Adam's blog

This was a long time coming.

What is it with these parents who think that just because they have a law degree they are somehow qualified to teach their elementary school aged children? Finally the sate of California has woken up and is not going to allow these parents to deny their children their government-given requirement right to be taught by a state-certified teacher. Naturally, the teachers unions support this decision. Not because they are greedy, but because they care more about children than the children's own parents. How dare anybody ever question the intelligence and work-ethic of these public servants.

Recent events started when a judge discovered that two children who were being home schooled were being poorly educated. As a society, we cannot stand silent while parents are poorly educating their children. How else will they learn about social justice and other essential principles of democracy? These stupid, selfish parents will finally be forced to let the experts raise educate their children.

Certified teachers in the US are our best and brightest; moreover, they are the most self-sacrificing among us. Education colleges are renown for their high standards of scholarship and service. In fact, right here at UIUC you can often observe a group of education students all wearing matching t-shirts stumbling back and forth across Green street on one of their many bar-crawls. These parents are clearly unfit to educate their children if they think they are better suited to teach their own children than certified professionals.

I don't know about you, but I've been keeping up with the Madonna Constantine case. It seems she is once again the victim of a racially motivated attack. Actually this attack began before the noose appeared on her doorknob. Apparently a plagiarism investigation has concluded that over two-dozen times she stole from her colleagues and even from the dissertation of her own student. In response to the findings, professor Constantine noted the "structural racism that pervades" Teachers College and said "As one of the only two tenured black women full professors at Teachers College, it pains me to conclude that I have been specifically and systematically targeted." Professor Constantine didn't explain how she reached her conclusion, but since she studies racial and diversity issues, I'm sure she has good reasons.

In fact, Professor Constantine's lawyer suggested that the college itself may have placed the noose on her doorknob as a way to intimidate her. It's so sad that even a college that most would consider to be "ultra liberal" uses such overtly racist tactics against the few minority faculty that they hire.

The Educational Psychology department at UIUC sent professor Constantine a letter of support after the noose was found on her doorknob. An e-mail was sent by professor Jim Hannum encouraging students to sign the letter to show her our support. I feel so bad that I didn't sign it. I hope the department sends her another letter, I will be the first to sign!

You can read more in the New York Post story and the New York Times story

Something one notices in China is the severe lack of cultural diversity. Sure there are performances of Tibetan dancers and news stories about the special people of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (It's not really autonomous), but from Beijing to Shanghai to Shenzhen, you'll notice that probably 99% of the people you see are all from one ethnic group. It's amazing that China's economy is growing so much despite any diversity. Imagine how fast China's economy would be growing if it had black people!

Anyway, that brings me to the obsession of diversity here in the US and particularly at UIUC. Here we have a new initiative, "Inclusive Illinois", that "is about promoting and fostering an inclusive and diverse campus community." But one thing seemed odd to me as I looked at the list of events; they are almost all for or sponsored by a group that by its very name is exclusive to a particular race, religion, etc. A few selections:

8/18
Friends and Family Cookout, 12 p.m. – 5 p.m., African American Cultural Center. This event serves as a meet and greet for incoming African American students and their families.

8/20
No Struggle, No Progress: The Wake Up Call, 9 p.m., Foellinger Auditorium. A session for both incoming and returning students, this is the official welcome for African American freshmen. Student organization leaders coordinate this program. The goal of the program is to let them know that there are people who care about them and are here to support them while on campus. Sponsored in-part by the African American Cultural Center.

8/24
Latino Barbeque/Latina Dinner, 6 p.m., La Casa House. Students only. Event for members and friends of the Latino/a community.

10/10                                   
Asian American Ally Training, 7 p.m., Asian American Cultural Center. In preparation
for National Coming Out event.

11/8             
Fall Women’s Symposium (speaker and film, with discussion), sponsored by the African
American Studies and Research Program

The slogan for Inclusive Illinois is "one campus, many voices." It's sad that the events for this initiative will essentially help to fracture the campus into separate campuses organized not around ideas but rather around race (primarily) and sexual behavior. Isn't this the opposite of what we want? This initiative will only cause more conflict and injure race relations on campus.

In the CNN/YouTube debate, Biden suggested that a gun owner was not mentally fit to own a gun because he wants to keep his guns. Notice the applause, the laughter. It was a real crowd pleaser. Another example of how Democrats will bring this country together.

