Archive for the 'Education' Category

I once read about someone saying that her favorite day of the year was March 4th, because it’s a complete sentence. Technically, that’s not true, since the sentence is “March forth!” and the date is “March fourth”. But for what it’s worth, they sound the same. In history, March fourth was America’s original Inauguration Day, before being changed by the 20th Amendment, and was the birthday of Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi. So without further ado, I give you the news on or around March fourth.

PETA has decided to forgo their plans for a billboard depicting Tiger Woods.

How much of a chance does this have of passing? Congressmen Jeb Hensarling and Mike Pence propose an amendment to limit spending to 20% of GDP.

If you’re a car nut, but also would like to consider yourself “green”, you might like this. Ferrari has unveiled a hybrid auto.

In the Netherlands, a pilot who was not licensed for passenger flights was arrested just before takeoff.

Students protesting cutbacks in Davis, California got close to blocking an interstate highway. (H/T CDC Journal)

Earlier this evening, two police officers were shot at the main entrance of the Pentagon.

From Atlas Shrugs: In San Francisco, three muslims have been charged with shooting a gay man in the face with a BB gun.

From A Catholic View: Maryland Catholic Conference backs state plan to fund adult stem cell research. Historically, Maryland was founded to provide a refuge for Catholics who were mistreated in England.

Because of falling real estate values, spouses facing divorce are now telling each other “No, you take the House.”

From the Weekly Standard: Is Obama offering a congressman’s brother a position as judge in exchange for his vote on health care?

From Yahoo News: The Chilean quake’s effects on the earth include shortening its rotation period.

Yet more geologic activity. Fox News reports a 6.8 magnitude earthquake in Taiwan.

President Abraham who?

He may be the president who governed during the Civil War, freeing the slaves, but under a new curriculum proposal for North Carolina high schools, U.S. history would begin years after President Lincoln, with the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877.

State education leaders say this may help students learn about more recent history in greater depth.

“We are certainly not trying to go away from American history,” Rebecca Garland, the chief academic officer for North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, told Fox News. “What we are trying to do is figure out a way to teach it where students are connected to it, where they see the big idea, where they are able to make connections and draw relationships between parts of our history and the present day.”

As the North Carolina curriculum stands now, ninth-grade students take world history, 10th-graders study civics and economics and 11th-graders take U.S. history going back to the country’s founding.

Under the proposed change, the ninth-graders would take a course called global studies, focusing in part on issues such as the environment. The 10th grade still would study civics and economics, but 11th-graders would take U.S. history only from 1877 onward.

Emphasis mine.

Let me get this straight. When North Carolina Students are 16 to 17 years old, and 1 year from going out into the world, and not only that, are 1 year from VOTING, you want to take away their freshest and most adult study of our country’s history, and in fact, its founding? When they can be taught what Jefferson and Hamilton, Madison and Adams, fought for and won? What those men believed would be the best form of government?

Un. Real. But to be expected.

My favorite quote was from “Rebecca Garland, the chief academic officer for North Carolina Department of Public Instruction”:

“The students are in school for 13 years,” said Garland. “They certainly are taught U.S. and North Carolina history in middle school.”

I am sure that the 6th grade history curriculum discusses the Declaration on a Highlights for Kids level, which is pretty much where you damned hippies want to leave them. Any discussion of the Federalist Papers (noticably missing from the Highlights archives….) won’t be necessary at the 11th grade level, you see, because it was studied earlier… trust us.

This is exactly why public schools are failing. This is why one of the most important things parents can do is to be active in PTAs, be active in knowing the decisions local school boards are making, what the states boards of education are doing, and in fact, perhaps even running for one of those seats to prevent these revisionists from taking the next generation and teaching them that their exhalations are killing Mother Gaia.

I am so glad that my children are not becoming dumber by attending North Carolina schools.

Another weekend come and soon to be gone. This one featured about 4 inches of powdery white stuff, a small amount by this winter’s standards. Here in Maryland, every few years or so, we seem to get what I call “Winter in December”, where December is cold and snowy, but January and February are milder. This past December certainly fit the bill, but there’s been very little let-up in January, with a long spell of below-freezing temperatures early in the month, and a snow storm to close it out. It looks like this will be a real winter, from start to finish. Just stay in your hole, Punxatawney Phil. Looking for your shadow doesn’t seem to be worth the effort this year. Meanwhile, here’s a bit of what’s been going on:

Ice Age Now reports how NASA and NOAA have been “cooking the data” on global warming, er, climate change. Such climate monitoring is now what the Obama administration wants from NASA, instead of going back to the moon.

The Washington, DC Metro had a horrible year in 2009, as 24 people were killed in the system.

From Atlas Shrugs via Newsbusters: Eleventh graders at an Ohio high school get a chance to earn school credit by becoming interns for Organizing for America. Suggested readings include Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.

