February 2008

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Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all.

-John Paul Jones

February 7, 2008

Hope for the Future

I just caught my 7-year-old son out of bed an hour past bedtime.

He was working ahead in his math book because "it's fun and it's easy!"

(sniff)

That's my boy!

Posted by Wulf | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

October 26, 2007

Homeschooling

Through a long chain of links (from XRLQ to I Think Therefore I Blog to Mom is Teaching to Sympathy Pain) I encounter a discussion about home-schooling that really highlights what should already be obvious: the purpose of public schools is not to teach social skills, and in fact they aren’t good at it.

Bryan (at Sympathy Pain) kicks off the conversation with the statement:

I really don’t understand the militant position most homeschoolers or homeschoolees take on their position.

I honestly appreciate that he is willing to admit that he doesn’t understand. But I must note that (in my experience) the homeschooler position no more militant than the position most professional educators take against homeschooling. It’s one of those arguments where most people on both sides tend to rely on their own “common sense”, which means that they are actually relying on their opinions and select anecdotes and articles that support their opinions. Those conversations tend not to result in anybody being persuaded to change their mind, and that’s why folks on both sides come off as being militant. This certainly doesn’t make anybody’s opinion wrong, but I rarely see it well supported.

Now to Bryan’s main point:

I taught for a while, theatre, of course, and would like to put my 17 years of experience up against any home school instructor. I think most teachers feel that way. It’s an insult to think that someone can teach algebra, or physics, or Russian from a pamphlet and a book. I feel the same way about the experience early education teachers bring to the classroom. There is so much now known about the elementary student that I can’t imagine someone trying to arm chair quarterback a classroom of one.

First, of the homeschoolers I know, none has tried to tackle every subject by themselves. There are entire networks of homeschoolers who have different areas of expertise and who help each other out. Just as in the public schools, this becomes more and more pronounced as the children get older and the requisite level of expertise becomes greater. If for some reason I wanted my children to speak Russian, I wouldn’t get a pamphlet and have a go – I would get in touch with somebody who speaks Russian and make arrangements, just the same as if I were trying to learn the language myself.

Second, it’s an insult to think that I can’t teach algebra, or physics, or frankly every subject offered in middle school and high school. I know more about each of these subjects than I did at graduation, and more about every one of these subjects than do ~95% of last year’s high school graduates. I say this as a high school teacher who sees firsthand what is covered in the courses at my school – I’m not just speculating out of my ass on this one. I don’t know more about theater than our school’s theater teacher, but I damn well know more about it than her students do, which means that I could teach them about theater. Everything? No. As much as she does? No, certainly not to 30 of them at a time, a regimented 50 minutes a day. But that’s not the comparison that is being made. The question is whether I could teach my own one or two children more by the time they are 18 than they will learn in public schools. I’ll say it again – it’s an insult to think that I can’t.

Of course, Bryan would have a reasonable point if his argument were limited to parents who are of sub-standard intelligence, motivation, and/or education themselves, or who don't have the time to devote to educating their own children. But he did not limit his argument to those parents. And if he did, I would fall back to the point that homeschoolers don’t operate in a vacuum.

Bryan then moves on to an argument I find baffling:

Some of these kids would rather be at school…because it was warm and relatively safe…That is why we need public schools.

Not to teach them Russian, algebra, and physics… but to provide them with a haven from their abusive home lives. And your children should be in that riotous classroom he describes, with those abused children, because it’s an insult to teachers to say that you can do better than that for your kids in your own home.

The real issue here is that Bryan does not understand the premise behind home schooling. He says,

If you want to improve the world of education, stop tearing down the public school system, and help.

But who homeschools because they want to improve the world of education? People home school in order to improve their own children. Not mine. Not the kids downtown. Their own children. If you think this is not helpful to them in the long run, then no, you don’t understand the militant position most homeschoolers or homeschoolees take on their position. And that failure to understand is yours. The proper response to it is not hubris – it’s to get educated.

At Mom is Teaching, Summer responds to the notion that kids become socially stunted if they are home schooled. I have often heard it argued that they are incapable of normal interactions as adults – Bryan specifies the time right after “graduation” as the most problematic, because these kids are released from the proverbial cellars and into jobs or colleges that are completely foreign to them. But there is a big problem with that logic. Summer notes:

I feel that the best place to prepare them for college and for life as an adult is by letting them be a part of the real world. Where they have to get to class on time of their own accord and not because of some distant bell ringing or adult lecturing, where they must manage themselves, and where they can direct their own educational futures… [Bryan]’s right. It takes a village. The baker, the farmer, the police, all the people in the real world who haven’t set foot in a classroom since they graduated. Luckily homeschoolers don’t spend 8 hours a day stuck in a brick bubble…they get to be a part of the real world every day.

Exactly. As a teacher, this is the aspect of schools that frustrates me the most – parents and students somehow assume that school prepares children for the “real world”, but school is not the “real world” and we go to great lengths as a society to ensure that. In the real world, you don’t have to take gym class if you’re fat or scrawny or just don’t like it. You don’t automatically get promoted when you show minimum competence. You don’t get detention for chewing gum, and you don’t just get two weeks off work if you beat somebody up at the office. You choose which interests to pursue, and when to choose them, and your level of success and happiness is dependent on those choices. I have no idea why people think the artificial society that exists in fifth grade would in some way prepare children for the “real world”. It can be a rewarding, enriching, wonderfully educational experience, but it certainly isn’t automatically these things, nor is it at all clear that public schools are the best way to have these things.

Or, in the words of Kate at I think therefore I blog:

I suppose if you believe the purpose of an education is to teach a child to deal with being treated like crap then, sure, the public school system provides many more opportunities for such experiences to be told to shut up, put up with bullies and disregarded by someone whose approval they seek.

To Bryan’s immense credit (I can’t emphasize that enough), he says the following in his own comment section:

I realize I am biased…teaching and working in schools. I’m going to take Summer’s advice and find some 3rd party publications and studies, and visit this again later. I am going to stay away feom the overly pro public school and the militant homeschool pages and try to find some actual studies from outside sources. If you have any, please shot them to me in an email.

Off the top of my head, I don’t know of any, but I hope he will consider what I’ve had to say, and I will keep an eye out for the type of sources he is asking for. And I’ll refrain from making some smart-ass comment about how that kind of information could best be researched in a school, and not at home.

Posted by Wulf | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

July 31, 2007

Socialism: So Pretty!

The Daily Texan is the student newspaper of UT Austin. It’s one of the largest student newspapers in the country. And yesterday, it ran an opinion piece advocating that Westerners re-evaluate the wonders of socialism. Under normal circumstances, I don’t pay much attention to student newspapers and their opinion pieces, as they just aren’t that well written. But this piece is an exception, and it therefore deserves to be highlighted.

