Twilight of the Idols

Why Are We Here? (In College, That Is)


An excellent editorial from the Indiana Daily Student basically poses this question. The editorial staff asks one of the same questions I've often asked here:

Has the very meaning of college become so focused on socialization, sporting events and parties that it has lost sight of its true purpose of higher learning? Have we sacrificed our right to a quality education for the sanctity of sport?

And, of course, you don't want to hear their answer:

Well … yes.

It seems like college has been redefined in the context of the basketball court rather than the lecture hall, and while we wholeheartedly support every athletic squad, we need to take issue with how much attention we devote to campus sports.

I do find it heartening to learn that I'm not the only person on campus who's here for an education, and not good seats at basketball games. Go read the rest of it - it's short and well worth your time.

A Positive View On Homeschooling In The NY Times


Of course, the person talking about how great homeschooling is says such in a letter to the editor, but that's something, right? The best part, you ask - she thinks organized sports are a waste of time, too!

Now, before you get mad at me in the comments, note that her letter comes in response to an article in last Wednesday's NYT that described the high-pressure world of young kids and traveling sports teams.

Personally, I'm no fan of organized sports, but I realize that they present a lot of good opportunities for kids, etc, etc, etc - you don't have to convince me that just because I didn't like them means that no one does. However, I will say that nine-year-old kids simply ought to have better things to do with their time than play on sports teams organized by parents who are more interested in their own vicarious glory than whether or not the kids are having fun.

Her letter: It has turned out to be a blessing that my children had no interest in organized sports. Skiing, sledding, hiking, biking and swimming have provided them ample opportunities to exercise and practice social skills — at times of our choosing.

The entire family has benefited from our relaxed schedule, and since we parents often participate (instead of simply chauffeuring and watching from the sidelines), it's helped us to stay fit and active as well.

While I'm happy for families who enjoy having their kids on teams, my suggestion to my children when they have their own families will be this: Consider keeping your children barely aware that organized sports even exist!

If they choose to home-school, the way I did, this won't be so difficult to do.

Music to my ears...

What If He'd Worn A Kilt?


From the New York Times:

Even now, no one is entirely sure why Kevin Dougherty, 15, showed up for school one day last month wearing a floral skirt and matching scarf tied jauntily around his neck. Pantyhose, eye shadow and lipstick completed the look.

When administrators at the high school sent him home for refusing to change clothes, he left, but also called the local newspapers and the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union. Now, nearly two weeks later, the town is still buzzing, though there is no consensus whether it was simply a defiant Halloween costume, as school officials and their lawyers maintain, or a constitutionally protected act of protest, as Kevin says.

I certainly believe that the only way the state can be neutral in its acceptance of people's lifestyles is by taking no stand - in this case, that either means letting people wear what they want or (better yet) just getting rid of public schools in the first place.

The Connecticut Civil Liberties Union told the school in a letter dated Nov. 3 that Kevin's "expressive conduct" was "squarely within the protection of the First Amendment." It also asked the school to "allow both girls and boys the option of wearing a dress to school."

Well, news flash for the CCLU: you're not going to win this one. Good fight, good night. In the unlikely event that they do, to those of you who think that cross-dressing is abhorrent: this is why I support full privatization. Then your kids can go to a private school where they can avoid all the stuff you want them to, and you won't even be wasting your tax money to subsidize the public schools you don't use. Bonus points for that, right?

Side note: I've never understood why Republicans/conservatives, who are allegedly for small government, individual (or at least states') rights, and so on argue just as vehemently against privatization as the left does.

Anyway: Don't forget that in the end no one cares anyway:

There is no indication that other high school students are either riveted by Kevin's act or sympathetic to it.

"This whole entire thing was done for attention," said Vince Ducibella, a sophomore, barely looking up from his homework.

But none of this answers the question I posed in the title - and it's something that I think would have been a better test of the policy - what if he had worn a kilt? It's a traditionally male garment, but let's face it: as cool as kilts are, they are basically skirts.

The Discussion After The Town Hall Meeting


To recap: On Wednesday, Nov. 11, there was an Affirmative Action Bake Sale here at IU. I attended both the bake sale and the Town Hall meeting which was called in response.

After the meeting wrapped up - which took quite some time - I walked over to speak with someone who had asked me a question during the meeting. I felt that I had given an incomplete answer due to time constraints, and I wanted to make myself more clear. He remained unconvinced.

Following this, a woman who had been at the bake sale came up to me and she (basically) wanted to yell at me some more. While trying to deal with her, this guy comes up and informs me that I am "ignorant" and that I have a "one track mind" and that I "need to watch talking like that or [I] might get hurt." Barring the typical school-bully stuff in middle school, never in my life have I been threatened with physical violence; on top of being a bit surprised, I was pretty ticked off. So I did what works best: I stopped slouching, so that I was actually 6'5" tall, and asked him if he was threatening me. He walked off, came back a couple minutes later; of all people, Yelling Girl chased him off, apologizing for him as she did. I guess she hates my guts, but doesn't want to see me get jumped - for that, I am grateful.

Anyway, after she left, I found myself talking with a couple people who were pro-AA but were willing to listen to what I had to say (one of them was mentioned in my first post as having been worried that he would have to physically defend me). As I spoke with them, several other people came up, and it pretty much turned into an open discussion about my thoughts on AA.

I fielded questions from everyone; while other people occasionally answered questions, I was the de facto focus because I was the odd man out as far as viewpoints went. (Although my girlfriend, Tina, did arrive pretty early on, and she helped back me up - thanks!) The discussion naturally started out with questions about my opinions on AA, why I thought it was a Very Bad Thing, etc. I provided the best answers I could, and because of the situation - a small group of people who were all open-minded enough to hear me out - things went very smoothly. (For instance, unlike earlier in the afternoon, no one was calling me a racist.)

Then, after making the point that the primary/secondary schools are the problem and that AA covers up that deficiency, one of the women asked me what I would do to fix the school system. (She didn't know what she was getting herself into, did she? Heh.) So I did what I could to make Hayek and von Mises proud, and I explained in detail why I thought full privatization is the only way to go.

