education

So, About This Mess in Wisconsin…

Calvin Freiburger budget, conservatism, dishonesty, education, GOP, government, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, National Education Association, politics, public schools, Scott Walker, spending, unions, Wisconsin

Sorry I haven’t been blogging on the epic battle that’s been going on over the past couple weeks between Wisconsin’s new governor, Scott Walker, and the public-sector unions. I’ve written an editorial with my take on the matter which I hope will be in the Fond du Lac Reporter in the next few days, at which point I’ll put the director’s cut up here on CFO.

In the meantime, here are some of the best general-overview articles I’ve seen on the controversy. They should all be read in full if you’ve got the time:

“Wisconsin Myths and Facts” by Matthew Shaffer at National Review Online

“The American Pharisees of Madison” by Marvin Folkertsma at American Thinker

“The Means of Coercion” by James Taranto in the Wall Street Journal

“Public Unions Must Go” by Jonah Goldberg at National Review Online

“Lost: The common good” by the Editors of the Chicago Tribune

“The Worst Generation’s war in Wisconsin” by Ruth Ann Dailey in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

As for me, for now I’ll just say that the reactions by all sides have yet again conclusively demonstrated that lies, violence and venom are hallmarks of the Left, not conservatives or the Tea Party; and that Governor Walker is doing the right thing and showing tremendous courage and resolve. More to come later.

Around the Web

Calvin Freiburger abortion, capitalism, Chris Christie, college, conservatism, education, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Islamofascism, Maher, NewsReal, O'Reilly, philanthropy, Planned Parenthood, Tea Party

Chris Christie’s won the hearts of many conservatives for standing up to charlatans in the public education establishment, but does even he have a dark side? Maybe – Jonathan Tobin has the scoop on Christie’s recent judicial appointment of Sohail Mohammed, who has represented radical Islamists in the past. Consider this a shining example of why I say we shouldn’t be too quick to anoint standard-bearers.

“An unprecedented study that followed several thousand undergraduates through four years of college found that large numbers didn’t learn the critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication skills that are widely assumed to be at the core of a college education.” Surprised? Me neither.

My NRB colleague Walter Hudson explains how Twilight star Kristin Stewart’s plan to set up a halfway house network to help women escape prostitution is only possible because we let people get rich in this country. Love Twilight or hate it (I’ve neither read the books nor seen the movies), you’ve gotta give Stewart credit for this.

Also on NewsReal, Joseph Klein takes issue with Bill O’Reilly going easy on Bill Maher for bashing the Tea Party. It never ceases to amaze me that O’Reilly has a reputation as some right-wing fire breather, considering that he gives passes to abominable liberals all the time, and his definition of “stand-up guy” is basically “anyone willing to come on my show.”

Rep. Steve King wants to get to the bottom of whether or not your federal tax dollars are paying for Planned Parenthood’s telehealth services.

The Educator’s Oath – How Times Have Changed

Calvin Freiburger bias, education, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, public schools

I just came across the “The Educator’s Oath,” written by Robert L. DeBruyn. Passages of special relevance have been emphasized:

I solemnly pledge to dedicate my life to the science of teaching.
I will give to those who are or have been my teachers the respect and gratitude which is their due.
I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity; the well-being of my students will be my primary concern always.
I will honor the position of parents and uphold public trust.
I will maintain by all the means in my power the honor of my profession. I will respect the privacy of students;
I will teach toward meeting the individual needs and abilities of students.
I will accept all engaged in education and regard all as my colleagues;
I will not permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics, social standing, or the monetary rewards received from my labors to intervene between my duty and my students.
I will maintain utmost respect for human dignity and human values, and I will hold human caring and consideration as the fundamental value in the student-teacher relationship.
I make this promise solemnly, freely, and upon my oath for as long as I am engaged in education.

Lovely sentiments. It’s a shame the public education establishment no longer believes in them.