The author is history student Colin Pace, who writes:

Socialism is not a monolithic ideology and it is not a terrible, fear-driven beast that threatens the U.S. masses. In fact, it is quite the opposite. To understand this, one need not look further than Michael Moore's recent movie, "Sicko." Though gimmicky and biased, like his other movies, the film raises an important question about why universal health care systems rank so high above the United States' privatized system in a global comparison.

But Wulf! Michael Moore is a dirty propagandist and his movie is full of lies! We’ve debunked “Sicko”!

But Wulf! The US health care system isn’t actually private, it’s half government funded already!

Come on, Wulf! We have the best health care in the world! People come here from Canada for our health care! The metrics are not fair!

Oh, Wulf! It’s just an undergrad in social sciences, spouting off his dirty collectivist delusions!

Yes, yes, I know all of that. And I also know that every year there a few million kids turning 18 and getting the right to vote. And they don’t read your blog. And most of them don’t know what is inherently unjust about socialism. Rolling your eyes and dismissing them may make you feel better about yourself, but it doesn’t actually advance the cause of liberty. So let’s take a closer look.

Colin Pace represents an articulate voice pointing out that “[i]nstitutions ranging from news stations to school systems teach that socialist and nationalized programs are doomed to collapse under the weight of bureaucracy and corruption.” I would love for this to be the case, but I simply don’t agree that the prevailing theme taught to our youth is that nationalized programs are too big to succeed. Privatized education, health care, public transit, and other government services? No, that’s certainly not the predominant agenda being pushed to our youth by the sources I know of. But to an audience lacking an articulate source to the contrary, Mr. Pace can play the role of the guy who questions authority, and that gives his point the ironic advantage of being anti-authority. “Rebel against convention and think for yourself about the benefits of letting bureaucrats make more decisions for you!”

Pace then makes another appeal guaranteed to garner attention on any college campus: class warfare and rich white guilt. “Factory workers thousands of miles away are harshly exploited so consumer goods such as clothing and TVs can be sold at low prices to American consumers.” For Pace, it’s not a matter of comparing the standard of living for the workers today vs. 40 years ago. It’s a matter of comparing their standard of living to mine, or better yet to Dick Cheney’s. And again, rolling your eyes and dismissing him is not the same as refuting him - or socialism.

But the real reason I chose to highlight this article is not because it’s easy to cherry pick a couple of weak points and mock him. It’s because Mr. Pace really does make an excellent point that we should all consider:

People should not judge the word "socialism" solely by what they know of "socialist" leaders. Leaders like Joseph Stalin and Fidel Castro may have upheld socialist aspects of their administrations, but they were not actually "socialists"…

Spot on. The more distant Stalin and Castro become, the easier it will be to note that they did not actually uphold socialist ideals… and therefore they do not provide an honest example of what is wrong about socialism. Those who wish to refute socialism should beware not to let their argument stop with Stalin and Castro, because it (rightly) won’t sway a collectivist who recognizes that these men were not socialists. There is a difference between oppression by a tyrant and oppression by a democracy. One is appealing to the tyrant and his cult of personality, while the other is appealing to 51% of the population. If we only know how to refute the ills of the former, we will eventually suffer the latter.

In other words, Colin Pace’s final paragraph is one that should be considered by every thinking person the world over:

Even those who are staunchly opposed to the nationalization of industry, believing that the free market is the only means for progress, should question the objectivity of the Western view of socialism. The word is loaded with connotations, but that should not stop people from asking what the system is really about.

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May 9, 2007

One Day at a Time

Nancy Pelosi might be on to something with this idea of funding the war a couple of months at a time.

In fact, I propose we move to this kind of funding plan for other government policies whose “success” is in doubt or ill-defined. We can pony up a couple months of funding, attach some strings, and put it all under the microscope this summer with a budget axe at the ready. Not just the Iraq war. The War on Drugs, too. Health and Human Services. Campaign money, salaries and amenities for elected officials. Anything you consider pork.

Finally, a Democratic proposal I can really get behind. I’m even willing to suggest that federal education money comes up near the top of the list. It's friggin genius.

But why stop at two months? How about one month at a time, like most of my household expenses? Or even more frequently? We can go daily, like my junk food budget. Hey, I’ve studied Riemann sums. I’ve learned about compound interest. You let the time intervals shrink and the whole thing goes a lot smoother. And isn't that what we want in Iraq? Smoother! Again, it's friggin genius.

I’m on board, Ms. Speaker.

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April 29, 2007

Got Vouchers?

If I were a contestant on Jeff Foxworthy's Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?, then I would give the incorrect answer to the following 1st Grade level social studies question:

What is the largest expenditure of the U.S. Federal Government?

Remembering back from my earliest grade school days of civics and government, I clearly recall seeing a pie chart that roughly resembled a Pac-Man where the defense budget was swallowing every other sliver of government spending. And until I had read McQ's Entitlements and Political Will over at QandO, I would have confidently answered that our country's defense was still its primary expense. And I would have subsequently had to admit that I was definitely not smarter than a 5th grader as I walked off the show in shame.

This article of McQ's, and the original Robert Samuelson article to which it refers, has haunted me since I first read it. How have we gotten to this point? If there is one topic on which the Republicans, Libertarians, and at least some of the Democrats can agree upon, it's that, if the federal government should be spending money on anything, then defense of its people should be the primary concern. And yet, the defense budget was down to 20% of federal spending in 2006.

In roughly that same period, what other spending trends can be analyzed? In Mona Charen's Do-Gooders, she points out:

In 1965, the average per-pupil expenditure for primary and secondary schools students was $3,000 per year. By 1995, it had more than doubled to $6,500 (in constant dollars). Performance (i.e., test scores) did not improve. Indeed, in many areas, performance has declined. Spending rose in every category—salaries, equipment, special programs, transportation, and administration. Spending also rose at every government level—local, state, and federal. By 2003-2004, local, state, and federal governments spent half a trillion dollars on elementary and secondary education.

It should be noted here, as well, that the 2001 national average per-pupil expenditure was $8,745, while, at the upper end of the scale, Washington DC topped out at $15,122 in the same year.

So what's this got to do with our Defense budget? Well, if you'll forgive the apples-to-oranges comparison (federal vs. federal/state/city), Charen goes on to say:

It tends to put into perspective that 1980s slogan, emblazoned on thousands of hippies T-shirts, that read: "Wouldn't it be great if the schools had all the money they needed and the Pentagon had to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber?" In 2003-2004, the United States spent $375 billion on defense, so education spending far outstrips defense spending.

Well, at the very least, the kids nowadays can be spared the propagandized and evil Pac-Man pie chart gobbling up the rest of the federal budget. School vouchers, anyone?

