Education Political Correctness, Education Elites and the Sunday Education Weekly Reader 05.20.12

YOU are ultimately responsible for your education and life choices.

Welcome to the Sunday Education Weekly Reader 05.20.12.  From the twitter world this week:

• Political correctness gone amok or valid concerns over unfair commentary?  Does it make a difference to know she is married to an African-American man and has bi-racial children?.....Naomi Riley, Chronicle Of Higher Education Blogger, Fired For Calling Black Studies 'Clap. http://huff.to/JbMfsK

•  This is truly amazing piece.  This progressive writer believes the educational reform is from the conservatives.  He makes the argument that conservatives hate critical thinking.  So why are the educational reforms also coming from Arne Duncan and Obama, Michelle Rhee and David Coleman?  I didn't think they considered themselves conservatives....How the Conservative Worldview Quashes Critical Thinking -- and ... http://bit.ly/JWGb3S  The point is: the American public has been sold out by all those in power.

•  No link here, just an interesting tweet: :Obama is NO Better than Christie, Romney, Booker, Tepper, Broad, Gates, Walton...; IMO they R all =ly pimpin education 4 $$ & NMTC  Looks like other tweeters are cutting through the political labels and calling it like it is.

• Jeez. Sounds like your human capital is just that...capital.  Groomed for the workforce...What should students learn in the 21st century? – #Education - http://bit.ly/MwoVWO

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This week's history lesson on twitter:  Remember, NCLB was the hood ornament of the Bush adm. It was done as a Fed mandate. It has not been undone because Arne Duncan supports it.  

A bit of additional information: Senator Edward Kennedy was a proponent as well.  This was a bi-partisan descent into chaos.

 

Quahogs, Easter Eggs and The Sunday Education Weekly Reader 04.08.12

Welcome to the Sunday Education Weekly Reader for 04.08.12.  

• I discovered doyle-scienceteachblogspot.com during the week and it is a great read.  The posting Clamming on Good Friday imparts the lesson for the Easter season (the physical meets the miraculous) and I hope you enjoy it.  This blog is worth reading on a regular basis. It should please readers there is a teacher of this caliber teaching children.  It's a treat in the proverbial Easter basket!

• Since  mentioning anything remotely about God or religion is taboo in public schools today (don't EVEN think about singing "God Bless the USA" until the media got a hold of this policy), I thought I would provide a historical lesson on the origin and symbolism of Easter Eggs.  This is not a politically correct blog.  We do still call them Easter eggs, not "spring spheres".  Check out other politically correct names in schools and cities when talking about that dreaded term "Easter".  It's rather ironic the speech police want to ban references to Easter as many of these Easter traditions pre-date Christianity.  Too bad students today can't learn history and  historical references because, horror of horrors, it MIGHT have something to do with religion.

   

Happy Easter!

The Sunday Education Weekly Reader: Visual Soundbites for 02.19.2012

Welcome to the Sunday Education Weekly Reader for 02.19.12.  Our visual soundbites start out with lists and end with a glimpse into utopia:

• Thinking about homeschooling?  You might want to read these ideas on the positives of teaching your own children.....Homeschooling... 54 Benefits Enjoyed by Parents and Children http://www.knowthelies.com/node/7038

• Maybe the reason Arne Duncan wants 100% of students to attend college is so everyone can share the misery of debt?.....35 Shocking Facts That Prove That College Education Has Become A Giant Money Making Scam http://is.gd/1rK0va 

• A teachable moment becomes a politically incorrect firestorm.  Another "Brown vs School Board" lawsuit......Teacher suspended for discussing racial epithet in class http://ow.ly/1hsGjR

• Can this carbon footprint be reduced?  We can't afford these mandates...and have the feds overstepped any authority they may not have in the first place?.........Federal K-12 Footprint at Core of ESEA Hearing http://bit.ly/wGmWzG

• Maybe America should guarantee this right to her citizens in this era of endless data tracking......The free speech and constitutional concerns with the "right to be forgotten": http://bit.ly/xSHFQe

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The educational thought of the week is on why robots are the best teachers for children from "What if Robots Taught Kids?"  Does this take away the heated debate on teacher tenure?

There’s a little bit of shame involved in being wrong or being behind,” Schultze says. “Robots can get that out of the way, because they’re not judgmental. There’s a sense that technology is almost coequal, as opposed to a sort of master-servant relationship.”

