.
This includes consideration of achievement relative to opportunity, the draft policy states.
The panel must consider the diverse ways in which responses may be expressed or demonstrated, including with respect to applicants who are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples, people from cultural and linguistically diverse backgrounds, applicants who identify as LGBTIQA+, applicants for positions where it is a non-traditional area of employment for women or men, and applicants who have a disability.
The panel may consider how appointment would achieve organisational equity, diversity, respect and inclusion obligations.
One academic, who did not want to be named, questioned whether students should now be marked based on suitability, rather than merit?
The policy to get rid of merit is bordering on embarrassing, the academic said. Its completely disrespectful to tell students who will be charged thousands of dollars for a program that they will be taught by people chosen not on merit, but suitability.
Australian Institute for Progress executive director Graham Young said that abolishing merit-based selection at universities and in the public service will enable cronyism.
Merit is about meeting a set of criteria that is skills-based, he said. Assessing on suitability allows a move away from that.
QUT vice-chancellor Margaret Sheil the first woman to become a professor of chemistry in Australia and a former chief executive of the Australian Research Council said the university was trying to build on the culture of choosing the best possible people for each role.
Theres nothing sinister in it at all, she said. Im the anti-cronyism, jobs-for-the-mates champion of all time.
Professor Sheil said her universitys existing selection policy was sort of bureaucratic.
You had to get a score for each candidate against each selection criteria, and trying to get a merit score that was very hard to apply in any kind of serious modern contemporary recruitment, she said.
Its really about trying to move people away a little bit, as many places are, from the notion that merits something thats completely objective and in the case of academics, numerical to looking at whether this is the person whos most suitable to take the role.
Professor Sheil said I still like quirky mathematicians. But she said QUT wanted to ensure that staff with stellar academic credentials were also excellent teachers, and respectful to other staff and students as well.
The best person on merit in terms of CV might be the top researcher in all the publications and the best qualifications, but if youre not going to actually be interested in teaching students, we dont want them, she said.
The reason theyve got the best CV is theyre not interested in doing anything other than their own research. We want people who are interested in teaching students as well.
Professor Sheil also pointed out that the requirement to have an Indigenous staff member screen job applications from Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander applicants, and recommend if they proceed to an interview, was designed to ease pressure on Indigenous staff.
Under the existing policy, selection panels interviewing a First Nations applicant must include an Indigenous staff member.
Professor Sheil said this requirement was placing undue pressure on Indigenous staff members to constantly take part in selection panels.
She said the requirement had been imposed before my time but suspect it was for cultural safety reasons.
Professor Sheil said the proposed new hiring rules would look at the whole person and the whole picture for the person who is applying.
The problem is if you leave people to select on merit, some sort of supposed analytical criteria, they will automatically score the person who looks like them higher, she said.
I see it all the time, thats the unconscious bias.
People talk about merit often to exclude people, not include people.
Professor Sheil said the new selection method would ask, have they got the qualifications to do the job, can they do the job, are they outstanding in whatever theyve done, and are they suitable for what we want to do?
Sometimes that will give you a more diverse field, sometimes it wont, she said.
QUT is basing its controversial policy on a new hiring rules for Queenslands public service.
The Queensland Public Service Commission yesterday said that recruitment must be fair and transparent and directed to the selection of the person best suited to the position.
The best person must be selected for a role, and this is consistent with the concept of merit in the previous directive and legislation, a spokeswoman said.
Where there is a mandatory qualification for a role, the person must have that qualification to be appointed.\
A new Queensland public service directive, issued last month, states that selection panels need to identify the person who is best suited to the position replacing the previous requirement for appointments based on merit.
Panels must consider equity and diversity and cultural considerations, as part of a holistic assessment to choose the eligible person best suited to the position.
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7 November, 2023
Harvard has a secret back door for ultra-rich kids with lousy grades
What does Harvard University do when faced with well-connected applicants the children of mega-donors or other highly influential people who have less-than-ideal SAT scores and GPAs?
They put them on the Z-List, according to a college admissions coach.
That means the students are advised to matriculate after taking a gap year, making them so-called data ghosts meaning their lackluster academic statistics are not reported in the incoming freshman class.
That way Harvard doesnt take a hit to its stellar academic averages or institutional rankings.
If Harvard doesnt want the student hurting their US News and World Report ranking with their GPA and test scores, they admit them through the Z list, Brian Taylor, managing partner of Manhattan-based college admissions firm Ivy Coach, told The Post. (While Harvards Law and Medical Schools both pulled out of US News and World Reports college rankings, the university at large has not.)
It often means that the student really doesnt qualify for admission on their own.
According to Ivy Coachs website, roughly 60 students get a spot on the Z list annually, and are sent a letter that effectively says we will be pleased to consider your admission in one year.
Theyre not reapplying, Taylor explained. Theyre admitted, and theyre guaranteed a spot in a year.
In his practice, Taylor says he sees a client admitted on the Z List roughly every other year though he estimates they account for a single-digit percentage of the students he works with who get into Harvard.
Its for people who are important, he said. Weve had clients who have been admitted on the Z list who are close friends or family of major world leaders or major donors.
Inevitably, he said, its for students who he tells at the beginning of the admissions process: I dont know if youre going to get into Harvard, but the list is your only hope.
He adds that there are some strong tell-tale signs that a student was on the list.
When students take a gap year in between their high school years and college, its a good indication that they may have been admitted to the Z list, Taylor explained.
A spokesperson for Harvard did not return a request for comment.
Although Harvard is the only school with a so-called Z-List, Taylor said other elite schools exploit similar loopholes to get students with inconvenient stats in the door.
The most common way is exploiting the transfer process.
Because US News and World Report doesnt count transfer students statistics in their ranking calculations, some schools funnel in lower-performing students that way.
According to Taylor, Cornell exploits a guaranteed transfer system in which applicants with sub-par test scores or GPAs are told to do their freshman year of college elsewhere then re-apply.
If they maintain a certain grade point average during their freshman year typically a B-average theyre guaranteed admission to Cornell as a second-year transfer student.
I dont think its right that Cornell does that. Its not fair to their peer institutions, Taylor said.
Columbia University uses its School of General Studies to admit more veterans whose GPAs and test scores do not impact institutional rankings.
https://nypost.com/2023/11/06/news/harvards-secret-backdoor-for-ultra-rich-under-qualified-kids/
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Teachers unions only have themselves to blame for rise in home-school numbers
In the clearest possible thumbs-down on the entire American educational establishment, homeschooling is booming.
The Washington Post last week estimated that its risen from 1.5 million children in 2019 to up to 2.7 million now.
Since 2018, its up 103% in New York, 108% in Washington, DC, 78% in California all areas with laws hostile to homeschooling.
Public-school enrollment has crashed by millions more, since most parents simply pulled their kids to private and parochial schools or, where possible, to public charter schools.
Across the board, its a reaction to what parents learned during COVID.
They saw that remote learning (despite the heroic efforts of a few truly dedicated educators) was a total farce, with all too many schools not even trying to truly teach.
And that teachers unions with the backing of local school districts, especially in big cities put the adults interests first, all across the board, keeping schools closed even long after the vaccines rolled out with teachers given priority access.