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March 19, 2007

Truancy Equals Freedom

SCOTUS begins hearing Morse v. Frederick (a/k/a the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case), about which our friend and fellow libertarian Kip asks, “Why is this even a case?” Being both a libertarian and a public school teacher, I’ve paid some attention to this case. I am very concerned about the outcome – which I suspect will go poorly for young Mr. Frederick.

Okay, if you have no idea what case I am talking about, let me bring you up to speed – with some heavy quoting from SCOTUSblog, to which Kip also links.

The core facts that the two sides can agree upon are these: when the Olympic torch was being carried along Glacier Avenue in Juneau, Alaska, on January 24, 2002, 18-year-old Joseph Frederick held up a 14-foot banner with the message, “BONG HITS 4 JESUS.” (“Bong hits” is slang for smoking marijuana.) Glacier Avenue runs in front of Juneau-Douglas High School, where Frederick was enrolled as a senior. School Principal Morse crossed the Avenue, and demanded that the sign be taken down; Frederick refused, and the principal grabbed the sign and crumpled it. Later, Morse suspended Frederick for ten days, citing a variety of infractions of school rules. The Ninth Circuit found a violation of Frederick’s First Amendment rights, and found that the law was so clear on this issue in January 2002 that the principal was not entitled to legal immunity to money damages.

But the agreement on the facts largely ends there. The principal and the Juneau School Board insist that Frederick was taking part in a school-sponsored event – the students were let out of school to attend the torch-passing rally, and school cheerleaders and pep band took part; the students were closely supervised; school system money was spent to bus students in from other schools; the event occurred during school hours, and four students were torch-bearers. Frederick with equal fervor insists that this was a public event in a public forum (a sidewalk next to a public street), he was not on school property at the time, he was an 18-year-old adult, and he had not even gone to class that morning so was not among students released to go to the rally.

Now, I’d have to say it’s pretty clear that citizens have the right to unfurl banners with ambiguous religion/drug messages. It’s also pretty clear that the student would not have been allowed to do this in his school cafetorium – his suspension would have stood, and he never would have made it anywhere near the Supreme Court. But he wasn’t on school property, so he’s golden.

Except that the defense will argue convincingly that the torch rally was a school-sponsored event, much like a field trip. I am (annually) a field trip sponsor, and it has been made very clear to me (every damn year) that (to turn a phrase) school officials do not shed their in loco parentis responsibilities at the schoolhouse gate. I am not even allowed to change the rules of dress code or conduct just because I’ve taken the students to an amusement park to study the physics of the rides (not at taxpayer expense, settle down). And incidentally, this does not magically change when the student hits 18, so Joseph Frederick’s being that age at the time of this incident is probably completely irrelevant. The fact that Juneau-Douglas High School brought students to participate in this Olympic rally is enough to sink his case.

Except that Joseph Frederick had not gone to school that day. (dum-dum-dum!)

That was the one fact of the case that I picked up from SCOTUSblog that I had not known this morning, when I emailed the Atlantico list about this case. This morning, I said:

The case is interesting to me because I have seen groups from the right and the left supporting this kid. The ACLU and gay rights groups in particular seem concerned about potential abridging of free speech, no surprise, but several religious groups recognize how a ruling in support of the school could be used against religious expressions at school. But he's so going to lose.

Ah, not so after all. In light of the fact that Joseph Frederick was absent from school, he can’t reasonably be considered to have been participating in the torch rally as a student subject to the school rules. Suddenly, it’s much more like the time that I ran into students at the amusement park who were not on the physics field trip, and in fact weren’t enrolled in a physics class. They were not my problem, from a legal point of view.

Well played, Mr. Frederick. Well played. Bong hits 4 Jesus, indeed.

ps - I personally think the defense is further hurt by the arguments that are being made about schools needing to enforce anti-drug policies. I just can’t see the justices nodding along with that argument. At least, I hope not.

Posted by Wulf | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

February 4, 2007

A Conservative Professor's Discrimination Suit

Virginia State University is a historically black university located just outside of Petersburg. It was the United States' first fully state-supported four-year institution of higher learning for black Americans (an oft-repeated point of pride which I first heard when visiting VSU, back when I worked for the SMV). My problem with that, of course, has nothing to do with the students being black, and has everything to do with asking why the state is using my tax dollars to support higher learning for anybody at all. But that's not even the issue I wanted to discuss today.

It has been alleged more than once over the years that VSU discriminates against conservatives on its own faculty. The latest case is Jean R. Cobbs, an outspoken conservative black woman who was a professor at Virginia State University with more than 27 years of tenure when, in January 2005, she was fired for reasons that look to me pretty unfounded. She sued the school, its president, and its provost, claiming that her termination was simply retaliation for her testimony in another suit, years earlier, in which the school and its president were accused of racial discrimination.

VSU has offered Cobb $600,000 to settle the suit out of court. A Goy and his Blog notes that this benefits the university, its president, and its provost in that they do not have to admit any wrongdoing or shell out any of their own money in order to make both Professor Cobb and her lawsuit go away:

the settlement guarantees an end to the public controversy. Much better to rob VSU’s students of a half million dollars in funding than to let the internet, mainstream media and public-at-large get hold of the details of this case. Think what a can of worms that might open!

Well, yeah, I live less than half an hour from VSU, and I've heard this case mentioned exactly zero times on the local TV and radio news. The Richmond Times-Dispatch carried one story, and it hasn't been mentioned much elsewhere.

I don't think, however, that discrimination against conservatives in academia is so systemic as to warrant some sort of Academic Fairness Doctrine or Equal Time provision. Nor do I support Rammage in his grudge against Atlas Blogged reader feminist mom. But I wish that Professor Cobb was able to wring a public acknowledgement of wrongdoing out of VSU - and getting paid in a manner that punishes the wrongdoers personally, instead of with tax dollars. As it is, she stands as yet another example of how an academic career can be broken by politics. If we must be saddled with state universities, then this behavior shouldn't be tolerated in them.

Posted by Wulf | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

January 27, 2007

Bush's Presidential Library

Do you know where will the George W. Bush presidential library be built?

[Pause for obligatory but frankly unwelcome literacy jokes.]

Okay, seriously, where will the George W. Bush presidential library be built? Southern Methodist University is reportedly the front-runner for what will be the thirteenth presidential library in the nation. This would make it the sixth presidential library to be located on a university campus. But universities being what they are, it comes as no surprise that the proposal has sparked debate and controversy at SMU.

Negotiations to build George W. Bush's presidential library at Southern Methodist University have divided the campus, pitting the administration and some alumni against members of the liberal-leaning faculty who say the project would be an embarrassment to the school.