Feingold to Plague Wisconsin College With His Presence

Calvin Freiburger abortion, college, education, infanticide, Left, Marquette University, partial-birth, Russ Feingold, Wisconsin
Pro-Life Wisconsin reports that Marquette University Law School has asked former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold to join them as a visiting law professor. As PLW notes, the radical pro-abort Feingold holds some interesting views that should be of great interest to anyone thinking about going to Marquette. From a 1996 debate: 
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Sen. Santorum: Will the Senator from Wisconsin yield for a question?

Sen. Feingold: I will.
Sen. Santorum: The Senator from Wisconsin says that this decision should be left up to the mother and the doctor, as if there is absolutely no limit that could be placed on what decision that they make with respect to that. And the Senator from California [Sen. Barbara Boxer] is going up to advise you of what my question is going to be, and I will ask it anyway. And my question is this: that if that baby were delivered breech style and everything was delivered except for the head, and for some reason that that baby’s head would slip out — that the baby was completely delivered — would it then still be up to the doctor and the mother to decide whether to kill that baby?

Sen. Feingold: I would simply answer your question by saying under the Boxer amendment, the standard of saying it has to be a determination, by a doctor, of health of the mother, is a sufficient standard that would apply to that situation. And that would be an adequate standard.

Sen. Santorum: That doesn’t answer the question. Let’s assume that this procedure is being performed for the reason that you’ve stated, and the head is accidentally delivered.Would you allow the doctor to kill the baby?

Sen. Feingold: I am not the person to be answering that question. That is a question that should be answered by a doctor, and by the woman who receives advice from the doctor.   And neither I, nor is the Senator from Pennsylvania, truly competent to answer those questions.  That is why we should not be making those decisions here on the floor of the Senate.

What the average university will not only tolerate, but welcome with open arms, these days is simply abominable. At least this monster isn’t disgracing our state in the Senate anymore.

 

New on NewsReal – Are Social Conservatives "Statist Control Freaks"? Not So Fast

Calvin Freiburger abortion, ACLU, Christianity, conservatism, education, evolution, freedom, gay marriage, homosexuality, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, marriage, NewsReal, religion, social conservatism, social issues, statism
My latest NewsRealBlog post:

This weekend, NewsRealBlog’s Lori Heine objected to Ann Coulter’s recent column attempting to tie WikiLeaks enabler Bradley Manning to the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Today, she responds to several critical commenters. I’m not terribly interested in revisiting DADT right now—my position is that I’ll defer to military experts on what changes should be made to the current policy, but I insist that the decision be based on military criteria alone, not political correctness or kowtowing to the whims of the radical gay Left.  Lori argues her position well, and successfully refutes several of her critics.
However, I must take issue with the way she conflates social conservatism with statism:

One form of fun of which big-government statists on the social Right never seem to tire is the purity game.  True believers must toe the line and never stray from it, even one jot or tittle.  “You are no conservative,” another commenter harrumphed at me.  Since this person evidently thinks only the big-government, control-freak statists on the social Right are the “real” conservatives, then according to his definition of course I am not.  Nor would I ever want to be.

What I am is a former Leftist progressive who has come to the conclusion that libertarian conservatism is – for a wide variety of reasons – the right direction for America to take.  The relentless and childish tug-of-war of the past few elections has convinced me that the Left and the statist Right are actually as alike as Tweedledee and Tweedledum and that they are, together, pulling the country apart.  Just as Leftists view any liberal who believes in small government and individual initiative a heretic, so do those on the Right who view anyone who does not share their fantasies about Granny Government and her all-powerful magic wand “not a real conservative.”

What I think of the “purity game” is no secret, either, but here I want to consider this talk of “big-government, control-freak statists on the social Right” who believe the government has an “all-powerful magic wand.”

Maybe I just missed them, but I’m struggling to recall a significant number of examples of this nefarious social-con variation. To be sure, there are a select handful of individuals who come to mind—for instance, Joseph Farah and Peter Sprigg—but beyond that, I don’t know how any significant, respected portion of the social conservative movement fits the bill.

Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.