Heck, we now know American Federation of Teachers chief Randi Weingarten used her influence with the Biden White House to slow the nations return to in-classroom instruction.
Other factors play a role, but union fingerprints are all over those, too: The AFT and National Education Association are all-in on the dubious Diversity, Equity and Inclusion mandates forcing (progressive) racist nonsense into education, and on the extremist LBGT+ agenda, too.
In much of the country, parents simply wanting to opt out of that madness see no choice except homeschooling.
So its appeal spans every divide of politics, geography and demographics.
Indeed, the unions (shamefully) went along with the rollback of school discipline thats led to rising violence, especially in urban schools.
The NEA/AFT response is to push their media allies to churn out news about the perils of homeschooling, and to finger right-wing extremists as driving the broader push for parental control.
But shouting vast right-wing conspiracy doesnt cut it.
Students across America lost years of academic ground, as measured by National Assessment of Educational Progress testing.
Parents across the spectrum know that politicians, school leaders and teacher unions failed their kids.
That trust is hard to regain and Randi & Co. arent even trying.
So expect homeschooling, and every other alternative to union-run education, to keep on booming until Americas parents have real reason to believe the public schools are actually being run in the childrens interests again.
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Scientific Method restored to science education in North Carolina
As a physicist, John Droz holds in high regard the Scientific Method, a 400-year-old approach to investigating reality.
Rooted in Isaac Newton's work, which included creation of the calculus, the Scientific Method has long underpinned examination of the physical world and technological advancement.
Quite understandable it is, then, that Droz, who holds degrees in mathematics and physics, was prompted to do some investigating of his own after learning that his state of North Carolina had abandoned the teaching of the Scientific Method for the promotion of a faddish theory of entirely unscientific inquiry.
"Upon reading a review of the North Carolina K-12 Science Standards, I was concerned that nowhere was the Scientific Method even mentioned," says Droz, who retired at 34 as a successful investor and launched a 40-year career as a "citizen advocate" of wide-ranging pursuits.
Having a particular concern about the current state of critical thinking, Droz ultimately filed a written complaint with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.
"They subsequently said that they had received some 14,000 inputs on the Science Standards, and apparently, I was the only one bringing up the issue," said Droz, whose varied interests include climate science and election integrity.
The controversy had its beginnings in 2012 when a newly formulated Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) began nudging out the Scientific Method from much of public education. Politically inspired by progressive ideology and backed by the National Research Council, National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the NGSS gained favor with the education bureaucracy of 45 states. The Scientific Method was replaced by something called "Science and Engineering Practices."
Much of the public might not appreciate the implications of the Scientific Method's fading from public education's officialdom, but the loss is no less than a disaster to scientists and adherents of the traditional tenets of critical thinking.
The Scientific Method requires that questions be asked, observations made, and hypotheses formulated, tested, and proven or rejected. Conclusions are always subject to challenges with new evidence and insights.
The NGSS scraps this centuries-old process for computer models whose products are proof of nothing unless they are verified against real-world data and survive the challenges of new information. However, those criticizing the findings of this corruption of objective inquiry are often dismissed as "science deniers."
Nowhere have the dangers of this travesty been more manifest than in climate science where a paganistic fervor has supplanted rigorous investigation and open debate. Challengers of the status quo are more likely to be met with ad hominem than data. Ideologically driven activists use flawed computer models to justify political actions like banning gas-powered cars, shutting down pipelines and spending trillions on "green" energy subsidies that provide no benefit to society.
In classrooms, students are encouraged by the NGSS to conform to politically correct views: Solar and wind energy are good. Fossil fuels are bad. Catastrophic global warming is the future. Carbon dioxide, a gas necessary for life itself, is pollution. Computer models that fail to predict weather days or months in the future can divine the behavior of the climate, Earth's most complex system, in the next century. Questioning the most absurd of hypotheses is heresy.
Fortunately for North Carolina students, two members of the 18-person State Board of Education embraced Droz's view that the Scientific Method should be restored to the state's Science Standards, which it was in July. Droz said the support of the board members was instrumental in correcting the deficiency in state standards.
"I'm optimistic that the Department of Public Instruction will soon address my second major concern that the state Science Standards need more specificity regarding critical thinking," says Droz. "It should be clear that there is an intimate connection between critical thinking analysis and the universal problem-solving procedure of the Scientific Method."
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6 November, 2023
Anatomy of a College Brainwashing: How UCI Makes Students Empathize with Hamas and Hate Israel
We all know that the colleges turn good Christian and Jewish children from good homes with good values and love of G-d and country into America-hating G-dless woke progressives. They come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and parents hardly can believe their visitors are the children they reared for 18 years, taught, and cherished. What happened to my son or daughter? they ask. I just signed on for four years at $60,000 a year for the precious child of my life to get a world-class mind-expanding college education and to dorm on campus. What did they do to my child? How did they destroy 12 years of education and home values? How do they brainwash kids?
Here is an example.
I know the University of California, Irvine, very well. It is a seven-minute drive from my home and congregation. I taught at their law school for six years and was one of their most popular professors. My subjects there were Remedies and Advanced Torts. Students begged to get into my class. I have documentation: six years of stellar student reviews. I was so popular that students persuaded the administration to allow me to create a brand-new course in American Law and Jewish Legal Issues, as a sort-of expansion beyond other courses on law of interest to Black and Muslim students. I worked 200 hours on preparing that course proposal. We went through all the channels. The course finally was approved by the deans. Students were ready to sign up. And then the course never was offered.
Nor was I ever allowed an opportunity to be considered for a tenure-track position. Rather, I was an adjunct, invited to teach courses on a temporary year-to-year basis, with no employee benefits. I was hired by the extreme-leftist Erwin Chemerinsky, the soft-spoken radical who backs packing the Supreme Court with as many leftist judges as needed to reverse the conservative majority. He knew I am a conservative and an Orthodox rabbi, and he would not consider me for tenure track. I had all the qualifications for a tenure-track position: I had graduated from a nationally ranked Top 15 law school, UCLA Law. Not only had I done Moot Court and made law review, but I even was chief articles editor of the UCLA Law Review. Not only had I spent time under a judge, but I clerked in the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit for one of the nations top appellate judges and unquestionably the smartest, Danny J. Boggs of Louisville, Kentucky. Judge Boggs rose to be chief judge of the appellate circuit and even was on George H.W. Bushs short list when he ultimately named Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.
Moreover, I had actual real-life law experience by litigating nearly a decade at two of the nations highest-rated law firms, Jones Day and Akin Gump. My clients included the biggest corporate names: Experian, AT&T, Samsung, and so many more. I was overqualified to teach at the new law school. But I was a political conservative, so all that was nullified. Only years later did Erwins disgustingly corrupt and dishonest hiring practices become public knowledge. Watch this one-minute video, posted by Christopher Rufo, in which the churlish cheating Chemerinsky tells an entire class at University of Berkeley Law School that he proudly lies, defrauds, and covers up his dishonesty and bigotry when it comes to hiring or refusing faculty, based on race and ethnicity:
When the pandemic hit and my lungs degraded, UCI stopped inviting me to teach. Dozens of law students wrote me, asking where I was, why I was not back. No answer could be given until today and here.