Some professors have complained that the combined library, museum and think tank would celebrate a presidency that unnecessarily took the country into a war.

The fear is that the library "will continue to espouse the philosophy and practice of the Bush administration, which has seriously divided our nation and has brought the ire of other countries," said William McElvaney, a retired professor…

Of course, it is nothing new to have a little controversy associated with a presidential library. Recall ten years ago, when then-president Bill Clinton chose a riverfront location in Little Rock, Arkansas as the location for his presidential library.

[C]ity leaders offered Clinton the warehouse district acreage. He took it. The city was soon embroiled in lawsuits. Property owners challenged the use of eminent domain to claim the land for a presidential library. Another citizen tried, unsuccessfully, to block the use of taxpayer money (revenue bonds) for the project.

In 2001, an 1899 depot was discovered enshrined in an aluminum building on the site. Preservationists fought for the building, but eventually lost the fight in court and the depot was destroyed.

At another point, protesters picketed city hall when the city decided to name the street in front of the library President Clinton Avenue. It ultimately compromised: Only half the street was named after him.

Controversies, of course, are hardly unique to the Clinton library. Boston's John F. Kennedy Presidential Library didn't open until 1979 because of location and architectural issues. The Jimmy Carter Library in Atlanta faced problems when an access road threatened local historic neighborhoods.

"All presidential libraries face controversy," says Lynn Scott Cochrane, director of libraries at Denison University in Granville, Ohio.

Well obviously they do. Presidents themselves face controversy, and their legacies can be no different. But people some people insist on treating this library, this president, and this controversy as somehow different from the usual. It’s not surprising to find Olbermann and Huffington are upset. Olbermann:

Are we going to need a federal law to cap spending on presidential libraries?...libraries and think tanks that are spending millions to try to prop up the image of their namesakes; trying to rewrite history for men who have long since ceased to be a part of the political picture?

I know – how dare Bush or his supporters try to have a hand in writing history - that's clearly Olbermann's job. Note that when he and Huffington complain about the expense, they are not talking about tax dollars. In light of that, I would wonder what legal justification Olbermann had for such a suggestion... that is, I would if I took him seriously enough to think he could answer that question.

As I said, it’s not surprising to find complaint from that crowd. The surprise may be the opposition from faith-based groups, as highlighted by a recent article in the Houston Business Journal.

Hope for Peace & Justice, a faith-based social justice organization based in Dallas, is concerned about the reputation of Dallas and the safety of local residents if the library and proposed think tank are built at SMU, as the "Bush Library will no doubt be a terrorist target,"said the Rev. Michael Piazza, president of Hope for Peace & Justice.

and

"Dallas has worked for decades to escape the reputation as the 'City that killed Kennedy,'" said Rev. Piazza. "We do not need to return to that right- wing reputation. Playing host to Mr. Bush's well-funded, neo-conservative think-tank will taint our reputation indelibly. Residents need to guard their reputation and say, 'No thank you Mr. President.'"

Now that’s opposition from Bush’s supposed core – Christian conservatives!

Oops, wait – the website for the group says they are “equipping progressive people of faith to be champions for peace and justice.” (emphasis mine) Sounds like the Houston Business Journal was just being misleading about plain old partisanship. Let’s rewrite the way this is all being reported. It should go something like this:

President George W. Bush’s presidential library will be at Southern Methodist University. Bush-haters hate it. The end.

There is no reason to raise the specters of terrorism, assassination, and parking in this conversation. It’s hyperbole, and as such should be ignored.

If you are one of those people who find Stephen Colbert funny, follow this link for his take on the issue. (Okay, I admit I only included that in an attempt to get Rammage riled up.)

Posted by Wulf | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 6, 2006

Reading Spellings

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings scares the crap outta me.

Spellings and others would like a national database that discloses things like graduation rates, how well students are educated and how much they earn afterward.

"I think it will happen" because families want it, says Spellings, the mother of a college student herself. "Consumer demand is a big part of this."

She's in which political party? Criminy, if it's consumer demand, then what's the problem? Why does the government need to involve its fat self?

Posted by Wulf | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

November 5, 2006

Why didn't the Supreme Court play in this year's ads?

Back in January, during the Samuel Alito confirmation process, I noted the following:

If the Democrats had any confidence in their ability to win the Senate in the 2006 elections, they would have filibustered Alito and forced the Republican hand. But it seems they are wisely saving the filibuster issue for the next nominee - the one to replace John Paul Stevens. We speculate the elderly Justice Stevens will retire (or be poisoned) before the end of Bush's term. And you thought we had heard the end of the "nuclear option" vs "constitutional option" debate, and the (un)importance of Roe vs Wade.

I am very surprised that this has not been a prominent part of the Get Out The Vote efforts. I mean for the Democrats, and for the Republicans. The process is so contentious that it seems like a great strategy for both parties to rally the base. Stop the ACLU posted an article on it last night, linking to this ~~story~~ rumor about Justice Stevens’ health. But the guy is four hundred thirty six years old, according to Ace. He doesn’t have to be in poor health right now in order for SCOTUS appointments to be a GOTV issue. It’s just really surprising to me that so little noise has been made about this, what with control of both houses having been called into question this cycle. If it doesn’t get mentioned in the ads, it won’t be on people’s minds. SCOTUS: Out of sight, out of mind.

I am a little curious to know what Justice Stevens will have to say about the confirmation hearings for whoever is nominated to be Stevens’ successor (assuming he lives through the confirmation process, that is). After all, he didn’t seem to have any problem discussing John Roberts during his confirmation. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but commenting on your own successor might be even more bizarre.

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November 1, 2006

Charter Schools

Perhaps this bears watching.

New Orleans has become the country's leading laboratory for charter-school experiments.

Posted by Wulf | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

October 21, 2006

Marginalized Free-Market Supporters

Several days back, Greg Mankiw asked, Are all economists free-market purists? He highlighted a working paper by Daniel B. Klein and Charlotta Stern on the Policy Views of American Economic Association Members. It's an interesting read for many reasons.

People often suppose or imply that free-market economists constitute a significant portion of all economists. We surveyed American Economic Association members and asked their views on 18 specific forms of government activism. We find that about 8 percent of AEA members can be considered supporters of free-market principles, and that less than 3 percent may be called strong supporters. The data is broken down by voting behavior (Democratic or Republican). Even the average Republican AEA member is middle-of-the-road, not free-market. We offer several possible explanations of the apparent difference between actual and attributed views.

Only 8% of those in the AEA are supporters of the principles of free markets? Only 3% are strong supporters? 3%?? No wonder free markets get short shrift by non-economists - they aren't even supported by economists. I feel so abandoned.

