Ferris State History Professor Goes On Rant

Occasionally I had some eccentric teachers throughout educational career. Some instructors had little interest in the subject matter, didn't like me or for that matter any of their students, or were clearly just playing out the string until they retired, married someone rich or won the lottery, which ever came first. 

That's life. But I don't recall any of my teachers (and most of them were indeed decent men and women) ever losing it quite like Ferris State University History Professor Barry Mehler recently did. To be fair, evidently the good professor was a little peeved by the University's insistence upon holding in person classes at a time when the Covid pandemic is not subsiding. 

I can understand this frustration. My employer is making unpleasant noises about ending working from home options. If you force people to choose between their money and their life you might get more responses like this. 
BIG RAPIDS, MI – A Ferris State University faculty member has been placed on administrative leave after he reportedly went on a profanity-laced rant about the coronavirus pandemic during a class lecture video that was posted online.

Barry Mehler, a history professor in Ferris State’s humanities department, called his students “vectors of disease” and blamed the university for holding in-person classes amid the COVID-19 crisis during an introductory video posted to his YouTube account on Jan. 9, 2022.

Detroit Elementary School Wins Chess State Championship

A downtown Detroit elementary school has recently won a chess state championship. Again. I am sure that this must be surprising to those who believe that all Detroit public schools are blasted wastelands where intellectual capacity is non-existent.

The chess team at Walter Chrysler Elementary School in Detroit took home the state championship.

A large banner signalling the championship is hanging in front of the elementary school for the second year in a row. The chess team won the state championship for the K-5 division.

“I can’t even explain how happy I am for them,” chess coach Dereke Wilder said. “It’s phenomenal to see what these kids have accomplished these last two years.”

Stuyvesant and The Limits of Affirmative Action

I support public and private sector workplace affirmative action programs. Due to this country's history many people have a strong preference for their own and a disdain for black intelligence and competence. We live in a very segregated society. 

People who live separate residential and personal lives are as a group often unable or unwilling to judge co-workers, business partners, or new hires solely by potential and results. Humans usually don't work that way. 

Whether it is law firm partners who find more errors in associates' work if they think the associate is Black, hiring agents who sight unseen reject candidates with "Black" names, people that just tell someone straight out that they don't hire their kind, immigrants who won't hire Black people, managers more willing to hire white felons than Blacks without criminal records, workplace bigotry and stereotyping remains a huge problem. It's partly why the black unemployment rate has stubbornly remained twice that of whites for about as long as the metric has been recorded. If you're Black and haven't experienced any workplace funny business, congratulations but I think your number just hasn't come up yet.  It will soon. 

We do need standards. Properly done, affirmative action's should make people define and enforce objective standards. If a company hires an incompetent Black person, I won't cry when that person is fired, demoted or transferred. But evaluating job performance can be opaque and biased. A person who excels in one role or with one set of people can fail in a different role or with different co-workers. Measuring educational performance is different. This brings us to Stuyvesant High School. 

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Robert Smith's Act of Charity

When you do something good for people you should be praised for your actions. You may have heard that Black American billionaire Robert Smith attended the 2019 Morehouse commencement where he promised to pay off the entire student loan debt of the graduating class, a gift that will amount to the not insignificant sum of about $40 million. 

Billionaire Robert F. Smith, who received an honorary doctorate at Morehouse College’s Sunday morning graduation exercises, had already announced a $1.5 million gift to the school. But during his remarks in front of the nearly 400 graduating seniors, the technology investor and philanthropist surprised nearly everyone by announcing that his family was providing a grant to eliminate the student debt of the entire Class of 2019. 

“This is my class,” he said, “and I know my class will pay this forward.” The announcement came as a surprise to Smith’s staff and to the staff at Morehouse, and elicited the biggest cheers of the morning.

About 400 new graduates, predominantly Black men, will be able to start their professional life without any student debt. An adult's twenties and thirties are critical times to establish savings, investments, retirement accounts and capital for business creation. It is also a time to save money for marriage and child care costs. There is a huge wealth gap between Black and White Americans. There is a student loan gap between Black and White Americans. Black Americans owe more in student loans and earn less after graduation, in large part because of discrimination. So when Smith stepped up to do his part to help Black people who were in a tight spot, you might reasonably think that he would be universally lauded.

And you would be wrong.

The Principal is a N******!

In the classic Mel Brooks comedy Blazing Saddles, a black man is appointed to be sheriff of a Western town. The new sheriff initially doesn't know that the state's corrupt attorney general and governor only appointed him in the hopes of making the townspeople lynch him, drive him off, or simply leave, thus allowing the corrupt public officials to buy up their land cheap and make a financial killing when the new railroad is built. 

The racist townspeople are shocked and unhappy to see that the new man in charge is a black man. Later a townswoman privately tells the sheriff that although she's impressed with the great job he's done please don't tell anyone she said that because after all she certainly doesn't want to be known as a n***** -lover.

I was reminded of that movie when I read about the controversy surrounding new Principal Zeke Ohan of Hancock Middle and High School in Michigan's UP (Upper Peninsula). Mr. Ohan is Black. The town and the UP are overwhelmingly white. Often times some whites don't think anyone is racist unless they're wearing Nazi flag underwear and screaming racial slurs at the top of their voice anytime they see a Black person. And even then there will be quite a few people who say that the person doing that is misunderstood or just having a bad day.