Now, I didn't change any minds right off. However, everyone seemed pretty interested in what I had to say about it; the girl who had initially expressed her disgust with the public school system even requested links to a couple articles I had mentioned. And even if she doesn't ever agree with me completely - I realize that my views on school privatization are pretty radical - she's at least going to sit down and think about what I said. That's all I can ask out of anyone, really.

To say the least, out of all the day's events, I got the most pleasure out of the opportunity to explain libertarianism and free-market economies to a group of people.

So, what's left to talk about?

I have one question that's still nagging at me: IU doesn't have an undergraduate AA program, but I had more than one undergrad come up and assert that AA was how they got into IU... Why? Is it the self-esteem aspect? Did these students really think that they couldn't have gotten into IU on their own (even though there was no other way they could have)? Or did they think that institutional racism was so completely embedded in IU's fabric that only a (non-existent!) government policy could get them into IU?

Is there another reason I'm missing here? Or does someone have a better analysis of the situation? Suggestions are welcome.

Today Was A Busy Day!


Classes, meetings, and a discussion about Professor Rasmusen's weblog kept me pretty busy today - regularly scheduled blogging (including my post about the discussion after the town hall meeting) will resume this afternoon!

I've Got A New Job! Well, Sort Of


Good news of the day: I've been invited to blog with the crew at Hoosier Review!

Check out my inaugural post here, and Editor-in-Chief Zach Wendling's welcome here.

I'll continue to post here, of course - not only do both blogs have a different focus, but I'll be writing in completely different styles, to boot. So check out Hoosier Review for "rapid-fire punditish stuff" loosely focused on higher education and south-central Indiana issues, and keep coming back here for long-winded rants about all levels of education, the evils of government, and (I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but) Star Wars.

Geek Alert: Why The Star Wars Sequels Don't Measure Up


Okay, I haven't yet been a real geek on this blog. It's high time I started, so here's a post about - of all things - Star Wars. Paul has a post up in which he (tokenly) compares Joel Silver's sellout of the Matrix series to Lucas' sellout of the Star Wars franchise. I would assert that Lucas committed the larger error.

The Matrix sequels did not, in my opinion, measure up to the original. In fact, I think they're almost parodies of it - in the four years between the release of the original and the sequels, dozens of films came out using the same devices. The slick black leather, the cool shades, and so help me, the bullet-time special effects simply aren't new anymore. Since the sequels seemed to concentrate more on special effects that cool plotline, they suffered.

This isn't to say that the special effects weren't still cool - the epic car chase in Reloaded was worth the price of admission. What it does mean is that all the stuff that made the first movie so cool is now a cliche. What the Matrix did right was stay fairly true to its roots from a plot perspective. The scope of the plot expanded, sure - but the sequels retained the same small-band-of-good-guys (and a messiah) against the huge-band-of-bad-guys (and an anti-messiah) plot perspective that the first movie had.

So, what about Star Wars? No doubt, the original movies were cliches in the first place - they were the sci-fi embodiment of the classic good vs. evil fairy tale. Luke was the (Jedi) knight in shining armor who gallantly rode his horse/X-wing into battle against Evil. The thing is, this is a great story. We've all heard it before, sure - but Star Wars 4-6 did a great job of retelling it in a different light.

Why is it, then, that Star Wars 1-2 (and probably 3) just don't measure up? Because they not only change the story being told (that whole good vs. evil thing went right out the window), they also change the way in which the storytelling itself occurs.

Star Wars 4-6 were great movies because they told a HUGE story from a few small and insignificant (but interesting) characters' points of view. Luke was a nobdy in the first movie, remember? He was Red 5 - not Red Leader - when they went to blow up that first Death Star. He would have remained a nobody if it hadn't been for that "one in a million" shot. (Well, actually, I guess he would have been dead, but you see my point.) Han Solo was just some random smuggler who could fly pretty well; Leia was an insignificant diplomat.

These characters only mattered because of the roles that they ended up playing in the story, not because of who they were in the first place. You learned to care about them because of their individual, heroic actions. And through them, we see a world - no, an entire galaxy - changing. Impressive.

So, the Star Wars prequels are already suffering: by Lucas' definition, they will be telling us where these small, insignificant characters in 4-6 came from. Guess what: nobody cares about the origins of small, insignificant characters. If they're small and insignificant, then the story's going to be boring, and so Lucas makes an even bigger mistake: he pretends that these characters have always been important, and that every trivial event that happened in the past that led to their birth, etc, is Ridiculously Important.

That is to say, the Star Wars prequels are bad because they do precisely the opposite of episodes 4-6: they tell small, insignificant stories from larger-than-life, self-important characters' points of view. We wouldn't know that anything in these first three movies mattered at all if we hadn't already seen episodes 4-6.

Anakin raced a fast car? Who cares? The Trade Federation is blockading Naboo? Who cares? Some random people are tied to sticks, gonna get killed, and the entire Jedi Army (all what, 15 of them?) show up and get mowed down? Who cares? It's assumed that because you know what these characters will eventually do one day, you'll care about what they do now; the fact is, you don't.

So, to wrap up: Lucas screwed up because he took a great idea (epic space opera) and morphed it into a terrible idea (contrived, whiny, special-effectsravaganza), while Silver didn't screw up nearly as bad because he merely took a great idea (slick, stylized, post-modern action thriller) and beat it into the ground.

Okay, okay: Geek Mode is now off. Heh.

Binge Drinking And Diversity


To be honest, I have avoided commenting on the latest release from Henry Wechsler and the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study that showed that diversity lowers the rate of binge drinking. (The Indiana Daily Student article is here, and here's the website for the College Alcohol Study.) Why, you might ask?

Two reasons: First, other bloggers have written excellent posts about it already. And second, anyone with half an ounce of common sense should know the difference between correlative and causative relationships. Of course, since this study keeps popping up everywhere (and at the behest of my friend Paul), I'll write a bit here; if I might be forgiven, though, I'll mostly just sum up what others have said.