Mankiw highlighted a particular passage that I found fascinating:

Probably one of the most significant explanations for the erroneous free-market attribution is that almost all scholarly free-market supporters are economists. The center columns of Table 5 [actually Table 6] show that free-market supporters are practically non-existent in anthropology, history, political science, and sociology. There is a familiar heuristic bias of confusing a statement with its inverse. That is, if people perceive that every free market professor is an economist, they may slip into thinking that a preponderance of economists are free-market.

(emphasis and correction of table number both courtesy of Professor Mankiw)

In other words, when the average academic is left-of-center, those in the center appear to him to be on the right. It's all relative to those humanities profs

As usual, Mankiw's comments section has some real gems. To be clear, I am not being facetious when I say that. One example:

Cyril Morong said...

Thanks for posting this. I have wanted to see a survey like this for some time. Sometimes liberals say that the liberals in the humanities and other social sciences are balanced off by the libertarians in the economics departments, so that overall higher education is not biased (this argument was made by someone in the Chronicle of Higher Education in the last couple of years). Maybe the economics departments are not balancing things off.

Now, I'm not one of those conspiracy theorists who believes that America's universities are run by a Marxist cabal who are bent on the ruin of our nation through moral decline and the destruction of meritocracy (pause for Rammage to take the bait), but this is an excellent point. Consider the past work by the authors of this paper. Daniel B. Klein Klein is Professor of Economics at George Mason University and Charlotta Stern is a Swedish professor of sociology. You may remember their past studies on how politically skewed academia is... or you may not, but you've probably heard that assertion. Well, how lefty is the academic left, and how right-wing is the academic right? Probably less than you think.

Maybe around 3%.

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A Sarbonian Education

NPR highlights ECON 201 at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, which is administered by economics professor Jeff Sarbaum, who says ;

So all of the reading material, all of the content, all of the examinations and homework, if you will, are built inside the engine of the game.

The video games that have the best examples of realistic physics are, unfortunately, off limits to me in the classroom (for a variety of reasons). It's a neat trick to find a game that the teachers, parents, and administrators would approve of, but would also hold the attention of students for more than a few minutes.

An example of one that is of marginal value and questionable content, but which the kids love for its simplicity, is Line Rider. When I catch them playing it, they tell me that they are using it to learn about friction and acceleration due to gravity. Of course.

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October 14, 2006

Guns in Schools

Some politicians have been getting a lot of press this week because of proposals to allow teachers and other school employees to become licensed to carry concealed firearms on school property. These proposals are a response to the recent spate of school shootings.

For example, in the SE Missourian:

In the wake of deadly school shootings around the country, Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt has suggested it would be worth considering proposals from lawmakers to allow teachers to carry firearms in schools.

Democratic legislative candidate Matt Hill, who is seeking to unseat Republican incumbent Nathan Cooper in the 158th District Missouri House race, has suggested that allowing teachers to carry guns could be a way to prevent school violence.

Hill said he has a license to carry a concealed weapon.

"Anyone qualified, competent to carry should be allowed to do that anywhere, including a school," Hill said at a recent candidates forum.

But local educators strongly disagree.

How about a courthouse? Schools and courthouses are among the places you can’t carry in Virginia, even with a permit to carry concealed. I’m curious to know how far Mr. Hill would be willing to take this. How about the Missouri House? I’d really like to know if he really means it when he says “anywhere”.

From the Qatar Gulf Times (wha?):

[Lassee] said teachers, principals and all other school employees would not be permitted to carry a concealed weapon on school grounds until they had passed a criminal background check and undergone rigorous training.

Well, teachers already have to pass criminal background checks, so that should be pretty easy. But the rigorous training part is the catch. It seems like a pretty reasonable requirement, but you know that many people won’t agree.

An editorial in the Toledo Blade uses the following language to describe the proposal: “wild-eyed” and “beyond absurd”. As is often the case, there is no point in trying to actually discuss the issue, because minds are already made up. As an aside, I've noticed that when the term "wild-eyed" is used in conversation, the speaker often has a wilder look in their eyes than anyone else in the room. I'm just saying.

Anyway, the editorial then says,

[Students] need secure learning environments and reasonable safeguards they can live with.

Hey, way to take a stand. The question is why these people think the learning environment in my classroom would be adversely affected by some heat under my suit coat. The answer, of course, is that they think that some deranged student will disarm me and use the weapon on other children. Of course, these same people generally hold this same concern about weaponry in parks, stores, restaurants, and private homes. The argument is no different, at the foundation.

One last note… Clark Aposhian, of Fair Warnings Firearm Training in Salt Lake City, addresses the skeptics who say that we shouldn’t be making teachers into cops:

We are not turning teachers into cops any more than we're turning them into fireman because they have a fire extinguisher in the room and are expected to use it and to evacuate the building. We're not turning them into doctors because they know how to and are expected to perform CPR and basic first aid. (link)

That's how I feel.

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October 13, 2006

Civic Ignorance

Presented for our discussion... The findings of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's National Civic Literacy Board:

A study of 14,000 college freshmen and seniors at 50 schools reveals:

* There is trivial difference between freshmen and seniors in their knowledge of America's heritage.
* 16 of 50 schools surveyed exhibited negative learning.
* Overall, seniors failed the civic literacy exam with an average score of 53%.

How do we forestall the coming crisis in citizenship?

Don't read the news. Read the full report. And here are the rankings of the 50 colleges and universities that were included in the report. Note Rhodes College and Colorado State University - they must be very proud of leading the list. Their students are able to score a full 10 points higher on the test as seniors than as freshmen. I don't think I will comment at this time on the schools whose students became more stupid after four years on campus, but I am sure others will.

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September 24, 2006

Of Course

I was so excited by my son's natural interest in astronomy that I picked up a telescope on eBay (after getting help from Rick's very large brain, of course). I figured it'd make a great birthday present for when the boy turns 6 in a few weeks. When it arrived, I wrapped it up and hid it away.

Enter my parents. One of the gifts they brought when they visited this weekend is a telescope. You know, so the boy can look at the moon and all.

Well, anyway, I am looking for some good astronomy resources. I am quite the novice when it comes to hands-on astronomy. I'll be starting with Tom’s Astronomy Blog and SpaceWeather.com. Please let me know if you have a website or other resource to suggest.

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August 2, 2006

Commerce Not Good for Children

Updated 17:25
Which should concern me more: Sponge Bob on a box of macaroni and cheese, or the possibility that my child will be abducted? Well, seeing that I don’t really give a rat’s ass whether Sponge Bob is on the box, it should be an easy question. But the message of this NPR story is that I am a fool for failing to recognize the insidious dangers of letting my children watch television in a society where there is no government regulation of Sponge Bob on food boxes. You see, if my children watch TV and see Sponge Bob Squarepants, Cinderella, Dora the Explorer, or any of the other so called “children’s programming”, then they will desire bedspreads and cereal and clothing and bicycles and whatever else some evil bastard slaps a cartoon character on and sticks on a store shelf.