I think racism is more nuanced than that. I have met many whites who have no major problem with Black people, provided they are in a superior work position to the Black person. When a Black person, especially a Black man, makes more money than they do, is in a higher position than they are or has the ability and the drive to tell them what to do and make them do it, a different side of their personality emerges. I think that's what happened at Hancock. 

Hancock — Zeke Ohan wasted little time after becoming a high school principal in the Upper Peninsula in 2017. He carried out a plethora of changes that already are bearing fruit. Enrollment and test scores at Hancock middle and high schools are up. More graduates are going to college. Students and parents like the hard-charging administrator.

Arizona High School Labels Kids: You Are Big Dummy!!

If someone makes a mistake or does something wrong how do you motivate them to change their behavior? Some people think that immediate, harsh, and/or public correction is the way to go. They feel that if the error prone person doesn't suffer some unpleasant consequences, no matter how minor, then that person won't have any incentive to alter their approach.

Others contend that negative reinforcement is a horrible way to train or respond to anyone. They believe that the way to improve someone's behavior or skill set is to work with them to improve, giving them plenty of positive feedback when they do well and words of encouragement and hope when they don't. 

I can't say which approach works better overall. I have had both approaches employed on me. I have used both approaches with others. At my age harsh public correction or insult is often counterproductive. I may spend more time resenting the person calling me out than I will correcting my mistake. But there are times when a blunt "You f***** up. Fix it!!" is the only thing that works. Time is often too short to worry about people's feelings.

Mingus Union High School in Cottonwood, Ariz., issues ID badges for all students to hang around their necks — freshmen and sophomores wear red-colored cards and juniors and seniors wear gray, both of which are school colors. But according to the Arizona chapter of the ACLU, upperclassmen who struggle in classes must also wear red badges (aka “scarlet badges” of shame) with numbers that indicate their repeated grade level if their marks don’t improve. 

Detroit Public Schools: Don't Drink The Water!!!

If you think that certain people are by nature inferior then stories like this won't bother you all that much. But for the rest of us the truth is that no one in the United States should be exposed to contaminated water. Not only does unsafe water impact your health and life but it will also impact your future educational potential. Depending on how far back this problem has been occurring there could be multiple cohorts of Detroit public school students, mostly but not exclusively Black, who may have been impacted.

Functionally, American inner cities serve the same purpose as Native American reservations or the Gaza Strip. They are places where infrastructure and law are allowed to crumble to the detriment of the people living there. You don't have to engage in conspiracy theories. All you have to do is open your eyes and ask questions as to why these schools were allowed to reach these conditions. And why do we keep reading about these sorts of problems in certain communities. All else equal, which it certainly isn't, but were it so, children who consume or are exposed to heavy metals will on average be less able to perform cognitively in later years. They will have poorer grades and test scores. And they won't be as likely to get into college, which is often a prerequisite for a any chance at a middle class lifestyle. Fixing these problems may not be as exciting as other hot button cultural or social battles. But I think they're more important.

Drinking water will be turned off in all schools at Detroit Public Schools Community District after initial results for 16 schools showed higher than acceptable levels for copper and/or lead at one or more water sources. "I immediately turned off the drinking water at those schools and provided water bottles until water coolers arrive," DPSCD superintendent Nikolai Vitti said in a statement. Water at the 16 affected schools was shut off Tuesday. Shutoffs at the remaining schools will occur this week, Vitti said. 

Black Children Threatened at Michigan School

Parents complain that authorities aren't doing enough to find the sender of a racist, threatening email to six black students at the Washtenaw International Middle Academy in Ypsilanti that included the words "Go Trump."

The recent message also has the n-word and ends with seven skulls and crossbones.

Students interviewed tell Andrea Isom of WXYZ that they're scared.
"They did inform us that the email did come from the school, around 3:30 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 29. The student whose name is in the email, has been back into the school community,” says parent Ronald Ellerson, who feels authorities aren't responding properly. The Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Department tells the station it takes this matter seriously. Spokesperson Derrick Jackson issues this statement: 

I want to ensure all involved that we take incidents such as this very seriously and that deputies have been working to identify who the sender of this email was. Several students have been questioned as part of the investigation and deputies will continue to gather the facts. Once the investigation has concluded we will then forward our report to the prosecutor.

One would hope that the recent events in Parkland, Florida would serve as a horrible reminder of the cost of silence and inaction. One would hope that school administrators and legal authorities would be doing their best to determine who sent the threatening email. It's important to know if this email, as seems likely, was actually created by someone inside of the school. This is of course the same school which recently saw a bomb threat made. Students should not be going to a school where they have good reason to feel unsafe.

Chicago High School Graduation Requirements

In a decision which didn't attract much attention outside of Chicago, perhaps because people don't think it will make that much difference, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago School Board recently changed the law regarding high school graduation. Starting in 2020 in order to receive a high school diploma, a student not only must successfully complete the coursework but also demonstrate to the school's satisfaction that he or she has a plan for post-graduation success. Approved plans include college admission, military admission, a job or an apprentice program. In other words the government must approve of your plans post-high school. If the government doesn't approve then you don't get your diploma.

THE JOB of K-12 education traditionally has been considered complete when students walk across the stage to get their diploma. That is about to change in Chicago with an ambitious, and controversial, initiative requiring public school students to have a post-graduation plan to earn a diploma. Chicago leaders are right to make official what long has been recognized — the need for more than a high school diploma to succeed in today’s economy — and, more importantly, to accept responsibility for helping students meet that challenge.