For my part, I want to point out that the definition of binge drinking used by Dr. Wechsler and the CAS: five drinks or more for men, and four drinks or more for women at any time in the past two weeks. (From the University of Virginia Cavalier Daily.) Keep that not-so-strict definition in mind as you peruse what follows...

As for the correlative/causative issue, Erin O'Connor says it far better than I could:

Correlation is not causation, but you wouldn't know it from this write-up. If the article accurately represents the study, there seems to be a major logical problem here with the interpretation of cause and effect, and that problem seems to be licensed by the researchers' evident desire to rationalize demographic social engineering on campus by depicting young white men as collectively incapable of making intelligent behavioral decisions and by suggesting that as such they are in need of the moral example of racial and sexual others who possess more discipline and self-restraint. If the racial roles in this study were reversed, people would be screaming racism. But since the racial profiling of the study conforms to the reverse racism built into the logic of diversity, it's able to present itself as both good science and good samaritanism.

A commenter from John's post at Discriminations says:

There is no way that anyone would a priori believe that there was a relationship between diversity and binge drinking. This is equivalent to studies done by so-called "creation scientists". They know what the answer is and they just look for data to prove it. If the data does not support their conclusions they simply ignore it. In other words they only publish results that are consistent with their biases.

Commenters on Joanne Jacobs' post note that:

"Five drinks in a row" may mean 5 shooters lined up, it may mean nursing 5 beers over 5 hours.

and

I wonder what the reaction would be to a study that showed that Blacks were less prone to drug abuse if they lived around Whites, Asians, and Latinos.

Perhaps after calling everyone a racist, a second study would be undertaken?

So, given the wealth of posts out there already, I don't have much to say - other than how patently ridiculous this study is.

How Valuable Is A Harvard Education?


Also from today's NY Times, here's an article about distribution of federal funds and how "richer" colleges receive a larger share of funds.

Similar discrepancies emerge across the nation, adhering to a somewhat counterintuitive underlying theme: The federal government typically gives the wealthiest private universities, which often serve the smallest percentage of low-income students, significantly more financial aid money than their struggling counterparts with much greater shares of poor students.

Brown, for example, got $169.23 for every student who merely applied for financial aid in order to run its low-interest Perkins loan program in the 2000-1 academic year. Dartmouth got $174.88; Stanford, $211.80. But most universities did not get nearly that much: the median for the nation's colleges was $14.38, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data on the more than 4,000 colleges and universities that receive some form of federal aid.

Nearly 200 colleges received less than $3 per applicant for financial aid. The University of Wisconsin at Madison got 21 cents.

Interesting. First, I don't think the history of the situation is that important. The article goes to great lengths to explain that a significant portion of this funding was set in stone decades ago, but chances are there were probably even fewer low-income students at these top-tier universities than there are now. Assuming that this is the case, then it means that the number of low-income students never had a bearing on how much federal financial aid a school received to distrbute among its students.

Also, take this into account:

At first glance, it may seem that some universities receive more money simply because they cost more to attend. But try telling that to Heather McDonnell, director of financial aid at Sarah Lawrence College, which costs just as much as its Ivy League competitors, yet in one category received only a sixth as much money as any of them.

My guess is that the government values a Harvard (Princeton, Yale, whatever) education more than one from a state school like UW-Madison or an expensive (but not elite) private school like Sarah Lawrence. This seems even more likely once it's noted that the government gives Stanford:

about 7 times as much money to help each one of them through college under one program, 28 times as much in another and almost 100 times as much in a third...

The article doesn't say what these programs are, but one could guess that they would be hard-science majors, maybe Arabic (or Farsi, Mandarin, Korean, etc) language majors. If that's the case, then I can't particularly argue with the way the government is handling the situation - the government needs more hard-science majors and more people able to speak languages spoken in the world's hot spots.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Think Before You Write


There was a letter about illegal immigration printed in today's New York Times:

Adding resources to border interception singles out certain kinds of immigrants (those coming from Mexico and as far south as Ecuador), causes them to take increasing risks in crossing through the desert...

Well, yeah. Just as police officers cause bank robbers to take increasing risks in robbing banks, so do border patrol officers cause those seeking to illegally cross our border to take increasing risks in doing so. Assuming that the goal is to stop people from crossing the border, this is one possible solution (although perhaps not the best).

I mean, would this guy advocate decreasing the number of police on beat so as to protect bank robbers from being shot while plying their trade?

AA Bake Sale: The Town Hall Meeting


In response to the AA Bake Sale, a black fraternity preempted the meeting they had originally planned (about black men's experiences on a predominantly white campus) in order to hold a town hall meeting in conjunction with other black student organizations (NAACP, Black Student Union, several fraternities, etc). Stephen Jerabek, the president of the Committee for Freedom and organizer of the bake sale had been invited; I decided to attend as well, figuring that he'd probably need all the help he could get. I was right.

I arrived just before 7:00, to a small crowd of about 30-40; by the time the meeting actually started a few minutes later, I'd guess that there were about 125 people in attendance. One of the moderators asked Stephen to sit up front, assuming (correctly) that many questions would be directed towards him. And after a few short introductions, the railroading began.

To say that Stephen got creamed would be a severe understatement; people were angry, and he was the obvious target. Unfortunately, I don't think Stephen was any better prepared for the town hall meeting than he had been for the sale itself. It wasn't that he handled himself poorly - I think anyone would get nervous in his position - but he was very unpersuasive and vague when he responded to statements. The crowd smelled the blood in the water.

To the ability that they could, the moderators kept the situation in control - the questions mostly came in an orderly manner, and (with the exception of one overly loquacious professor who attended) no one spoke more than what could have been deemed a fair amount. The moderators, as well as most of the leaders of the organizations represented, were open-minded and willing to give Stephen a chance to speak; unfortunately, the format of the discussion combined with the emotional level and Stephen's unpersuasive answers meant that he really didn't get much across, and he certainly didn't change anyone's mind.