It is disturbing, the NPR story says, that a 4-year-old recognizes the logo for Coca-Cola. Stop and think about this: We sing and use flashcards and read books to our children in an attempt to get them to recognize and use symbols to communicate with other people, including across barriers of language and space and time. And the Coke symbol is one of the most widely recognized symbols in the world. But this NPR story presents it as lamentable when a child joins the rest of us in knowing what that symbol means. This knowledge is bad. To desire Coke is also bad. That is the message NPR is pushing.

Some of you [stare at Rammage] will say that this is typical of NPR. Fine, but I have a point beyond complaining that NPR is a bunch of anti-market liberal weenies (especially since I don’t believe that is generally the case).

Mayo Clinic pediatrician Dan Broughton is interviewed in the story. Speaking for the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Broughton is the one who says that I worry too much about child abduction (after all, it’s statistically improbable), and not enough about having my children see Sponge Bob on a box macaroni and cheese in the store (statistically certain). I guess it doesn’t occur to him why, exactly, I worry about child abduction. First of all, the two concerns are not mutually exclusive. What if an abductor exposes my child to the Sponge Bob m&c? Now the kid has been stolen and corrupted by advertising! It is clear, after all, that there is no escaping from advertisers. Better to keep the kid safe from abduction, in my mind, just on the off chance that it would be better for the child to be with me than with an abductor.

But I do get Mr. Broughton’s point. Even while my children are with me physically, they can be mentally abducted right before my eyes by what they are watching on television. Don’t dismiss this as hyperbole – hours upon hours of children’s programming have a serious impact on what your kids believe. They can be pushed a socialist agenda, or a message of rugged individualism… many shows indicate that might makes right, and as a parent I sometimes have to address that. Parents do need to be aware of what their children are exposed to at school, on line, on television… everywhere. This is a legitimate concern. In fact, I have addressed the possibility that the messages in these kids' shows are a means of positive social engineering (see here).

Having said that, I don’t really care if my children are watching commercials. I am one of those parents who are capable of saying "no" to my children. And my kids don’t have money, and they don’t have cars, so they won’t be making any purchases for themselves for quite some time. In the meantime, they learn by example. I do not feed them crap, and I do not buy them whatever they ask for. My shopping habits are shockingly similar to those of my parents when I was a child, and shockingly dissimilar to what I was asking for when I was five years old. Despite all of the Smurf-watching I did as a kid, I turned out okay. And that wasn't nearly as educational as Dora, or my personal favorite, Little Einsteins.

But we all know that there are people out there who don’t think that parents can handle raising their kids without regulatory help from the government. Some of those people are parents like the ones the NPR story talks about. So the question for any level-headed lover of liberty is, How can I get these people to leave me alone? How can I keep them from pushing more regulations onto the industry – how can I stop that slippery slope? The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is a group that wants to end marketing of junk foods to children under eight. [Insert libertarian joke about black-market junk food ads]

But in all seriousness, how exactly would such a ban be enforced? The answer is, sweepingly.

If you listen to the NPR story, you will hear the president of Nickelodeon trying to explain the basic concept of supply and demand, but it’s a futile effort. The story even notes that there is a demand for healthy food to be associated with these cartoon characters, so we see the creation of things like Dora Carrots. But still, in the minds of the media and child psychologists, there is a failure to let parents raise their own children.

Update: The NPR piece I discussed was the first in a series of three. The others are here (on 'tweens) and here (teens).

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July 27, 2006

Evidence of Critical Thinking in our Schools

Three teenagers in Ellicott City, Maryland were busted with marijuana gumballs. They probably would have gotten away with it, if they would have treated them like gumballs - but a teacher saw the kids acting suspiciously with them, so they got caught. Still, that was a really good idea. Even the retired DEA agent who spoke to The Baltimore Examiner had to admit that.

When it comes to drug dealing, you're only limited by your imagination.

Would that it were so.

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July 18, 2006

Exceeding Infinity

As a scientist and technophile, I am all about the research into and application of alternative energy sources. Those who know me will not be surprised that I am on record here, here, and especially here saying what shouldn’t need to be said – that finding alternative energy sources is beyond the proper purview of our government, and should be dealt with by the market, even if that means that some investors get rich (horrors!).

As a scientist and proponent of alternative energy sources, it really drives me nuts to see some of the things people have to say about the topic. For example, Michael Kanellos, Editor at large for CNET News, covered the comments of Rice University chemistry professor and Nobel laureate Richard Smalley in 2004. Dr. Smalley of course calls for more government money to be spent on energy sources. I wish Kanellos had quoted Smalley more extensively, so I would know exactly where to lay blame over some of the comments in the article, such as:

If the government doesn't start funding energy research, future generations might end up living in dark, nanotech scientist says.

…and…

Wind, wave and hydrothermal power have mostly been tapped.

tapped? TAPPED?

I can’t believe that such a statement would have to be refuted, but if it must be, then consider what the U.S. Department of Energy has to say on the subject (emphasis mine):

Sources of renewable energy are either continuously resupplied by the sun or tap inexhaustible resources. They include solar, geothermal, biomass, wind, and hydropower resources.

Specifically if you click on the link for geothermal, you get the following (again, emphasis mine):

In the United States, most geothermal resources are concentrated in the West, but geothermal heat pumps can be used nearly anywhere.

The use of wave power and oceanic thermal gradients is so undeveloped that it doesn’t even get mentioned in the DoE page above.

Not only are these resources far from “tapped” in the way the word is used in the CNET article, the technologies for harnessing these resources are constantly becoming more efficient and affordable.

What was Mr. Kanellos thinking? Did he simply report accurately what Dr. Smalley actually said? If so, he is still guilty of not looking into the facts of the situation. I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt in some way, but I don’t see how I can. The nature and potential of renewable resources is covered in elementary, middle, and high school. It’s easy to look up. It’s even common sense – how could solar power or wind power be “tapped”?

And I haven't even touched the ridiculous scare-mongering suggestion that our children will not know electricity if we don't do something.

Suggestions? I might have to file this one under “inexplicable” until I hear from Mr. Kanellos on the matter. Perhaps he has already clarified these remarks somewhere, but I haven't seen it.

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July 3, 2006

Teachers-vs-Unions

What a sign. It is displayed on the side of a truck that is parked out front of the NEA convention in Orlando this weekend. The Evergreen Freedom Foundation had the truck done up with three different billboards that cycle over time (see the other two images here - No Means No and here - a beautiful pie chart).

