I've been interested in the Hmong people ever since I read The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman.
Which is why I clicked on this article when I saw it... and was baffled. Why would someone attack a group of people who has been through so much just trying to survive? And how does this help make anyone a better lawyer? This just adds to my sentiment that lawyers need more courses in cross-cultural understanding and law... and that their professors need to take them, too.
Publish
"Anti-Hmong Comments Set Off a Law School." (Rosser, S. Inside Higher Ed. February 26, 2007.)
Monday, February 26, 2007
Friday, February 23, 2007
Coffee Break Spanish!
Check this out! This site also has some related blog entries about language podcasts. I do need to brush up my Spanish... how cool.
"The #3 Podcast on iTunes: Coffee Break Spanish and the Threat to Traditional Media." (Open Culture, www.oculture.com, posted 1/06/07.)
"The #3 Podcast on iTunes: Coffee Break Spanish and the Threat to Traditional Media." (Open Culture, www.oculture.com, posted 1/06/07.)
Our Mother Tongue
I find this article interesting, because it confirms some information passed along to me by a Lebanese student last semester. I interviewed Lebanese students who attended French and British schools, and one of the students told me that many of his friends applied for "Arabic exempt" status because their Arabic wasn't up to the level of writing and reading at the college level. And it's their native language.
This also gives a good sense of how diverse the Middle East, especially the upper classes are. They speak a mixture of French, English, Arabic, and other languages in the home, to the detriment of their native and cultural heritage language.
"Mother tongue loses in the race of languages." (Constantine, Z. and Al Lawati, A. gulfnews.com. Feb. 20, 2007.)
This also gives a good sense of how diverse the Middle East, especially the upper classes are. They speak a mixture of French, English, Arabic, and other languages in the home, to the detriment of their native and cultural heritage language.
"Mother tongue loses in the race of languages." (Constantine, Z. and Al Lawati, A. gulfnews.com. Feb. 20, 2007.)
Believing What You Read
In my transcultural education class on Wednesday, we had a wonderful Spanish professor speak to us about "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants." Are you "fluent" in new technology, or do you find yourself learning the language and not always getting the idioms? I think I'm both - I write out some things by hand, but I live much of my life online, as you can tell from my love of this blog!
One thing that came up was Wikipedia, and how students use it as the ultimate source for information. Wikipedia can be great for learning about issues that have not yet come up in more traditional journals or in books; however, there is an authenticity/subjectivity problem at times. I think Wikipedia does a pretty good job of self-monitoring; however, this professor dismissed it categorically, which I think demonstrates her "digital immigrant" status.
What I glean from the plethora of information available in the digital age is that all sources can be suspect, and all sources can be useful. Even a book has an author who writes from a certain viewpoint. Maybe the problem with Wikipedia is that we don't know exactly who is writing them, so we can't say what how/why the viewpoint might be skewed. Which is probably why, incidentally, that conservatives started Conservapedia (fyi, apparently conservatives are less native to the digital era than liberals, because this link appears to be down) ... if you come up with a conservative alternative, then the original must be horribly liberal, right? -Sigh-
I'm not really speaking in terms of liberal/conservative - I'm so tired of that. Rather, I'm interested in more minute details of a person's views - why they might be supporting a particular viewpoint. Do they have a son or daughter with a disability, and so they feel differently about those issues? Does their job or social class give them a particular perspective?
Which brings me back to the original impetus behind talking about this, which was a press release from the Department of Education touting the Secretary's visit to a school in Tampa. I read it, but it's so hard to gauge what's real and what's fluff. There's such a dearth of good educational research out there.
One thing that came up was Wikipedia, and how students use it as the ultimate source for information. Wikipedia can be great for learning about issues that have not yet come up in more traditional journals or in books; however, there is an authenticity/subjectivity problem at times. I think Wikipedia does a pretty good job of self-monitoring; however, this professor dismissed it categorically, which I think demonstrates her "digital immigrant" status.
What I glean from the plethora of information available in the digital age is that all sources can be suspect, and all sources can be useful. Even a book has an author who writes from a certain viewpoint. Maybe the problem with Wikipedia is that we don't know exactly who is writing them, so we can't say what how/why the viewpoint might be skewed. Which is probably why, incidentally, that conservatives started Conservapedia (fyi, apparently conservatives are less native to the digital era than liberals, because this link appears to be down) ... if you come up with a conservative alternative, then the original must be horribly liberal, right? -Sigh-
I'm not really speaking in terms of liberal/conservative - I'm so tired of that. Rather, I'm interested in more minute details of a person's views - why they might be supporting a particular viewpoint. Do they have a son or daughter with a disability, and so they feel differently about those issues? Does their job or social class give them a particular perspective?