So I know UCI and how it operates, brainwashing students by enveloping them in an all-leftist environment. I still keep tabs on UCI, particularly its college and its School of Law. Several years ago, a bunch of Arab and Muslim students infamously disrupted a speech by Israels ambassador to America, Michael Oren. The thing is that Orange County still has enough of a conservative Republican presence not to stand for the garbage that goes on in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Ithaca and Manhattan, New York. So, although the UCI college president wimped out, the district attorney of Orange County brought criminal charges against 11 of the wild animals who disrupted Ambassador Oren. That gutsy move by the off-campus Orange County DA put an end to it, and no Arab Muslim UCI student ever again has done that. Yet, in that heated environment, the anti-Semitic Muslim Arab organization CAIR came out in support of the prosecuted 11 animals, and I was invited to debate a national CAIR leader in two televised debates:
The poison remains at UCI, and it reared its ugly head at this latest leftist anti-Israel brainwashing event titled: Ask a UCI Professor: Israel-Palestine Conflict 101.
That sounds academically fruitful, doesnt it? Ask a UCI Professor: Israel-Palestine Conflict 101. Sounds like an opportunity to learn. But at UCI it is a scheme to brainwash.
The key: Ask which professors. These were the four: a Muslim Arab who hates Israel. Another Muslim Arab who hates Israel.
Hmmm. That calls for balance, does it not? And balance there was:
A Jewish professor who hates Israel. And another Jewish professor this one an Israeli who has a long record of attacking Israel.
Imagine college kids coming to such a program. They hear one professor after another attack Israel, distort history, say things about Israel that are lies, things about a phony entity fraudulently called Palestine and about Arabs who fraudulently call themselves Palestinians. The concern is not that Jews have been murdered, slaughtered, butchered, beheaded, raped, with pregnant women cut open live and their fetuses torn out of them, then burned, and then the women burned. That is not the days concern.
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UMass Amherst student arrested for allegedly punching Jewish student, spitting on Israeli flag
A University of Massachusetts Amherst student was arrested after allegedly punching a Jewish student and spitting on an Israeli flag at the end of a vigil Friday night, school officials said.
The unidentified student is accused of assaulting their peer at an event where empty seats were set up at a Shabbat table to represent the more than 200 hostages taken by Hamas fighters during their Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel.
The suspect first approached participants and aggressively gave them the finger before walking away, according to UMass Hillel, which organized the solemn gathering.
But the same student came back shortly after and allegedly punched the Jewish student holding an Israeli flag before ripping it out of the victims hands, the organization said. The aggressor then reportedly spit on the flag.
The unnerving incident was witnessed by university staff, UMass Hillel said.
UMass police probed the deeply disturbing incident and made an arrest the same night, school officials in a message to students. The victim was not injured, the school also said.
The offending student was released on bail, but is banned from returning to campus, said Interim Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Campus Life Shelly Perdomo-Ahmed and Assistant Vice Chancellor and Chief of Police Tyrone Parham.
What this student is accused of is reprehensible, illegal, and unacceptable, the two school leaders said in a joint statement. Let us be clear, these were the actions of an individual who did not speak for nor act on behalf of a group or anyone other them themselves.
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South Carolina Teachers Union Out to Deprive Students of Learning Options
Barely six months after South Carolina lawmakers approved legislation allowing K-12 students to customize their education, the state affiliate of the National Education Association is attempting to force children to remain in assigned public schools.
The South Carolina Education Association is the latest in a long line of education special-interest groups that oppose parental rights and have sought to limit students learning options through litigation. National teachers unions and their state affiliates have filed suits against parental choice in education in Arizona, Florida, New Hampshire, Ohio, Puerto Ricothe list goes on.
Fortunately for children, the unions and other lobbying groups have a losing record. And sometimes even when they succeed, the win comes back to haunt them.
In Arizona, for example, unions sued to close a K-12 private school scholarship option for children with special needs. Though the union successfully took options away from children with autism, Down syndrome, and other diagnoses, the decision inspired advocates to create education savings accounts, which allow students to access private schools and more, including personal tutors, education therapists, and curricular materials.
Today, accounts or account-style options are available in more than a dozen states, and in some of those states, every school-age child can apply for an account.
South Carolina lawmakers adopted education savings accounts earlier this year. Starting in the 2024-2025 school year, students from low-income families (families earning up to 200% of the federal poverty line) will be eligible to apply for the accounts.
Similar to account options in Arizona, Florida, and North Carolina, moms and dads can use scholarships to pay for online classes, buy textbooks, access private schools, and more. The eligibility criteria expand each year until the 2026-2027 school year, when students from families earning up to 400% of the poverty line will be eligible.
Education special-interest groups in South Carolina stopped children from finding alternatives to assigned schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the state Supreme Court ruled against Republican Gov. Henry McMasters proposal to use federal relief dollars and offer private school scholarships and help students get back to class.
During the pandemic, some 60% to 90% of private schools were open to in-person learning around the country when public schools were not.
Like the 2020 lawsuit, the new filing claims the state constitution prohibits the use of public money for private schools. Yet in the past decade, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued two rulings in favor of families participating in state-based private school choice opportunities.
Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue and Carson v. Makin both affirmed that parents can access religious and secular schools as part of state-based education choice programs. As The Heritage Foundations John Malcolm and Sarah Parshall Perry explained, federal courts have made rulings that could work in parents favor.
South Carolina officials should make use of those rulings in the case filed this week.
Meanwhile, parents and lawmakers should call the union to account for accusing private schools of discrimination. In the South Carolina Education Associations press release, the special-interest group said private schools discriminate against students based on different factors, including disability and gender identity. Yet, district schools in South Carolina have been accused of teaching discriminatory concepts such as critical race theory and even trying to separate students by race for school activities.
In fact, parents use private school choice options specifically to help their children with special needs when assigned schools fail to do so. And parents are also choosing private schools, microschools, homeschooling, and other options to get away from the radical material some district schools are using.
The union is trying to limit student options in K-12 and mislead South Carolinians. The court should see the discrimination in the former, and lawmakers and families should recognize the dishonesty in the latter.
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5 November, 2023
Non-education in Portland, Oregon
This week, Townhall covered how one state passed a policy that lowers the requirements for students to graduate high school altogether, claiming that the previous requirements harm "students of color."
Through 2029, the state's high school students will not have to prove mastery in reading, writing and math to graduate, the state Board of Education decided. This initially began in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and will continue.
Now, reports broke that teachers in this state are now going on strike, making it impossible for students to attend school.
Teachers and other school employees in Portland, Oregon, began to strike on Wednesday, according to The New York Times. This canceled school for tens of thousands of students in the district (via NY Times):
The Portland Association of Teachers, which represents about 3,700 teachers, school counselors and other employees in the negotiations, is asking for higher wages, more time to plan lessons and a cap on class sizes, among other issues. They say that students emotional and academic needs have skyrocketed since the pandemic, and that employees are under strain and undersupported.
We are on strike not just for ourselves, but for our students, said Angela Bonilla, the unions president, who described crowded classrooms where there arent enough desks, teachers who are working up to 20 hours a week unpaid to keep up with their workloads and schools that are overwhelmed by students mental health challenges.