According to Michael Medved, trying to emulate Truman will not work for Obama.

Want to take a ride on a military airplane, at taxpayer expense? It helps if you’re related to Nancy Pelosi.

Obama bows again! Not to a king or emperor, but to an American mayor. (H/T Snooper Report)

From Gateway Pundit: Illinois gubernatorial candidate Adam Andrzejewski, whom Duncan noted a few posts ago, has surged to within two points of the lead among Republicans vying for their party’s nomination. (Rock-n-roll trivia: Name the female vocalist whose maiden name is Andrzejewski.)

According to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, the Obama administration is determined to have Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terrorists tried in New York.

Oh the other hand, Bill Burck and Dana Perino, writing in National Review, claim that KSM and four others will instead be tried by military commission.

The Egyptian government has announced plans to reveal the results of DNA tests from the Pharoah Tutankhamun. I wonder if “King Tut” was anything like Steve Martin’s portrayal.

So very witty and… well… true. Keynes is universally celebrated, why Hayek is not as well known… or accepted.

I do love the “party at the Fed” as portrayed. Keynes all hungover… heh…

Tomorrow, Obama will give his speech to the nation’s schoolchildren. Some have been critical of his planned speaking appearance, and others have said, “What’s the big deal? Reagan and/or (GHW) Bush also spoke to kids in school.” Still others have argued that Barry’s upcoming speech is different from those given by his predecessors. Therefore, I offer the text of all three. To shamelessly steal a phrase from Fox News, I report, you decide.

Speaking of which, Fox News got a hold of Barry’s prepared remarks, to be delivered at Wakefield High School in Arlington, VA.
(H/T HotAir.)

Way back in 1988, the Gipper gave this speech, from the State Dining Room at the White House. The speech was carried by C-Span and the Instructional Television Network. He also took questions from students at several junior high schools.

In 1991, Bush the Elder spoke at Alice Deal Junior High School. The speech was carried by CNN, PBS, the Mutual Broadcasting System, and the NBC radio network.
(H/T Skye, who tweeted this.)

Newsflash:

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama has a message for the unemployed: More help is on the way.

The president was outlining steps Friday to help the jobless pursue education and training, and keep their unemployment benefits, too.

So, the lazy people of this country WILL take advantage of THIS gem of a benefit. Mark my words. Have a look around your community to see for yourself.

Under the measures Obama was scheduled to outline, according to the White House:

_The Labor Department will encourage states to update rules during economic downturns so that the unemployed can enroll in community colleges and other education or training programs without giving up their benefits. States generally require people who collect unemployment to be actively looking for work, which can make it difficult to sign up for school or job training. Going to school will satisfy the requirement that they be actively seeking new employment.

Uh huh…there are many people, tens of thousands, probably millions, who are not working, who are attending school classes and other trainings- without the help of UNEMPLOYMENT benefits. These people just got slapped in the face.

_The Education Department will encourage colleges to increase financial aid packages for the unemployed. Colleges can consider an unemployed worker’s situation and make them eligible for Pell Grants, which help low-income students afford college, and other aid. An unemployed person could get a Pell Grant and use it to pay for education or job training without giving up unemployment benefits. Beginning in July, the maximum Pell Grant will be boosted by $500, to $5,350.

How long can a nation sustain these kinds of benefits? The latest reports show 8.9 % of our fellow citizens are not working- therefore, not paying taxes. Yet, we can afford to give them benefits such as this???? On whose dime?

“Our unemployment insurance system should no longer be a safety net, but a steppingstone to a new future,” Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery Friday. “It should offer folks educational opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have” and give them skills they need to “get ahead when the economy comes back.”

Folks have every opportunity to further their education and skills without the help of Uncle Sam Barry. Without the taxes of the rest of us who are still working, hard, to pay our OWN education bills.

What a fucking tool he is.

Really…read this.

A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that a third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading.

Effort and reading books and research is great. But actually LEARNING the material is what counts. I’ve seen this: Schools downgrade expectations: They routinely place higher value to attendance and reading assignments, than they do for actual learned knowledge. I call this the dumbing down of America. Our kids are not learning what they need to know and sadly it shows.

How well do you know your civics? Find out by taking this quiz from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

I found this quiz twice, in two very different places – a message board on a site for Virginia Tech athletics and a blog full of rightwing conspirators (as our next Secretary of State would call them). Thus, an interestingly divided H/T.

Have an inkling… I never knew….

And the best part… she’s got more educating for me at her website…. screw Merriam-Websters…

I don’t exactly know where this sticker on the back of one of the seat tray’s on my flight out to Kaleefourneeyaa was made (but I took a pic for posterity’s sake):

Seriously. Someone here please tell me they see the problem here also. This is just a tiny little sticker on a plane, out of thousands of stickers, but it is ohhhh so simple to create and one of the most seen. If this sticker was made in America… then we are truly, truly screwed…

:wahh: