What’s interesting in the news today?
Open thread.
1. Is Common Core becoming a campaign issue?
From FoxNews “Parents across the country may hold the key to this year’s mid-term elections as they vent their anger over the implementation of a controversial education achievement measure called the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
Forty-five states and the District of Columbia have adopted the initiative in a bid, they say, to improve education standards in Math and English, and give new life to what many view as a sagging education system. Indiana recently voted to back out of Common Core.
But many parents see the initiative as a bid by the federal government to take over the education system. They are also angry over the “data mining” of students’ personal information, and say the stepped-up standards are not age-appropriate and are leading to anxiety and depression in their children.
Analysts warn the parental opposition could spill over into the November elections.”
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2. Social Justice isn’t clearly defined because it’s supporters use it as a catch-all phrase for whatever they want it to mean at the moment.
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3. What a waste of money, all in the name of PC versions of fairness.
From TheBlaze “The U.S Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has forced a school in Michigan to tear down a brand-new set of bleachers for its boys’ varsity baseball team because the new seating is nicer than the girls’ softball bleachers.
The raised seating deck for the boys’ baseball team, which was paid for with money raised by parents, was put in place because fans who’d come to watch games at Plymouth High School in Canton, Mich., were having a hard time seeing the game through the chain-link fence WJBK-TV reported.
The parents installed the new bleachers themselves and even added a new scoreboard to the field, the station reported.
But after an investigation by government officials, which was prompted by an anonymous complaint, the school was told it had to remove the new seating because it was “no longer equal” to the adjacent girls’ softball bleachers, which have yet to get a makeover of their own.”
The clowns are running this circus.
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4. Dissent will not be tolerated by the intolerant left.
From BusinessInsider “Some employees at Mozilla, the non-profit organization behind the Firefox browser, are calling on new CEO Brendan Eich to resign.
Mozilla workers are upset with Eich because he supported Proposition 8 and donated to the politicians who backed it.”
“But some employees at Mozilla, such as design researcher Emily Goligoski, feel that Eich’s decision to back Prop 8 goes against Mozilla’s core values as a company.”
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Wandering Views 
My brother called last night to tell me he heard an ad on the radio promoting Common Core here in Georgia. That surprised him since the issue had already been covered in the legislative session which had already been decided upon and closed ouf for this year. I told him it was aboug the electionns coming up. Someone is pushing voters through the ad to favor Common Core and to vote those kinds into offices within state government.
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#3. Why are we so engaged in downgrading instead of upgrading? Everything must be taken down to the lowest common denominator.
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Global warming is back.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/global-warming-dials-our-risks-un-report-says
AP: “If the world doesn’t cut pollution of heat-trapping gases, the already noticeable harms of global warming could spiral ‘out of control,’ the head of a United Nations scientific panel warned Monday. And he’s not alone. The Obama White House says it is taking this new report as a call for action, with Secretary of State John Kerry saying ‘the costs of inaction are catastrophic.’ …”
🙄
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1. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. The gov’t tries to impose new tougher standards and they get criticized but if they allowed the standards to lapse they will be criticized probably by the same people.
I remember when a conservative gov’t in Ontario implemented a new tougher curriculum over a dozen years ago. Howls erupted from various groups — local prerogative was cited, leftist decried some of the content and political leanings, social conservatives criticized the health curriuculum, teachers unions declared it too tough, parents of all stripes were suspicious and worred. I took one look at it and approved of it …. a set grade by grade standards throughout the province giving the teachers very specific outcomes to achieve. After 10 years it was reviewed and changes were made but overall it was a success. A common core is a good idea and sure you can argue specific content but yearly or five year reviews will keep it up to date and work out the kinks.
3. Silly argument — why not share the fields? Use the better field for games and the other field for practices. To have a boys field and girls field seems a throw back to the days when we had separate entrances. (Or is softball and baseball to different to share a field)
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HRW, It’s too different. The infields are completely different sizes, and softball fences have to be much closer to home plate than in baseball.
The waste caused by Title IX is hilarious. The Texas Aggie girls basketball team get a redone locker room almost every year and each girl gets a TV in her locker. The boys basketball team doesn’t get nearly as much. However, there is no girls football team, so all the girls teams get the luxury treatment – all paid for by revenue generated by the (largely black) male slaves who play football and basketball.
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Talk about regressive taxes. There aren’t too many poor girls on college golf, swimming, tennis or soccer teams. Yet, their scholarships are paid for by slave labor.
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Why don’t the softball patents get off their duffs and do the same for thier field.
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This is an interesting article, from the Washington Post of all places.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/russia-is-remaking-itself-as-the-leader-of-the-anti-western-world/2014/03/30/8461f548-b681-11e3-8cc3-d4bf596577eb_story.html
Putin and the Russians see themselves as the defenders of traditional moral values fighting against Western homosexuals. They have a point. I note with interest Russia’s good work at the UN to form an anti-pervert coalition.
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