With all the move toward educational equity, it's a wrap.  No more master-servant relationships in the classroom!  No judgments!  It's education utopia.

 

Aristotle Is Dead

Aristotle RIP

Ok, so that's not exactly news. He's been dead for 2300 years or so. But the deductive reasoning Aristotle championed is now dead. Sure he made some errors in his conclusions about the natural sciences, but that was because his access to the technological means to truly study natural phenomenon was limited, which skewed his conclusions.  But was he wrong to even investigate and form those opinions?  Ask any high school or older student today and you will probably hear, "Yes, he was wrong." His conclusions were opinions and all opinions are equal, therefore, there is no point in investigating any opinion.

Dr. Stephen Anderson wrote an essay on moral education programing in Canadian schools titled, Moments of Startling Clarity.  His essay, published in Education Forum, looked at the phenomenon of moral relativism and political correctness in the minds of today's students.

You would think that a population who has been so steeped in the language of minority rights and  character traits would recognize human rights abuses and be able to form opinions against such practices.  But this example, from his senior philosophy class, paints a different picture of the mind of today's youth.

I decided to open by simply displaying, without comment, the photo of Bibi Aisha. Aisha was the Afghani teenager who was forced into an abusive marriage with a Taliban fighter, who abused her and kept her with his animals. When she attempted to flee, her husband's family caught her, hacked off her nose and ears, and left her for dead in the mountains. After crawling to her grandfather’s house, she was saved by a nearby American hospital.

I felt quite sure that my students, seeing the suffering of this poor girl of their own age, would have a clear ethical reaction, from which we could build toward more difficult cases. The picture is horrific. Aisha’s beautiful eyes stare hauntingly back at you above the mangled hole that was once her nose. Some of my students could not even raise their eyes to look at it. I could see that many were experiencing deep emotions. But I was not prepared for their reaction.

I had expected strong aversion; but that’s not what I got. Instead, they became confused. They seemed not to know what to think. They spoke timorously, afraid to make any moral judgment at all. They were unwilling to criticize any situation originating in a different culture. They said, “Well, we might not like it, but maybe over there it’s okay.” One student said, “I don’t feel anything at all; I see lots of this kind of stuff.” Another said (with no consciousness of self-contradiction), “It’s just wrong to judge other cultures.”

 The refusal to judge receives the highest esteem in today's culture. Denyse O'Leary wrote of TheBestSchools.org :

In recent decades, a new view has taken root. The new view is that courage and cowardice have no intrinsic reality. Neither does the classical virtue of justice or the vice of injustice. It all depends on how you feel about things, which in turn depends on your culture. That underlies the students’ inability to move from “I feel bad” to “This is wrong.”

Holding this view means that one is incapable of seeing the wrongness of genocide by the Hutus, or human sacrifice of the Mayans, or stoning of rape victims by fanatical Muslims. And if you cannot see that such behavior is wrong, you are not motivated to do anything to stop it.

It could be said that this cultural relativism arose from the field of anthropology where early anthropologists refused to judge the cultures they were studying because such judgements were based on Western social biases. This belief led to their refusal to sign the 1947 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Carolyn Fluehr Lobban, a professor of anthropology said, "[T]his view is being challenged by critics inside and outside the discipline [of anthropology], especially those who want anthropologists to take a stand on key human-rights issues."

Writer Elsa Zee, who teaches college in Canada, has heard the mantra many times in her classroom; all opinions are equal.  From her own black students she heard that slavery was neither good nor bad.  Either view is just an opinion and all opinions are equal.

And then, one day, I realized: their opinion has nothing to do with thinking. It has to do with not thinking. They don't give - in fact, they don't have - any arguments, not even bad arguments, bad thinking. Nothing at all. Not even a logical fallacy. Not a single shred of backing.

They just " know" that opinions are equal.

I'm thinking this explains why, even if they KNOW what communism really is (which most of them don't), today's youth will not see anything bad in it.  They will actively resist forming an opinion about a political system that killed 62 million of its own people. Whether they do so, to adhere to a virtue of politically correct non-judgementalism or, because they do not wish to investigate and think too hard about it in the event they must defend their belief, we won't know. But we can assume they can't be counted on to stand up for what is right.  An even scarier thought is that they will go along with anything dished out by our own government because forming an opinion about or investigating it is "wrong."