The average salary for a Portland teacher is $87,000, according to Portland Public Schools, slightly above the area median income for a single person and below the median for a family of four. (The union said that the average full-time salary is about $83,000.)
Portland Public Schools has offered raises of 4.5 percent for the first year, and 3 percent in subsequent years of the contract. The union is asking for 8.5 percent in the first year to keep up with cost of living, and 6 percent and 5 percent in subsequent years.
The district serves around 45,000 students. And, the students spent "significant" time out of the classroom and stayed fully virtual until April 2021. This was longer than most school districts.
Nicki Neily, the president of parental rights organization Parents Defending Education, called the district "students last."
"Oregon recently removed basic competency requirements in reading, writing, and math in order to graduate high school because they're 'unnecessary' and 'disproportionately harm students of color.' Now teachers in Oregon's largest district are on strike preventing 45,000 students from going to school," she wrote on X.
Last year, Townhall covered how many teachers unions across the country went on strike ahead of the 2022-2023 school year. This is the same time most school districts plan to return to full-time, in-person and "normal" schooling since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
https://townhall.com//tipsheet/madelineleesman/2023/11/02/portland-strike-n2630697
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Washington Snoozes While Foreign Money Continues to Pour Into U.S. Colleges and Universities
The recent hubbub surrounding pro-Palestinian and anti-Jewish demonstrations at major universities and colleges in the U.S. has again drawn attention to the massive, and unaccounted donations made to those institutions, including by foreign governments and other sources; contributions that have become an increasingly important part of the schools budgets.
However, if critics are looking for either Congress or the administration to do anything to improve the almost total lack of transparency regarding such money flow, they are in for a long wait.
Uncle Sam has been asleep at that switch for decades, and the Biden Administration has made clear it has no interest whatsoever in continuing its predecessors modest effort to enforce long-standing requirements that institutions of higher learning simply report major foreign monetary donations, especially where Communist China is concerned.
Congress has not done much better. A measure that would have strengthened the federal governments power to examine large foreign gifts to, and contracts with American universities, was stripped out of a bipartisan bill two years ago that was designed to strengthen American innovation. The reasons for the measures demise included opposition by the very same universities and colleges that receive significant money from foreign donors, including China, which reportedly had donated more than $400 million in the two years before the measure was deep-sixed in 2021.
Adding to the demise of the extremely modest reporting requirement in the innovation legislation, was a jurisdictional turf dispute between two Senate committees with concurrent jurisdiction over the measure.
The reality is that since 1986, when Section 117 was added to the 1965 Higher Education Act, colleges and universities have been required to report foreign gifts and contracts. It was not until 2019, however, that the Department of Education, under the leadership of Secretary Betsy DeVos, got around to actually ordering the schools to start doing what they were supposed to have been doing for more than three decades.
As President Trumps Education Secretary, DeVos issued a report in October 2020 stating that some 95% of colleges and universities had for years simply ignored the foreign gift reporting requirement. The report also noted that successive administrations and Congresses had failed completely in their responsibilities to enforce the laws reporting requirement.
The DeVos report threw cold water on the excuse given by the universities for their failure to comply with the federal law that the reporting requirement was unclear and burdensome. It explained that the schools manage to track every cent owed and paid by their students and already report extensively to the IRS on their financial undertakings.
The 2020 report made clear that enforcement of the reporting requirements for institutions of higher learning was not to police or stop foreign contributions to American universities, but simply to bring a necessary degree of transparency to the public and to alert other government agencies with jurisdiction over aspects of such entanglements.
DeVos concerns that significant financial gifts to U.S. universities come with strings attached and can indeed influence both the education missions of the institutions, as well as potentially harming our national security, are not misplaced. As noted in the report, and elsewhere, the torrent of money flowing into our schools in recent years especially from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and China, has increased dramatically. A 2011 FBI report focused on just such security concerns, but even that did not awake the Justice Department from its slumber.
In the three years since DeVos issued her report and at least began to demand our universities and colleges report major foreign gifts and donations, the problem has only worsened.
Not only has Bidens Education Department deliberately stopped enforcing the long-standing law requiring schools to report foreign contributions, but has halted the initiative by Trump to crack down on Chinese espionage more generally, his China Initiative. Bidens Justice Department concluded that Trumps efforts to identify and limit Chinas growing influence in American academia and businesses, was or might be perceived as racist. The absurdity of this conclusion has led to a number of important national security prosecutions against Chinese influencers in our country being dropped completely.
So long as our own government continues to turn a blind eye to foreign monetary influences in major U.S. universities and colleges, foreign governments will continue their efforts to influence educational policies and also to steal important technology from us.
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Not Taking It Sitting Down: High Schoolers Walk Out to Protest Trans Restroom Policies
It was May 28, 2021, when a 15-year-old girl was sexually assaulted in a Virginia public school restroom. Details revealed the girl was attacked by a boy wearing a skirt who was legally allowed to use the girls restroom at Stone Bridge High School in Loudoun County, Virginia, because it matched his gender identity.
Under the pseudonym Jane Doe, the girl and her parents filed a lawsuit after the school allegedly covered up her assault. Incredibly, the boy went on to attack another girl in a different school. But because he considered himself gender-fluid, the violence was denied by both his mother and teachers.
In response to incidents like these, which resulted from school policies allowing boys into girls restrooms and locker rooms, a growing tide of high school students across the country are walking out of class in protest.
On Wednesday, Loudoun County students held a second walkout protesting Policy 8040, which allows biological males to use girls bathrooms and locker rooms. The first walkout occurred after the sexual assault incident in 2021.
In Pennsylvania, hundreds of students from Perkiomen Valley School District ditched class to protest the failure to enact a policy requiring students to use the bathroom that matched their biological sex.
[It feels] as if its me and my sister and the rest of us students rights are now compromised and not a priority to this school whatsoever, Pennsylvania student Brandon Emery said. His mother, Melanie Marren, added, They are making these policies without taking into consideration how they affect the students and how uncomfortable it is to be faced with the invasion of their privacy in those areas where they should feel safe and private.
In Baltimore, a group of parents involved with Parental Alliance for Safer Schools in Baltimore County (PASS) planned a protest of the county and its policy that allows trans-identifying students to use whichever bathroom or locker room they please. However, the Oct. 10 protest faced opposition when parents supporting transgenderism also showed up.
In Canada, groups have also gathered to protest policies that allow biological males in female-specific spaces. Students from Longfields-Davidson Heights High School formed a group called LDHSS Students for Change to push back against the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board by hosting their own walkouts.
One of the students from the group told Newsweek, The main thing we protested for was for us to be able to say what we want and to keep gay teachings out of our schools. As a way to fight the policies, these students want the school board to establish gender-neutral single-user bathrooms, a compromise some states have put in motion.
American adults and parents should be ashamed of the fact that students are forced to protest for the right to not undress in front of someone of the opposite sex, Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for education studies at the Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. The students and staff are protesting because the Left is forcing progressive adult sexual priorities on children as a way of justifying their own adult actions, and its not acceptable.