The problems with the comments and questions themselves were numerous:

Commenters offered four (or five, I forget) different definitions of Affirmative Action; they can criticize Stehpen all they want (it is a free country), but they can't even agree on what it is they're supporting.

One commenter wanted to "call out" Stephen's supporters in the crowd (there were probably 6-7 of us at most), and wanted to know why we weren't up there backing him up. A moderator was kind enough to point out that he had asked Stephen to come up front, not anyone else.

Several (black of mixed gender) commenters claimed that "the real benefactors" from AA are white women, and that further, black men receive the fewest benefits from AA. I can't say I know whether or not this is the case, but there are issues with this assertion either way. I mean, if that's the case, then shouldn't these people be against AA in the first place? If black people are being kept down by the white establishment because of their race (as was repeatedly asserted, in so many words), then shouldn't blacks be against programs that benefit white women and offer few (if any) benefits to blacks (especially black men)?

The aforementioned, overly verbose professor used sports analogies to try and make his points. The first of these was related to IU men's basketball: he was trying to show that IU had only looked at white coaches to replace former head coach Bobby Knight, and that IU had overlooked a black assistant coach who had been with the team for quite some time. Sounds pretty cut and dried, right? Well, all except for the fact that the man they hired - Mike Davis - is black. And his point was what?

Not everything expressed was inaccurate or contradictory, however:

The same professor, much to his credit, made two points that can't be stressed enough: First, that he had spent his college career (in the 60s) in the streets demonstrating for equal rights and that he was very disappointed in many of the students he had in his classes today; they were lazy, didn't do work when they bothered to show up, and quite generally didn't seem to appreciate the opportunities they'd been given. (Note that this is not meant to imply that either he or I think all black people or students are lazy; I interpreted him to be expressing the same concerns John Ogbu did.) Second, he made the infinitely important point that just because someone's skin color is black doesn't mean that they automatically support causes like AA; his point of reference was the new president of IU, Adam Herbert, who is both black and a Republican (he served on Jeb Bush's re-election team while president of the University of Florida).

I tried to help Stephen as much as possible; I asked a couple leading questions and responded to a couple questions near the end, but there wasn't much anyone could have done by that point.

Wow, what a long post. I ended up staying for another two hours after the meeting talking with a small group that included both students and staff (all of whom save for my wonderful girlfriend Tina were pro-AA), and it was a very productive discussion on all sides. In fact, I would say that the small discussion after the meeting was probably the best thing to come out of all this - but in the interest of ending this post, I'll write about that (along with some other, more general thoughts on the subject) later.

OT: If Ignorance Is Bliss...


...then Barbara Streisand must be one of the happiest people in the world. She has a post on her blog titled "A Sad Day for Artistic Freedom" - you'd think the piece would be about the government supressing something, right? Well, you'd be wrong.

The post is about how CBS decided not to show the movie The Reagans; this was a decision made by a private company based on the fact that they were about to severely alienate their core audience. (Full disclosure: I haven't followed this very much, so I could be a bit off here - feel free to email me if I am.) My interpretation of the story (not Babs' post) is that the movie painted the Ronald & Nancy in a pretty bad light, and since CBS' biggest demographic happens to overlap with a lot of Reagan supporters, it only makes sense that they pulled it. So what did Streisand have to say?

I don't believe Democrats often, if ever, try to muscle the First Amendment like this. For example, in 1983, no one stopped NBC from airing Kennedy, a biopic that portrayed President Kennedy and other members of his family and administration as deeply flawed, even though the movie could have potentially been hurtful to Jackie Kennedy, who was still alive to see it, as well as to her children.

Hrm? Muscle the First Amendment? I won't deny that CBS has a right to make terribly ignorant business decisions, but come on - they didn't have to pull it, they chose to. CBS was not obligated to listen, nor should they have been, but I think they were pretty smart to do so.

If the Kennedy movie made her so mad that she felt obligated to do something, she should have gotten together all those Democrats who were upset about it and did what the Republicans just did to CBS. They were free to do so, which is one of the many benefits of living in the US. Simply because she chose not to express her views as given to her by the First Amendment does not mean that other people should be prevented from expressing theirs - referring, of course, to CBS' detractors, not CBS itself. It gets worse:

This is censorship, pure and simple. Well, maybe not all that pure. Censorship never is. Due to their experience with the restrictive English government, the framers of our constitution specifically included a ban on prior restraint in the First Amendment, which is an attempt to stop information from getting out there before the public has a chance to see it at all - exactly what is going on in this case.

I feel bad dignifying this with a response, but suffice to say that someone here has absolutely no understanding whatsoever of the definition of the term "prior restraint." Here's a hint: that person is not me. (I won't even go into the fact that the movie will be aired - just on Showtime instead of CBS.)

Of course, CBS as a company has the legal right to make decisions about what they do and do not air.

Oh, so it's not censorship? They have a right to choose what they air? Really? No, of course not:

However, these important decisions should be based on artistic integrity rather than an attempt to appease a small group of vocal dissidents. Indeed, today marks a sad day for artistic freedom - one of the most important elements of an open and democratic society.

...That's it, I've lost it. How the heck can someone like Barbara Streisand talk about artistic integrity? She doesn't write most (if any) of her own music, she can't sing (she bellows), she's a terrible actress, and further, she's washed up anyway. Even people who would disagree with me as to her artistic virtues would probably agree that she's well past her prime (which would have been sometime in the mid-1970s, I would say). Geesh.

That all notwithstanding, if the artists aren't willing to be at least as vocal as the "small group of vocal dissents," then CBS has no reason to listen to them. If there was a significant number of people writing CBS, clamoring to see this series even though it portrayed Reagan in a poor light, you can bet that it'd be on the air in a heartbeat. Here's the thing, though: nobody's doing that, so CBS pulled the show.

I don't mind people who criticize things - even if I disagree with them. What I do mind, however, is when people make ignorant, ill-informed critiques of subjects on which they lack even the most basic understanding. Grrr.

Indiana University's Affirmative Action Bake Sale


I certainly had no clue when I woke up that my day was going to be even half as interesting as it turned out being. Wow.

I clicked on over to Hoosier Review a bit before noon today, and found this post:

The Committee for Freedom will be holding an Affirmative Action Bakesale tomorrow, Wednesday, November 5th in Dunn Meadow from 12:30 pm until 2:00 pm. According to the press release, "Cookies will be sold at different prices based on race and gender. White males will pay $1 per cookie, white females will pay 75 cents, Hispanics will pay 50 cents, and cookies will cost 25 cents for blacks."

To think that I almost missed it! I got cleaned up, grabbed a bus, and hustled over to Dunn Meadow as fast as possible and arrived just before 12:30. Let's just say that it wasn't hard to find the bake sale - due to an article in the Indiana Daily Student there was a moderate crowd already gathered, and the shouting had already begun.

I could write for a good hour or two about all the craziness that ensued, but I think anyone familiar with the AA bake sale concept can safely envision what it was like. The pro-AA arguments varied somewhat, but all were typical; AA prevents racism, AA is to make up for what happened in history, etc. I responded as best as I could - it was often difficult to even get a word in, with several people yelling at me from different sides (and of course, all of them complaining that I wasn't listening to them). The best part was that I did meet several students who were open-minded and willing to listen to what I had to say (even if we did disagree).

These students even went so far as to defend my right to speak; speaking to one of them later, he even noted that he had been worried about having to defend me physically. At no point did I feel physically threatened - the discussions were loud and heated, but basically as civil as things like this can be - but I appreciate the sentiment, to say the least. These people were actually willing to tell some of the "screamers" to shut up and listen to my answers - or to stop asking questions! I think this, combined with the fact that IU didn't try to shut the sale down, speaks very highly of the University.

Bonus points: I was on TV! Well, sort of. I'm not actually interviewed, but that tall guy in the olive polo shirt (getting yelled at, natch) in the photo is me; if you watch the video, you can also see me condescendingly adjusting my glasses as I make a point. Heh.

At some point during the action, a town hall meeting was announced for 7:00 PM; it was sponsored by almost all of the major black-student organizations. I attended this meeting (as did Stephen and several other members of the Committee for Freedom), and I'll blog about it tomorrow.

Final thought for the day: At 2:00, things had calmed down a fair bit, and they closed up shop. In a humorous turn of events, Stephen turned and handed me the leftover cookies - I believe that he said they had sold three (all $1 cookies). Here's the thing: I heard the words "white privilege" more times than I could count. And they had this bake sale about how it's easier for minorities to get cookies, right? But in the end, the white guy who had almost all the cookies gave another white guy all of them, free of charge. Maybe white privilege does exist, after all. Heh.

Blogroll Update


I've added two new blogs to the list today:

First up is Josh Claybourn's blog. Josh went to the same high school I did and was a couple years behind me; in a cruel twist of fate, he managed to graduate from college on time and is now in law school while I've still got three semesters left to finish my undergrad. C'est la vie. He's an excellent writer, and just so happens to be the Editor-at-Large of my other addition, Hoosier Review.

Hoosier Review is a group-blog that offers a (mostly) conservative take on happenings here at IU. (Ivory Tower is the liberal side of Hoosier Review - it's also worth taking a look at, as it's well-written, but as I'm sure regular readers know that's not particularly my cup of tea.) While I realize that most of my readers aren't from Indiana, don't let that stop you from dropping by; many of the issues they discuss may deal with Bloomington and IU in particular, but they're familiar to cities and universities all over the country.

More On HOPE Scholoarships In Georgia


Cynthia Tucker can always be counted on to see things as they are, and her op-ed this week about HOPE Scholarships is certainly no exception. If you've missed the rest of the discussion on the scholoarships, here's the background:

Faced with soaring demand, Georgia officials predict that HOPE funds will start to run short by 2005. The state's Republican governor, Sonny Perdue, and others have recommended that HOPE eligibility be tied to SATs, rather than grades, which are affected by teachers' subjectivity (and inability to resist parental pressure). Perdue wants HOPE scholarships to be awarded to students who score at least 1000.

But that recommendation has run smack into the reality of the achievement gap. Sixty-seven percent of the state's black HOPE scholars score below 1000, while only 32 percent of white HOPE scholars do that poorly.

So Democrats -- black and white -- have lined up to resist any move to tie HOPE to SATs. Black lawmaker Vincent Fort dismissed the governor's proposal as "racist."

Where do these kids end up at? Berkeley?

Seriously, though, the real issue here is not about testing. It's not, repeat not racist to judge applicants for a scholarship based on their scholarship. The issues to be examined are: why do black students do significantly worse on the SAT than their white counterparts, and why do so many students do so poorly on the SAT at all? Tucker addresses both issues:

Overall, nearly 40 percent of Georgia's HOPE scholars score below 1000 on the SATs -- which is, as much as anything, a stunning indictment of the state's educational system. The perfect score is 1600; most of the nation's competitive colleges and universities require at least 1200. How can students have "B" averages and score less than 1000?

Georgia has an obligation to improve its pathetic school system, which has suffered from low expectations for generations. In rural school systems, few white students score above 1000 on the SATs, as Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor has noted. It would be quite unfair for the state of Georgia to suddenly change the rules for HOPE when it has not spent the money nor instituted the standards to teach students what they need to know.

But it is black parents who are responsible for insisting that their own children hit the books and take school seriously. Too many black children are dismissive of scholarship as "a white thing." That has to end. Surely it is more embarrassing to be considered dumb than to be considered "white."

I do disagree with her that it's "unfair" for Georgia to change the rules. If anything, I think the state would be doing kids a favor by doing so, in that they'd suddenly be expecting kids to do something other than show up and warm a seat. Nonetheless, she's spot-on with everything else and (as always) worth a read.

