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News/Politics 3-5-13

What’s interesting out there today?

Open Thread, you pick.

Here’s a few to start off with.

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And remember folks, this is who our govt. is backing. We’re aiding them. Aid which they will use to further oppress people like these.

From FoxNews

“Libyan Islamists detained 48 Egyptian Christians in Benghazi last week,  torturing them and using acid to burn off tattoos of the cross, according to  family members.

The Christians, who are peddlers, were arrested by Islamist Salafists in  Benghazi, who said they had Christian icons at their marketplace stalls,  according to MideastChristianNews.  The men were later reportedly freed and await deportation, but their family  members back home told the Egyptian press they were abused while held, initially  on charges of proselytizing.

“When the residents of the village told me that he was imprisoned, I embraced  his sons and told them they would not see their father again,” Fardoos Salib,  the mother of Coptic farmer Atif Kamel, told Egyptian newspaper al-Watan.   “I prayed in the church, until God responded and he was released, as God  knows our conditions.””

Meanwhile, those responsible for the deaths of US citizens and an attack on a US Embassy sip drinks, walking free and unmolested.

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This one annoys me. I’d tell ’em to go pound sand, but probably in more colorful language. 😯

From Reuters

“A United Nations investigator called on the United States on Monday to publish its findings on the CIA’s Bush-era program of rendition and secret detention of terrorism suspects.

Ben Emmerson, U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, voiced concern that while President Barack Obama’s administration has rejected Central Intelligence Agency practices conducted under his predecessor George W. Bush, there have been no prosecutions.

“Despite this clear repudiation of the unlawful actions carried out by the Bush-era CIA, many of the facts remain classified, and no public official has so far been brought to justice in the United States,” Emmerson said in a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, which he will address on Tuesday.”

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Sure, it’s satire now, but you just gave them an idea. I can hear it now, “It’s for the kids!”

(Sigh) 😦

From CafeHayek.com

“In a bold effort to improve the educational fortunes of students who perform at academic levels significantly below the average of their peers, Congress has mandated a minimum grade to be assigned to each student in each course taught at any school in the country.  Starting in September, it shall be unlawful for any teacher, professor, or instructor charged with assigning course grades to assign to any student a grade lower than C-.”

“Sponsors of the Fair Academic Standards Act decry the injustice that occurs each time a student earns a low grade, such as a D or an F.  ”It’s impossible for students with ‘D’s and ‘F’s on their transcripts to succeed as they deserve in life,” remarked Sen. Bernie Franken, an Independent from Elitia.  ”This law ensures that no American will ever again suffer that hardship.”

Opponents of the Act worry that the requirement of a minimum grade will prompt schools to refuse to enroll students whose academic preparation or skills aren’t yet sufficient to enable them actually to earn good grades.”

Admit it, it’s not really a stretch to think this could be is coming.

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30 thoughts on “News/Politics 3-5-13”

  1. “In a bold effort to improve the educational fortunes of students who perform at academic levels significantly below the average of their peers, Congress has mandated a minimum grade to be assigned to each student in each course taught at any school in the country. Starting in September, it shall be unlawful for any teacher, professor, or instructor charged with assigning course grades to assign to any student a grade lower than C-.”

    This is absurd. When you can’t trust the degree, there’s no point in hiring someone with a degree. All you know is that the person managed to attend college.

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  2. The article says “Congress has mandated”. Congress doesn’t have the power to mandate a grade. In all the schools I’ve attended, the professor was king. I don’t doubt that there might be administration pressure in some cases.

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  4. AJ, it is already standard practice in some public schools to assign no grade lower than a 50%. The student simply has to write his/her name on the homework, scribble some attempt at an answer and turn it in. Then, as the teacher, you have to give at least 50. The idea is that the student will not then be too far in a hole to climb out after several missing or incomplete homework assignments. But students aren’t stupid, they can play the system and play it well. It’s just another way of lowering expectations.

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  5. I’m easily taken in this time of morning.
    I can see giving a student a break if he’s really trying. But in college you can drop a course if it’s too much.
    I dropped a calculus course.

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  7. We have brought enough students out of the system to know that work is not required. All of the children we have taken out have needed to go back at least two years to get a foundation. They are moved forward whether they do the work or not. Of course, many of my children fall into the category of, “anything to get that child out of my class….”

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  8. “A 7-year-old Anne Arundel County boy was suspended Friday for chewing his breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun and saying, ‘bang, bang’— an offense that the school described as a threat to other students, according to his family.

    The pastry ‘gun’ was a rectangular strawberry-filled bar, akin to a Pop-Tart, that the second-grader had tried to nibble into the shape of a mountain, but then found it looked more like a gun, said his father, William ‘B.J.’ Welch.