Kilgannon acknowledged that when students leave school in protest for gun control or climate change, it may be that kids [are] taking an opportunity to leave class, adding that some may have the same attitude towards these examples. However, she emphasized that when the cause of the protest is something as intimate as access to bathrooms or locker rooms, or is in protest of compelled speech, we should pay attention.
Kilgannon concluded, [I]f these kinds of protests continue, its going to make the release of the Biden administrations redefinition of Title IX and sex itself much more charged.
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3 November, 2023
Union College facing outrage over student who said pro-Israel rally attendees should burn in hell
Top brass at Union College is facing outrage from students, faculty and alumni alike after an undergraduate said attendees of a recent a pro-Israel benefit on the New York liberal arts schools campus should burn in hell.
Ayah Osman, a junior at Union College, got into an altercation over the atrocious comment after being confronted by Stephen Berk, a professor of Holocaust and Jewish Studies at the college who questioned the student about a social media post.
In an Instagram Story, Osman said that everyone who attends a Bingo night on campus to benefit Israeli victims of terror gets a free guaranteed spot in hell.
A clip of the heated exchange between Berk and Osman was posted to X by nonprofit watchdog StopAntisemitism. In it, Osman can be heard saying: Professor, you called me a disgrace, but I think its very important to note how irresponsible it was of youto completely misrepresent what I said.
I never said that all Jewish people should go to hell, Osman added.
Berk replied: I said that what you said what that people who attended that rally should burn in hell. Do you stand by that?
I do, Osman said.
Berk told The Post that he believes Osmans really talking about all supporters of Israel. He added that Osmans inflammatory comments have made Jewish students more nervous on campus for the first time in the 56 years hes taught at the school.
Theres been no rebuke of this [Osmans] statement whatsoever, Berk said. What should be done is a public repudiation of what this young woman said and we have yet to get that.
Attempts to reach Osman for comment werent immediately successful.
Union College President David Harris has yet to comment on Osmans remarks or any displays of antisemitism on campus, including the pro-Palestine event that emeritus professor Tom Lobe hosted on Wednesday called the Humanitarian Crisis in Palestine.
Hate whether it be antisemitism, Islamophobia or hatred toward any other group of people has no place at Union, and the College works every day to combat hate through education and constructive dialogue, a Union College spokesman said in a Thursday statement to The Post.
The College has robust and well-established processes for investigating claims of bias and responds to every such allegation thoroughly, the spokesman added. Neither the existence of such investigations, nor the results, are shared by the College in accordance with federal privacy laws.
Andrew Sole, a hedge fund manager at Esopus Creek Advisors who graduated from Union College in 1986 and was a student of Prof. Berk, said he will not consider donating a dime to Union, nor should other alums, until Harris resigns forthwith.
Sole added that it was revolting to watch this antisemite at Union try to impugn Prof. Berk and smear Jews.
A Change.org petition that has gained 4,500 signatures has since called on Union College to expel Osman, who has tarnished the inclusive image of our institution with her remarks and caused distress among the Jewish students on campus.
When questioned about her inflammatory remarks regarding attendees at an Israel-supporting rallyshe showed no remorse or understanding for the harm she was causing, the petitions description reads.
Berk declined to comment on whether he agreed that Osman should be expelled thats an administrative decision, he said.
Cigdem Cidam, an associate professor of political science at Union College, moderated the pro-Palestine event, according to a post on an Instagram page for the schools political science department.
Union Colleges political science department has disabled comments on the post.
Ten student groups on campus sponsored and attended the one-day presentation and discussion on the humanitarian crisis in Palestine, the post said, including the Muslim Student Association (MSA), Black Student Union (BSU), Womens U, MAMBA, National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), Asian Student Union (ASU), African Student Association (ASA), World Around U (international students association), Bhangra and Cricket Club.
Signatories to the change.org petition who commented under reasons for signing, included a man named Scott, who identified himself as a 2008 Union College alumnus horrified by this breach in the code of conduct.
https://nypost.com/2023/11/02/business/petition-demands-union-college-expel-pro-palestine-student/
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CUNY professor, ex-CNN contributor Marc Lamont Hill says Hamas a government organization, not terrorists
Al Jazeera host and CUNY professor Marc Lamont Hill slammed the media for framing Hamas as terrorists as a way to delegitimize the group instead of calling it a government organization despite its control of Gaza.
Last week, Hill appeared on Briahna Joy Grays Bad Faith podcast after he hosted a Hamas spokesperson on his Al Jazeera English (AJE) program UpFront.
Hill suggested Hamas would be willing to speak with other news organizations but that the media refuses to do so because of the groups terrorist status.
Im not convinced that theyre unwilling to talk to these other networks. It seems to me that other corporate media outlets have made the decision that they dont want to be in conversation with them, and part of why is because theyve decided to frame them as a terrorist network, Hill said.
And when you have Netanyahu and others saying that theyre no different than ISIS, then it becomes- you wouldnt do an exclusive with ISIS on CNN so theyre not going to do one with Hamas, Hill continued. And its part of a broader project, I think, of framing Hamas not as a government organization even if you think that what happened on October 7 was an act of terrorism by framing them as a terrorist organization rather than a government, rather than a democratically-elected government and/or political party, it makes it easy to avoid political and diplomatic solutions.
Hill repeatedly insisted he was not a supporter of Hamas but said he understands what happens when you take away peoples political options, and you isolate them.
Oct. 7 was the deadliest attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust, as Hamas invaded Israel and killed at least 1,400 soldiers and civilians including women, children and the elderly.
Hundreds more were kidnapped and taken into Gaza.
Most news organizations in America have referred to Hamas as a terrorist organization, but other foreign outlets, like the BBC initially, refused to do so.
BBCs world affairs editor John Simpson explained to viewers, Terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. Its simply not the BBCs job to tell people who to support and who to condemn who are the good guys and who are the bad guys We dont take sides. We dont use loaded words like evil or cowardly. We dont talk about terrorists.
Following overwhelming backlash, the British broadcaster was forced to do an about-face and acknowledge Hamas as a terrorist organization rather than referring to the group as militants.
Hill was fired from CNN in 2018 when he called for a free Palestine from the river to the sea, an expression widely seen as a declaration for the elimination of Israel, during a speech at the United Nations. He addressed the controvsery on the podcast with Gray.
The people who were critical of me would argue that I was echoing a specific chant from Hamas, who, when they were formed in 1987, were saying, We dont support a two-state solution. Right? Were a liberation organization, and we want all of historic Palestine to be returned to the Palestinian people, which was, frankly, the default position of the Arab world between 1948 and 1967, right, was that all of historic Palestine would be returned to Arabs, Hill told Gray.
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Australia must teach young people technology skills, says WiseTechs Richard White
Richard White, one of Australias most successful tech entrepreneurs, told the Economic and Social Outlook Conference on Thursday it was incredibly wasteful for Australian companies to be forced to use overseas talent to fill their need for technology skills.
Mr White, founder and CEO of $20bn logistics software company WiseTech Global, said Australia needed to break the mould and use non-traditional thinking to succeed in giving more young people tech skills.
He told the conference technology companies were Australias economic future, and they were driven by education. But the lack of trained technology talent meant our companies were at war with each other to secure skills.