Just imagine what would happen if a Republican candidate suggested that one of the YouTube question-askers was mentally unstable because of their desire to kill unborn babies.

This is an interesting video about who the 45 million uninsured are in the US.

I think the most interesting point of the video is that many who are elligible for various government programs do not sign up because they don't see the need to - they can just show up at the hospital and get free care. If we want these people to reap the benefits of preventative medicine, I guess we'll have to force them to get their yearly checkup.

I just thought I would share about the noble causes I contributed to this year. I don't mean tithing to the church. I do that, but I want to talk about my tithe to my fellow man.

Since I'm a pretty healthy guy and make good decisions about what to do with my body inside and outside of the bedroom, I didn't spend much in health care. That's why I donated $51 to the C-U Public Health District.

And even though I don't have any children, and if I did, I would homeschool them, I wanted to give $2,087.74 to the Urbana Unit 116 Schools. Hopefully this will help them boost the self-esteem of the kids even higher.

And because no parent should have to cover the cost of their child's summertime fun, I gave $340 to the Urbana Park District.

Because it's a shame when the nice forest view of a big house is ruined by development, I donated $38.50 to the Forest Preserve District to help ensure that land will never be put to use, other than by the people who own land next to it and use it to increase the value of their property.

I also felt like giving $227 to Parkland because UIUC students need a cheap and easy alternative to taking UIUC summer courses.

I also gave $232 to the Urbana "Free" Library. Even though I have never set foot in the building. Come on, you can't expect people to pay to rent DVD's from Blockbuster! I believe that access to free movies is critical for a well-functioning society.

And finally I gave $125 to the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District. We all know that if riders had to pay the actual cost of their ride, most of them would ride a bike or buy a car or walk. Public transportation is a much too important part of so many people's vision of a good society that I felt compelled to subsidize their dream.

The thing I love about public schools is their ability to present students with all viewpoints. We don't want our children to be HSQD's who do things because their parents told them to.

But once again, parents who probably don't care about their children anyway are upset that schools are opening the minds of children.

According to a story in the Denver Post, a panel at Boulder High School titles "STDs: Sex, Teens and Drugs" exposed high school children to a range of reasonable viewpoints.

"I'm going to encourage you to have sex, and I'm going to encourage you to use drugs appropriately," panelist Joel Becker, a Los Angeles clinical psychologist, told the students. "And why I am going to take that position is because you're going to do it anyway."

Some parents were upset at this, but really, if they were good parents, they shouldn't be worried that listening to one talk would cause their kids to have sex and do drugs.

Besides, this was just one of the viewpoints presented in the discussion.

But the panelists also encouraged the students to be responsible, to be educated and to make good choices."
This is about thinking about the choices you're making today and how they're going to affect you over the long haul," said Andee Gerhardt, a community-engagement leader with Ernst and Young.

Supposedly some of the language used in the discussion was considered too inappropriate to be read at a school board meeting. Some on the board asked school officials to investigate the language. Come on, I'm sure the high school students hear much worse every day.

This is just another example of lazy parents who get upset when teachers are doing their best to present their children with diverse viewpoints. Why don't they just get out of the way and let the professionals shape the minds of their children? Education schools teach future teachers about all the important theories related to education, such as queer theory, feminist theory, critical race theory, etc. Teachers are also committed to forming citizens who can participate in a democracy. I wish I could say the same for most parents.

If an employer can't find anyone to fill a job at the salary he is willing to pay, can he complain that he has no choices? What if he had an employee quit, and he is really poor... hopeless you might say.. no choice. We need legislation to fill such positions. You want the poor guy to lose everything and become homeless?

I propose that we have a law that allow employers to sue individuals who refuse to work for him based on totally irrelevant criteria. The federal government should pay for these lawsuits. Unless these prejudicial individuals can prove that they had a valid reason to refuse the job offer, they should be fined or forced to work for that employer. The burden of proof will be on the person who refused the job to demonstrate that he had a good reason (I know this seems contrary to the whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing.. but this is such an important issue that we can't let that get in the way.)

Think about it... an employer being discriminated against because he is gay, or a person of color, or because he thinks he's a she. Or maybe the applicant simply didn't like the appearance of the office. We've come a long way to end discrimination, but I fear we're stopping only half-way. We need to end discrimination on the side of employees as well. You know, they are so greedy, they will just quit and go to another company if they can make more money. Where's the compassion, the humanity? This law will restore such things to the workplace. We need such laws to control the greed and self-interest all too often found in employees.