Which brings me back to the original impetus behind talking about this, which was a press release from the Department of Education touting the Secretary's visit to a school in Tampa. I read it, but it's so hard to gauge what's real and what's fluff. There's such a dearth of good educational research out there.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Diane Ravitch and Unions
As many of you know, I have a great amount of respect for the scholarly work of Diane Ravitch. Here she is again proving not to be merely a tool of the neo-conservative reform movement by supporting teacher's unions. She makes great points about unions being a) protective of teachers' rights and b) the real problem being bad leadership and poor hiring/tenure decisions.
We would all do well to remember the historical conditions in which teacher unions came about, as Ravitch does. The gender inequities and a world in which a teacher is fired for marrying or becoming pregnant... through the grapevine, I've head of stories that are not too far off from that happening today. As for today in New York City in the current climate of accountability:
"Why Teacher Unions are Good for Teachers and the Public." (Ravitch, D. American Educator. Winter 2006-2007.)
We would all do well to remember the historical conditions in which teacher unions came about, as Ravitch does. The gender inequities and a world in which a teacher is fired for marrying or becoming pregnant... through the grapevine, I've head of stories that are not too far off from that happening today. As for today in New York City in the current climate of accountability:
Teachers found that they were in trouble if they did not teach exactly as the mayor and chancellor dictated, if they did not follow the scripted cookie-cutter format of mini-lessons, if their bulletin boards did not meet detailed specifications, or if their classroom furniture was not precisely as prescribed by regulation. In these past few years, I have often been confronted by teachers who asked what they could do when their supervisors and coaches insisted that they teach in ways they (the teachers) believed were wrong. I could only answer that they should be glad they belonged to a union with the power to protect them from “oppressive supervision,” to use the term that was familiar to the founders of Local 2 of the AFT.And again, I really don't want to be a teacher again. Cookie-cutter was never my teaching style. Standing and shouting out our new vocab words - now that's some fun.
"Why Teacher Unions are Good for Teachers and the Public." (Ravitch, D. American Educator. Winter 2006-2007.)
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
What, They Don't Already?
From "Dramatic Plan for Language Programs," Inside Higher Ed, Jan 2, 2007, a quote from Michael Geisler, a panel member who is dean of the language schools and study abroad and a professor of German at Middlebury College (yay Middlebury!).
They don't already? That's frightening.
I guess thinking back to my program at Middlebury, I did these things, but I'm not sure if they were required or not. I took translation, linguistics, and composition classes which dealt nicely with these issues.
The MLA report says that language programs should become more like area studies programs.... what will happen to language-resistant area studies programs?
Every graduate program should include a course in applied linguistics, he said, focusing on the latest advances in understanding of cognition, identity, bilingualism, and other topics.
They don't already? That's frightening.
I guess thinking back to my program at Middlebury, I did these things, but I'm not sure if they were required or not. I took translation, linguistics, and composition classes which dealt nicely with these issues.
The MLA report says that language programs should become more like area studies programs.... what will happen to language-resistant area studies programs?
Changes in Higher Ed Foreign Langauge
Some of these things are new-ish, and some of these things I was unaware of. Hard to keep up with everything - I think that's why I should bring the focus of this blog back to my original intent, foreign language education.
Item #1: The MLA is about to release a report calling for a shift in higher education language learning from literature to a cultural/economic/historical focus. I'll let you know when I get access to it, but there are a few articles at the bottom of this post that can help you figure out the gist.
Item #2: Drake University (in Des Moines, IA) did away with language programs in 2001 (funny that that same year, we became focused on them again, no?). However, they started a new program, which allows them to teach more languages using small groups, online forums, and graduate students leading discussion groups.
While many applaud the approach of moving away from literature, our precious PhD language professors are understandably nervous. With no need for PhDs to teach language, where does that leave those us (too) highly educated French, Spanish, and German speakers with PhDs? One critic, Rosemary G. Feal, the MLA’s executive director and a former Spanish professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, poses this question:
“The question is: What comes next? After the foundational experiences, colleges and universities need to offer the opportunity to delve into academic content — in history, economics, popular culture, film,” Feal said, questioning how much of this could be taught without professors. She added that “professors with advanced degrees in languages are uniquely qualified” to offer such instruction.