If you havent got the talent in the economy, you have to fight for the last person standing you are fighting over scraps, Mr White said. The other option was to import talent but as a continuous solution, particularly for the long term, it doesnt work.
Mr White said efforts to boost STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) education had failed. We have talked about STEM voraciously for 10 years, and yet our engagement with mathematics, science and engineering has fallen, he said.
Somethings wrong, and its not about more money because we put a lot more money in and didnt get better results.
Mr White, who began his career as guitarist in a rock band, then turned to repairing electric guitars and developing computer-controlled stage lighting before entering the logistics software business, said tech jobs were very secure and extremely well paid.
Theyre very diverse. Theyll hire anybody that has the requisite skills. And yet, only 4.7 per cent of students undertake tertiary studies in that computing area, he said, adding reform in education needed to start when children were young.
Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research director Abigail Payne said Australia had a higher youth unemployment rate than many comparable countries, even now, when demand for labour was high.
Professor Payne said too few young Australians were going on to tertiary education and the system was too rigid, forcing school leavers to make early career choices. Why do we keep thinking you know at 16 what you want to do in life? Why arent we creating greater flexibility? she asked.
Federal opposition education spokeswoman Sarah Henderson told the conference that Australias school standards were a national embarrassment.
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2 November, 2023
Pittsburgh public schools approve measure to instruct teachers on White supremacy in math classes
The Pittsburgh Public Schools Board has voted to hire a consulting group that educates teachers on how to replace White supremacy culture practices in math instruction with methods that center on the wellness of students of color.
On October 25, the board approved a measure to give Quetzal Education Consulting $50,000 to dismantle racism in math classes.
As reported by The Center Square, the consulting group states that its workshops teach antiracist math and will help equip teachers with tools to identify, disrupt and replace practices that perpetuate White supremacy.
Ebony Pugh, the Director of Public Relations and Media Content for Pittsburgh Public Schools, confirmed to Fox News Digital that the Board of Directors of the School District of Pittsburgh authorized its offices to enter a contract with Quetzal.
The move will provide the school with additional foundational knowledge of antiracist math pedagogy and tangible learning experiences that can be implemented with students.
Quetzal will provide support through introductory workshops for math teachers and a leadership series for administrators.
The school boards agenda for the meeting confirms the purpose of the introductory workshops, which will confront oppressive practices in math instruction with practices that center the wellness of students of color and to provide opportunities for math departments and math teachers to grow their antiracist math praxis collaboratively in pedagogy and instruction.
It was also confirmed that participants in the leadership workshop series will engage in an ongoing workshop series in the topic of antiracist math leadership.
The purpose of this series is to equip educators who have completed the Antiracist Math Workshop Series Edition 1 to develop and lead towards a more cohesive and aligned math instruction praxis across classrooms, departments and schools. Participants will learn how to train others in the topic of antiracist math, as well as how to identify issues of equity in math spaces, the school board tab added.
Several schools, organizations and states have issued guidance and promoted teachers programs that seek to remove racism from mathematics.
In 2021, the state of Oregon defended the Pathways to Equitable Math Instruction teacher training, which advises that a focus on finding the correct answer in class is an example of White supremacy infiltrating schools.
The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so, a document for the Equitable Math toolkit reads. Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict.
Similarly, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics hosted a webinar in 2022 that discussed antiracist math and asked to eliminate all examples of tracking, which they claimed was a form of spirit murdering inflicted on children of color through math.
Tracking is defined as a method used by secondary schools to group students based on ability, IQ and achievement.
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Oklahoma Governor Defends funding for Nations First Religious Charter School
Republican Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt is criticizing a lawsuit filed by his states attorney general against the nations first religious charter school as a political stunt.
Nobody is forcing kids to go to any religious charter school, Stitt said in a phone interview Monday with The Daily Signal. A charter school is just another option. And if a parent chooses that thats the best option for their kids, why is the government standing in their way?
We just think this is a no-brainer, he added, critiquing radical groups for suing and coming after religious freedoms and education freedom because they want to try to lock kids into a ZIP code school, even if its not the best outcome for them.
The lawsuit, led by the states Republican attorney general, challenges the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Boards vote to approve the authorization of funds for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, the nations first religious charter school.
This is a win for religious liberty and education freedom in our great state, and I am encouraged by these efforts to give parents more options when it comes to their childs education, Stitt said in June following news of the boards approval.
But on Friday, state Attorney General Gentner Drummond filed the lawsuit with the Oklahoma Supreme Court, claiming that funding the school would violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment and that the Constitution does not allow for sectarian control of public schools.
Today, Oklahomans are being compelled to fund Catholicism, Drummond said in a statement. Because of the legal precedent created by the Boards actions, tomorrow we may be forced to fund radical Muslim teachings like Shariah law. In fact, Governor Stitt has already indicated that he would welcome a Muslim charter school funded by our tax dollars.
That is a gross violation of our religious liberty, he said. As the defender of Oklahomas religious freedoms, I am prepared to litigate this issue to the United States Supreme Court, if thats what is required to protect our constitutional rights.
Stitt told The Daily Signal on Monday that he finds it a head-scratcher why the states attorney general, a fellow Republican, is taking that stand.
He should be defending the board, but instead, hes actively trying to join in with these left-wing groups out of California and challenging religious freedoms, the governor said.
We believe in religious freedom, Stitt said. We believe in school choice. We believe empowering parents to let them choose where they think the best education is for their kids. So, its that simple.
In a statement on its website, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School emphasizes that the Catholic Church believes parents are the primary educators of their children. The school boasts that it offers a virtue-based robust liberal arts program that opens the student to the best of the Catholic intellectual tradition.
Students who previously had limited access to Catholic schools can now enroll with St. Isidores rigorous virtual program scaled for student success with quality curriculum materials beginning in spring 2024.
The primary goal of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School is to assist parents in the important responsibility of developing the heart, mind, and soul of their child, the schools website says. The St. Isidore Catholic Virtual School envisions a learning opportunity for all students whose parents desire a quality Catholic education for their child, regardless of where they live in Oklahoma.
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How Government Schools Cement Power
School choice is no longer a fringe idea of traditional-leaning parents. Parents of all walks of life have come to learn the government can no longer be trusted to teach their children. School choice reforms are sweeping the nation, but dont expect the government schools to bow out quietly. Many are stealthily cementing their power.
Take the example of the Forest Hills School District in Michigan, a state where public schools are well protected, with the teacher union-backed Democrats controlling all branches of the state government. School choice is the last thing on their minds. But times change, and Forest Hills is taking no chances.
This November, the district, in a low turnout off-year election, is asking voters to approve what amounts to a charge card with a $340 million line of credit. Using education tax dollars, the district is marketing the idea by mailing glossy flyers and newsletters promoting its school bond proposal, along with funding a shortfall in an operational millage, that the law allows it to do.
The district offers all kinds of enticements. A new aquatic center! Playgrounds! Technology infrastructure! Paving! Mechanical improvements! New roofing! Nothing seems left out.
What is not mentioned is the steady decline in school enrollment, down now 10 percent since 2013. School taxes should be going down, not up.
