Tag: Education

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The Conservative Press is agog at Jacob Savage’s the Lost Generation. Savage details the trials and tribulations of White men trying to break into Academia or Cultural positions right now. It is all DEI and racial discrimination. I am afraid they are emphasizing only one aspect of his argument while downplaying and missing some of his more salient points. They are going on about how lesser candidates who are women or people of color are getting the jobs that should rightfully being going to White men. This was not Savage’s point at all.

Savage points out that this problem exists for young white men and not older white men. Older White men already have their jobs in Academia and in Cultural institutions while younger White men are vying for open positions. The problem for younger White men is that these positions, in the past, skewed disproportionately to White men. This past discrimination worked against women and people of color. So if you presently have a staff of 10 and 7 of them are white men, what happens when a position becomes available and your institution is interested in diversity. The young white men are at a disadvantage. Not because of women and people of color but because the institution already has too many white men.

Is this unfair? Yes, absolutely. But how can you achieve two varied goals — a diversified work force and being absolutely fair to everyone. Conservatives say that diversity shouldn’t be considered a factor at all. The only thing that matters is who is the better candidate. Well, that would be nice but how exactly does the best candidate always get the job?

For example, Savage discusses the hiring of television writers. How does one determine who is a better writer? Particularly if one of your goals is to broaden the stories you tell to include more stories about women and people of color. Who better to tell these tales than women and people of color? White men can, of course, write women characters but then I am betting than women can write even better women characters. So, then, who is the best candidate for the job? The man or the woman?

How does one determine the best candidate in Academia? Is it teaching? Is it research? Or is it the old tried and true old boy network where connections with the people who make the decisions help you get the job? Why should groups who have been discriminated in the past, trust that you are hiring the best candidate? The word of the person making the decision? After how many white men are hired does one question the process? Five? Ten? Twenty? Never. And after twenty or so white men are hired and discrimination is determined, what happens to all of those candidates that were overlooked? Tough luck.

By the way, there isn’t only one perfect person for the job. Indeed this is rarely true. The difficult decision comes generally because there are several people who could do the job well. This is particularly true with jobs that everybody wants. Jobs in Academia and Culture have always had stiff competition. They carry salary, prestige, and power. In the past, a lot of white men vied with other white men for these positions. And a lot of white men were disappointed. Now the competition has expanded to include women and people of color. This means that the competition is fierce and there is even a bigger chance of not getting your dream job. Savage writes at the end of his essay: “The truth is, I’m not some extraordinary talent who was passed over; I’m an ordinary talent—and in ordinary times that would have been enough.”

The sad story is that talented White men are used to getting the job and they aren’t anymore. Their expectation did not match the reality of our present world. It is a difficult lesson to learn but life, as we are constantly being reminded, is unfair. Is it fair that some parents can afford private tutors for their children who may have fallen a step behind in class while poor parents with a child in the same situation can not? Is it fair that some schools are direct conduits to Ivy League Universities while other schools are not? Is it fair that some parents make a significant donation to a university which gets their children into an elite university while a poorer parent with an equally gifted child can not? Is it fair that some children are well fed when they arrive at school and poorer children are not?

I could go on but you get the point. Life is unfair in a lot of different ways. Why this particular unfairness is so important while other unfairnesses can be ignored is informative of the motives of the people complaining right now. I mean if the unfairness in the education a person receives throughout their life can be equalized as best we can then we wouldn’t have to discussing the unfair treatment of White men now. It wouldn’t be a problem because everyone would believe that everybody had a fair chance from the start. But we aren’t talking about the differences in education that people receive, are we? I wonder why?

We do not live in a perfect world. There are plenty of bigoted people in important position making employment decisions. Processes devised to protect groups who have suffered discrimination in the past skew the process against the people who did not suffer discrimination in the past. So maybe we look at how to do the process better as we learn more. But, please, please don’t talk to me about the loss of our meritocracy. Because it is bull shit and you know it is bull shit. We never had one and we never will. All we can do is continue to work at making it better. And we will never ever succeed.

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Texas wants to bring back religious training back to the public schools. The idea here is that the majority religion is Christianity and, given this fact, Texas’ children will learn a little bit about it and become model citizens.

I am probably more blase about religious education than the typical non-religious person. It doesn’t bother me in the least because I know after 12 years of Catholic education, religious training only increased my antagonism towards religion. Add forced Sunday church services like my parents did and Texas will probably get the same share of non-religious people as before Texas began religious education. Really if kids are already having problems with math, history, English and science what makes Texas think that educators will be any better with teaching religion?