Around the Web

Calvin Freiburger Barack Obama, birthright citizenship, education, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, immigration, Islam, NewsReal, sex

Chris Barnhart has a series of thoughtful observations on a Florida group planning to burn Korans this September 11.

What does the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause really mean?

What kind of sex-obsessed nut do you have to be to consider the Left too puritanical on sex-related issues?

This weekend, I counted down the top seven manifestations of education bias in America for NewsReal. Zombie has some solutions.

Barack Obama can’t stop whining about his job. Y’know, Barry, if we’re too mean for your, you don’t have to run again in 2012….

Radical Reading in Education, Part 2

Calvin Freiburger books, education, Glenn Beck, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Left, National Education Association, NEA, propaganda, public schools, Saul Alinsky

Tonight Glenn Beck alerted his audience to the fact that the problem isn’t limited to Fondy – it turns out the National Education Association’s website has a page recommending the works of an author “widely recognized as the father of, and pre-imminent expert in, grassroots organizing” – Saul Alinsky.

Yeah, that guy.

Paging John Boehner, Jim DeMint, Paul Ryan, Michelle Bachmann…any of you feel like maybe trying to do something about this sort of thing for once?

Reporter Editorial: In Defense of Ann Wentworth

Calvin Freiburger Ann Wentworth, censorship, education, Fond du Lac School District, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, letters, library books, public schools, reporter

My latest in the Fond du Lac Reporter:

I haven’t read the books Ann Wentworth objects to.

Maybe they’re inappropriate for middle school, maybe not (though author Julie Halpern’s comment that Wentworth is “full of hate” certainly reflects poorly on her book’s worth).

But Wentworth’s critics don’t seem to have read them, either—they just hate her for raising the subject at all.

Parents should absolutely judge whether schools should expose their children to certain content, and when they’re ready for it.

Schools making it easy for children to stumble upon controversial material in its care rob parents of that choice. Promoting independence and free inquiry is great, but that hardly means schools must or should provide every topic or author imaginable.

Parents troubled by certain material are condescendingly told to “take care of that within their own families” (translation: if we give your kids questionable stuff, it’s your problem), but why shouldn’t parents who want their kids introduced to more adult subject matter be the ones to take the initiative and go to the public library or Waldenbooks?

Yes, some kids mature quicker than others, but communities shouldn’t shy away from setting parameters for what’s generally appropriate for certain age groups. People will naturally disagree on the details, but that’s democracy — better to let each side argue the merits and let the chips fall where they may, than to stigmatize the open discussion of ideas, especially where our kids are concerned.

Indeed, demanding wholesale indifference to what schools should put on their shelves is much closer to thought control than anything Wentworth has done.

Wentworth has been smeared as not taking responsibility for her own child’s upbringing, but the opposite is true: This whole controversy arose because she’s more attentive than the rest of the town. Even so, no one parent can possibly know the content of every single book in the library; that’s supposed to be the responsibility of the people stocking the shelves. It seems to me normal people would be grateful that she’s alerted them to the possibility that maybe that job isn’t being done.

And don’t be too quick to assume that the job is being done right in Fond du Lac. In April 2007, I was part of a small group of local Republicans that was permitted to examine the district’s library database. We found that left-wing books outnumbered right-wing books four to one, including “The I Hate Republicans Reader,” by Clint Willis and books by fraudulent filmmaker Michael Moore and fringe philosopher Peter Singer, who says “killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person.”

The School Board was not interested in rectifying the bias at the time. If they have done so since, I am not aware of it.

It’s no surprise that the School Board doesn’t care about Wentworth’s concerns, but it is shocking that her petition calling for a new content rating system and a committee to examine book content has received a paltry 30 signatures.

Really? A city of more than 40,000 people only has 30 interested in closer scrutiny of controversial material in our schools?

Ask yourself why none of Wentworth’s critics have said, “These books actually are age-appropriate, and here’s why.”

The first answer is that you’re not supposed to question the Fond du Lac School District. Ever.