The taxes on property would start immediately and would be collected even if no bonds are issued. The school districts current debt is $111,630,000. The current proposal would quadruple the debt. Interest payments potentially could top $40,000,000 the first year alone at todays rates.
In 1994, Michigan voters approved Proposal A to stop government from exploiting increases in property tax valuations to fund public school spending sprees, often to the advantage of the teachers unions.
Children in low-valuation neighborhoods were being shortchanged by this system. So, to even the playing field, Proposal A limited property tax assessment to the rate of inflation or five percent, whichever is less. Sales tax increased two percent, which would then fund a per pupil allowance, which is now $9,608.
Public schools, however, have retained the right to borrow money via the bond market to pay for building and remodeling facilities. Public school districts took full advantage and managed to get voter approval for a laundry list of projects through school bond proposals. By 2014, according to the Mackinac Center, Michigan school districts owned a whopping $17.8 billion in long-term debt.
Money is fungible. While the public schools are prohibited from asking local taxpayers for operational funds, the school bond proposals give the schools more spending power, perhaps higher teacher salaries, to fend off competition from charter and private schools.
Competitors at a Disadvantage
Few private and charter schools can compete with the huge trove of funds the public schools have at their disposal. Parochial schools would have a difficult time asking for tuition that would match the per-pupil allowance. Nearly none could fund an aquatic center, and all maintenance and building costs would have to come from the budget or generous donors.
If public school competitors cannot offer lofty facilities, mega-sports programs, and the like, they will have a hard time attracting students at reasonable costs. Charter and private schools must also offer competitive salaries not easy when the amply funded public schools set the bar.
Conveniently, a bond proposal is expiring this year, which allows the Forest Hills School District to advertise no new taxes. But taxpayers are waking up. The most recent bond proposal allowed the district to fund a $14 million new administration building that few taxpayers realized was under construction. Taxpayers would have never approved a project of this magnitude had it been pitched separately.
The bond proposal is nothing but a money grab at a time when the public school system is losing students, not gaining them.
School district bond proposals pass nearly every time and not with universal support. Tax increase requests are almost always put on off-year election ballots when voter turnout is low. Those who will benefit from the flow of millions of dollars (special interest groups, construction firms, teachers unions, contractors, administrators) will come out in droves to vote yes.
The bond proposal would last 21 years. No one knows what the world will be like in 21 years. Consider how radically things changed over the past decade. Taking on debt at taxpayer expense is just poor governance. Even if taxpayers are champions of public schools, that reason alone should be enough for them to say no.
https://redstate.com/heartlandinstitute/2023/10/25/how-public-schools-cement-power-n2165528
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1 November, 2023
Jewish Columbia students slam university’s ‘inaction’ against antisemitism: ‘I don’t feel safe’
Around 20 Jewish students from Columbia University and Barnard College spoke Monday to denounce the university’s “inaction against antisemitism” in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack.
Students clad in yarmulkes, necklaces with the Star of David, and blue and white wristbands with the phrase “you are not alone,” said they found it “incredibly disheartening” that the university has not had a “meaningful” response to incidents including the attack of a Jewish student, online death threats and hate graffiti scrawled on the campus of the elite university.
The protest at the Morningside Heights, Manhattan, campus came hours after more than 100 professors signed a letter defending students who support the terror group’s “military action,” which killed 1,400 Israelis.
Second-year law student Eli Shmidman, 26, from Queens, was the victim of antisemitism on campus on Oct. 19 when a student yelled “f–k the Jews” at him. The university has apparently identified the student in question but not yet taken any action.
“‘F–k the Jews’. Those words were not said here on Amsterdam, not on Broadway, those words were said in Jerome Greene Hall — Columbia’s law school building,” Shmidman said.
“I know this incident occurred because it happened to me. I was the one who the antisemite chose to direct that message to. But this was an attack on me, he said ‘f–k the Jews’, it was an attack on all Jews.
“How did we get to a point where an individual felt emboldened to walk into the law school building at 2.30 in the afternoon, stare at an individual wearing a kippah [yarmulke] and say [that]?
“We got here because after the horrifying terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 20-plus student groups signed a statement that said, ‘the weight of responsibility for the war and casualties undeniably lies with the Israeli extremist government’. Not only did the statement not condemn Hamas’ barbaric attack, it justified it based on lies.
“What did the Columbia administration do in response to this statement? Nothing,” he said.
“Students chant, ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free’, which is a call for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel. What did the Columbia administration do in response to that antisemitic rhetoric? Nothing.”
In the wake of Hamas’ terror attacks, University president Minouche Shafik said she was “devastated by the horrific attack on Israel this weekend,” on October 9, but did not mention Hamas or terrorism.
A day earlier politics and history teacher Joseph Massad wrote an article online in which he praised Hamas’ terror attacks, calling it “astonishing,” “astounding,” and “incredible” as well as a “stunning victory of the Palestinian resistance” against “cruel colonizers.”
The university has yet to take any action or comment on his stance.
Barnard College psychology student Jessica Brenner, 20, said she is now anxious simply attending classes.
“I feel walking on campus many people just want me to die,” Brenner said.
“I have to walk around and go to my class and see someone and think they might want me to not exist or not want my people to exist — I don’t take a step without thinking about that.
“When I’m asked ‘do you feel safe at Columbia University?’, I say ‘no. I don’t feel safe,'” Brenner said.
“When I see my fellow students turn a blind eye to the blatant antisemitism on campus, I do not feel safe.
“Now I get it, I actually understand how the Holocaust happened. When Columbia professors band together and sign a letter that basically justifies Hamas’ actions, I do not feel safe.”
Noah Fay, 22, a Barnard and Columbia School of International and Public Affairs student, agreed with Brenner and said anti-Jewish propaganda is rife at Columbia.
“It was always hard for my generation to comprehend how the Nazis could have mobilized — how did the gentile bystanders fall victim to propaganda so effectively they quickly became the perpetrators themselves?,” Fay asked.
“The saturation of anti-Israel propaganda on campus has convinced the majority of the student body of the same insidious theories through which the Holocaust was enacted.
“The student body at Columbia and our peer institutions has been so thoroughly propagandized they do not see and refuse to see the extent of their fear and hatred towards the Jewish people. This is antisemitism at its core.”
Columbia University history student Yoni Kurtz, 21, called out Columbia University president Minouche Shafik by name for not protecting Jewish students on campus.
“With my own eyes I have witnessed Columbia students resort to based bigotry. I’ve seen them parrot foul antisemitic tropes, I’ve seen them label visibly Muslim students as terrorists, I’ve seen them roar in approval for calls of violence against civilians, and I’ve seen them take to social media nearly every day of the last three weeks to call for each other’s deaths,” Kurtz said.
“The university’s response has not been action, but empty statements. Do not abandon your students Columbia, take action now,” he pleaded.
Shmidman particularly took issue with Monday’s missive from the faculty room as a sign that the administration “has enabled antisemitic rhetoric to spread and fester on the Columbia campus.”
Columbia spokeswoman Samantha Slater said Shafik has sent three messages of solidarity and tolerance to the student body and said that school leaders swiftly condemned a swastika that was drawn in the International Affairs Building as a shocking “symbol of antisemitism, hatred, and racial supremacy.”