The National Education Association is a pretty powerful lobbying group. That's actually how they explained to me that I should be a member. I've spoken with them every spring since I started teaching. I was very impressed this year with the ability of the NEA rep to look me in the eye and keep a straight face when answering questions like "Why is the average salary of an NEA employee roughly twice that of the average teacher salary?" (It's because they work so hard, by the way.)

The website Teachers-vs-Union appears to be advocating simply that teachers be given the choice of whether to join the NEA. Since I work in a Right-to-Work state, they aren't talking about me. People sometimes forget (or never knew) that membership in the NEA is not forced on teachers in every state – though they are in most cases. According to the National Institute for Labor Relations Research (here);

Roughly two-thirds of K-12 public school teachers nationwide, including union members and nonmembers alike, are forced to accept an "exclusive" teacher union agent as their spokesman in contract negotiations.

And in many union-stronghold school districts, either the mammoth, 2.6 million-member National Education Association (NEA) union or the equally power-crazed, 1.2 million-member, AFL-CIO-backed American Federation of Teachers (AFT) union wields monopoly control not just over teachers, but also over other school employees, including teaching aides, nurses, guidance counselors, librarians, bus drivers, and even principals.

I love the language - nothing says objective and non-partisan like the use of the phrase "power-crazed". But when they're opposing the NEA, they're still going to be the good guys. Consider:

Union officers attending the NEA's summer 2000 convention passed a resolution acknowledging that union policy "opposes providing additional compensation" for hard-to-fill teaching positions in critical subject areas like math and science. The NEA brass also snubbed talented, hard-working teachers in all subject areas by declaring their categorical opposition to "any . . . system of compensation based on an evaluation of the education employee's performance."

Of course we should pay more to fill positions that are hard to fill. Supply and demand! Why do brain surgeons make more than grocery baggers? The same reason that hard-to-fill teaching positions should be paid more than those positions that are easy to fill.

(Oh, Wulf, you’re just saying that because you teach in a hard-to-fill position! Um, no… if my goal here was to make more money, I’d be leaving teaching for private industry. I mean, I’d love a raise – who wouldn’t? I am just saying that my argument here is not based on having a dog in the fight. If I were that type, I wouldn’t be a teacher to begin with.)

Personally, I don’t like national unions of any kind. When the NEA advocates federal policy, it is highly unlikely to represent most of its members accurately. Despite the lefty stereotype, teachers are pretty evenly split along party lines, as much as the rest of America (see that beautiful pie chart again). The NEA buys itself trouble by advocating positions that are not directly related to education and teacher contracts. How representative of NEA members was it really, when the union took a stand to support gay marriage? I mean, I’m all for it, but there is no reason to believe that most teachers are, or that they want their union dues to go toward any advocacy either way on the issue.

The farther afield the NEA strays, the more they look to be partisan hacks whose time is spent making excuses for their own existence and expansion – wasting money and clout that could be benefiting children instead of the NEA staff. I highly doubt I am the only teacher to make the connection – especially with that billboard truck parked right outside the national convention.

Thanks to Cato@Liberty for sharing the initial story.

For more on Right to Work laws, see here.

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June 23, 2006

Chalk Up another Argument for School Privatization

With each passing year I find more reasons to support the privatization of the U.S. public school system (including the increasingly public-funded university system). Add one more reason to the mounting list: Keep the ACLU (or public officials, as it may be) from regulating your school's library.

From the Washington Post (registration required): ACLU Sues Fla. Schools Over Cuba Book Ban

MIAMI -- The American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge to stop the Miami-Dade County school district from removing a series of children's books from its libraries, including a volume about Cuba which depicts smiling kids in communist uniforms.

The ACLU and the Miami-Dade County Student Government Association argued in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Miami on Wednesday that the school board should add materials with alternate viewpoints rather than remove books that could be offensive.

I was going to write up an extensive entry on this, but Stop the ACLU has already covered most of the bases, including reprinting the most ubiquitous quote in the Starboard Blogosphere from ACLU founder Roger Baldwin.

It is not often that I find myself on the side favoring any kind of book ban, and I certainly do not take issue with a school issuing Communist propaganda. It's just that I'd rather not have the bill footed by the same government who is supposed to be protecting us from an oppressive government. Public school students are already exposed to enough Marxist indoctrination without having to be mislead about Cuba being a Communist paradise. The Cuban immigrants in Miami seem to get this, why doesn't anyone else?

The privatization of the public school system would put the parents in charge of what their children ultimately would read. And I'm guessing that we'd be seeing fewer books on Communist Cuba and more from Harper Lee, Mark Twain, J.D. Salinger, and other perennial favorites on the Most Challenged Books list.

Meanwhile, I look forward to "Wulf the Teacher" to weigh in on the issue.

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April 12, 2006

Florida High Schoolers Could be Required to Declare a Major

Would it make sense to ask high school students to have more freedom and control over their own studies? I recognize that for most students, one of the worst parts about being in high school is the lack of control over their own curriculum. It really doesn't matter how much you hate math, poetry, or phys ed. You are going to take it. Is this paternalism? Or is it a realistic requirement when providing children with an education? To what degree could 13-year old could be expected to map out an education plan for themselves? Can we expect that children that age know what is best for themselves?

Legislation that unanimously cleared the Florida Senate Education Committee last week would require incoming high school freshmen to declare a major and a minor course of study. I think there are some obvious problems with this plan, and I would like to see how they will be addressed.

1) What majors will be offered? They will have to be pretty broad, because some schools won't have the resources to offer more than a basic "math and science", "social sciences", "arts and humanities" option.
The Bradenton Herald reports that vocational coursework would count - "fields like carpentry or auto repair."

The district in which I teach (in Virginia, not in Florida) is big enough to offer a math/science center, a foreign language center, an IB program, and a lot of vocational opportunities - but that's a big district with a relatively flexible budget. Let's not kid ourselves into thinking that all of these kids will be able to pick bioinformatics. What will be the bare minimum a district would have to offer under this law, and how is that bare minimum different from the current required courses? There is a possibility this will just be an extra stack of files in the guidance department for many rural schools.

2) What if a kid wants to change majors? At the college level, this is easy enough. Worst case scenario is that it takes you longer to get your degree. So if a high school junior says that she feels she was misinformed about what "social sciences" entails, and she wants to switch to a hard science major, do you tell her "no"? Do you tell her she will graduate high school a year late? Obviously, the answer to these two questions will have to be "no". So what exactly is the point of calling it a "major" if it is really just an opportunity for students to pick and choose their classes?

3) What minimum competency would be required in the core classes? I suppose districts could default to the federal standards of minimum competency in math and ~~English~~ language. If you think the bare minimum is enough, then ok. But some people choose to learn more and we encourage that, ok? You do want to express yourself, don't you?