Wishing you a Politically (In)correct Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  Merry Christmas!  Merry Christmas!

As December 25 has been designated a Federal Holiday since 1870 for Washington DC employees and since 1885 for all federal employees, we determine it politically correct to wish all of you a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The question is then, why all the hoopla by some saying it is politically incorrect to shout MERRY CHRISTMAS?  Just exactly what is so criminal and loathsome about those two words? 

Here's a youtube video from the Newman Club (location unknown) and its rendition of "The True Meaning of Christmas":

Newman Club Christmas Show 2011

Twas the month before Christmas
When all through our land
Not a Christian was praying
Nor taking a stand.


See the PC Police had taken away,
The reason for Christmas -- no one could say.


The children were told by their schools not to sing,
About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.


It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say
December 25th is just a 'Holiday'.


Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit
Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!


CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod
Something was changing, something quite odd!


Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa
In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.


As Targets were hanging their trees upside down
At Lowe's the word Christmas -- was no where to be found.


At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears
You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.


Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty
Are words that were used to intimidate me.


Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton,Wolf Blitzen
On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton !


At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter
To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.


And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace


The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded
The reason for the season, stopped before it started.


So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' under your 'Dream Tree'
Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me..


Choose your words carefully, choose what you say
Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS, not Happy Holiday !

We now provide you another offering on the true meaning of Christmas and those beautiful words from Luke courtesy of Linus:

MERRY CHRISTMAS and great joy to you.

The Sunday Education Weekly Reader: 10.30.11

Welcome to the Sunday Education Weekly Reader for 10.30.11. Today we have stories about:

• what is really necessary in education for student success
  
• the common core crowd gets caught again in the illegal nationalization of curriculum
  
• a video that should be required viewing for all students about economics
  
• the art of political correctness in choosing a Halloween costume
• a young woman's scary fascination with cats
  

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Here is an article from the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper in Rochester NY about the importance of mentors and one on one tutoring which helps students stay in school and on course. Maybe the answer isn't a "one size fits all" program as outlined in common core standards after all.

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Richard Epstein discusses the income inequality myth on PBS and should be required viewing for students. From HotAir:

“Income inequality” has always existed. It exists in every economic system ever invented. Does anyone doubt that income inequality exists in communist China, or existed in the Soviet Union? If you don’t want to argue from the extremes, take a look at western Europe, which has relied on massively redistributive policies for decades. The difference between these systems and the American experience is that membership in an economic class has never been static, but is changeable depending on one’s innovation and effort. That goes to the heart of American exceptionalism, and American success — or at least it did before we tried turning ourselves into a version of Europe’s sclerotic nanny states.

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The pro-common core crowd doesn't try to run from the "nationalized" standard tag these days. Here's an article from The Hoover Institution entitled "New Law Nationalizes Science Education Standards". Note the irony of the title of this piece and this tag (New law nationalizes science education standards | Advancing a Free Society) from Education News.

How is nationalizing education standards advancing a society that's "free"? What an oxymoron. The more nationalization and centralization that occurs in America, the less free society becomes.

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Choosing a Halloween costume this year can be difficult in case you don't want to offend anyone in any culture. Read this article about a campaign from Ohio State University students so you don't step on anyone's toes or feelings before you decide on your costume.

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Happy Halloween! For a scary video on cats (in honor of Halloween), check out this Autotune video about a young woman and her fascination of cats she talks about on a dating website.

Educational quote for the week:

Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

-Frederic Bastiat

Britain's Lesson on Common Core Standards. How's That Working Out?

