Monday, October 09, 2006

When All Else Fails, Claim Racism

It is no secret that the campus environment has been reformed into an institution for political inculcation. At some point, many professors exchanged a solid liberal arts and classical education for the petty advancement of political objectives. That's why it is no surprise that recent studies found that student both have a lacking understanding of civics and history as well as businesses finding most graduates wholly unsuited for professional work. This can be seen in how many undergraduates attempt to engage the issues of the day, particularly those of left-wing persuasion. As an example, a fellow Daily Illini columnist wrote a recent column on the Federal Election Integrity Act which required photo identification for prospective voters.

No one can intelligently debate the need to positively identify voters before allowing them to cast ballots. It's just common sense. So what does this columnist, and many like-minded commentators do, claim racism. Racism used to be an invidious crime against people of color, now it is little more than a club to shut down intelligent discussion and beat opposing points of view into oblivion. The bill would require identification for free for voters, however, that doesn't matter or get mentioned. In order to gain employment, one has to have valid ID. According to recent unemployment statistics, about 96% of the US population has valid ID. That doesn't matter. This columnist, like many undergrads, is trained to claim racism despite any and all facts to the contrary.

The problem with this line of education is that it makes effective participation in the legislative process impossible. If the general public cannot come to the table with effective ideas or effective ways to debate and discuss those ideas, they are incapable of participating in the process at all. In this way, our universities have failed our democratic republic.

The other problem with claiming racism with frivolous abandon is that it drowns out legitimate claims of racism. Most of the public isn't stupid and realizes that requiring identification isn't a matter of race; it's a matter of common sense. Trying to claim racism where it does not exist diminishes the efficacy of any legitimate charge of racism. It harms people of color in a fundamental way and plays directly into the hands of the Ku Klux Klan.

The dangers of a politically charged yet intellectually deficient education are a clear problem to our ability to remain a free nation. A people who cannot have at least some measure of reasonable discussion about the issues of the day will eventually find themselves at the mercy of the "elites" who tell them what to think.

Source





WASTEFUL CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITIES

State Senator Tom McClintock met recently with CalNews.com to discuss this year's legislative session, his campaign for Lt. Governor and California's future. Sitting down to converse with McClintock, one quickly finds out that he's not the extremist that John Garamendi and the far-left would have you believe. McClintock is about straight talk and common sense. During our hour-long interview with him, McClintock described the role of the Lt. Governor and how he would use the office to raise the public's awareness on important policy issues. He would bring increased accountability to the office, and continue to fight wasteful government spending.

One responsibility of the Lt. Governor is to serve as an ex officio member of the University of California Regents and as a trustee at the California State University system. According to McClintock this is one area that needs more accountability and more sunshine. "For many years, I have warned about the rapid growth in the cost of those two University systems - far, far in excess of inflation or enrollment growth. And the recent revelations of millions of dollars of perks and bonuses paid to already highly paid university officials - nearly a billion dollars a year at the University of California according to the San Francisco Chronicle - is painting a very clear picture of corrupt management and incompetent oversight," he said. "The leadership of our universities themselves must avoid becoming the focal point of wasteful spending," the senator said.

McClintock said he was "concerned that recent published accounts of outrageous abuses don't tell the full story." "The State Auditor should not be the only watchdog in California," McClintock said. "That is a responsibility of the Regents and Trustees." We agree. McClintock suggested that a Web site offering students, parents and university workers the ability to send an anonymous email might be the mechanism that could bring greater scrutiny to the UC and CSU systems. "Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said that sunlight is the best of disinfectants," McClintock said. "The purpose of a Web site with anonymous email is to make it a little easier for sunlight to shine into the use of public resources at the University of California and the California State University."

McClintock was making plans to unveil his own Web site or ask the Bureau of State Audits to enhance its' Web site. CalNews.com has offered to make this a joint project with the senator. "I'm very grateful to CalNews.com to act as a reception point for these stories and to host a continuing report of these abuses on its Web site." "If students, parents and rank and file employees and faculty had a mechanism to anonymously and efficiently tell their stories, I believe we would get a comprehensive picture of what's going on behind the veil of secrecy in which the university operates. Such information would then provide some guidance for both the Legislature and the press to investigate and confirm or deny these stories," McClintock said.

