Collective Bargaining and Student Performance

ganked from Edudemic.com

Right now, only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on SAT scores are as follows: (source)

• South Carolina – 49th
  
• North Carolina – 38th
  
• Georgia – 48th
  
• Texas – 45th
  
• Virginia – 34th   

This is just one reading of the data . . . many factors affect scores. I offer it as fuel for debate.

Michigan's Attorney General's office letting it's bigot flag fly

Nobody likes to hear negative press about his home state, and as a proud Michigander, this story may hit me harder than most, but I think anyone can see the injustice herein.  Here's the skinny on this surprising story breaking this week: Andrew Shirvell, the Assistant Attorney General for the state of Michigan, has taken it upon himself to slander -- in the most heinous language -- the Student Assembly President of the University of Michigan, Chris Armstrong.

Shirvell, a supposed "professional adult" has created a blog dedicated to ruining the reputation of a bright and accomplished student.  

In his shrivelled little screed of a blog, Shirvell calls 21 year-old Armstrong a RADICAL HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVIST, RACIST, ELITIST, & LIAR.  Ahh love.  Okay, the homosexual part seems to be true, he is in fact the first student president at UofM to be openly gay.  Armstrong won (a decisive victory) on a platform of reducing tuition hikes, expanding gender-neutral housing and keeping cafeterias open later to make drinking less dangerous.  Shirvell hates this dude.  Here is a video of the small-minded bigot's interview:

You've got to be carefully taught. UPDATE

THIS VIDEO WAS MADE PRIVATE BY ITS CREATORS.  That's cool.  Everybody has the right to privacy, I suppose.

No trauma, no irreversible damage, nothing more than a few questions for clarification, a relatively mild shift of world-view, and acceptance.  Those who claim that teaching children about same-sex couples is harmful should watch this candid moment and repent.  Rather, teaching children that some love is inherently despicable and to be shunned is the real abuse of the easily-molded young mind. 

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.


You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.


You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

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R&H, South Pacific

Are education and religion both only good in doses?

(click the pic for larger)
The similarities between education and faith are explored in this essay from the HuffingtonPost HERE from it:

"[L]iberal learning is, after all, supposed to make us aware of how little we know. That's what Socratic insight is all about: we need to learn because we understand so little. Education should lead to intellectual humility as we become more aware of our own ignorance. Conservatives also prize education, after all, but they do so because it should deliver the lesson of intellectual humility. Education should . . .

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free . . . (video)

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be"
--Thomas Jefferson

Heroes of PS 8 in Brooklyn!

If these tiny humans get it, why can't all the big ones?

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