Recently we discussed the DESE document sent to a state senator describing common core standards. We questioned several statements put forth by DESE:

• the "close alignment" of the ShowMe Standards to the Common Core Standards even as the Fordham Institute rated Missouri as receiving a "D" in communication arts and math when compared to the Common Core Standards,

• the statement that the standards implementation should be seamless and not costing Missouri any extra assessment time and money, even as assessment training will be necessary for teachers and administrators,

• the standards are state-led and not national-led even as Ed Week has published articles with concerns about the federal funding and control of curriculum resources,

• the fact no mention was made of the computers (and the funding ) needed by districts for the mandated assessments to be completed on line

Missouri and even US citizens are not the only ones asking questions of their Boards of Education. Here is an article entitled "Ed Problems Reside at Core" from the Heartland Institute pointing out the fallacies of common core standards in Britain, where they have been instituted for some time. Robert Holland makes good arguments against the adoption of these standards that DESE believes will help Missouri children excel in education:

President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address illustrated just how much political duplicity has entered the debate about national education standards. While crowing about the success of his Race to the Top in purchasing states’ buy-in to the so-called Common Core math and English standards — and asking Congress for even more bribe money — the president then stood truth on its head by depicting the incipient national curriculum developed by Washington insiders as a grass-roots effort.


Education progressives who delight in this disingenuous exercise of power to push national standards (and soon, federally subsidized tests as well) upon all U.S. public schools ought to take warning from England, a country where statist curricular guidelines are firmly entrenched.



The whimsical words of Roger Miller’s old country tune come to mind: “England swings like a pendulum do.” When a nation with monolithic standards for its schools experiences a shift in political control, the pendulum almost certainly will lurch right or left for education ideology as well.



Witness the changes under way in England led by the Conservative coalition’s minister of education, Michael Gove. The Daily Mail of London reports Gove has severely criticized the previous Labor government for having stripped basic knowledge out of the English, geography, history, and music curricula.



When the leftist Laborites had their turn at mandating what all British children should know and be able to do, they eliminated important leaders such as Sir Winston Churchill from teachers’ suggested lesson plans. The supposed purpose was to give teachers more “flexibility.”



Teachers got loads of leeway, in fact, because “at present, the only historical figures in the entire secondary history curriculum are William Wilberforce, the architect of the abolition of the slave trade, and Olaudah, a freed slave whose autobiography helped persuade MPs (Members of Parliament) to ban slavery,” the Daily Mail reported.


Similarly, “the secondary geography curriculum does not mention a single country apart from the UK or any continents, rivers, oceans, mountains, or cities. It does, however, mention the European Union and global warming.”



In addition, “the secondary music curriculum fails to mention a single composer, musician, or piece of music.”


Gove observes left-wing ideologues believe schools “shouldn’t be doing anything so old-fashioned as passing on knowledge, requiring children to work hard, or immersing them in anything like dates in history or times tables in mathematics.”



Leading the charge for the Tories, the education minister plans to fill in the knowledge gaps. For instance, he will reinstall such authors as John Keats, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Thomas Hardy in the English standards. An overhaul of the history curriculum is supposed to ensure that all children thoroughly learn Britain’s “island story” before graduating.



Proponents of knowledge-based learning on both sides of the Atlantic will applaud Gove’s intentions. But what will happen to England’s national education standards when the political pendulum swings back and the Laborites return to power? Out will go the basics and in will come the multiculturalism and political correctness once again. None of this reflects the preferences of parents.



The United States is not yet at the point of no return regarding national standards. There are standards only for English and mathematics, but proponents are talking about adding history and science and maybe more. Forty-four states have voted to accept the national standards, many of them doing so (as the president himself indicated) in a bid to gain favor with the Obama administration in its distribution of Race to the Top cash. However, with only a dozen states winning grants and the Republican-led House unlikely to approve more such loot, some states’ political leaders are talking about revoking their adoption of the Common Core standards.



Now is the time for the nation to decide whether we really want to commit to education standards forever subject to political manipulation by Washington and crazy swings in the national political pendulum. Would we prefer to have a national minister of education decide what our children will study, or be able to choose for ourselves from among schools offering diverse curricula and methods?



Within a marketplace will probably be an approach just right for each child. Parents can’t be sure of that when Washington’s politicians and special interests are writing a common playbook.

The "school choice" being pushed by special interests in Missouri and other states won't be offering diverse curricula and methods. The charters, the trigger option, and open enrollment legislation will create schools under the same common curricula and methods as traditional public school. The "marketplace" of choice is just a move to a new building...you are still stuck with the same standards and assessments from the public school you just left. The "common playbook" is an appropriate label for what is masquerading as "educational reform".

Who Protects LSU Students from Bullying Attacks...from their Professor?

The current administration has made it an educational priority to eliminate bullying from public education. As the Washington-Post reported in October 2010:

The Obama administration is launching a campaign to prevent anti-gay bullying and other harassment at school, advising educators that federal law protects students from many forms of discrimination.