Second, lots of parents don’t like to be reminded that someone is paying closer attention to their kids’ education than they are, so they choose to instead tear her down as a bad parent. Fond du Lac should be so proud.

UPDATE: As usual, the comments are a treasure trove of unintentional hilarity – ultra-partisan hacks Pan “Cobweb1780” Zareta and DelScorcho ignore what I write and instead thoughtlessly snipe about partisanship and “censorship.” Ever notice how rarely liberals even make an effort to argue honestly?

How the Teachers’ Unions and Democrats Scam Taxpayers

Calvin Freiburger bureaucracy, Democrats, dishonesty, education, liberalism, propaganda

Charles Lane, in the Washington Post:

By now, you’ve probably heard about the urgent teacher layoff crisis that threatens public education across America. Due to shrinking state and local budgets, up to 300,000 teachers could be laid off, with devastating educational consequences for our children, such as burgeoning class sizes. The only cure is $23 billion in fresh federal deficit spending, rushed through Congress as part of a bill to fund U.S. overseas military operations. “The urgency is high,” President Obama warned congressional leaders in a June 12 letter.

Don’t believe the hype.

Start with that scary number of 300,000 teacher layoffs, which has been bandied about in numerous newspaper articles. The sources for it are interested parties: teachers unions and school administrators, whose national organizations counted layoff warning notices that have already been sent out this spring and extrapolated from there. Notably, however, even these sources usually describe the threatened positions as “education jobs” – not teachers. That’s because the figures actually include not only kindergarten through 12th grade classroom instructors, but also support staff (bus drivers, custodians, et al.) and even community college faculty. And 300,000 is the upper end of a range that could be as low as 100,000. Nationwide, there are about 3.2 million K-12 public school teachers.

Moreover, springtime layoff notices are a notoriously unreliable guide to actual job cuts in the fall, because rules and regulations in many public school systems require administrators to notify every person who might conceivably be laid off — whether they actually expect to fire them or not. As the New York Times recently reported: “Everywhere, school officials tend to overestimate the potential for layoffs at this time of year, to ensure that every employee they might have to dismiss receives the required notifications.”

Given these facts, it’s unclear how the bill’s supporters came up with its $23 billion price tag. It works out to about $77,000 per job saved in the 300,000-layoff scenario, but $230,000 per job if only 100,000 jobs are at risk. Maybe that’s why the bill’s fine print allows states to spend any excess funds left over from education hiring on other state employees. By the way, the bill distributes funds to states according to how many residents they have, not how many threatened layoffs.

Read the rest here.

Christie Rising

Calvin Freiburger bureaucracy, conservatism, education, Republican Party, taxes

Mona Charen’s recent column on New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is well worth a read:

At a New Jersey town meeting, Gov. Chris Christie, the newest YouTube star for the limited government set, was reproached by an unhappy teacher. The governor, facing a budget shortfall of $11 billion, has proposed, among other economies, a one-year salary freeze for New Jersey teachers. Her voice raised in anger (that’s a normal speaking voice in my home state), Rita Wilson protested that she should be paid $83,000, the only reasonable compensation in light of her “education and experience.” Christie’s reply got an ovation: “Well, you know what? Then you don’t have to do it.”

Meet the newest conservative hero: The Trenton Truth-Teller!

That exchange with the teacher, along with other greatest hits available on YouTube of the blunt yet friendly governor’s first five months, highlight a political opportunity for Republicans.

First, the problem: How can smaller-government Republicans win elections when more and more Americans are receiving government benefits while fewer and fewer are paying taxes? In 2010, 47 percent of Americans paid no income taxes at all. Among those who do pay taxes, most pay comparatively little. Both parties have agreed to make the tax code more steeply progressive in the past two decades, to the point where the top 20 percent of earners, those with incomes above $100,000, pay 70 percent of all taxes. Accordingly, the tax issue has lost some of its political purchase.

But as Christie is demonstrating, voters are open to a new fairness argument.

Read the rest here.