An 8th grade class in a Chicago Public School watched Brokeback Mountain. Read the details here.

The substitute asked a student to shut the classroom door at the West Side school, saying: "What happens in Ms. Buford's class stays in Ms. Buford's class," according to the lawsuit.

Richardson said his granddaughter was traumatized by the movie and had to undergo psychological treatment and counseling.

First of all, this movie is rated R, and the kids in class are 12-13 years old, and parents were not even informed that the children would be watching the movie.

This may come as a shock to many parents and people who are not part of the government's (re)education system, but things like this are exactly what many educators want to happen.

People like Walter Feinberg (UIUC education professor) see the role of public schools as presenting young children with worldviews that their parents disagree with - to promote a better democracy, of course.

It is also common for schools to do very strange activities in which children write about death, their relationships with their parents, and other sensitive topics. Often children are told that they are not to tell their parents about what is going on in the classroom.

Parents, and all citizens, need to realize that the government-run schools that they are forced to support financially often hold contempt for traditional values and morals and are actively working to undermine efforts of parents to instill their moral beliefs in their children. And this is considered a good thing - in fact argued to be a primary benefit of government-run schools. After all, if parents just send their children to a school that shares their values, the child is deprived of all those other viewpoints.

I just read an interesting article on Thisislondon.co.uk

Apparently, some babies aren't cooperating during their abortions. According to a recent study, 1 in 30 aborted babies are born alive, some living for hours outside the mother.

Most of the abortions studied were medical abortions. These involve a women being given a series of pills, taken in two doses two days apart.

The first dose, a single tablet of mifepristone, blocks the pregnancy hormones that normally ensure the womb's lining holds on to the fertilised egg. The second dose, of four tablets containing hormone-like prostaglandins, triggers contractions and a miscarriage.

The death of the baby is a result of the trauma of the early birth, rather than the tablets itself, meaning, in rare occasions, some babies may survive the process.

From 22 weeks, the tablets should be preceded by a lethal injection into the baby's heart to ensure the baby is dead before the procedure goes any further.

If these babies are born alive, it suggests they weren't given the heart-stopping injection - perhaps because the doctor thought it would have been too traumatic for the mother. The figures follow several studies which show that babies born at 23 and 24 weeks are capable of surviving.

"Pro-choice" individuals often say that a woman has a right to do what she wishes to her own body. I think it's hard to make that argument when you really appreciate what goes on during an abortion.

A massmail was sent to all students on campus inviting them to participate in an online survey for miPLAN. By calling it miPLAN (pronounced my plan), the plan will have more credibility than if it were called theirPLAN.

The survey is here.

Here is a sample of questions:

11. What was the most recent week-day on which you had class, had to use the library, lab (etc.) or go to work?

12. On the very first trip on that most recent week-day for academic or work purposes (i.e. not including going out to coffee or breakfast or meeting friends), how did you get from your residence hall or on-campus apartment to that location?

Now, question 12 comes after 10c.

10c. In the past month, how have you most often gone from your off-campus residence to the campus?

I live off campus (And the survey knew that, because it asked in a multiple-choice question), so I'm not sure how they would like me to answer question 12.

Question 29 is a good one. I have a feeling the results will be used to ask for more money:

29. For commuting: Suppose that an CU-MTD bus ran every 30 minutes, came within a block or two of where you live and ran directly to within a block or two of your campus or other local destination, that it ran frequently and took no more than 1 ½ times as long as the same trip by car. Thinking realistically, how likely would you be to use it to get around campus or Champaign-Urbana once a week or more?

Question 40 asks if you would be more likely to bus or bike to campus if there were "small cars to rent by the hour on or near campus" or a "Guaranteed Ride Home (for example a free taxi) if you had an emergency during the day"

The last question is more preaching than a question.

And the final question …. For the sake of controlling traffic congestion as the Champaign/Urbana area grows, reducing the number of people who drive alone is a high priority.41a. In your own words, what is the main reason that you ride the bus, carpool, vanpool, bike or walk to your primary campus destinations?

Having gone through the survey, it seems there are many questions like "If the MTD were better, would you use it more?" I think it's clear people will tend to answer yes, and those responses will be used to ask for more funding.

There were no questions about a tram and no questions about if students are worried a bus will hit them as they walk to class.