USA Today Reports On Campus Free Speech


USA Today's article about the speech code / free speech debate hits the nail squarely on the head.

I'm glad to see FIRE and NoIndoctrination getting the publicity they need, and I'm even gladder that a widely-read daily is reporting about the regular supression of free speech on campuses nationwide - campuses like Indiana University.

Hat tip: Erin O'Connor

Off Topic: I Hate Stupid People!


This letter was printed in the New York Times today, in response to the (suprisingly balanced) article the NYT ran a few days ago about the Free State Project:

To the Editor:

Re "Libertarians Pursue New Political Goal: State of Their Own" (front page, Oct. 27): Elizabeth McKinstry, a spokeswoman for the Free State Project, says, "Many times government gets in the way." In this, she echoes the political sentiments of many conservatives and Republicans in addition to libertarians.

To see through the verbal mask of this ideology and discover the real agenda behind it, I recommend that citizens substitute "the voters" for "government" in all the various libertarian, Republican and conservative pronouncements.

The chances are extraordinarily high that if you're reading this, you're a libertarian, conservative, or a Republican (or at the very least, you have a better grasp of their policies than this guy), and you can come up with vulgar epithets of your own in response.

Of course, this isn't to imply that I think he's 100% wrong; if we're talking about voters who hold the opinion that the government needs to worry and fuss over our every iddle need, then I do think that they get in the way (in the way of my freedom, in the way of your freedom, in the way of even their own freedom). The difference between he and I is that there's plenty of room for him in my Perfect World and no room for me in his.

Further Update: Crosses In The Classroom


Today's New York Times had an article with a bit more info about the cross in the classroom in Italy.

"The cross has always been there," said Anna Berardi, 56, as she stood outside the elementary school on Wednesday, marveling at the phalanx of television news trucks in the parking lot.

Ms. Berardi, who said that she seldom attends church, was referring to the cross as a visual motif throughout Italy, and she kept repeating herself.

"It's always been there," she said. "It's how we were taught. It's the way it's always been."

And we all know that just because something's always been a certain way, that's the way it should always be.

Update: Crosses In The Classroom


After looking for some time, I didn't find any particularly new and/or different information about the Italian judge who ordered a cross removed from a classroom. I did notice this at the end of the article, however:

For the time being, no crucifixes have been removed from the Ofena school. Local education board official Nino Santilli said he hadn't received an official order, and he had no plans to take down the crosses yet.

"It's more than 2,000 years that our people and our country have gravitated around the culture of Christianity and the crucifix," Santilli said. "And that goes for nonbelievers, too."

Not to be overly picky, but it's only been 1700 years at most. Constantine had his vision of the Chi-ro in 312 CE, and Constantine is typically considered to be the first Christian emperor. Further, it was a good century after Constantine before Christianity started to become more widely accepted and the debate shifted from pagans versus Christians to the Nicaean Orthodoxy versus Arianists versus Donatists versus... well, you get the idea.

Why should I care about a few-hundred-year discrepancy? Because I'm in a class about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, and it makes me feel good to know that I may actually be learning things - however obscure they may be.

Gotta Love Indiana!


Just when you think you've heard it all: the Steuben County Herald-Republican has a story about how the president of the Hamilton Community School Board was ticketed for ignoring a school bus' stop arm.

Presley, who said he was talking with his son when he drove by the bus at about 10 mph, could face a total of $234 in fines and court costs for the violation.

“I made a mistake,” Presley said. “I will pay the ticket.”

Heh.

Kenyan Anti-Testing Advocates


From Reuters:

Kenyan students set fire to their school, ransacked the kitchens and looted computers in a three-hour orgy of destruction after teachers banned video shows and discos, newspapers reported Monday.

Color me depressed. Someone needs to grab these kids by the shoulders, shake them really hard, and explain that unless they want to be trapped in a third-world hell for the rest of their lives, they're going to need an education. (Granted that an education doesn't guarantee anything, but there's no way they have a chance without one.)

Separation Of Church And State - In Italy


I just saw this AP Wire report on Yahoo's front page.

It looks like a Muslim father sued a school over a cross that hangs in his sons' classroom, and a judge in Italy has ruled that the school must remove the cross; this doesn't seem out of line to myself or most Americans. (You may or may not agree with the judge's ruling, of course, but the ruling should sound familiar either way.)

Judge Mario Montanaro ruled that the cross should be removed because "the presence of the crucifix in classrooms communicates an implicit adherence to values that, in reality, are not the shared heritage of all citizens."

Here's the catch, though:

The Italian Constitution says the state and the Catholic Church are each "independent and sovereign," and that "all religious faiths are equally free before the law." However, a 1923 law also says that schools must display the crucifix.

The Education Ministry argued that the 1923 law is still in effect, and it had no plans to apply the court ruling in Italian schools, news reports said.

This presents an interesting conundrum for someone such as myself who equally dislikes courts that make policy and state-sponsored religious displays. I would assume that almost any modern interpretation of the Italian Constitution (based on the two quotes above, anyway) would make the 1923 law unconstitutional, but I am completely unfamiliar with Italy's legal system.

"I consider this sentence deeply flawed," Augusto Barbera, editor of a journal on constitutional law, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper. "There are laws in effect on this issue. A judge cannot ignore them."

I'm not sure where I stand on this. Many of the big societal issues in the US (for instance, abortion) wouldn't be issues if they were left to the states (or at the very least, the federal legislature) to decide. I will say that I don't think having lifetime-tenured, non-elected officials making policy is a good way to run things.

However, the law seems pretty clearly in conflict with the Italian Constitution. Assuming that their legal system is similar to ours in the US (and I realize that's a pretty bold assumption), it should be reasonably within the judge's power to overturn the law. The problem with this theory is that the language of the article is quite ambiguous. It seems to imply that the judge ordered the removal of the cross from only the school in particular, not schools in general; this would imply to me that he ignored the 1923 law, rather than addressing its constitutionality. Further, did the judge order the removal of the cross from the classroom, which would seem to be allowed under the 1923 law, or did he actually order the removal of crosses from the entire school?