“As President Shafik and the administration have consistently made clear, antisemitism or any other form of hate are antithetical to Columbia’s values and can lead to acts of harassment or violence. When this type of speech is unlawful or violates University rules, it will not be tolerated,” Slater told The Post.
“We are using every available tool to keep our community safe and that includes protecting our Jewish students from antisemitic discrimination or harassment.”
The university did cancel an on-campus student event last week that warned “Zionists” were not welcome.
During the demonstration, one student-aged man yelled “free Palestine” as he walked past the presser into the university but there was no counter-protest.
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More than 100 Columbia professors sign letter DEFENDING students who supported Hamas
Columbia is in NYC but is a very "ethnic" university, with only about 30% white students
More than 100 Columbia University professors signed a letter in defense of students seeking to 'recontextualize' the Hamas attacks on October 7 and called on administrators to protect them from 'disturbing reverberations' on campus.
The letter, published Monday, claims that students are looking at the ambush within the larger framework of Palestinian oppression at the hands of the Israeli government.
The professors aired their concerns about students being publicly shamed and doxed due to their opinions, as well as facing retaliation from employers.
Columbia has come under fire in recent weeks, with billionaire investor Leon Cooperman threatening to cut off donations to his alma mater over student support for Palestine.
'These egregious forms of harassment and efforts to chill otherwise protected speech on campus are unacceptable,' Monday's letter reads.
It defends those who have expressed 'empathy for the lives of dignity of Palestinians' as well as those who 'signed a student-written statement that situated the military action begun on Oct. 7 within the larger context of the occupation of Palestine by Israel.'
The letter argues that the student statement 'aims to recontextualize the events of Oct. 7, 2023' by pointing out that state violence did not begin with the Hamas attacks, 'but rather it represented a military response by a people who had endured crushing and unrelenting state violence from an occupying power over many years.'
Students believe that peace will be unattainable 'unless the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory ends and accountability for that illegal occupation is achieved,' the professors wrote.
They added that this was 'not a radical or essentially controversial opinion,' as it was supported by the United Nations and human rights organizations.
'One of the core responsibilities of a world-class university is to interrogate the underlying facts of both settled propositions and those that are ardently disputed,' the letter ends.
'These core academic values and purposes are profoundly undermined when our students are vilified for voicing perspectives that, while legitimately debated in other institutional settings, expose them to severe forms of harassment and intimidation at Columbia.'
The message concludes with a request that the school reverse a decision to create curricular and research programs in Israel - echoing a demand made by over 100 Columbia faculty last year.
The professors also insisted that the university cease issuing statements that 'favor the suffering and death of Israelis or Jews over the suffering and death of Palestinians, and/or that fail to recognize how challenging this time has been for all students, not just some.'
Among the signatories was Katherine Franke, the James L. Dohr Professor of Law. Franke specializes in gender and sexuality studies and began her career as a civil rights litigator.
She visited Israel as part of a human rights delegation in 2018, but was detained and later deported. The Israeli authorities accused her of having ties to a Palestinian-led movement promoting boycotts, divestments and economic sanctions against the country.
'150+ Columbia/Barnard Faculty have signed a letter supporting our students' right to contextualize the war in Israel/Gaza within the 75 yr occupation of Palestine - insisting that it isn't anti-Semitic to do so,' she wrote on Twitter with a link to the letter.
Franke quickly faced backlash in the comments, including from one user who wrote: 'That letter is about the farthest thing from objective scholarship I’ve ever seen.'
Other faculty members whose names appeared on the letter included Rashid Khalidi, the university's Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies.
Khalidi is the editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies and a former advisor to the Palestinian delegation during the Madrid Conference of 1991.
The Palestinian-American historian recently penned an op-ed for the New York Times titled 'The U.S. Should Think Twice About Israel’s Plans for Gaza.'
The essay reads, in part: 'It is past time for the United States to cease meekly acquiescing to Israel’s use of violence and more violence as its reflexive response to Palestinians who have lived for 56 years under a stifling military occupation.'
Another educator whose name made an appearance was James Schamus, former CEO of Focus Features, who is now the Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia's School of the Arts.
Schamus is Jewish and a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist Jewish activist organization. JVP, coincidentally, backs the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign that Franke was accused of supporting.
The film producer recently retweeted a video of the enormous JVP sit-in at Grand Central Station and captioned it: 'Never more proud of my comrades.'
Monday's letter came in response to backlash over a student statement that was written earlier this month.
It slammed 'the Israeli extremist government' and other governments 'which fund and staunchly support Israeli aggression, apartheid and settler colonization.'
And while more than 100 professors have rallied behind the students, other groups have argued that their words are not advocating for human rights, but terrorism.
Just last week, the Anti-Defamation League sent an open letter to more than 200 colleges and universities, urging them to investigate campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine for allegedly supporting Hamas.
Columbia’s SJP chapter told CNN that it refused to engage with the ADL, arguing that it 'demonizes nonviolent tactics by Palestinian activists.'
Davis Polk, one of the country's most prestigious law firms, recently rescinded job offers for three students, including two from Columbia who signed the statement decrying Israel.
'The views expressed in certain of the statements signed by law school student organizations in recent days are in direct contravention of our firm’s value system,' the firm said in a statement.
It is now reconsidering the decision for two students who fought their dismissals, but has not released their identities.
Other groups that have fired back at the students' alleged support of Hamas include Accuracy in Media, a conservative media group.
On October 25, the nonprofit sent trucks with digital billboards to Columbia's Morningside campus, displaying students' names and faces and deeming them 'Columbia’s Leading Antisemites.'
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California professors blast university system for ‘unsafe’ comments about Hamas
Ethnic studies professors demanded the University of California stop referring to Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians as "terrorism," arguing in a letter to administrators that such language endangers students.
"We call on the UC administrative leadership to retract its charges of terrorism, to uplift the Palestinian freedom struggle, and to stand against Israel’s war crimes against and ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people," a statement from the University of California Ethnic Studies Faculty Council reads in part.
UC leaders condemned the "horrific attack" in a statement on Oct. 9, calling it an "act of terrorism" and highlighting the "loss of many innocent lives and the abduction of innocent hostages, including children and the elderly."
But the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council said administrators' use of the terms "terrorism" and "unprovoked" have stoked anti-Muslim sentiments and "made Palestinian students and community members unsafe." The group cited the recent stabbing death of a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy in Illinois.
UC administrative communications "distort and misrepresent the unfolding genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and thereby contribute to the racist and dehumanizing erasure of Palestinian daily reality," wrote the council, which claims to represent more than 300 faculty members in the university system.
The UC system consists of 10 campuses serving nearly 300,000 students across California. University officials did not respond to a request for comment.
The Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder posted a similar statement on its website last week, rejecting the "language of ‘terrorism’ used by the US and Israel to justify the Israeli state killing machine."
The department described those protesting for Palestinian liberation as "anti-genocide" activists.
Chancellor Phillip DiStefano quickly distanced the university from the ethnic studies department's statement, writing Thursday that the statement is "not an official CU Boulder position" and directing readers back to the university's original statement condemning Hamas' attacks.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/california-professors-blast-university-system-unsafe-comments-hamas
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My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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