Framing the Dialogue

Posts Tagged ‘education’

Underlying Social Contract

“You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

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A Liberal Walks Into A Bar…

…And lowers it!

Lowering the bar gets A+ at city schools

Demonstrating the importance of a good education the City of Pittsburgh Public School Board decided that grades were so important that they would accept nothing less than a grade point average of 1.5 for any student wishing to participate in sports or other extracurricular activities (That’s D+ for those of you who grew up when I did).  We cannot have any football players ineligible because of low grades.  The “lowering the bar” part is because prior to this the bar was a full “C” or 2.0 grade point average.  That requirement must have decimated the ranks of the chess club and the forensics team.  Lest your heart (and mind) be too troubled by the lower standards any “students who are at a 1.5-1.99 GPA must take part in a probationary program aimed at getting them to a 2.0. If they haven’t achieved this in two semesters, they would be ineligible for activities including sports, band and club activities” unless there is a chance that a city football team can capture a state championship.  We wouldn’t want to deprive any kids of that honor.

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News Briefs – Volume XXVIII

News briefs are a collection of interesting news stories…

Brief 1: Call out the “gender pedagogues” as the heading of this post News “Briefs” may not be gender neutral. Actually the gender pedagogues were hired by the Edalia preschool in Stockholm Sweden “to help staff identify language and behavior that risk reinforcing stereotypes” so that boys are no longer boys and girls are no longer girls…they are all referred to as “friends.” How cute! And when visitors come they don’t refer to “him” or “her” they call them “he

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It’ll Help Seniors

There once was a story about a Gov. named Ed, poor Philadelphia man, mostly kept his state in red, then one day he was spendin’ out his a#%, and out from the ground game a hissin gas…Marcellus that is, natural gas, Pennsylvania cash…

If it helps that introduction sort of goes with the Beverly Hillbillies theme song [a show on TV Land for those of you under forty]. 

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C + P = PC

This is a rather simple equation that should be used whenever a group suggests that something won’t have an impact on consumers or expresses a desire to tax (or charge fees) for some industry or demonize profits from some large industry.

C = Cost to produce something

P = Profit needed by company to make it worth the risk to produce something

PC = Price to consumer

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School Daze

I am soooo glad that my youngest child will be a senior in high school next year and getting out of  the public school system.  We chose to live in a community primarily based on the quality of the school district even though the property taxes are rather high.  I wouldn’t characterize it as a conservative area as the population is probably 50/50 split Republican to Democrat, but most of us have traditional values.  I am glad about getting out of public schools as there is a sustained push from the left to “consolidate” school districts along county lines which would lump our suburban district in with other, low performing, high cost urban districts.  The folks who screwed up the inner city schools will finally be able to ruin the rest of the schools. 

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Everything But Money

Sam Levenson grew up in a time and place where money was in short supply and immigrant families had to struggle to survive. There were no welfare systems, no government handouts, and no free cell phones. Levenson and his family had to rely on each other, their family, and neighbors to survive. To use the book’s title they had Everything but Money.

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Parse-imony – Vouchers

In “Parse-imony” I break down current news stories with my pithy, running commentary…

First the headline:

Poll: Most Pennsylvanians oppose school vouchers

Nearly two-thirds of Pennsylvanians oppose creating a voucher system that would use tax dollars to pay private-school tuition, according to a public opinion poll released yesterday.  [Sounds bad for voucher proponents]

The poll, commissioned by a coalition of groups opposed to school vouchers [What are the chances that a poll commissioned by a "coalition" of groups opposed to vouchers will get these results?], was conducted by Terry Madonna Opinion Research. Madonna is a political science professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster County.

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If A Crook Falls In The Forest….

A famous philosophical puzzle asks the question whether a tree that falls in the forest makes any sound when there is no one around to hear it.  As an engineer by education and thought I really did not enjoy these types of “core” classes in college even though they gave me a “well rounded” education.  My philosophy class was perhaps the most tedious class ever and was dominated by seemingly endless discussions about what ifs and could be’s.  Our bearded professor certainly looked the part and in many ways I was happy that at least one person with a degree in philosophy was gainfully employed in his profession.

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