Starting in 2020, under a plan championed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) and unanimously approved by the school board, diplomas will be tied to students devising post-secondary plans. High school seniors must show they’ve been accepted into college, or the military, or into a trade or “gap-year” program, or have secured a job. The idea is to raise expectations and thus produce better outcomes for students.

Santa Monica PTA and Equality

I thought that this story coming out of Santa Monica was interesting because it obliquely and not so obliquely touches on a lot of the fault lines of modern life-race, class, gender, citizenship status. It also reminded me, as many social programs are likely to do, of Kurt Vonnegut's dystopic satire Harrison Bergeron, in which equality is not only the law of the land but is affirmatively guaranteed and vigorously enforced by action of the government. In this story equality of outcome, not equal opportunity, is what is mandated. So no one is allowed to have more or less of anything than anyone else. Smarter people have electrodes placed in their brain to disrupt their thinking. Attractive people must wear prosthetics to make themselves less good looking. Strong people must have weights attached so that they can't take "unfair" advantage of their strength. And the Handicapper-in-General is licensed to arrest or execute anyone who tries to use their natural talents.

Broadly speaking, Vonnegut was a man of the left. But the Harrison Bergeron story, which today reads as if it were written by a right wing libertarian, remains a prophetic piece of sci-fi. So this story out of California was intriguing.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Of all the inequalities between rich and poor public schools, one of the more glaring divides is PTA fund-raising, which in schools with well-heeled parents can generate hundreds of thousands of dollars a year or more. Several years ago, the Santa Monica-Malibu school board came up with a solution: Pool most donations from across the district and distribute them equally to all the schools. 

This has paid big benefits to the needier schools in this wealthy district, like the Edison Language Academy in Santa Monica, where half the children qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The campus is decorated with psychedelic paintings of civil rights icons such as Cesar Chavez and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the work of the school’s art teacher, Martha Ramirez Oropeza, whose salary is paid by the pooled contributions. That money has also funded the school’s choral program, teacher aides, a science lab and a telescope. 

Michigan, Gay Adoptions and Welfare Reform

One of the interesting things about Michigan is that although it has two Democratic US Senators and is a pretty reliable Democratic state in presidential elections it also has a large vibrant conservative electorate. That electorate is not all that happy with some of the recent changes in society. As you may have known if you read our previous post on gays in Michigan and some of the challenges they face around family law, sexuality is not a protected status in the state of Michigan. Theoretically then, there is no current state protection against discrimination against homosexuals in hiring, public accommodations, contracts or housing. Such protection is not in the state constitution or in state law. Those protections exist in Michigan not at all. However Michigan conservatives, religious and otherwise, can see which way the courts and more importantly the larger national electorate are both leaning on this issue. Michigan conservatives don't like it. They also don't like the fact that in certain other states or in Washington D.C. , adoption agencies who refused to place children with gay adoptive parents were forced to either change their policies or close. So yesterday Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, a Republican, signed into law a measure that explicitly allows religiously based adoptive agencies to refuse to place children with prospective parents who happen to be gay. So if Pat and Pat show up and want to adopt a child, the agency, should it find same sex relationships (gay marriage is not legal in Michigan) distasteful can tell the two men or two women to take a hike. There's no longer any need to couch rejections in niceties. I think that some conservatives view this both as a rearguard action against a culture they no longer recognize and as a necessary and prudent preemptive strike.

Lansing — Gov. Rick Snyder signed a controversial package of bills Thursday allowing faith-based agencies to turn away gay and lesbian couples seeking state-supported adoptions. Snyder signed the bills without ceremony, just one day after the Legislature sent him the legislation. The law goes into effect immediately. The ACLU of Michigan vows to challenge it. The new law allows faith-based adoption agencies to invoke their sincerely held religious beliefs in denying adoption placement services to gay and lesbian couples who want to be parents. The agencies would be required to refer gay and lesbian couples to another adoption agency.

In a statement, the Republican governor emphasized the bills puts adoption practices, already in use, into law. Snyder’s office said that adoption rates in Michigan have continued to increase in recent years. In the 2014 fiscal year, 85 percent of children in the foster system were adopted, up from 70 percent in 2011. As many as 13,000 children reside in Michigan’s foster care system at any given time, according to lawmakers. “The state has made significant progress in finding more forever homes for Michigan kids in recent years and that wouldn’t be possible without the public-private partnerships that facilitate the adoption process,” Snyder said in a statement. “We are focused on ensuring that as many children are adopted to as many loving families as possible regardless of their makeup.”

In fiscal year 2014, Michigan spent $19.9 million on contracts with private agencies for adoption services, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. It accounted for about 85 percent of the $23.2 million the state spent that year on adoption support services. Seventeen of Michigan’s 62 adoption placement agencies are faith-based, according to the Michigan Catholic Conference.

LINK

The ACLU is threatening to sue. Perhaps one of the resident lawyers or other legal experts can explain what the grounds for such a lawsuit might be and how likely it would be to succeed in state or federal courts. The governor also signed into law the "Parental Responsibility Act". Despite what it sounds like this is not a law which sanctions busybodies who are offended at how some other parents raise their children. Nor is this a law which makes it clear that Child Protective Services actually can't take children first and work out parental guilt later. No. This law gives the state the ability to cut off welfare cash to a family if a school age child in the home is chronically truant from school.