But that is not that question before us — the question is can Texas government make children learn about Christianity. I would unequivocally say yes if it weren’t for one important factor. The assumption here is that Christians will sit down and agree on what is to be taught.

Given the past 2,000 years of Christians bitter and brutal quarreling about Christian doctrine, this assumption is a lot of wishful thinking (See Savonarola, St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, 1970’s Northern Ireland if you need some refresher on this). The primary reason the founding fathers separated the Church from the State is that European Christians had spent the last thousand years or so killing one another over religion. All of whom claimed, by the way, they were Christians.

The Founding Fathers thought that any preference to any religion would cause trouble with the other religions — especially within the various Christian groups. Better to leave religion to the individual who can practice as they wish without government interference or, and this is important, government giving a preference to any one belief.

The public schools are already a cultural battleground. Texas will only make it worse with the introduction of religion. Part of me, would love to see the various Christian groups attacking one another about the right Christian doctrine to teach. Particularly since they also claim that the Bible is clear cut about doctrine. Not. Only my sympathy for teachers and students who face an already difficult struggle with non-religious education and, of course, the fear of bloody sectarian warfare keeps me from fully supporting religious education in the public schools.

But Texas is going do what Texas is going to do, so we shall see. Have your bandages ready.

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Yeah, the Texas legislature is making sure that the Ten Commandments are on display in all Texas classrooms. How this might help improve Texas education is still a mystery but never mind children need to see the Ten Commandments because it is a foundational document for the American Constitution.

There are numerous foundational documents to the Constitution, why stop at the Ten Commandments?You could throw in the Magna Carta and English Common law if you wanted to give them a thorough knowledge of the basis for American Law. You might even post the Constitution if you really wanted to show them the basis of American law. But the Republicans are only interested in the Ten Commandments.

What now is going to happen for Texas students? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The problem here is that posting something doesn’t mean anyone is going to read it. Just one more of the numerous postings that go up in a classroom that most students will ignore. Furthermore posting the Ten Commandments without context is pointless particularly if the child is being raised by heathens. What do the authors of this law think is going to happen? If any child is so bold as to read the post that the child will be struck by a bolt of lightening and have a come-to-Jesus moment. Good luck with that.

Since Texas is a big state with lots of people, there are a lot of classrooms which need the Ten Commandments posted. This will cost a lot of money. For nothing. Absolutely nothing. It isn’t going to make heathens Christians and it isn’t going to give anyone a better understanding of American law. But lots and lots of money will be spent to make it happen. Money spent on getting the law passed. Money spent on the actual posters. Money spent on seeing that the law is being followed. Money spent on law suits defending the posters. All money that could have been spent on making Texas education better. What program that helps the poor will lose funding to promote this law?

The only conceivable benefit coming from this law is that Republicans get to gloat about passing a bill that promotes Christianity. All it is is a big middle finger to their opponents and nothing else. This from the Republican party who claim to believe in fiscal responsibility.

So Texas post away.

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Texas State Representative Stan Gerdes is concerned about children identifying as cats and demanding litter boxes in the classroom or, as they are known as, furries. The fact that no child has ever made this demand is beside the point. If it could happen, we need to stop it.

I am relieved that this urgent problem has been addressed. I know I will sleep more soundly knowing that no child can make this claim any longer.

Now that this urgent problem has been taken care of, maybe, we can focus on the teaching of Reading, Writing and Mathematics. Things, by the way, that actually get done in the classroom.

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Heather MacDonald writes that Donald Trump took “the most important step it can to restore meritocracy. to American society” by eliminating disparate-impact. When exactly was there a meritocracy in the United States? Certainly no time before 1964 when discrimination against people of color and women was legal. Not directly after the passage of Civil Rights laws in 1964 when White resistance to the new laws was so fierce it required the implementation of Affirmative Action in order to ensure that Whites complied with the new law. Since MacDonald finds any tool that aids people of color a boost is an affront to meritocracy, it certainly isn’t the recent past So MacDonald needs to identify the golden age of meritocracy in USA because from the evidence I can see, there never has been a meritocracy.

MacDonald glosses over 200 years of American History. She assumes that the 1964 Civil Rights ended discrimination and nothing more needed to be done. For her racial prejudice is obvious, racists are obnoxious assholes in a Ku Klux Klan robe screaming the N word. It certainly couldn’t be nice middle class whites who hire employees or admit students to Ivy League colleges. They wouldn’t be caught dead in a Ku Klux Klan robe, so how could they be prejudiced.