The advisory from the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, to be made public Tuesday, does not break new legal ground, officials said. But the officials described it as the federal government's most comprehensive guidance to date on how civil rights law applies to the sort of campus situations that in some cases have led persecuted students to commit suicide. President Obama is expected to help promote the initiative.

"We've got to dispel this myth that bullying is just a normal rite of passage," Obama said in a video posted last week on the White House Web site.

"Our goal here is to provide school districts, colleges and universities with details about when harassment can rise to the level of a civil rights violation and what they should be doing about it," Russlynn H. Ali, assistant education secretary for civil rights, said Monday.

The article talks about two kinds of bullying; those based on sexual orientation and religious beliefs. I think most people believe bullying is primarily perpetrated from one student (or students) to another student. Do these anti-bullying guidelines also apply to other types of bullying AND to teachers or college professors who bully certain students?

Consider this story about a college professor who bullies students in a Solar Systems Class at Louisiana State University. It is reminiscent of a previous posting on our site, "The Assassination of Children and Critical Thinking as Presented by Choice Architects":

Education in the K-12 grades is the perfect time to advance an agenda. Remember this video from the group 10:10? (Disclaimer: graphic content). Is this not a shining example of choice architects using fear to further their agenda? Take a different position and you are exterminated. This English reporter likened it to Eco Facism.

The video is a clear example of choice architecture and what we are facing in the re-shaping (aka "transformation") of our public education system. We are to go along with the choice architects or face extermination.

Do you remember that video? Children who did not agree with the teacher were literally "blown away". Fast forward the global warming agenda from elementary school to college and you have an actual example of a professor not tolerating differing opinions in a classroom in LSU. The video from this classroom exercise shows Dr. Bradley Schaefer exhibiting bullying tactics:

At the end of the class he has the students do a group exercise and gives each section different questions for which they must present an answer to the class. The group on the right side of the room (the group that believes the "US should do nothing" in regard to global warming) is given a piece of paper that says:

Your professed policies have a substantial likelihood of leading to the death of a billion people or more. (A) Estimate the probability that you personally will be killed in an ugly way because of your decision? (B) What is the probability that any children of yours will die in ugly ways due to your current decision.

Die in ugly ways? This professor has decided to try to weed out anyone who disagrees with him by using scare and guilt tactics. He sustains the violent imagery through the entire class, telling students, “Blood will be on your hands,” and pooh-poohing deaths from September 11^th (“3,000? Whatever.”) in light of the toll global warming would take. Toward the end of his lecture he indicts the students who prefer no new legislation on climate change:

So, you see, the trouble here is the people on that corner [points at right side of room]. They’re wanting to do nothing. They’re wanting to let global warming take its toll. People decades from now will have deaths in the billions if we do nothing, and that will solve the problem.

Dr. Schaefer doesn't push a button and blow students up, but he intimidates and bullies them for their beliefs. Where is the legal protection for these college students from ridicule? They might want to obtain legal counsel for bullying relief as it doesn't seem as if the college administration will protect their interests:

What about Professor Schaefer? Will he be held accountable? Not likely. The LSU department chair told the Chronicle he did not think any action would be taken to punish or even reprimand Schaeffer. He did say that he would take seriously any student complaints if he hears any.

But why wait to hear from students, who may not complain if they want to preserve their grades, when all the evidence is in? The footage from this class is a smoking gun, and LSU is too deeply invested in maintaining the politically correct system to take responsibility and do the right thing.

Why have civil rights legislation that applies to a select group and not another?

I have two questions: Is there such a thing as critical thinking allowed in public education at ANY level today and why is this professor talking about global warming in "Astronomy 101: The Solar System"?

The New Meaning of Diversity: Honor Class Cancelled if Minorities Don't Meet the Testing Entrance Requirements

Evanston Township High School may drop an Honors English class because it doesn't meet diversity goals. There are too many white students and not enough minority students in incoming freshman English honors class, so the school is planning not to offer the class according to the Chicago-Tribune:

Across the Chicago region, high school officials say they are making inroads in diversifying their advanced classes, but Evanston is considering the boldest step of all: eliminating an elite honors English course that has traditionally been offered to the highest-achieving incoming freshmen — usually white. The superachievers — freshmen who outscore about 95 percent of their peers nationally on eighth-grade achievement tests — would no longer have their own class, beginning next fall. A year later, the same approach would be taken with freshman biology classes, if the school board approves the proposal.