LANSING, MI — A parent's failure to ensure his or her child is going to school could cost the family welfare cash under a new law signed Thursday by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder. The so-called "parental responsibility act" gives the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services statutory authority to cut off Family Independence Program assistance if a child is chronically truant and interventions fail. Snyder, in a statement announcing he signed the controversial legislation, compared it to the Pathways to Potential program, which has seen the state put caseworkers into schools to work directly with students.

"Much like the Pathways to Potential program, this legislation brings together parents, schools and the state to determine obstacles that keep students from being in school and how to overcome them," Snyder said. "To break the cycle of poverty, kids need an education to position them for future success. We have to do everything we can to see that they are regularly attending school."

If a child who is younger than 16 regularly misses school, his or her whole family could lose cash benefits. If the child is 16 or older, they would be removed from the family group, which could continue to receive some assistance.LINK

It's important to note, that per article, in fiscal year 2104 less than 200 families or individuals were sanctioned for missing school. So I'm not really sure what huge problem this is supposed to solve, other than satisfying the never ending conservative desire to stigmatize and control poor people. There are a lot of problems in the schools but children from families on welfare missing school is really not the most pressing issue to address. As long as we are putting strings on acceptance of public monies should we also place restrictions and checks on the state legislators' family member's behavior? Or should all the social engineering experimentation and moral scolding be reserved for the impoverished among us. Presumably if two parents had decided that NO ONE in their family would eat for a month because a knucklehead sibling had done something wrong, people would want the entire set of children removed from those parents. They wouldn't be cheering the parents for their decision.

What are your thoughts on these issues?

Detroit Teacher Fired For Using Broom To Break Up Fighting Students

"She ain't wait. That's who she deserve."

I didn't go to Detroit Public Schools until high school. It was private school/parochial school until then. And the high school I attended was something akin to a charter school. You had to pass an entrance exam. This cut down on the knuckleheads and riff raff. The violence was minimal, almost non-existent. Kids will be kids but I can't even remember fights in school. Sure you had a few smart wannabe hoodlums but once you got to know them they were nice people. I'm told my old school has changed since then. But I still don't think it's anything like Pershing. Pershing has always been a school for dummies and real hoodlums. So that there was a fight in a Pershing classroom didn't surprise me. A fight at Pershing is like shooting at a gun range. It's what you expect. The small female teacher tried to break up the fight by smacking one of the assailants with a broom. This didn't work. The brawl continued until other male students decided to end the fracas. But the teacher, who was not supposed to leave the room and didn't have any way to call for help, was fired for hitting one of the combatants. Her case allegedly could also be referred for child abuse investigation.

Yes, that makes sense. NOT. Her termination surprised me. I respect the heck out of teachers. But I could never be a teacher. They have too many stupid rules. They deal with too many stupid people. And if a classroom fight occurs, God forbid they try to stop it lest they lose their jobs. Years ago a relative told me there was very little learning going on in some Detroit schools. And he was right. A football star who body slams a security guard gets a plea deal and goes back to school in apparent violation of state law while a teacher trying to restore order to a classroom is fired. Gee, that must do wonders for employee morale, huh? Words don't really do justice to this scene so check out the video below. And folks wonder why people are leaving DPS...



Fox 2 News Headlines

Who Runs Kansas Schools: The Courts or The Legislature

Kansas is a centrally located state that has often been ground zero for a number of social changes, some good and some bad. John Brown made his bones in Kansas. It was after all Kansas that rang the death knell for enforced legalized school and other forms of racial segregation in the Supreme Court case Brown vs. Board of Education. The author Thomas Frank chronicled the slow rise of conservative and occasionally racist populism in his noted book "What's the Matter with Kansas". Part of Frank's thesis posits that fiscal conservatives use hot button cultural issues to whip up resentment among the socially conservative base in order to get said base to support policies and ideologies which are bad for them economically. To add insult to injury it was rare that conservative politicians even delivered on promises to the socially conservative segment of their base, instead preferring to promote fiscal conservatism. This theory was really popular among some progressives as it tended to confirm some of their deepest beliefs about conservatives. Frank's thesis is a little out of date since the national energy on one of the hotter social issues of the day, gay marriage, seems to be almost entirely with the liberal pro-gay marriage supporters. 

However another key tenet among the conservative base is the importance of having the people, and not the judges, decide what is correct among competing political ideas. "Activist judges" remains a powerful epithet for many on the right. Some fervently hold to the idea that a great deal of mischief is caused by know it all, elitist, out of touch, Ivy League, smug judges who arrogantly substitute their own preferences for plainly written law or long agreed upon custom.

Or to put it another way some conservatives just throw a fit and start hurling insults when their favored position loses in court. People on the other side are hardly immune to this of course. Check out the liberal reactions to the Supreme Court's Heller decision. Temper tantrums seem to have become more common for everyone. Still, this conservative sensitivity and hostility to the very existence of judicial review was touched recently in Kansas. Like many states Kansas is seeing new battles over education and social spending. Conservatives and liberals almost by definition usually have quite different political preferences for the spending levels in those categories. These battles have not only been touched off by tax cuts or other reductions in spending but by the recession driven crash in property values in many localities. So even if some states wanted to keep the same level of school funding, it was sometimes very difficult to do so. States can't print their own money. States, unlike the Federal government, are generally constitutionally forbidden to run deficits. Still in Kansas, it appears that politics, not necessity is the primary driver of the latest contretemps. It's not necessarily that Kansas politicians can't spend the money. It's that they don't want to do so.