I agree that the higher level content should be taught by full professors. However, the sad truth is that many of our high school students enter college with little to no adequate language training. Even with four years of language training, it's unlikely they'll need the expertise offered by professors with advanced degrees. Generally, these professors don't revel in teaching lower levels of language - what I did as a middle school French teacher. That's why they're not teaching at the secondary level.
And thus begins a vicious cycle - students in college with no access to interesting, engaging foreign language classes, fewer college graduates fluent in a second language who can teach, and then fewer and fewer secondary students taught well by engaging and academically well-equipped foreign language teachers. And then they enter college where only literature is the focus.... no wonder there were only three French majors my year at Sewanee.
Why don't we start with the basics... and eventually we will have a need for expert professors in the languages, because there will be a demand for it. Maybe what we need now are professors dedicated to teaching lower levels of language, who are passionate about it, rather than being "the foremost Proust scholar in America." Because, really, what's more important? A guy who writes pages and pages of one sentence about a darn tea cake, or students who speak fluidly in a second or third language and talk about the news, politics, and yes, even pop culture, of the day?
Articles to flesh out you knowledge of these topics by checking out the following articles:
"Languages Without a Language Faculty." (Jaschik, S. Inside Higher Ed. Feb. 21, 2007.)
"Dramatic Plan for Language Programs." (Jaschik, S. Inside Higher Ed. Jan 2, 2007.)
"About Drake University Language Acquisition Program." (From www.drake.edu.)
"CIC Announces New Keck Foundation Grant for Transforming Language Instruction." (Press Release Feb. 9, 2007. Contact Laura Wilcox, (202) 466-7230.)
Item #1: The MLA is about to release a report calling for a shift in higher education language learning from literature to a cultural/economic/historical focus. I'll let you know when I get access to it, but there are a few articles at the bottom of this post that can help you figure out the gist.
Item #2: Drake University (in Des Moines, IA) did away with language programs in 2001 (funny that that same year, we became focused on them again, no?). However, they started a new program, which allows them to teach more languages using small groups, online forums, and graduate students leading discussion groups.
While many applaud the approach of moving away from literature, our precious PhD language professors are understandably nervous. With no need for PhDs to teach language, where does that leave those us (too) highly educated French, Spanish, and German speakers with PhDs? One critic, Rosemary G. Feal, the MLA’s executive director and a former Spanish professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, poses this question:
“The question is: What comes next? After the foundational experiences, colleges and universities need to offer the opportunity to delve into academic content — in history, economics, popular culture, film,” Feal said, questioning how much of this could be taught without professors. She added that “professors with advanced degrees in languages are uniquely qualified” to offer such instruction.
I agree that the higher level content should be taught by full professors. However, the sad truth is that many of our high school students enter college with little to no adequate language training. Even with four years of language training, it's unlikely they'll need the expertise offered by professors with advanced degrees. Generally, these professors don't revel in teaching lower levels of language - what I did as a middle school French teacher. That's why they're not teaching at the secondary level.
And thus begins a vicious cycle - students in college with no access to interesting, engaging foreign language classes, fewer college graduates fluent in a second language who can teach, and then fewer and fewer secondary students taught well by engaging and academically well-equipped foreign language teachers. And then they enter college where only literature is the focus.... no wonder there were only three French majors my year at Sewanee.
Why don't we start with the basics... and eventually we will have a need for expert professors in the languages, because there will be a demand for it. Maybe what we need now are professors dedicated to teaching lower levels of language, who are passionate about it, rather than being "the foremost Proust scholar in America." Because, really, what's more important? A guy who writes pages and pages of one sentence about a darn tea cake, or students who speak fluidly in a second or third language and talk about the news, politics, and yes, even pop culture, of the day?
Articles to flesh out you knowledge of these topics by checking out the following articles:
"Languages Without a Language Faculty." (Jaschik, S. Inside Higher Ed. Feb. 21, 2007.)
"Dramatic Plan for Language Programs." (Jaschik, S. Inside Higher Ed. Jan 2, 2007.)
"About Drake University Language Acquisition Program." (From www.drake.edu.)
"CIC Announces New Keck Foundation Grant for Transforming Language Instruction." (Press Release Feb. 9, 2007. Contact Laura Wilcox, (202) 466-7230.)