The advantage of the public bigots is that they are easy to identify. The problem is the more prevalent form of racism that Blacks encounter is from polite and powerful White who, just the same, might be disinclined to hire someone different from them. They don’t say we are picking a White over a Black. They know the game. They say that the White guy is just more qualified for the job than the Black guy. For this reason, discrimination is difficult to prove. This is the barrier that Blacks face. MacDonald doesn’t appear to be bothered much by this more subtle form of racism or even acknowledge that it might exist.

Disparate-impact was one of the tools that the government used to show discrimination. If an employer has never hired Blacks, year after year, in a community where the population is 25% Black, then the government can see that there might be a problem with discrimination in hiring. Without disparate impact, how does MacDonald propose to identify non-compliant businesses and schools?

She doesn’t. She views discrimination as a phantom problem that doesn’t occur any more so there is no reason to investigate. People are only looking for the best – Black, White, Man, Woman. Race and Gender don’t matter only quality. Well, maybe, but how do we know this is happening unless we evaluate?

Finally, for the record, there will never be a meritocracy as long as rich families hand over their businesses to their children. It is never going to happen as long as some people have connections and others don’t. It never is going to happen as long as people with money can buy their children’s ways into universities. It never is going to happen when White middle class people can avoid “bad” school districts. It never is going to happen as long as poor Black children are given a second rate educations while White middle class children are given a first rate one.

How does MacDonald feel about those problems? Until she addresses them, I don’t believe that she gives a damn about meritocracy.

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I had numerous misgivings about Bryan Caplan’s It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who You Are. Caplan’s bottom line is that there is no advantage to being rich in a capitalist society. The cream always rises to the top and it is because the rich have better genes than the poor and middle class and this is why they always rise to the top.

How did he determine this? Did he give a bunch of poor kids a million dollar trust fund, a financial advisor and entrance into all the best private schools and then compare it to the rich kids who had this advantage already? Or did he force rich kids into resource stretched public schools, make them work three jobs just to meet rent, and made it impossible to talk to Daddy during the length of the study? A little more information is needed here in order for me to buy the bull shit Caplan is selling.

If he is just looking at where people ended up, then he failed to prove his point. Are you telling me that knowing other rich people isn’t helpful to rich kids looking for jobs? Almost every job I have ever gotten was because I knew someone in the company. I knew a job was available and I knew who to talk to in order to be seen. Being seen is half the battle in getting a job. This is a tremendous advantage over someone who knows no one. How does he factor that in to his analysis?

Why would rich people spend upwards to $100,00 a year for private education if this doesn’t give their child some advantage? If their child got the same education in a local public school, they would be a fool not to — it comes with their taxes. Yet these rich people, and Caplan believes smarter people, still spend a lot of money on a private education for their genetically superior kids. There can only be one explanation — expensive private schools make a difference. They are worth the money. If, of course, you have it.

Finally, I thought one of the assumptions of market capitalism is that poor people have to learn to work hard in order to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Anyone can make it to the top if they work hard, they too can become rich. But if they are too genetically inferior to make it happen, why needlessly raise their hopes if they are going to end up being poor no matter how hard they work. How sadistic is that.

Genetic superiority is a pernicious and dangerous lie. When people believe they are superior, it opens them up to differentiate between human beings. There are better people who deserve more. To diminish the value of money is equally dangerous. Why have public schools and Head Start if the kids are hopeless. You can’t spend enough money on rich kids and no amount of money will change the results for poor kids. Why waste time and money on lost causes? Nothing personal here. It is all genetic.

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The other day I was getting worked up over Oklahoma requiring Bibles in every classroom. Then, I began to think why. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is a bad idea and we should try to stop it. On the other hand, as bad ideas go, it is far down the list on what is important. Some religious people think that the mere presence of the Bible in the classroom will somehow magically change the children forced to sit in a room with it into Christians.

I am betting this won’t happen. If I seriously thought that these proponents of the Bible in the classroom could create an effective educational program that incorporated the Bible I might be worried. They really have no ideas beyond prayer and patriotism and if they tried to do anything more they would begin to fight among themselves. Christians, if you recall, have violently argued with one another for centuries about Christian Doctrine. Indeed, this was the main reason why the Founding Fathers wanted a religious neutral government — Christian sects have a tendency to rumble if it is possible to get an upper hand with another Christian sect.