Kansas’ current constitutional crisis has its genesis in a series of cuts to school funding that began in 2009. The cuts were accelerated by a $1.1 billion tax break, which benefited mostly upper-income Kansans, proposed by Governor Brownback and enacted in 2012.

Overall, the Legislature slashed public education funding to 16.5 percent below the 2008 level, triggering significant program reductions in schools across the state. Class sizes have increased, teachers and staff members have been laid off, and essential services for at-risk students were eliminated, even as the state implemented higher academic standards for college and career readiness.

Parents filed a lawsuit in the Kansas courts to challenge the cuts. In Gannon v. State of Kansas, a three-judge trial court ruled in January 2013 for the parents, finding that the cuts reduced per-pupil expenditures far below a level “suitable” to educate all children under Kansas’ standards. To remedy the funding shortfall, the judges ordered that per-pupil expenditures be increased to $4,492 from $3,838, the level previously established as suitable.

Rather than comply, Governor Brownback appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court. A decision is expected this month. A victory for the parents would be heartening, but if it comes, would Governor Brownback and legislative leaders uphold the right to education guaranteed to Kansas school children? The signals thus far are not promising. If the Kansas Supreme Court orders restoration of the funding, legislators are threatening to amend the state’s Constitution by removing the requirement for “suitable” school funding and to strip Kansas courts of jurisdiction to hear school finance cases altogether. And if the amendment fails, they have vowed to defy any court order for increased funding or, at the very least, take the money from higher education.

LINK

So what's your opinion. Most state constitutions make it clear that the state has the responsibility to provide for public education for all. As in most things though the devil is in the details. On the one hand the state can't dodge that responsibility. On the other hand, times are tough all over. If the elected politicians of Kansas decide that their state is best served by a 16.5% funding cut to education, isn't that their business? Or is it ultimately the Court's job to determine what the mix of expenditures should be? Public school outcomes are never just about money in the system but on the other hand are there public schools that have provided better results with much less money? I can't think of too many where I grew up.  You can't cut a school system off at the knees and demand higher performance can you? Or can you? Who should prevail in this battle?

What's your call?

Are legislators and/or executives ever justified in threatening to ignore court rulings they dislike?

Melissa Harris-Perry: Kids Belong To Communities

If you ever watch MSNBC you may have noticed a series of LEAN FORWARD commercials featuring their on air opinion talent earnestly giving bromides about how we're all in this together and we need to work collectively for the common good. Usually these things are calculated to be just this side of irritating to more moderate or conservative viewers as the unsaid implication in the spots is often that conservatives are doing every thing wrong. In some respects the commercials are examples of liberals being sore winners. A recent spot featured Professor Melissa Harris-Perry. The terminology and phrases she used sent conservatives as well as a few libertarians over the deep end in rage. 

Of course I doubt this was by accident. On some other boards I frequent occasionally extremely conservative or extremely liberal people will post stories or make comments that are designed to do nothing other than get a rise out of the other side. Flame wars can easily get started that way. I won't claim I've never done that in my life (ha-ha) but it is a pretty cheap way of getting responses and in my opinion usually not as good or mature as actually creating and sharing a deeper analysis. The person who instigates this often pretends innocence and claims to be above the obviously irrational, emotional and gratuitously nasty responses the other side is showing. Sure I poked the caged tiger in the eye with a stick but that's no reason for it to get upset...

When I read the phrases the good professor used I have to believe that she or the commercial creator had to be trolling somewhat. It was reminiscent of the old Looney Tunes cartoons when Foghorn Leghorn would stroll over to the sleeping dog and kick it in the behind. Foghorn would then wait just outside the limit the chained dog could reach. When the dog choked on its collar, sputtering in rage, Foghorn would say "Aw shaddup!!" and hit the dog again. What could the Professor have said to make some people start barking and shaking their jowls in rage? Well let's see.


            

She starts out and ends with the usual progressive idea that we don't spend enough on public education and need to spend more, or as she would put it invest more. Conservatives generally disagree of course. There are good arguments on both sides here and there's room for legitimate debate. I would tend toward Professor Harris-Perry's side on this but I can see the other side. So if she had just stated that of course conservatives would have disagreed as they usually do. But what turned the intensity of disagreement up was her statement that "..We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or that kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities."

Game recognizes game. This sent conservative trolls like Beck, Palin and Limbaugh into fits of fury. It also set off alarm bells of warning in more libertarian circles. Do you see why? 

It is a deliberate oversimplification for brevity but conservatives (with some hypocritical exceptions) broadly speaking generally want the federal and to the lesser extent the state governments to have less power regarding the individual and the family. Liberals tend to feel exactly the opposite way, feeling that the federal government ought to have more authority. Some look suspiciously at the family, often seeing it as a breeding ground for patriarchal and generally wrong-headed ideas.

So when you say that we need to get rid of the idea that kids belong to their parents or families, you probably shouldn't be surprised that that hits a nerve with conservatives and they respond. Of course in the strictest sense kids don't belong to anyone. Adults are stewards of the next generation, not owners. But that's just semantics.

