Education

Our Illiterate College Students

Featured image How bad is America’s education system? Worse than you can possibly imagine. At George Washington University (annual cost $78,335, although probably no non-Chinese citizen actually pays that, as college tuition numbers are fraudulent), students protested against the school’s teams being called the “Colonials.” George Washington University changed its “Colonials” moniker to “Revolutionaries” after facing scrutiny from students who deemed the school’s mascot as offensive. Revolutionaries! I suppose we should be »

First Thing, Let’s Fire All the Teachers

Featured image Well, probably not all. But when did public school education become, on net, a force for evil? At some time after public sector unions were legalized in, as I recall, the 1960s. One of the worst mistakes in the history of our democracy. Now, the teachers’ unions have mobilized teachers as left-wing activists, and a great many of those who were not comfortable with that politicization have left the profession. »

The Receipts for Weingarten’s Lies

Featured image Randi Weingarten, the head goon of the far-left teachers union, has been trying to rewrite history about her opposition to reopening schools during COVID, now that all the data is in that the prolonged school shutdowns were an educational disaster. Even Chicago’s dreadful Lori Lightfoot has called out Weingarten as a liar. Tom Elliott on Twitter directs our attention to the receipts: SUPERCUT! Don't let @rweingarten rewrite history. Here's proof »

What’s the Matter With Texas?

Featured image Sadly, having large Republican majorities in a legislature does not guarantee sound public policy. A case in point comes from the current session in Texas, where conservatives are trying to stamp out the left-wing race and gender ideologies that have been institutionalized at the University of Texas. Texas SB 17 would defund and prohibit DEI departments, officers, employees, training, and so on in Texas state colleges and universities. The bill »

Trapped In the Public Schools

Featured image Minnesota’s public schools are awful: only 36% of the state’s 11th graders can do math at grade level, to cite just one appalling statistic. Even worse is that the schools are not safe. Violence is rife, teachers are routinely insulted and ignored by students, and chaos reigns. I take it that this is at least partly the result of discipline quotas imposed by Minnesota’s state government, in imitation of one »

It’s Good to Know Facts

Featured image Young people nowadays tend to be poised, sociable, and reasonably articulate. That’s good. On the other hand, they also tend to be shockingly ignorant. For the most part, they simply don’t know much about science, economics, literature, and above all, about history. Contemporary education indulges endless expressions of opinion, as long as those opinions are consistent with the schools’ political agenda. But opinions–above all, the opinions of teenagers–are worthless unless »

Let’s “Ban” Some Books

Featured image Lately, Democrats have tried to posture as free speech advocates by denouncing “bans” of various books. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz went on a tirade at a press conference, claiming that Florida–the Left’s bete noire these days–has “banned” various books like, for example, Of Mice and Men and Lord of the Flies. It turned out that Walz just made it up, as usual. More broadly, the whole “book ban” controversy is »

Down With College

Featured image For the last 50 years or so, public policy in the U.S. has trended toward the view that everyone, more or less, should go to college. This was a sharp departure from the historical norm, when higher education really was higher, and only a small minority obtained four-year degrees. It has become increasingly evident that the payoff for sending most kids to college is minimal, both for them and for »

Are Americans Getting Dumber?

Featured image Mean scores on IQ tests rose generally in the U.S. beginning in the 1930s, apparently reflecting better nutrition and improved schooling. But that trend has now been reversed. A paper published in an upcoming journal finds IQ scores now declining: Labeled the Flynn effect (Herrnstein and Murray, 2010), intelligence quotient (IQ) scores substantially increased since 1932 and through the twentieth century, with differences ranging from 3.0 to 5.0 IQ points »

Our Schools Are Unbelievably Bad

Featured image I ran across this because it was re-tweeted by Brit Hume. Read it and weep: This is at Harvard!? pic.twitter.com/ON99P4XcGP — Thomas Chatterton Williams (@thomaschattwill) March 2, 2023 When I was growing up in South Dakota, even the slower-witted junior high school kids could diagram simple sentences. Now many Harvard students apparently can’t tell a subject from a verb. And math education is, if anything, worse. In Minnesota, where I »

America’s Public Schools Are a Disaster

Featured image A report recently found that there are 53 public schools in Illinois where not a single student can do math at grade level. That report made international news, and my colleague Catrin Wigfall wondered whether there could possibly be any such low-achieving schools in Minnesota. So she investigated. It turns out that there are 19 public schools in Minnesota, 11 of them public charter schools, where not a single student »

America’s Lost Generation

Featured image The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board comments on the hundreds of thousands of kids who seem to have disappeared, following the covid school shutdowns: An analysis released recently by Stanford University, in collaboration with the Associated Press, finds that K-12 public-school enrollment declined by 1.2 million in the first two years of the pandemic. About two-thirds of the decline can be explained by increasing private-school enrollment, home-schooling, or population changes »

Only Socialists Can Teach Our Students?

Featured image From Virginia, an appalling story: a woman appointed to the state’s Board of Eduction by Governor Youngkin was voted down by the Virginia Senate because she believes in America and opposes socialism: Virginia State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi introduced an amendment that stripped Dutta of her nomination. The amendment passed on a party line vote. *** The amendment to strip Dutta of her nomination comes after a tense discussion at last »

Time to Call Out the Cowards

Featured image One of Stan Evans‘s many great quips was that it was fortunate Republican politicians were pro-life, since they spend so much time in the fetal position. The lack of fight in congressional Republicans was a source of endless frustration for Stan, and despite some indications the new House GOP majority may pick some worthy fights, in some areas they are already proving to be a colossal failure. The Washington Free »

Only Leftists Can Teach

Featured image That the Left has taken over public education (and most private education) in America is common knowledge. But the extent to which it has solidified its grip, and is in the process of driving out all non-conforming thought, may not be. An instance of this, in Minnesota, is the currently pending revisions to teacher licensure rules. The rules are being amended so that no one can be licensed as a »

The Left’s War On Children

Featured image Liberals love to talk about children, but in many ways, their policies are devastating to the young. Education is near the top of the list: liberals run our public schools, and they are almost uniformly terrible. Schools are run for the benefit of teachers’ unions, administrators and diversity consultants. The kids are just disposable fodder. Covid school shutdowns were a recent instance of liberal hostility toward children. They set Kevin »

DeSantis Marches On

Featured image Governor Ron DeSantis had a busy day yesterday. He followed through on last year’s legislation that ended the Disney Corporation’s unique self-governing status through the Reedy Creek Improvement District. The Orlando Sentinel reports: A notice published on Osceola County’s website on Friday states that lawmakers will take up legislation “increasing state oversight, accountability, and transparency” of the district, which gives Disney quasi-government control over its theme park properties in Florida. »