I'll try and dig up more information about this later tonight.

For Those Of You Looking To Obtain A "Dimlopa"...


I wouldn't normally announce that I got spam, but this is rather humorous (and has nothing to do with all those distant Nigerian relatives of mine).

Subject: I More bling bling paid to you piae

Body:

Dimlopa Program

Cerate a more proopersus ftuure for ylurseof

Rceeive a flul dipmola form non accredetid
universtiies bsaed upon yuor rael lfie enperiexce

You will not be tested, or itnerviewed
Reveice a Mtsaer's, or Docrotate

Call 24 huors a day 7 days a week

1 - 2 1 2 - 6 2 9 - * * * *

So, right, this sounds like the answer to the educrats' dreams. What we have here is a universtiy that offers flul dipmolas (dimlopas?) bsaed upon yuor rael lfie enperiexce. This isn't like normal universities where students are accepted based on SAT/ACT scores and GPA and receive their dipmolas based on classroom performance; we all know how ridiculously unfair that merit-based scholarship is to students. At this universtiy, you will not be tested, or itnerviewed, and you can reveice a Mtsaer's, or Docrotate - degree paths that are usually closed to people who can't spell words like "Master's" or "Doctorate."

Say, actually, since this is from a non accredetid school, that gives me an idea - just contact me if you want a diploma. BAs and BSs are $19.95; MAs and PhDs are $29.95. If you want your diploma (dimlopa? dipmola?) printed on fancy-style marbled paper, that will be $5 extra (Certificates of Congratulations included free with every order!). Just drop me a line and I'll have you on your way to More bling bling in only a few short days. Heh.

Too Quick To Judge?


Kimberly at N2P has a post about this Northwestern student who is suing because he claims his professor unfairly docked his grade from a B+ to an F.

After receiving a B-plus on the test, Rozenbaum went to the professor to dispute how he graded the exam. [ok, there's his first mistake. With a B+, what was there to complain about?] During the meeting, he took notes on the exam and the two got into an argument, according to the suit. [So, he's writing notes on his exam as Professor Sontheimer explains his grading scheme, then starts arguing with him.]

(Bold emphasis is on Kimberly's comments; regular italics are from the article.)

Why is it a mistake to question a B+? Sure, it's not a bad grade - but if you think something was graded wrong, then you have every right to question the professor. Just last week I met with my Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire professor and course assistant to discuss the B I received on my paper. (As it turns out, they wanted an "interpretive" paper, not the mostly-research paper I wrote. But since this wasn't made clear in class... *sighs*)

Do I think a B is a bad grade? No, of course not. But since I got docked points for "not hav[ing] a clear thesis" when I most certainly did, I felt somewhat obligated to go talk to someone about my grade. Thus, without knowing the specifics of Rozenbaum's test, I cannot judge whether or not he was wasting time by trying to appeal the grade (if in fact he was even trying to appeal the grade).

Now, back to the matter at hand, Rozenbaum is writing notes on the test; this is a fairly common practice in my experience. I can't offer anything but anecdotal evidence to back myself up here (indeed, most of my reaction to Kimberly's post is based on my own personal experience), but I think anyone would concede that it's reasonable to take notes on a test that you had a question about - although I would say that if you were attempting to appeal the grade, this would be a bad idea. (Reason #1 why I don't think Rozenbaum was trying to appeal the grade (assuming he's not an idiot).)

Sontheimer claimed the notes on the exam paper were Rozenbaum's attempt to change his answers and get a higher grade, the suit states. He responded by reducing Rozenbaum's grade to an F.

Say what? Rozenbaum was stupid enough to change his answers in front of the professor, and then flip the exam around and claim, "But I did write that on here! See?"? If so, that's just pathetic.

So after they get into an argument, Prof. Sontheimer claims that Rozenbaum was taking the notes on the test as an attempt to change his answers and get a higher grade... Are you kidding me? Maybe Rozenbaum is that stupid - I won't deny that this is a possibility. (But I doubt it; that's Reason #2 I don't think Rozenbaum was trying to change the grade.) I think that there's another plausible possibility here: the professor is a complete jerk.

I have met very few professors that I wouldn't trust to be professional, but there are a couple that I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw. And especially given all of the discussion about arrogant professors (admittedly, mostly based in the humanities) over at Critical Mass in the past couple weeks, I can easily imagine an irritable assistant prof throwing a temper tantrum because a student deigned to question his oh-so-infalliable grading.

I rarely (if ever, barring the present discussion) find myself disagreeing with Kimberly; it just bothers me that she would automatically assume that the professor is telling the truth. I just don't see any reason to believe that things happened the way the professor claimed (as opposed to the student's version). It's absolutely possible that there are aspects of the story I don't know that might back up the professor - but until I see evidence that points one way or the other, I'm certainly not going to take sides. I'm only backing up Rozenbaum in this post because I think that it's not unreasonable to claim that he might have gotten railroaded by a bad professor.

One, don't bitch and moan about a B+. Two, don't try to change answers on your exam after the fact, on the assumption that the prof will never remember what you wrote the first time.

I wholeheartedly agree with Kimberly's admonition that one should not try to change answers on an exam after the fact; cheating irritates me. However, I must respectfully dissent and say that if you have a B+ and think you deserved better, go talk to the professor about it. That's what the professor is there for. You pay their salary with your tuition and/or tax money, and they are quite obligated to make time for you out of their day - even if it is over something minor like questioning a B+ on a test. My advice? Buy a digital voice recorder and stick it in your pocket before you go in if you're worried; then you're covered if the professor tries to accuse you of something you didn't do.

Update (10/22/03, 6:40 PM): Kimberly has a follow-up post about this. She dug up Northwestern's code of conduct and found out that Sontheimer couldn't have lowered Rozenbaum's grade without going through a system of due process, which does lessen the chance that Rozenbaum is getting the short end of the stick. I may not be able to rule out the idea that Sontheimer is a jerk - but it's a pretty safe bet to rule out an Uber-Evil Conspiracy of Academia whose sole purpose is to accuse Rozenbaum of cheating, heh.