Parents, not society, have the primary responsibility for children. Parents, not society, get to make virtually all of the critical decisions for children. If someone doesn't like the way someone else is raising their children, that's tough. It's the parent's job to make sure that their child has enough to eat, attends a good school, learns how to resolve conflicts, stays in good health, figures out the birds and the bees, and any number of other things. I do believe that society, or rather government has a role to play in ensuring there's a baseline to help parents do all those things but in my view that's where everyone else's role ceases.  And it must stop there. Why? Because to start with, we live in an increasingly diverse society and everyone has different ideas about how to raise children. The only way we can live together is for people to mind their own business and absent abuse let parents raise their kids as they see fit. There was another video of MSNBC personality Krystal Ball talking to her five year old daughter about gay marriage and coaching her to support it. Some conservative members of society were outraged and considered this abusive. Would Professor Harris-Perry think that since kids belong to entire communities the community would have a right to step in and teach the daughter differently? I doubt it. If you don't like how someone is raising his/her kids, either have some of your own and raise them differently or go sit down and be quiet. Those are really your only two choices unless you happen to be the child's other parent.

Secondly although it's somewhat harsh to say it, parents care more about their children than society does.That's their direct biological investment in the next generation. That's why parents have such an incentive to make sure their child does well. Law doesn't mess with that relationship lightly. Professor Harris-Perry had a follow up to her ad in which she argued that she was just deliberately misunderstood by right-wing cretins. Well maybe. But I doubt that anyone with the command of the language that the professor possesses didn't realize that confidently stating "we have to break through the private idea that kids belong to their parents" would invite attacks. And what she says in her post is different from the ad.

The elephant in the room around all of this is the fact that recently for the first time in American history there were more minority births than white ones. This raises legitimate questions and fears across the political spectrum about what will be the policy outcome of this change. Seniors or people without children already may have issues with taxes to support families. Will a more diverse workforce wish to fund retirement and medical coverage for a very white older generation? Will that white older generation feel it necessary to pay higher taxes to support schools full of children who do not look like their grandchildren? Time will tell. I think this is what the professor was really referencing.

Thoughts?

Do you agree with Professor Harris-Perry's ad?

Was she trolling?

Is this much ado about nothing?

Do you think kids belong to the community or to their parents?

Hot for Teacher-Adult Actress Teacher Stacie Halas Fired

I've got it bad
I've got it bad
I've got it bad
I'm hot for teacher
Hot For Teacher-Van Halen

It's been a minute since I was in grade/middle school. I don't remember having crushes on any of the women teachers there. I knew virtually nothing about their personal life and wasn't that interested. It was big news when occasionally their boyfriend or husband would pick them up from or drop them off at school. I mean who knew that Miss or Mrs. so-n-so actually had a life outside of the classroom? Of course I was a bit of a solipsistic young lad and the times were more conservative so it wasn't surprising that I didn't know anything about a teacher's extra curricular life or her activities and lifestyle before she became my teacher. Of course, as the Stacie Halas story shows us, maybe it's a good thing that I didn't know anything about my teachers' lives prior to them becoming an educator.

32 year old Stacie Halas was a California middle school teacher who was recently fired from her job. She lost her appeal of that firing as well. Why was she axed? Well she was terminated from her position because she was, prior to working as a teacher in her current school, but perhaps not other schools, an adult film actress. Evidently some other teachers and/or students recognized Halas' .... (ahem)... face and did some quick research to make sure. Once this information became public, Halas was let go. People found interviews in her movies in which she talked about being a teacher and hoped her other job choices would not be discovered. I wonder who got the job of downloading and reviewing those movies, purely for research purposes of course.

Her lawyer, Richard Schwab, said Halas had tried to be honest but was embarrassed by her previous experience in the adult industry."Miss Halas is more than just an individual fighting for her job as a teacher," he said Tuesday. "I think she's representative of a lot of people who may have a past that may not involve anything illegal or anything that hurts anybody."

Halas has been on administrative leave since the video surfaced in March. Teachers then showed administrators downloads of Halas' sex videos from their smartphones. 

In hearings, former assistant principal Wayne Saddler testified that, at the start of a sex video, Halas talked about being a teacher, and he felt her effectiveness in the classroom had been compromised.

In October, Oxnard Unified School District spokesman Thomas DeLapp told CBS Los Angeles that once students were able to find the videos of Halas on the Internet, they made it difficult for her to be an effective teacher."We even had kids who were referring to her by her stage name in class, from catcalls in the back," DeLapp said.

LINK

Of course there are other jokes I could make about this but right now I don't have any more*. When I first heard about this I was somewhat opposed to the school board's action because people can and do change. Do we want to put a scarlet letter on someone for the rest of their life for a bad, but legal choice they once made?  Halas' time as "Tiffany Sixx" appears to be in the past. It's not as if she were arriving directly from the studio sets to teach impressionable young teens/pre-teens and/or tell them all about her deeds. At least, that doesn't appear to have been the case. But thinking more about this teachers are indeed supposed to maintain a good moral example for the children they instruct. Performing circus sexual acts on film for money with men and other women is usually not considered to be setting a proper moral example. I used to be a 12 yr old boy. I can definitely say that Halas' effectiveness as a teacher would be near zero if she was teaching boys of that age. So for that alone, even if I don't care about her previous career, she'd probably have to find a different job.  