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Spare the Rod and Spoil the Teacher
Wow. Yikes. I'm all for merit pay if we can find a nuanced way to institute it. And I'm all for getting bad teachers out of the system. But remember a few posts ago when I said I was thinking of going back into teaching?
This article has convinced me otherwise, all in the course of a few short hours. A "bipartisan" commission on NCLB proposes that teachers who are "chronically ineffective" must be blocked from low-performing schools.
Sounds fair, right? We don't want bad teachers in our schools. The problem is, they want to tie the performance of teachers and principals once again to test scores. And although I agree that we need to find a solid way to measure teachers, this again does not seem right to me. What kind of school culture are we creating when the teachers very jobs rest on how well the student does on a test?
Some would say it creates a culture of accountability, which is what we generally have in corporate America. (Ahem. Ken Lay, anyone?). Teachers (especially those newbies) will work hard to figure out exactly what to do to help students score well on tests.
But then you throw in kids with learning disabilities (in higher numbers in low-performing schools). You throw in "English as a Second Language" learners, for whom the Department of Ed will make no concessions on tests. You throw in an unsupportive home life, where kids don't have a stable environment where they can rest, eat, study... or where they're working for $25 an hour as a pipefitter to support the family. This happens in New Jersey - B's mom is an English teacher and one of her students makes more than I ever have as a pipefitter.
And then you make the teacher responsible for all of this, and hire or fire her based on it. Wow. That does not sound like a profession I want to enter. And this is what tens of thousands of college graduates might be thinking right now.
"Tougher Standards Urged for Federal Education Law." (Schemo, D. The New York Times. Feb. 14th, 2007).
This article has convinced me otherwise, all in the course of a few short hours. A "bipartisan" commission on NCLB proposes that teachers who are "chronically ineffective" must be blocked from low-performing schools.
Sounds fair, right? We don't want bad teachers in our schools. The problem is, they want to tie the performance of teachers and principals once again to test scores. And although I agree that we need to find a solid way to measure teachers, this again does not seem right to me. What kind of school culture are we creating when the teachers very jobs rest on how well the student does on a test?
Some would say it creates a culture of accountability, which is what we generally have in corporate America. (Ahem. Ken Lay, anyone?). Teachers (especially those newbies) will work hard to figure out exactly what to do to help students score well on tests.
But then you throw in kids with learning disabilities (in higher numbers in low-performing schools). You throw in "English as a Second Language" learners, for whom the Department of Ed will make no concessions on tests. You throw in an unsupportive home life, where kids don't have a stable environment where they can rest, eat, study... or where they're working for $25 an hour as a pipefitter to support the family. This happens in New Jersey - B's mom is an English teacher and one of her students makes more than I ever have as a pipefitter.
And then you make the teacher responsible for all of this, and hire or fire her based on it. Wow. That does not sound like a profession I want to enter. And this is what tens of thousands of college graduates might be thinking right now.
"Tougher Standards Urged for Federal Education Law." (Schemo, D. The New York Times. Feb. 14th, 2007).
Benefits to Society?
This article demonstrates how far we have come from Horace Mann's common school as a place that prepared children for society, an endeavor we used to all feel we had a stake in. Not anymore, at least not out west. "What do I care if the kids can read?" the Scottsdale retiree says.
Well, if they can't read, and they can't find work, and you have a million-dollar house, then sir, they might just come rob you. It's in all of our interest to educate our children - as you and I grow old, they'll be finding cures for our Twinkie-Cheeto-and-Cell-Phone-Bluetooth induced diseases. Or they can rob us and steal our car and be on welfare (which you, I might point out, sir, also don't want to pay for).
Hmmm.
"A School District with Low Taxes and No Schools." (Steinhauer, J. The New York Times. Feb. 16th, 2007.)
Monday, February 19, 2007
Life School Balance
I'm working on an oral history project that involves interviewing my father about his life - I'm focusing on his schooling, at least for this part of the project, but it's funny how the important things in his life seem to have happened outside of school.
Which brings me back to the STAR Program in Florida that rewards teachers whose students score in the top 5% of the FCAT. Governor Christ wants to base the pay raises on other factors, such as principal reviews. Great. However, this article refers to Jones High School, in Orlando, that has been unable to bring their scores above "F" for the past five years. I don't know how much the school can do to bring up any one child's test scores, beyond hiring good teachers. School is not the only influential factor in a person's life; there's a whole world influencing their learning. And look at the income level of Jones students and Boone (a high school in a more affluent neighborhood) students... so the teachers may be doing good work, raising test scores, but their students have less stable home lives, or are working to support their families, and so they don't get a raise.