It is my understanding that many other countries have a system like this for their public schools. In particular, I have had several scientists and engineers from Germany tell me that they were separated from students with other interests by age 14. Provided that this is voluntary on the part of the student, this seems like an idea with potential. I would love to hear from any readers who are more familiar with a comparable working system.

And for you libertarian readers who would say "this, too, would be best addressed by privatization of all schools", please answer the question of what subjects must be studied under the Florida plan, or under total privatization. Are you so libertarian as to support a parent's freedom to send their child to madrasses? I am not just playing devil's advocate - I feel that question to be at the heart of the issue of unmotivated students in public schools, which is exactly the problem this Florida bill hopes to address.

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March 6, 2006

Military Wins Important Battle

Update at bottom of extended entry.

A coalition of 36 law schools including Yale, Harvard, and Columbia were defeated by the First Amendment today, despite their best efforts. It is an uncontested fact that universities who wish to ban military recruiters from equal access on campus are free to do so - we have the right to associate freely, after all. But SCOTUS ruled 8-0 that the federal government does not have to continue to fund such institutions if they don't provide recruiters with equal access to students on campus.

The universities sued to challenge the Solomon Amendment on the grounds that military recruiters represent a violation of the campus policies of the schools not to assist employers who discriminate based on race, sex, or sexual orientation. The military, of course, does not allow open homosexuality.

The law schools argued that, at a minimum, they shouldn't have to actively help military recruiters by distributing their literature or arranging interviews with students. Chief Justice Roberts responded in the decision;

A military recruiter's mere presence on campus does not violate a law school's right to associate, regardless of how repugnant the law school considers the recruiter's message,

I could have sworn that I had written on this issue in the past, but I can't find it... I must be thinking of comments I posted on another blog. I remember watching the arguments on C-Span back in December, and noting that the justices seemed very clear in their opinion at that time. One noted that it is highly unlikely that any student could mistake the military policy on homosexuals to be a policy endorsed by the universities where recruiters would interview prospective legal officers. The thought of a Columbia law student sitting across the table from a JAG officer and assuming that the recruiter represented the university - well, let's just say I got a kick out of that image.

So now what will these schools do? Can they turn their backs on the money, over the principle of treating gays (but not recruiters) equally? How much money is at stake?
From Bloomberg:

The federal government provides almost $35 billion a year to universities through research grants, government contracts and other sources, according to the American Association of University Professors. The financial stake is one reason almost every law school has agreed to give equal access to the military.

Emphasis mine. That's a big twinkie. The schools will allow recruiters on campus, and will bend over backwards letting students know how they feel about the recruiters and the policies of the military. And that's fine with me - let them tell the students anything they like, provided it is truthful and the recruiters are given the same recruiting opportunities that other employers are.

In fact, that's what the ruling said.

The Solomon Amdendment neither limits what law schools may say nor requires them to say anything. Law schools remain free under the statute to express whatever views they may have on the military's congressionally mandated employment policy, all the while retaining eligibility for federal funds.

The ruling quotes the transcript of the Solicitor General, who said in arguments that law schools

could put signs on the bulletin board next to the door, they could engage in speech, they could help organize student protests,

Also a touch of humor on the quesiton of whether students will construe the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy of the military as a policy endorsed by the university when the university provides recruiter access:

We have held that high school students can appreciate the difference between speech a school sponsors and speech the school permits because legally required to do so, pursuant to an equal access policy. Surely students have not lost that ability by the time they get to law school.

I hope not.

More about the case from Bloomberg:

The Defense Department has listed only three schools -- New York Law School, Vermont Law School in South Royalton, Vermont, and William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota -- as being in violation of the Solomon Amendment, according to Joshua Rosenkrantz, the lead lawyer for the challengers. All three schools are independent institutions, so their actions don't jeopardize funding for any other university departments.

At one point, the Solomon Amendment included a threat to withhold student financial aid. That provision was removed in 2000.

By the way, the full text of the Rumsfeld v FAIR ruling can be found here.

Others blogging on the ruling include BizzyBlog, who provides some interesting links at the bottom of the article.

March 7 Update: I knew that I had written about this before. I found my earlier comments on Right on the Left Coast, from Dec 6 (when arguments were heard). Comments then sound a lot like comments now. One quick excerpt:I think the final word goes to Justice Stephen Breyer: "the remedy for speech you don't like is not less speech, but more speech,"

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February 28, 2006

Boycotting the Ivy League

"Something is very wrong at our elite universities" says John Fund over at the Opinion Journal. He goes on to say in his article Jihadi Turns Bulldog that:

Last week Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard when it became clear he would lose a no-confidence vote held by politically correct faculty members furious at his efforts to allow ROTC on campus, his opposition to a drive to have Harvard divest itself of corporate investments in Israel, and his efforts to make professors work harder. Now Yale is giving a first-class education to an erstwhile high official in one of the most evil regimes of the latter half of the 20th century--the government that harbored the terrorists who attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001.

The something that is very wrong with our elite universities is institutionalized Leftism. No mystery here. The American Left has held a monopoly on the mainstream media, Hollywood, and academia throughout most of my conscious life. What we have seen since the Nineties, however, is a slow but measurable release of the stranglehold of Leftism in MSM and Hollywood. But Leftism remains firmly entrenched in American universities and grade schools. It seems that not a week goes by without reading a story such as this.

Armed with tenure, the Ivy League elite Leftists, especially, wield an untouchable swagger. To be fair to Harvard, Alan Dershowitz does that say that the Larry Summers resignation debacle was spearheaded by a vocal few who represent:

[...] only one component of Harvard University and is hardly representative of widespread attitudes on the campus toward Summers. The graduate faculties, the students, and the alumni generally supported Summers for his many accomplishments. [Those responsible include] some of the most radical, hard-left elements within Harvard's diverse constituencies.

Okay fine. But how do we put a end to this instituitionalized - and subsidized - Leftism? How does the free market weed out these most 'radical, hard-left elements,' or at the very least, start to ensure more intellectual diversity at our elite institutions?

For the majority of my career I will be in a position to hire engineers, managers, and, some day, maybe even directors. I see no other solution to this problem than to place universities such as Harvard and Yale on an "Unhirable List," until that time that these institutions stop inculcating a homogenized, group-think education. If enough people in hiring positions begin to make a conscientious decision not to hire from the Ivy Leagues, then the market will eventually correct itself, even if it must be at at the temporary expense of hurting the presumably majority of students who want nothing to do with their professors' politically correct extremism.

My company has taught me to cherish diversity above all else. What better way to celebrate diversity than to only recruit from colleges that offer intellectual diversity?

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