    Welch said an assistant principal at Park Elementary School told him that his son pointed the pastry at a classmate. The boy maintains he pointed it at the ceiling, according to his father.

    ‘In my eyes, it’s irrelevant; I don’t care who he pointed it at,’ Welch said. ‘It was harmless. It was a danish.'”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2013/03/05/pop-tart-gun-suspension-seriously-folks/

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  13. Stephanie,

    In one of my teaching courses, that grading system was discussed, and I’m almost convinced. It was only given as a suggestion for how a teacher might want to set up a grading system, and the professor who explained it to us, I think was only about half convinced herself. And of all my kids teachers, I never saw one who used it.

    The rationale behind it, though, is that each grade level has about a 10-point spread. An A is a 90 and above, a B is 80 to 89, etc. But then an F is everything from a 0 to a 60 percent.

    Therefore, grades closer to 0 pull down the grade disproportionately, not showing a true reflection of their performance. For example, a 100% and a 0 would average out to a 50% which is an F. But an A and an F should average out to a C. So if an F is 50%, that makes the average grade more representative of their work. Is that wrong? Convince me.

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  17. Here’s an update to Linda’s link on the child making a gun out of a pop tart.

    It seems the school is doubling down on the stupid. They have sent out a letter to parents offering to counsel students who may have been upset by the evil pop tart incident.

    I demand a ban on all pop tarts! It’s for the kids!

    🙄

    Idiots.

    http://www.loweringthebar.net/2013/03/update-ii-school-offers-counseling-for-students-troubled-by-pastry-gun-incident.html

    “Dear Parents and Guardians:

    I am writing to let you know about an incident that occurred this morning in one of our classrooms and encourage you to discuss this matter with your child in a manner you deem most appropriate.

    During breakfast this morning, one of our students used food to make inappropriate gestures that disrupted the class. While no physical threats were made and no one [was] harmed, the student had to be removed from the classroom.

    * * *

    As you are aware, the … Code of Student Conduct and appropriate consequences related to violations of the code are clearly spelled out in the Student Handbook, which was sent home during the first week of school and can be found on our website, http://www.aacps.org….

    If your children express that they are troubled by today’s incident, please talk with them and help them share their feelings. Our school counselor is available to meet with any students who have the need to do so next week. In general, please remind them of the importance of making good choices.”

    More here from Legal Insurrection, with a video.

    http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/03/maryland-school-offers-counseling-for-students-troubled-by-pastry-gun-incident/

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  19. I for one am deeply offended by the implication that Danish are somehow equated with danger…I am of Danish descent. I feel a lawsuit coming on…

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  20. Oh look, more hysterical stupidity.

    http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/03/04/todays-hysterical-gun-freakout-teacher-invades-kids-privacy-threatens-him-over-digital-photo-of-airsoft-gun/

    “Airsoft BB guns are not real guns. Photos of airsoft guns are not real guns. Some teachers, though, are hysterical idiots. Tony Katz has the story on his web site:

    [Joseph C.] Phillips, best known for his role as Lt. Martin Kendall on The Cosby Show, lives with his wife and three sons in the San Fernando Valley. In addition to being a regular fill-in host for Larry Elder on KABC radio in Los Angeles, he owns Daddy J’s Wingshack, where his 15-year-old son works and earned the money for an Airsoft bb gun. Last week his son brought a digital camera to school to show his friends a picture of the Airsoft.

    On my radio show Saturday, Phillips explained that as his son was showing off the single photo, his Social Studies teacher, a Mr. James DeLarme, walked by. As his son described the incident, DeLarme “snatched” the camera out of his hand and asked him about the photo. When his son explained that it was a picture of an Airsoft bb gun, DeLarme declared the police would have to be notified and promptly left the room to confer with another teacher. The two teachers scrolled through all the photos on the camera, finally handing it back to the boy. Then, in front of all the students, DeLarme asked him, “Do you have any animosity towards your classmates?” and “Are you angry at anyone at school?”

    The school reportedly never even notified the parents that a teacher had snatched the student’s property, rifled through his photos and threatened him with police action. The teacher involved has a history of anti-firearm (but not anti-airsoft gun) activism, but evidently doesn’t know a real gun from a toy. The school backed the teacher.”

    Of course they did. 🙄

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  21. Grading systems: The F has been retired in Ontario. Students from K-6 receive an A to D with those failing receiving an R which means remediation required. In other words, the teaching staff need to come up with a plan to help this child succeed. This involves the entire Special Ed. bureaucracy. Many primary-junior teachers just give Ds instead. Although if you give too many Ds questions get raised.