I believe in merit pay... but I think that we've got to find a nuanced, refined way of instituting it.
Which brings me back to the STAR Program in Florida that rewards teachers whose students score in the top 5% of the FCAT. Governor Christ wants to base the pay raises on other factors, such as principal reviews. Great. However, this article refers to Jones High School, in Orlando, that has been unable to bring their scores above "F" for the past five years. I don't know how much the school can do to bring up any one child's test scores, beyond hiring good teachers. School is not the only influential factor in a person's life; there's a whole world influencing their learning. And look at the income level of Jones students and Boone (a high school in a more affluent neighborhood) students... so the teachers may be doing good work, raising test scores, but their students have less stable home lives, or are working to support their families, and so they don't get a raise.
I believe in merit pay... but I think that we've got to find a nuanced, refined way of instituting it.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Florida and Merit Pay
The Florida legislature passed the STAR (Special Teachers are Rewarded) program last year, and it's based on teacher's improvements in FCAT scores, the standardized test in Florida. Great. However, FCAT leaves out a lot of teachers, namely, foreign language teachers.
Governor Crist is tweaking the program. I'll read more when I'm not working, but here are a few articles to get you started.
"Crist Likely to Tweak FCAT, Schools." (L. Postal. The Orlando Sentinel. Feb 2, 2007).
"Opinion: On Bonus Pay, Listen to Teachers." (St. Petersburg Times. Feb 12, 2007).
"Opinion: Good Salaries Retain Good Teachers." (K. Aronowitz. Miami Herald. Jan 27, 2007.)
Governor Crist is tweaking the program. I'll read more when I'm not working, but here are a few articles to get you started.
"Crist Likely to Tweak FCAT, Schools." (L. Postal. The Orlando Sentinel. Feb 2, 2007).
"Opinion: On Bonus Pay, Listen to Teachers." (St. Petersburg Times. Feb 12, 2007).
"Opinion: Good Salaries Retain Good Teachers." (K. Aronowitz. Miami Herald. Jan 27, 2007.)
Friday, February 9, 2007
I Can See You!
I have this site reader on my blog, and it's amazing what it can pick up. You can see all the people who have come to look at your blog. There's me, obviously, but then I can see when my dad visits, and also that people from Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Weifang in China have visited, as well as people from Copenhagen, Denmark, Boston, Massachusetts, and Fairfax, Virginia.
So hello! And welcome. Leave a comment sometime!
So hello! And welcome. Leave a comment sometime!
Hoover Institute Fellow Named Asst. Secretary of Ed
Quelle surprise. Bush named Bill Evers, Hoover Institute (a conservative think-tank) to be the new assistant secretary of education for planning, evaluation, and policy development. He's well-versed in the school accountability rhetoric.
I actually have favorable feelings to the Hoover Institute; they've published some interesting work on Florida schools that I feel has merit.
One interesting note... he served in Iraq in 2003 as a senior advisor to Paul Bremer, and wrote about Iraq's "Constitutional Crossroads" in the National Review on 8/15/07. Bang up job as an education advisor, it seems, given that the University of Bagdhad is so safe and all. Maybe he was focusing on K-12 (or the Iraqi equivalent).
I actually have favorable feelings to the Hoover Institute; they've published some interesting work on Florida schools that I feel has merit.
One interesting note... he served in Iraq in 2003 as a senior advisor to Paul Bremer, and wrote about Iraq's "Constitutional Crossroads" in the National Review on 8/15/07. Bang up job as an education advisor, it seems, given that the University of Bagdhad is so safe and all. Maybe he was focusing on K-12 (or the Iraqi equivalent).
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Fighting Monolingualism
This article in the Guardian reports that the British Academy is calling for students to speak a second language as a requirement for university entry. The article points out an important idea - if we don't have language-proficient students coming out of university (and that's awfully late for them to start learning a language), then we won't have elementary and secondary teachers to teach languages. And then the problem continues.
Lord Dearing (I guess that means he's in the house of Lords... not too clear/interested about British political organization) is working on a report about languages. You can read a copy of the report... or at least the preliminary findings.