So why is this meaningless gesture getting me so worked up? Because it is headline news. The press is only interested in controversy. Controversy brings in readers which brings in ad revenue and so the press will search for controversial issues to feed to the American public. They aren’t feeding the public anything that is particularly nutritious either. It is more like a table filled with desserts that we can’t help but pile onto our plates and finish them off in one sitting. Until we make ourselves sick.

It is an easy enough bon bon to make too. Anything to do with religion in public schools was sure to piss of every secular humanist in the country while getting the full fledge support of fundamental Christians. Some editor somewhere decided to fed this particular controversy to the American public because they knew their readers would lap it up and then raise their fists ready for battle. Sadly, they were correct.

What is so annoying is that I know this is the game. Sensationalism is the only consistent menu item and I keep falling for it. There is a good chance that the Bibles in every classroom will never happen or it will be slowed down in the courts for years to come and, after a few years of squabbling over this, and realizing that it is way too difficult to make it happen, the combatants will move on to something new to argue about.

More worrisome, is it illustrates the Media’s focus on divisive topics. Anyone looking at education would think that the most important topic in American education is the treatment of Trans children because a lot of people are talking about it. In reality, there are 73,000,000 people in the USA under the age of 18.. Of those 73,000,000, 42,000 of them have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and only 4,200 of these children have started hormone therapy. This means that when people are talking about this, they are talking about .00005 % of the student population.

The treatment of Trans children in public schools and religion in the public schools need to be addressed but that it dominates any discussion regarding education in the 2024 campaign is out of all proportion to how it affects the vast majority of public school students. It is there only to instill rage and division which is all really great fun for the Press but does very little to improve public schools.

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I have to remind myself that Conservatives believe that children actually listen to teachers and parents and that teachers and parents have some influence on what children will actually think and believe. Now I don’t mean to totally discount parents and teachers. They do have some influence to the extent that what the authority figure is saying makes sense to the child but once the adult has left the tracks, many children are apt to begin seeing life in their own way and not at all like the parents wanted. This is why I have some different ideas about the world than my Catholic parents and my Catholic school teachers despite their active indoctrination of me to become a Roman Catholic.

I think this is why so many Conservatives are afraid of sex education and Critical Race Theory. They assume that the mere mention of these things in class will influence the thinking of their children. This is why they go after the public school system with particular vigor, they think that indoctrination is possible and they want to be the ones indoctrinating and not those crazy Liberals. I wish I could assure them that children only care about their education to the extent of what is going to get them a good grade for the class. Otherwise their minds are elsewhere.

So I was amused to read Chaya Raichik and Charlie Kirk’s intention of outbreeding the Left. They think they will rid the world of pre-marital sex, gays, transexuals, abortion, birth control and, most importantly, Marxists which is loosely defined as anyone to the left of Marjorie Taylor Greene if only children heard the right things. That this didn’t work in the past should be evidence enough but somehow Raichik and Kirk believe the there were these halcyon days were people actually behaved well and listened to their elders.

Good luck with that. My parents had five children. All having, at least, 12 years of Catholic education and, much to my parent’s chagrin, they got no practicing Catholics out of the deal. Think about that. They paid extra money to the Catholic Church to indoctrinate their children so that when we reached maturity, their children would be Catholic. Well, they struck out. They had 5 children and got no Catholics after all that effort. And, to top it off, we are all to the left of Marjorie Taylor Greene.

And my parents never gave up. When we returned for the summer during college, my father insisted that we attend Mass. Despite the fact that our attendance while away was iffy at best and more accurately described as seldom to never. Arguing with him was pointless. He’d rather us sit dumbly in church, not listening to the priest, day dreaming about sex and parties or anything other than the Roman Catholic Church and Jesus than us doing something constructive like watching TV. He though that some day while we were sitting in church that a bolt of lightening would strike us and we would realize the error of our ways. It never happened to me nor did it happen my brothers and sisters.

Indoctrination doesn’t work. Even if you think it is working, even if the child is nodding their heads and passing their religion classes with A’s, you really don’t know what is going on in the mind of the child. So, using my family history as an example, instead of 5 Christian Conservatives, the Catholic schools turned out 5 people with slightly different ideas, so Raichik and Kirk can breed away but they shouldn’t be surprised if their children decide to go to the Free Palestine Rally after going to a polymorphīs orgy.