Further, I realized that all of my post about contesting a B+ may have been a bit misdirected. If you think you deserved a higher grade, by all means contest the B+... But it's extraordinarily stupid to cheat to try and raise a B+ to an A. (I loved the comparison of Rozenbaum to Blair Hornstine!)

Like Going Duck Hunting Without An Accordion


Kimberly already noted that the policy described in this article is a "zero-tolerance idiocy." What disturbed me most, however, was this:

"It's like teaching a math class without a calculator," said Scott Sabotta, the course instructor.

...sigh. Teaching math with a calculator (until at least trig) isn't teaching math at all, it's Calculator Usage 101.

Fun, Not Freaky


Just when you thought that there was nothing but bad news coming from our schools, the Lawrence Journal-World (out of Lawrence, KS) comes out of nowhere with an extremely humorous little story.

Free State High School Administrators say problems with the way students dance at such events as homecoming and prom have prompted them to take some drastic measures.

Now if a student is caught dancing in a "provocative" way, they will be warned and then possibly kicked out of the dance.

Student council members have found a way to inform more students through a video (below) of their mascot showing what is and what is not appropriate.

Go there now and watch the video. Heh.

Why Basic Economics Should Be Required In Schools


This NY Times article is simply beautiful.

Putting educators on notice, one of the Republican lawmakers overseeing higher education legislation in the House introduced a bill yesterday that would withhold federal money from colleges that raised tuition much faster than inflation, a category that could include hundreds of universities.

So, let's go on the not-so-bold assumption that colleges need money, or else they wouldn't raise tuition. (We will ignore for now the fact that many schools are more interested in building jacuzzis than educating students.) If the schools need money, and raise tuition, then this guy is proposing that the federal government should take money away from the schools... meaning that they have to raise tuition even higher in order to compensate.

Now, in all reality, that's okay with me - I'd just as soon see more schools out from under the government's yoke - but I can't help but think that this legislator is a moron.

Most important, the colleges argue, the legislation would ultimately hurt the very students it is intended to help. Although Mr. McKeon's bill would not withhold federal Pell grants and Stafford loans, two primary sources of assistance to low-income students, several other programs would be withdrawn. In particular, campuses could be cut off from federal money that helped pay student workers, provided scholarships and furnished low-interest loans to those in need of financial aid.

Indeed.

Speaking Of Unions...


NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein says it best:

"Schools will never work because they're governed by a 250-page contract and a 10,000-page book of regulations," the chancellor said in a speech before the Citizens' Committee for Children of New York.

Instead, he said, schools will work when their cultures shift away from what he described as micromanagement and microregulation.

"The outcomes that we see are dictated by risk-reward ratios that would not work in any other sector and will not work if they are perpetuated in ours," Mr. Klein said.

The best is from the Dean of the School of Education at City College, though:

"Teachers want to be treated as professionals; they have to behave like professionals," he said.

Professionals (engineers, doctors, lawyers) are held accountable for their performance, which is measured through any number of means throughout the year. If teachers want to be treated like professionals (instead of cogs in a machine, like assembly line workers), then they're going to have to accept things like merit-based pay. Then the teachers who can perform will get the best jobs and the most money; the ones who can't will be lucky to keep their jobs (and here's to hoping that they don't). That works for me.

Note: the above post should not be implied to detract from people who work on assembly lines. Jobs like that are painfully repetitive, boring, and sometimes dangerous. The difference for my purposes is that assembly line work is something that requires no higher education, and therefore workers can be trained with greater ease.

Not Exactly A Record To Be Proud Of...


From the LA Times: Marysville, WA teachers have set a record for the longest-ever teachers' strike in Washington state.

Last week, the teachers union began running 30-second television ads targeting the Marysville School Board. The ads, running on local cable channels, ask residents to call board members and urge them to negotiate a fair contract. Money for the ads came from donations.

The two sides, which have met more than 20 times since contract talks began in June, remain apart on salary issues. Veteran teachers in the community are among the highest-paid in the state, averaging $54,000 a year. The union says Marysville salaries must remain competitive to keep its teachers from moving.

So, which is it? Is the current contract unfair - the ads claim that a "fair contract" needs to be negotiated - or is the current contract simply not lucrative enough, which is what the union necessarily means by saying that the already-high salaries "must remain competitive?" Unless one is to assume that only high-paying contracts are "fair," then the union is obviously contradicting itself. (And while I readily recognize that most unions actually do consider only high-paying contracts to be fair, I think that's positively ridiculous, and similar to the argument that "only tests on which all students do well are fair.")

All the 11-year-old [Francesca Rubatino] knows is that she's tired of doing nothing. She misses her friends, and she doesn't like getting scolded by her parents for doing things like ordering hip-hop jewelry from the Internet.

"There's nothing else to do," she complains.

Her mother, Michele Rubatino, is tired of getting up every morning and thinking of things to keep her daughter, an only child, busy.

Why don't her parents tell her not to use their credit cards and/or checkbook? For that matter, why don't they just refuse the packages and cancel the charges? And more importantly, why is her mom angrier about the lack of childcare than the fact that her child isn't learning anything?

The answer to the last question is simple: many schools aren't anything but childcare anyway. Kids who are ahead of the game (for whatever reason) are bored and kids who are behind (for whatever reason) stay that way. I suppose if they changed the name from the Department of Education to the Department of Daycare it wouldn't make things any better, but at least there'd be some truth in the advertising.

The context for the following quote: A judge may rule that teachers have to return to work, and some teachers are saying they'll ignore the order. Note, however, that the typical abbreviation for "association" is "assn." and is used as such later in the article.

"It's an option. It's always an option," says Elaine Hanson, a high school math teacher and president of the teachers union, the Marysville Education Ass. "When the time comes, the teachers will decide whether we follow the court order or continue on."

Someone's Freudian slip is showing, heh.