I always question what policy makers mean by "speak a second language." Everyone can agree on the general idea of speaking second languages, but the devil always lies in the details. What level? Level 2? Level 5? Does "speak" include both written and oral/aural (speaking/listening) components? Who does the testing? What about heritage speakers of language who may have lower levels of literacy but are fluent speakers? Which curriculum should be used to help students reach the desired level of fluency? And what's that desired level of fluency again?
I'm also reminded of what people generally tell me when it comes up that I was a French teacher. "Oh, I took French in high school," they say. "Can't speak a word of it now." People don't generally tell you that they took math in high school and now can't add. What's amazing is that they're often proud of their second language illiteracy.
Lord Dearing (I guess that means he's in the house of Lords... not too clear/interested about British political organization) is working on a report about languages. You can read a copy of the report... or at least the preliminary findings.
I always question what policy makers mean by "speak a second language." Everyone can agree on the general idea of speaking second languages, but the devil always lies in the details. What level? Level 2? Level 5? Does "speak" include both written and oral/aural (speaking/listening) components? Who does the testing? What about heritage speakers of language who may have lower levels of literacy but are fluent speakers? Which curriculum should be used to help students reach the desired level of fluency? And what's that desired level of fluency again?
I'm also reminded of what people generally tell me when it comes up that I was a French teacher. "Oh, I took French in high school," they say. "Can't speak a word of it now." People don't generally tell you that they took math in high school and now can't add. What's amazing is that they're often proud of their second language illiteracy.
Playing the Name Game
I received an email from my dad that was interesting and that brought me back to a class about links between foundations, funding, and activist groups I took last year. Since he reads this blog regularly :), I figured writing about it here is just as good as responding to him by email!
Emails that accompanied the video link all testified to its veracity and objectivity. So I checked it out, and immediately noticed in the intro the name of an author and an institution. So before watching the rest of the video, I looked up the organization. It's called NumbersUSA and suggests that visitors "Use this website to fight the U.S. population threat to environment, farmland, community quality of life, schools, wage fairness, and freedom." The text is on a background of snow-covered mountains (and they're based in Virginia... hmm. However, many people with the organization are from Colorado. Guess that explains the mountains.)
NumbersUSA has been around, at least according to tax records, since 2002. Now there are two organizations, NumbersUSA Action and NumbersUSA Education and Research Foundation. It's probably for a tax purpose that they have two organizations. In any case, it looks as if they paid their director Roy Beck $105,050 last year. Nobody else who works there seems to have been paid, though. That doesn't really matter, I guess, but I did find it interesting. Now, where does that money come from?
The only contributing group I could find, through mediatransparency.org (full disclosure: generally seen as a left-leaning website) was the Sarah Scaife Foundation, a group funded by the Mellon industrial oil and banking fortune (primarily through stock holdings in Gulf oil). You can see the Media Transparency profile of the Sarah Scaife Foundation as well. Now, people are allowed to do what they will with their money, including influence legislation. And the more money you have, the more you can influence legislation. I don't always like it, but that's the way our oligarchic-capitalistic society works. And I am free to refute your research findings - it's the beauty of the First Amendment. I do think it is important to know where information comes from, though, before making an ultimate decision on it.
I do find it interesting that in their list of links, the site has a link and an essay called "No to Immigrant Bashing," and when you watch the video, the speaker emphasizes this point.
The video itself focuses on numbers - numbers of immigrants, numbers of "native" born Americans, and the growth in these populations over the next several years based on census data. Mr. Beck, author and director of the center, also does this demonstration with jawbreakers, each one representing one million people from the third world. Basically, he argues visually that even though a million people from the developing world could come to America to have a better life each year, billions more would still be in their own countries suffering.
I have no doubt that Mr. Beck used real census data to come up with his presentation. However, data and numbers have no meaning outside of the context in which they are presented. As I watched the video, I kept thinking, "What's happening to the world population during this same time period?" (roughly the next 100 years). If the world population is exploding, I have no doubt the U.S. will experience the same amount of pressure. At some point, we're all going to have to learn how to share our resources regardless.
Emails that accompanied the video link all testified to its veracity and objectivity. So I checked it out, and immediately noticed in the intro the name of an author and an institution. So before watching the rest of the video, I looked up the organization. It's called NumbersUSA and suggests that visitors "Use this website to fight the U.S. population threat to environment, farmland, community quality of life, schools, wage fairness, and freedom." The text is on a background of snow-covered mountains (and they're based in Virginia... hmm. However, many people with the organization are from Colorado. Guess that explains the mountains.)