The university systems have whistleblower policies and procedures in place that address rank and file employees, but there is not a clear mechanism for people to report wasteful spending by the presidents, chancellors and even the regents and trustees, except through the state's auditor. And, earlier this year, newspapers reported that whistleblowers were not receiving protection for revealing fraudulent activities or wasteful spending. McClintock said it might help if it were done anonymously.

The Los Angeles Times reported on July 21, 2006 that the UC Board of Regents approved the creation and hiring of three high-ranking jobs to supervise finances in an effort to tighten controls over executive benefits and restore public confidence. Two of the new jobs will be executive vice president positions, one for business operations and one as chief financial officer. The third will be a vice president who will act as chief compliance and audit officer, reporting directly to the regents. Salaries for the new positions were not set. "Hiring more high paid people to sit and watch inside the hen house is not the answer. That's the responsibility of the Regents and Trustees. And, people need a mechanism to report cases of abuse. Whistleblowers can file complaints by calling the Bureau of State Audits or reporting it to people inside the university systems. But what about those actually charged with guarding the hen house?"

During his 25-year public career, McClintock has been a voice of reason and frankness that is often ignored or forgotten in Sacramento. He is quite vocal about reducing the tax burden on hardworking Californians, reducing the regulations that destroy the state's economy, or reining in the bureaucracies that waste taxpayer money. The fact McClintock is now calling for increased scrutiny of higher education systems like UC and CSU isn't all that surprising. What is surprising, is that so few of his colleagues have joined him.

Source






Students left behind: Politics-obsessed unions must not control curricula

An editorial from "The Australian"

Speaking at a conference of the History Teachers' Association of Australia in Fremantle yesterday, federal Education Minister Julie Bishop asked a vital question. "How is it", she wondered, "that we have gone from teaching Latin in Year 12 to teaching remedial English in first-year university?"

It is a vital question, and one that more and more parents, fed up with their children's inability to write a grammatically coherent sentence with correct spelling or perform basic mathematics, want answered. The reasons behind the decline in educational quality are manifold. A shift in emphasis away from traditional knowledge and skills-based learning towards the jargon-based and accountability-free ethic of outcomes-based education is largely responsible. Traditionally, federal governments of all complexions have sought to keep school retention rates up as a way to lower unemployment, dumbing down curriculums in the process. The results have not been pretty. Ms Bishop pointed to "English courses without books, history courses without dates and music courses without instruments", echoing a campaign mounted by The Australian to expose the depredations of outcomes-based education and politically correct curriculums in our schools.

The solution, according to Ms Bishop, is to take control of primary and high school curriculums away, not from the states - whose Labor governments have long since abdicated any real responsibility for what is taught in classrooms - but from the teachers' unions and other associated bodies. These groups appear to see their primary goal not as one of educating young people but of creating generations of left-wing social activists in their own image. Recall the lament of NSW English Teachers Association president Wayne Sawyer, who complained last year that teachers were not doing enough to prevent their students from growing up to vote Liberal. A national curriculum would be a big step, and would act as a circuit-breaker against such attitudes.

Ms Bishop's comments must also be seen in the context of Labor backbencher Craig Emerson's call for school to remain compulsory until Year 12 to prevent young people from being lured into a booming economy before their time. While well-intentioned, keeping all young people in school until they are almost 19 is impractical and unfair - both to those who wish to leave early and those who wish to stay. The Australian economy is straining under the demands of the Chinese-led resources boom. In an era when the economy is hurting for lack of workers, far better to follow a European approach where students are able to pursue technical degrees in their teenage years. In Germany, it is a matter of pride to have graduated from a technical college; that same ethic needs to be promoted here.

Properly educating children is one of the most important things a nation can do to ensure its continued survival and success. The crisis in education is thus an existential one for Australia, and one that requires national solutions. The excesses of teachers' unions must be curbed, by the federal government if need be, to allow rank-and-file teachers to do their jobs properly.

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


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