Anyway, it looks like anyone can see the survey. I hope it doesn't mess up their results if people look at it.

Here is an interesting video about government-run health care and preventative medicine.

Too bad I can't embed the YouTube video.  Now I have a source tab!

During the many discussions of the proven dangers of ETS, health codes have been brought up as a thing the government does to protect us that every reasonable person would have to admit is a good thing - that we should be thankful that the government cares about us so much as to set standards for how restaurants prepare food and clean.

Some may have heard about the KFC in New York  with the 1- 1.5 lb rats running around. Gues what? The day before a CBS news crew took the video, the KFC passed its inspection by the government.

From WCBSTV.com :

"It doesn't look like the inspection that was done Thursday met our standards," said Geoffrey Cowley, a health department spokesman. "I don't want to prejudge that. We're concerned and we're going to carefully revaluate that inspection."

The restaurant located at Sixth Avenue and West 4th Street was investigated Thursday following complaints, but the inspector didn't see any rats.

The inspector didn't see any rats... probably because he went to the KFC in the afternoon. The CBS news crew was smarter - they knew that rats usually come out to play when it's still dark, so their camera caught the rat party in the early morning hours by simply looking through the KFC window.

My opinion is that these government "inspections" can make us less safe. We rely on the government to protect us and fail to use our own judgment to decide if a place is safe to eat at.

What do you think would happen if restaurants could not hang up their certificate of passing a health-code inspection? If restaurants had to make the case directly to the customer that it is safe to eat there?

The government, and proponents of government, can point to cases where a restaurant was shut down as clear examples of the benefits of health-code inspections. However, the negative consequences of these laws are harder to see. They are much more broad and subtle.

Hopefully this case will at least prompt more people to be on the lookout for rats, even though a place has a "No rats" seal of approval from the government.

Two education professors at UIUC, Sarah and Christopher Lubienski, have written several papers claiming to show that students in public schools actually score better on standardized math tests than students from private schools - after demographic differences are taken into account, of course. Their paper was mentioned on Illinipundit in the past, along with a similar study done by the federal government that had similar results.

In an e-mail sent to college of education students to advertise a talk by Sarah Lubienski, it says, "Recent analyses have questioned the common wisdom regarding the inherent superiority of private schools relative to public schools."

The font and colors were originally in the e-mail. The Lubienski's claim

Now, first of all, a study out of Harvard criticizes the way in which the Lubienskis "controlled" for demographic differences. In essence, they over counted disadvantaged students in public schools and under counted them in private schools. The authors of the Harvard study controlled for demographics by using other variables and found a private school advantage. In addition, the Harvard study used the Lubienski's model on reading data and found an advantage for private schools. Of course, the Lubienskis have responded by saying their model is right and the other one is wrong.

Getting bogged down in dueling models is missing the main problem with what the Lubienski's, and the rest of the public school establishment are doing. The claim that test scores at private schools are higher than public schools is not at the top of the list of reasons for school choice, but Chris Lubienski says, "More and more states are looking at voucher programs, or trying to organize public schools on a private-school model, and this study brings up serious questions about that approach."

The whole idea is that when parents have the power to choose, schools will be responsive to their preferences.

The Lubienskis also fail to mention that private schools tend to educate for about half the cost of public schools. I wonder why they didn't want to control for $ spent per child?

It's stuff like this that makes me believe education colleges should be shut down.... even though I'm in the college - I think I can find another department to take me. Why is the education establishment so afraid of an honest debate about school choice?

Now that the University has sacrificed the Chief to the PC gods, I find myself wondering... what's next?

Will racial tensions go away, or at least subside, now that the Chief is gone?

Will we have more Native American students enroll (and graduate)?

But the most interesting question is: What will be the next target of the professional victims / protesters on campus?

I'm sure now that the Chief is gone, we will be hearing more, not less from the "anti-Chief" crowd. I expect demands for more funding of the "studies" programs and more money for programs such as the "Targets of Opportunity" program, which is designed to allow departments to hire faculty from certain minority groups, so long as the departments wouldn't be willing to use their own funds to pay for the individual.

More noise will be made about the under-representedness of blacks and hispanics, and the over-representedness of asians among the student population. More funds will be spent to try to get students with ACT scores in the teens to pass their engineering courses.

At any rate, it should be exciting over the next few years... We will finally be able to measure what the effects of the Chief were.