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I am a little annoyed after reading Chauncey Devega’s interview of Matthew Levendusky in Salon. They were discussing the importance of a Civic’s education in a democracy. But they weren’t really. They seem to want people to recite answers to random questions — like for example what is the 3rd Amendment to the Constitution?

How often in life will I have to answer that question. So far in my 66 years, no one has ever asked me yet nor have I been cognizant of needing this information. Maybe I unknowingly used the 3rd Amendment to live my life. Which is fine with me. There are more important things to remember say like the emergency number for the police is 911. 911 is important and I might use it, have used it. I am not saying the 3rd Amendment isn’t important. It is important but I may never use it or know that I am using it.

There is a serious misconception about the past. Like people used their civics and history education in making their civic decisions. My grandparents all came from modest circumstances. Working people. My Grandma Schnell never got past the 8th grade as she reminded us incessantly. That these people were debating the advantages and disadvantages of constitutional amendments before they voted seems like a bit of a stretch. They did however vote. What DeVega and Levendusky would like citizens to do and what they are actually doing are two different things.

A more realistic vision might acknowledge that people will do some research if it is required but will probably vote based on party preference and the endorsements of institutions or people who they agree with. They look at their pocketbooks, check with their family and friends, and maybe look at the television. To ask for a process of weighing the pros and cons of each and every candidate on the ballot is insanity. Have they ever seen a California ballot? We vote for the assistant to the assistant Dog Catcher here. I have absolutely no interest in researching everyone on that ballot and California is really good about giving you a lot of lead time to research. For me, it boils down to whether they are Democrats and are pro-choice. If they meet those two criterion, I am done researching.

The idea that better civics classes might make for better citizens made me shudder in horror. Civic’s education has always been bad. In my Catholic high school, it was taught by the lesser athletic coaches who couldn’t get the prime PE job which always went to our champion Football coach. They may have cared about history and civics but their hearts were definitely in their sports team and not the Dred Scott decision. My memory of these classes were of men talking each day about what you needed to memorize to pass the class. This meant that they were irredeemably boring. My most vivid memory of these classes was how difficult it was to stay awake in them. Often I would just surrender to the urge and nap.

And let me tell you I missed nothing. The answers to the test were also in the text book. If you read the text book, you could easily figure out what you needed to know for the test. So I just read the text book. That these two apparently intelligent men are advocating the need for people to learn the three branches of government in order to be responsible citizens is disheartening.

This, of course, is a broader problem with American Education. Memorizing facts passes for education in this country. It isn’t. It can be helpful and it can reduce the time a citizen takes to address a problem but it is unnecessary to know this information to act as a good citizen. Far more relevant, would be to give the students issues or problems and ask them how a citizen might act to resolve these issues. How do they use their vaguely understood freedom and rights to make civic life better and, if, in the course of their research, they learn about the three branches of government then good for them.

By the way, I still don’t know what the 3rd Amendment is. I thought about looking it up but then I thought, it is a bit of an effort, and I would really have to focus, and then I realized I have better things to do. So there.

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Oklahoma School Superintendent wants the truth of the Tulsa Race Riot to be taught but he also doesn’t want White kids to feel badly about it. Governor DeSantis in Florida feels the same way. What is the proper emotion for White kids to feel after learning about racism? It seems to me that is up to the individual child and is uncontrollable and not really the business of the educators. Some things will make you feel pride and other things might make you ashamed. There is no right way to feel about the past because people are still arguing about the past.

How do you take the White Racism out of the Tulsa Race Riot? White people targeted black people based on a run in between a Black man and a White woman. White people killed hundreds of Black people just because they were Black. White people either participated in the riot or did nothing to stop the riot. Should a White child feel badly about being White and the behavior of his race? Well, yes, if they are decent human beings. White people did a terrible thing to Black people. Thems the facts.

This idea that history has to show the American past in an admirable light seems incredibly wrong headed to begin with. First, history is about people. People are fallible. People sometimes do terrible things. The Civil War was one of the significant events in American history. In order to understand what happened and why this was so important in American history, difficult subjects have to be addressed. It doesn’t put everyone in a positive light. But I don’t think it will be any more traumatic than teaching first graders that one day an active shooter might appear in their classroom and how they should act when this occurs.

What doesn’t help is for educators to be even handed about a subject where being even handed is absurd which is what the Florida Department of Education tried to do. They were concerned that the slavery discussion was too one sided for the anti-slavery side. You heard it right. They wanted children to have a more positive view of the slave owners. This is dumbfounding. Why is that so important? Why can’t some White people be the villains in this particular story?