Right As Usual

Not just Utopian, but Comprehensive. That's one of the Left's favorite terms. It's the idea that you can - FINALLY - fix the problems of those aggravating "Little People", with a solution that is imposed, top-down, by the Smart People (trademark pending). Then, the Elites can go back to ignoring those Peons. There is a major difference between the thinking of those with post-high school education, the Elite, and those whose children will be affected. In K-12, in the past (much less now), the emphasis was on the acquisition of useful skills. Such skills were: Basic ability to read and write - generally not dense and deliberately difficult literature. The students might read Hemingway short stories, or Old Man and the Sea. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. But, not Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. Even the often-assigned Moby Dick was generally reserved to upper-level Honors classes, not the guys that would be heading to a manufacturing job. Bas...

Bring their actions to light - either in the news, or in a courtroom. Do NOT give up or give in. Gibson's is a bakery in Oberlin, OH. It is a small town, with a large Gown (Oberlin College). To lose the business of the college brings a destructive drop in sales. Which is what happened after a Black underage student tried to shoplift some wine. He was confronted by one of the family, and subsequently - along with 2 female friends - arrested. Oberlin got involved, in great part because the Dean of Students, Dean Raimondo, got personally involved in revving up the protest activity. She did this, not as an individual, but as part of her administrative role. I think it's fair to say that, without her butting into the dispute, it might have burned out quickly. BTW, the students involved in that incident admitted their guilt (one quite reluctantly - saying that Gibson's "MIGHT" not be racist). That reluctant students was corrected by her attorney to the agreed-u...

American schools are heading into another year finished - and, for some kids, they truly are finished. As in, education done. Not on track to graduate. Not making progress. Many blame the Common Core framework , which has - so far - mostly affected Math and ELA (what educators - as opposed to teachers - call English Language Arts). I've mostly seen the results at second-hand, when the kids come into science class woefully deficient in basic math skills. I taught Chemistry and Physics my last 4 years in teaching. Before that, I taught Physical Science as well. In upper-level science courses, those students who are enrolled have a base competency in math - not necessarily proficient, but not coming in clueless about fractions and decimals, as too many of the Freshmen taking Physical Science do. I will say that MOST high school students are purely awful at writing in their native language. Not only is their grammar confused and lacking, but the logical flow of their PARAGRAPHS...