The superintendent is ..." excited about moving away from racially segregated classes," he said at a packed school board meeting earlier this week, adding that all freshmen should be taking challenging courses that will propel them to even more rigorous classes as upperclassmen.

According to the article, the reason this segregation occurs is not because of ability, but because of decades of grouping and tracking. The school believes being placed year after year in certain learning groups impedes a student's ability to learn at a challenging level. The answer? Penalize those super achievers who score very high, can learn at an accelerated rate, and make those achievers attend more of a diverse class that is not "racially segregated".

Do you think the school would have taken such a radical step if the classes had been diverse? No, it wouldn't. Read the article. This step has been taken to make sure there is equal distribution of education regardless of student ability. This is the core mission Race to the Top and Vision for Missouri Public Education: equal distribution of teachers/administrators and educational opportunity, no matter the ability or desire of the student.

Is this the plan to make public education students globally competitive? Placing all students on the same level and teaching them in the same manner? This is absurd. Students who are goal oriented and high achievers might as well stay home and take online courses. They'll certainly be challenged more in a virtual setting than sitting in classes learning information they already know.

What happened to Martin Luther King's statement, "judge a man not by the color of his skin but by the contents of his character"? Perhaps we can expand it to Evanston Township High School honors class...for appropriate classroom placement, judge a student by test scores, ability and desire to learn, not the color of his/her skin. It seems as if these high school students are judged solely by their color, not their ability.

What exactly are we paying for in public schools today? True learning or political correctness?

Al Gore, Ethanol, and Science Curriculum Exposed as Fraudulent?

This is a fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal about Al Gore and his about-face on the wisdom of supporting ethanol subsidies:

Welcome to the college of converts, Mr. Vice President. "It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol," Al Gore told a gathering of clean energy financiers in Greece this week. The benefits of ethanol are "trivial," he added, but "It's hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going."

No kidding, and Mr. Gore said he knows from experience: "One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for President."

We recently wrote about the EPA's involvement in setting educational policy, which includes teaching about the benefits/drawbacks of using ethanol. I pulled up some Internet information on the EPA, its stance on ethanol and how it was being taught in the public school setting. Searching "EPA and public school curriculum", this appeared from from The NEED Project (National Energy Environmental Development Project), page 9:

Using ethanol as a fuel helps farmers by providing additional uses for their crops. Ethanol is a cleaner fuel than gasoline; it makes the air healthier to breathe. Using ethanol also means we don't have to import as much petroleum from other countries; Ethanol is good for the economy, the environment, and the country.

What is NEED? This is from its website:

In 1980, the NEED Project began as a one-day celebration of energy education. A Joint Congressional Resolution established National Energy Education Day. A Presidential Proclamation from President Jimmy Carter proclaimed the need for comprehensive energy education in our nation’s schools, a reduction of our dependence on fossil fuels, and increasing use of renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency. As NEED celebrates its 30^th Anniversary, it continues to make an impact on energy knowledge of students, teachers, and the public. NEED is successful. The vision and goals established by the Board of Directors ask that the NEED staff, teachers, students, partners and sponsors work to provide energy education curriculum and training to every appropriate classroom in the nation.

The curriculum on the website is dated 2008-09 so it is probably the most up to date information teachers use to teach about ethanol. Do you think the curriculum will be amended and denote a current philosophy about ethanol as noted by the WSJ?.....

Meanwhile, the greens have slowly turned against corn ethanol, thanks to the growing scientific evidence that biofuels increase carbon emissions more than fossil fuels do.

Maybe not. Review the NEED National Sponsors and Partners (pg 24). The vast majority are lobbying groups. Let's revisit Gore's words:

"It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol," Al Gore told a gathering of clean energy financiers in Greece this week. The benefits of ethanol are "trivial," he added, but "It's hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going."