And while the sordid details of her paid interactions with men or women may have been outre, the fact is that virtually every teacher, heck almost every human being has had sex or will have sex at some point in their life. There's just a record of some of her activities.  If she had announced she was gay, should/could she have been fired for that? That is still considered deviant in some circles and to be setting a bad influence. But working essentially as a prostitute is, unlike gayness, something that still unites many on the feminist left and on the traditionalist right in disgust. So maybe it's not as cut and dry as people might think.

And let's be honest, it's not just about the children. That's something of a cop-out. I do not think that in the average corporate workplace, were it discovered that the budget analyst in general ledger was or had been an adult actress, that she would be able to keep her job, or at least keep her job with the same level of respect and productivity that she had had prior to that information becoming public. Is that fair? Probably not. People should be judged on what they do at work, not on what they've done in their private lives. But that's idealistic. The reality is that often you sell not only your on the job skills to your employer, but also the implied or actual promise that you won't embarrass your employer or bring undue complications to your job. If, for example, a man who was an actuary, supply chain mgr or officer for a Fortune 500 Company decided to supplement his salary by investing in perfectly legal strip clubs or lingerie football leagues, chances are good that his company might bid him adieu. That's just how it goes.

So what do you think?

Was the school district within its rights to terminate Halas?

Was it the right thing to do?

Would you be concerned if Halas were teaching your children?

If you were a male student in her class would you ask her for extra "homework" or some one-on-one tutoring? (*Ok, just one joke)

Affirmative Action, Education, Stuyvesant High School

The Supreme Court will shortly start its new term. It is going to take up yet another affirmative action case. Hopefully The Janitor will have a post on this with his normal attention to historical and legal detail. I want to talk about educational affirmative action from a slightly different and rather painful aspect. First things first. I am a strong supporter of workplace affirmative action. I have seen too damn many people get hired, groomed, and promoted for reasons that have little to do with qualifications. I actually did pretty well on standardized tests and naively had a belief that advanced degrees and skill sets mattered. I was shocked to learn that other things matter much more. Does your boss like you? That is really the greatest single factor on whether or not you're going to succeed in your job, though perhaps not your career. I have performed superhuman feats for bosses who for whatever reason didn't like me and didn't find my diligence worthy of reward or even notice. Other times I have been less than heroic but still received strong support and encouragement from bosses that liked me. Go figure. Since blacks and whites generally live apart and inhabit separate social worlds is it really possible for whites to judge blacks fairly? Can I get a fair evaluation at work from someone who, outside of the work environment, does her best to avoid people who look like me?

My career has occasionally suffered because I'm not plugged into certain (white) social networks. You need to know which assignments to take or decline. You need strong allies not only among your peer group but also among higher level managers. Otherwise, you can spend years grinding away and then look up and wonder why people with similar or less education and experience have zoomed past you. I sometimes think it would be wise for workplace promotions, hiring and assignments to be based on standardized aptitude testing. Either you know the material or you don't. There would be no more worries about losing promotions to a peer whose husband is a business partner of a higher ranking boss or to another peer who plays golf with your direct boss. Yes both of these things happened to me. It seems I am still peeved. Snicker. Of course companies would HATE this idea because it would prevent managers and company officers from hiring and promoting as they see fit. Managers might correctly argue that a workplace test alone doesn't provide enough useful information about the person's professional competence. If the below people all pass the test, should they be promoted?

• Someone who ignores basic American hygiene standards and makes people scheme on how to avoid sitting next to him in meetings?  
• Someone who dresses like she's working a street corner and has her peers making weekly bets on how much leg or chest she will show?
• Someone who falls asleep in meetings or at their desk? 
• Someone who refuses to travel even though the promotion requires travel?
• Someone whose accent is so bad that few people can understand him and everyone makes fun of him behind his back?
• Someone who knows her theory but freezes in crisis or when reality and theory clash?
• Someone whose first response to any idea is always negative and who enjoys spreading bad news? 
• Someone who is expert in his field but is also a loud profane bully that delights in humiliating people who make mistakes and picking fights just for fun?
• Someone who gets in a squabble with a subordinate and then makes fun of that person in front of their children?

And yes these are all real life examples with which I am directly familiar. So in the workforce, where there are other considerations besides pure knowledge, a single test isn't the best way to determine aptitude. I might have to concede that.
But in an academic arena, shouldn't pure knowledge be the ONLY consideration? And if so, what is the best way to measure that knowledge? Or should there be other things besides knowledge taken into account to measure academic success?

NYC's Stuyvesant High School has been in the news recently for a couple of reasons, neither one much good. A number of kids were caught cheating. Stuyvesant is a hyper-competitive school in which only the best of the best are admitted. Admission is based solely on a standardized test which is used by the eight top schools in NYC. Stuyvesant has the highest cut off. Stuyvesant has a student body which is, shall we say, different from the usual demographics of NYC schools. The school is roughly about 72% Asian and 25% Caucasian. This has resulted in some people trying to tip toe around some unfortunate implications while others snicker and glory in same. Recently a group of apparently mostly Black and Hispanic civil rights and educational groups decided to file a complaint with the Department of Education. Their claim is that use of the test violates the 1964 Civil Rights Act because it causes racial disparity. I think their heart is in the right place but I'm not sure I can support their framework here. I remember occasionally having teachers in college or before who radiated contempt for black people. Few things were more pleasurable to me than to score among the highest in the class or correct them when they were wrong. There is something wonderful about objective knowledge. No matter how much someone might believe in black inferiority, they can't stop you from succeeding educationally. As I wrote above I wish I still had that clear approach in corporate life. I think it is approaching shamefulness to make a public argument that amounts to "this must be discrimination because I'm not good at it". Obviously the Caucasian and Asian parents don't wish to change the admissions criteria because their children are succeeding under the rules. Manjit Singh's statement is likely reflective of his parents' thoughts as well.