    In grades 7-12, we use percentages and the class mean is shown beside it. Thus you can tell if your child is above or below average. In the initial electronic report system designed 15 years ago we were able to put any percent down and many of use promptly put 10, 20 etc if the child didn’t do the work. The next upgrade of the program prevented anything lower than 40. Finally we were instructed to mark cumulative work in levels 4 to 1 or A to D and then translate the marks to percents — A = 80+, B=70-79, C=60-69, D=50-59. Since anything the rubric doesn’t allow for zeros, anything handed in is automatically a D.

    As for the class average, it better be above 70 or questions get raised. My average hovers at the 70 mark whereas most teachers are at 75.

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  22. Guns: I agree the danish gun incident is overkill but context can be important — see my experience below. I imagine that the letter home to the parents was done to satisfy the one hysterical parent (every school seems to have one). I had a student who was making origami guns and pointing them at other students. For several reasons I put a stop to it 1) he was stealing my paper 2) he was distracting other students 3) to cover my behind as its against our “safe school” policy to make threatening gestures and finally 4) I have students who will tolerate it once or twice and then will lose it and a fight will break out.

    As for the camera incident; its against many schools’ rules for students to bring cameras or video recording device to school (cell phones stay in lockers) The rule is relaxed on field trips. In most cases, students don’t realize the implications of the privacy act. Students taking pictures of children whose parents prefer they not be photographed are liable and so is the school, especially if the picture ends up on the internet. I have at least one student a year whose parent refuses permission for any photographs (usually problems with the ex or in some cases nervous immigrants). The other privacy issue is photos/videos meant to degrade or bully. We’ve had students take pictures under bathroom stalls and post them on facebook. Although fights are rare at school, off school fights are featured on youtube. Thus, when a teacher sees a camera there’s several issue he/she needs to consider. I have confiscated cameras when my suspicion is raised and will generally ask the student if there’s any pictures I shouldn’t see before I scroll through it. Occasionally I will get a female teacher to scroll through the pictures.

    In the case AJ raised, I wouldn’t know the difference between some bb guns and a rifle but I would consider context before jumping to conclusions. If I was still teaching in a rural school I would shrug it off but in my current urban school I would have to ask some questions.

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  24. Interesting video Hwesseli. But the fact of the matter is, we are probably in the twenty to thirty percent and living quite comfortably. I have no problem at all with folk having more than me. And, having spent years dealing with those in the below me category, I can see that our nation has quite a bit to offer them if they choose to take it, so they are not in such bad straits either.

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  25. Sorry, a distraction. Anyway, taking all of the money away from the people at the top will not make a lot of difference in the people at the bottom. Why worry about what they are making. If you don’t like what the CEO is making, don’t support the organization.

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  26. HRW, Many years ago a wise man made a statement to me that I have always remembered: If you took all of the wealth in the country and divided it evenly between all the people, within six months it would be again apportioned pretty much the way it is currently divided. The older I get, the more I believe in the truth of that statement.

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  27. HRW,

    I don’t understand the concept of thinking that the wealth distribution “should be” a certain way. Why should it? Also, the whole thing seems to rest on the idea of wealth as a zero sum game, which we all know it isn’t. And I’ve never understood the mindset that measures one’s own satisfaction against what other people have. I’m beginning to agree with the idea of the left perpetuating “the politics of envy.”

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  28. I thought it was food for thought. The interesting point is that wealth disparity is greater than most people imagine.
    Ricky/Ree — I don’t doubt the the general truth of Ricky’s statement except if you change market structures you can change the inequity of wealth. Most countries have lower wealth inequality which also indicates there is no “correct” distribution. However, its been noted the lower wealth and income inequality the more stable the economy and the better social indicators for that country. Thus since there’s no “right” or “natural” distribution the market should be structured to increase stability and better social indicators ie lower wealth and income inequality. Its not the politics of envy its a policy justified by better result.

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  29. HRW

    You are right! Let’s treat everybody the same. A flat tax treats everybody the same. Let’s have the government treat everybody the same. No deductions for what the government thinks should be the way things should be. No government “seed money” for anything.

    The government should keep to defined responsibilities instead of encroaching on other government entities responsibilities. i.e. Education is a local and state responsibility.

    Government should repeal laws that don’t do what they say they should do. Head Start and preschool don’t do much but provide Free Babysitting. There is little to no lasting result.

    What business is it of any government whether I cut down trees on my 5 acres or not? I can cut them down anytime I want for personal use but not if I choose to sell them. Where do they get off having anything to do with that?

    Finally, no government of the USA at any level should spend more money than they collect in taxes. Ever! No representation without taxation!

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