Do you think the educational programs funded by the lobbyists for NEED will change anytime soon? Why are lobbyists helping to form educational policies? Perhaps this needs to be in the revised ethanol curriculum:

Mr. Gore's mea culpa underscores the degree to which ethanol has become a purely political machine: It serves no purpose other than re-electing incumbents and transferring wealth to farm states and ethanol producers. Nothing proves this better than the coincident trajectories of ethanol and Mr. Gore's career.

The Obama Administration should win a Nobel Prize for its Extraordinary Foolish Educational Policies

This is one of the reasons public school education is doomed.

Robert Weissberg in American Thinker dissects parts of Race to the Top that illustrate the reason this is not about education at all, but about perceived racial and other injustices:

Their latest education-destroying innovation is eliminating the disproportionate suspension and expulsions of African-American students. This is not empty rhetoric; it is included in the Obama administration's $4.3-billion Race to the Top initiative, and schools that fail to mend their ways will lose federal funds and face expensive litigation at a time of shrinking education budgets. In fact, the future is already here, as schools are increasingly being targeted in resource-draining civil rights complains about disciplinary unevenness (see here).

I can attest from personal experience this has been occurring in the school districts my sons attended. I was told by a minority teacher in my son's middle school that there was "one measure of discipline for minority students" and "one for the non-minority students". She indicated she was disgusted with the district's policy of not disciplining minority students as harshly as the non-minority students; she asked "what message does that give to the minority kids"?

It is not only targeted to African-American students, but also to students with disabilities:

Actually, racial disparities are just the beginning. Obama's Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, has also called for proportionality for disabled students (see here), and while "disabled" might conjure up images of wheelchair-bound students, this category also includes those with below-average intelligence, often compounded with psychological problems inclining them to disruption, if not violence (see Tomsho and Golden, "Educating Eric: A Troubled Student was Put into Regular Classes. Then He Killed the Principal. Wall Street Journal, 2007, May 12-13).

My older son could not pay attention in a geometry class in 10th grade because of disruptive students. When we had a meeting with the teacher and administration, we were told nothing could be done because those students (behavioral disordered) had an IEP. They had a paraprofessional with them, but neither the aide or the teacher could get these four students' behavior under control. Mind you, our son had an IEP because of his hearing impairment and the teacher told us IEP's were designed to help students who really wanted to learn like my son. She said it was not designed to allow them to take advantage of the system with bad behavior such as the trouble-making students, but she had no control of the situation. Because of the disruption these four students caused, my son was given permission to return to the resource room so he could concentrate.

What and who do these policies protect? I understand adolescents have turmoil just because they are adolescents. I understand students with special needs present unique situations. When these incidents become everyday occurrences and disrupt the learning experience for the majority of the students, the disruptive students must be removed from the classroom. Courtesy, respect for authority, and a willingness to learn should not expected only from particular groups of students based on racial makeup or disabilities. Why should students who want to learn be penalized by those few who want to be disruptive and don't want to learn? What is going to happen to the students who are allowed to misbehave with no consequences?

But, rhetoric aside, the measure will undermine education for many education-hungry blacks in racially mixed schools by subverting school discipline. To be impolite, given a choice of helping blacks versus draping a destructive policy in feel-good historical rhetoric, Obama elects the anti-education option. This sin is inexcusable -- a sign of moral depravity, not just inept policy-making.

Mr. Weissberg is correct. These policies are a sign of moral depravity. Welcome to the reality of public education.

A Homework Assignment for Missouri Watchdogs

Okay, watchdogs. You have a homework assignment. We're working on a story regarding history textbooks used in Missouri. Sometime during the next two weeks, call your district's office and ask the name of all textbooks it is using for US History and World History courses. Be sure to get the edition and publication date of each text.

We have discovered an objectionable textbook currently used in several St. Louis metro area school districts. We are under the initial impression the textbook contains severe distortions of historical fact in favor of political/religious correctness. We are compiling our facts and would appreciate your help in compiling a list of books used in Missouri.

To get you started, here is a list of 28 objectionable books compiled by Dr. Dennis Ybarra of The Jewish and Research, San Francisco:

http://jewishresearch.org/PDFs/TWT_AppxA.pdf

Dr Ybarra's group is not for profit, and addresses "anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism" in American education from K-12 to higher levels. Research and drop us a line if your district uses one of these 28 books on the list. We would like to know the books used in your district even if they do not appear on this list.

Read what your children are learning. You want your child to learn historical fact, NOT political distortion.