The test-only rule has existed for decades, as have complaints about its effect on minority enrollment. In May 1971, after officials began thinking about adding other criteria for admission, protests from many parents, mostly white, persuaded the State Legislature to enshrine the rule in state law.  Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said at a news conference on Thursday that the schools were “designed for the best and the brightest” and that he saw no need to change the admissions policy or state law. “I think that Stuyvesant and these other schools are as fair as fair can be,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “There’s nothing subjective about this. You pass the test, you get the highest score, you get into the school — no matter what your ethnicity, no matter what your economic background is. That’s been the tradition in these schools since they were founded, and it’s going to continue to be.”

When asked the uncomfortable question of why the racial imbalance existed, some students mentioned the intensive tutoring services that are out of reach of poorer families. But others did not hesitate to say that they believed the family culture of Asian and white students put a higher value on educational achievement than others.

“African-American and Hispanic parents don’t always seek out extra help for their kids and their kids don’t score as high,” said Manjit Singh, a senior. “But it’s the same test for everyone, so how can it be discriminatory? If you can’t handle the test, you can’t handle the school, and you’re taking up someone else’s spot.”

Noah Morrison, a senior who is black, was not ready to change the policy, either, but he agreed that “there needs to be more racial diversity at this school.”
“There are no black people and it’s horrible,” he said. “The test is fine, but there need to be more opportunities for people to do well on it. There need to be more test-prep programs in underachieving middle schools with high black and Latino populations. It’s a socioeconomic problem.”

Ms. Miles, for her part, said the city needed do a better job disseminating information about the test and the free preparatory programs available. The city’s Education Department has been offering such a program, with weekend and summer coaching sessions to promising but disadvantaged sixth graders — and, this year only, seventh graders — for more than 20 years. Its original mission was to increase the number of blacks and Latinos, but after a legal challenge in 2007, income became its main eligibility criteria. Since then, however, the program has shrunk —2,800 students attended in 2008, down from 3,800 two years before — and even among those who participated, black and Latino students were far less likely to take the entrance exam than Asians and whites.

So it's rough. There is a question then about why Black and Hispanic students aren't doing as well on the test or even taking the test as often as Whites and Asians. I think there are a number of reasons for that which need greater discussion than we can do in just one post. Poverty, single parent homes, hunger, exposure to lead based paint, low birth weight and other factors all have impact on educational achievement. But the big factor here and one I have struggled with myself sometimes upon entering the cold cruel corporate world is living up (or down) to stereotypes. Henry Ford once said "Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right".  Dr. Claude Steele, Shelby Steele's twin brother, has done some research which confirms Ford's off the cuff observation. And not only are black people watching too much television but media often subtly or not so subtly tells black people that they aren't worth s***.

And if you don't think that the attempt to succeed will make any difference in your life because of false stereotypes and very real racism in the job market and the justice system, then you might want to protect your ego by not even trying. After all, being admitted to a competitive high school in NYC won't stop the NYPD from harassing and insulting you if you happen to be Black or Hispanic. Hearing "I don't care if you are an A+ student, put your black a$$ against the wall!!" would tend to mess with your equilibrium.

It also comes down to just doing the work. This isn't easy. But if you believe that people are basically the same, then you have to accept that work can get you where you want to go. We all have different gifts. There are few people who can play professional sports or have the patience for delicate lab work in physics or biology or can sit down and create new music or so on. But when you go to a concert and see someone play a guitar for three hours without a mistake or go to a basketball game and watch someone seemingly defy gravity it is worth remembering that you are watching the end result of years and years and years of hard work, competition, dedication, and insane drive. Academics aren't any different.

So my solution to the Stuyvesant issue is not to file a federal complaint of racial discrimination. I don't think that is warranted here. My solution is to change the culture, put down the video games, turn off the television and hit the books. And as I support affirmative action I think that there must be more public and private partnerships to identify and nurture talented Black and Hispanic children, convince them that they can succeed and give them all the training and then some that they need for the test. Success is their heritage not failure. If WEB DuBois could get a Ph.D. from Harvard in the 1890s, near the nadir of American racism, today we have no reason to let a little high school admissions test stop us. Because the Manjit Singhs of the world aren't going to have sympathy for you.
I usually do my grocery shopping in an area close to the U-M engineering and physics schools. The demographics have changed rather significantly since I went to U-M. There are a lot of East Asian nationals and Asian Americans who have settled nearby and work or attend school. They've evidently put in the work to get those jobs or attend the classes. So go and do likewise ladies and gents. Go and do likewise. Game on.



Questions:
Is there a valid Federal racial discrimination complaint here?
Why aren't there more Blacks and Hispanics attending the best schools?
Should disparate impact be removed as a possible racial discrimination cause?
What sort of school reforms do you want to see implemented?
Do you think intelligence is racially based?