The Priestly Cycle of Universities: Why Do They Rise, Wokify, Fall and Rise Again?

Ed Dutton has been studying the histories of universities and notes how they are constantly changing. He sees them undergoing a life-cycle and identifies places like Stanford and Oxford as in an intellectually declining state

Along the way he notes the iron law that prestige not fixed. A university will be prestigious only as long as its teachers and students are high quality. Once a university's intellectual standards decline, so that university's prestige will decline.

One you start diluting student quality by letting in a "representstive" group of students rather than high merit students, you have set in train the destruction of that university's prestige. So the writing is on the wall for places like Stanford and Oxford. Degrees from there are still prestigious but will gradually become less so

I like Ed's claim that a high-achieving academic has to have both a top IQ and be socially non-conforming. That is a pretty good description of a high-functioning autistic and I note Prof. Simon Baron-Cohen's claim that the markers of high IQ and autism are essentially the same. So there is an academic type, as Ed says.

Ed likes to do a funny bit at the beginning of his videos but what follows is a serious exposition of his theory about the evolutionary stages a university undergoes



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Adams, Banks are refusing to fight for good NYC public schools on multiple fronts

Perhaps Michael Bloomberg’s greatest achievement as mayor was fostering the creation of more good public schools in the city, giving middle-class families more reason to stay and lower-income parents real hope for their kids. Mayor Bill de Blasio then went to war on those schools — and the Eric Adams administration keeps blinking on undoing the damage.

Part of Blas’ war was prolonged assault on charters. But another was an attack on selective middle and high schools in the name of “equity.” And the results are now in from one of the most controversial moves: the “Diversity Plan” imposed on Brooklyn’s District 15 in 2018.

City Hall spent big to muscle D15 into “voluntarily” shifting all middle-school admissions to a lottery managed by educrats, ending the screens that some schools used to ensure new students were prepared for demanding classwork.

The plan was announced from MS 51, the school Blas’ own children (and those of then-City Council Brad Lander, another big booster of the plan) had already graduated from.

Prior to the change, the school had been the fourth biggest feeder to specialized high schools in the city. Now it’s the 16th. And it’s not just the most gifted who are hurting: seventh-grade math proficiency scores have fallen from 81% to 48%, with huge declines across all the racial groups the city tracks — a level of learning loss worse than other schools saw amid the pandemic — as student concerns over safety skyrocket.

We only know this now because a group of outraged parents fought for the info under the Freedom of Information laws. But in the meantime, Team Blas fostered similar changes in Manhattan’s District 2, then exploited the pandemic to impose lotteries on selective schools across the city. And today merit-based admissions are back only at 30% of previous levels.

That’s likely a permanent change, because Chancellor David Banks left every district’s superintendent to decide on whether to allow the return of selective admissions, and many declined — including District 2’s Kelly McGuire, who simply ignored clear parent fervor to save school standards.

It’s easier not to stand for excellence against moves in the name of “equity” that in reality on deliver mediocrity — at best.

Citywide public-school enrollment is already plummeting, and this will only speed up the exodus.

One safety valve could be allowing greater growth of charters, alternate public schools that offer new opportunity, especially for striving low-income families in areas where the regular public schools don’t deliver. But Team Adams isn’t standing up for them, either.

We’re thinking, of course, of Banks’ recent decision, plainly in cooperation with the Mayor’s Office, to give up on long-laid plans to provide space for three new Success Academy primary schools. That’s a signal that all charters will find it near-impossible to grow, even though Blas is finally gone.

The ideologues and special interests like the United Federation of Teachers don’t care about what parents want or children need; they’d rather rule absolutely over a public-education system that’s dying — and a mayor and chancellor who surely know better won’t fight back.

It’s a tragedy in (not very) slow motion.

https://nypost.com/2023/01/29/adams-banks-are-refusing-to-fight-for-good-public-schools/

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War of words erupts between Opus Dei schools and Australia's ABC

Old-fashioned Biblical ideas -- like no sex before marriage -- are taught there. How disgraceful! No wonder the Leftist ABC is up in arms!

NSW’s powerful education authority is investigating Sydney schools linked to Opus Dei amid a war of words between the ultra-conservative Catholic group and the public broadcaster.

The ABC’s Four Corners is planning to air a program on Monday night titled Purity: An Education in Opus Dei, alleging “disturbing practices” by the controversial organisation in several schools and exploring its influence in the NSW Liberal Party.

Premier Dominic Perrottet attended Redfield College, one of the schools featured in the ABC expose, while Finance Minister Damien Tudehope also has links to the schools. Labor’s upper house MLC Greg Donnelly is described as an “Old Dad of Redfield”.

Redfield, Tangara School for Girls, Wollemi College and Montgrove College are operated by the Parents for Education Foundation (Pared). The schools are independent and not part of the Catholic diocese.

In a letter sent to parents this week co-signed by the principals of the four schools, the Pared Foundation claimed Monday’s episode “seems to be an attack on the Catholic faith” and an “attempt at damaging the political career” of Perrottet ahead of the March 25 state election.

That claim has been rejected by the ABC, which said the episode by reporter Louise Milligan “investigates serious allegations that are clearly in the public’s interest to be informed about, including opposing consent education, encouraging students to make decisions contrary to medical advice, harm to students as a result of their education, homophobia and recruitment of students under the guise of pastoral care”.

“There is nothing in the program that is an attack on the Catholic faith,” a spokesperson said.

“It is purely about Opus Dei and its affiliated educational institutions. The timing of the story is not connected to the NSW election and in fact it is being broadcast as far out from the election as it could be.”

The premier’s office declined to comment.

In the episode, Milligan - who has a long history covering the Catholic Church including issues surrounding Cardinal George Pell - reveals “in some cases the schools are not following state curriculum and are accused of persistent attempts to recruit teenagers to Opus Dei and have taught misinformation about sexual health, including discouraging girls from getting the human papillomavirus cervical cancer vaccine”.

A spokesperson for the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) told the Herald the agency was investigating the schools after allegations made by the ABC.

Pared confirmed NESA had contacted the group “to clarify how we address” concerns about the health and personal development curriculum.

The letter sent to parents from the principals lists multiple questions they claim were put to the schools by the ABC. It said the foundation would never discourage students from following medical advice but acknowledged it had changed how it addressed some issues, including the HPV vaccine.

“Prior to 2020, when the HPV vaccine was relatively new, and in response to many queries from concerned parents, Tangara issued some letters to parents with some reference material on the HPV vaccination program. Letters such as these were not sent after that period,” the letter said.

Redfield’s headmaster Matthew Aldous told the Herald: “Whenever specific concerns are brought to our attention they are dealt with immediately and professionally. It’s ludicrous to suggest that anything short of that would be done in this day and age.”

Opus Dei, a highly conservative and private Catholic prelature, was founded in the 1920s and given approval within the Catholic Church in 1950. Tangara and Redfield were founded by Pared in 1982 and each have school chaplains that are Opus Dei priests.

Dallas McInerney, the chief executive officer of Catholic Schools NSW, said the four schools investigated by the ABC are “good local schools”.

“Any targeted media attention by the ABC risks collateral damage for the children who are current students and who are returning to school. They shouldn’t be caught up in a wider agenda by the ABC,” McInerney, a senior Liberal in the party’s right-wing faction, said.

“They are not insular schools. These are good schools, doing good work on behalf of their students and families.”

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/war-of-words-erupts-between-opus-dei-schools-and-the-abc-20230127-p5cfvs.html

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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