NumbersUSA has been around, at least according to tax records, since 2002. Now there are two organizations, NumbersUSA Action and NumbersUSA Education and Research Foundation. It's probably for a tax purpose that they have two organizations. In any case, it looks as if they paid their director Roy Beck $105,050 last year. Nobody else who works there seems to have been paid, though. That doesn't really matter, I guess, but I did find it interesting. Now, where does that money come from?
The only contributing group I could find, through mediatransparency.org (full disclosure: generally seen as a left-leaning website) was the Sarah Scaife Foundation, a group funded by the Mellon industrial oil and banking fortune (primarily through stock holdings in Gulf oil). You can see the Media Transparency profile of the Sarah Scaife Foundation as well. Now, people are allowed to do what they will with their money, including influence legislation. And the more money you have, the more you can influence legislation. I don't always like it, but that's the way our oligarchic-capitalistic society works. And I am free to refute your research findings - it's the beauty of the First Amendment. I do think it is important to know where information comes from, though, before making an ultimate decision on it.
I do find it interesting that in their list of links, the site has a link and an essay called "No to Immigrant Bashing," and when you watch the video, the speaker emphasizes this point.
The video itself focuses on numbers - numbers of immigrants, numbers of "native" born Americans, and the growth in these populations over the next several years based on census data. Mr. Beck, author and director of the center, also does this demonstration with jawbreakers, each one representing one million people from the third world. Basically, he argues visually that even though a million people from the developing world could come to America to have a better life each year, billions more would still be in their own countries suffering.
I have no doubt that Mr. Beck used real census data to come up with his presentation. However, data and numbers have no meaning outside of the context in which they are presented. As I watched the video, I kept thinking, "What's happening to the world population during this same time period?" (roughly the next 100 years). If the world population is exploding, I have no doubt the U.S. will experience the same amount of pressure. At some point, we're all going to have to learn how to share our resources regardless.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Update on the Internship thing
Happy Superbowl. I'd be watching it, but I can't see through the foggy camera lenses.
I was wrong about the reasons why internships during the school year aren't allowed for our majors. Apparently, it has to do with the faculty members - since a faculty member must be the one to supervise the internship, many departments no longer allow their teachers to do it. Supervising internships takes away from the academic subjects the students need to learn during the school year. Since so many departments stopped allowing it, to not disadvantage the other majors, it became a school-wide policy.
That's the story. But try explaining it to the one guy who wants the internship during the year, because Merrill Lynch won't pay him to do cold calling but they still want free labor. It appears clear to me who the real culprit is here.
I was wrong about the reasons why internships during the school year aren't allowed for our majors. Apparently, it has to do with the faculty members - since a faculty member must be the one to supervise the internship, many departments no longer allow their teachers to do it. Supervising internships takes away from the academic subjects the students need to learn during the school year. Since so many departments stopped allowing it, to not disadvantage the other majors, it became a school-wide policy.
That's the story. But try explaining it to the one guy who wants the internship during the year, because Merrill Lynch won't pay him to do cold calling but they still want free labor. It appears clear to me who the real culprit is here.
Friday, February 2, 2007
Bureaucracy and Democracy
The problem with bureaucracy is that people create it to avoid work. Because of that, bureaucracy works for most people, most of the time, but not every person is always going to be happy, get what they want... in fact, I think there is a large chunk of people who get underserved by bureaucracy.
The word bureaucracy comes from the French "bureau" (desk/office), and the Greek "-cracy" meaning rule. Since I don't know Greek, or anything about Greece, I'll stick to the French. "Bureau" means desk. One of the quotations in the Oxford English Dictionary uses "office tyranny" to describe bureaucracy. And that's exactly what it is. It's a bunch of little people in little offices with little rules, and something about the whole process makes all people petty.
Why do bureaucracies develop? Basically, there are so many people and problems to treat, and only so many hours in the day. So a bureaucracy begins to form. It begins with a few forms that people have to fill out, and a few policies to make things run more smoothly. The problem arises when you have several bureaucratic organizations with several different, sometimes conflicting, sets of policies and paperwork.
Case in point - where I work, we only allow our majors to do internships in the summertime. I'm not actually sure why that policy developed, but I'm sure it arose out of experience. Students may have been doing internships during the school year, and it impacted their schoolwork. So they tried to drop classes after the drop/add date but appealed so they wouldn't receive a penalty in their grade. This, of course, is not an excuse to drop a course after a drop/add date (normally the only thing that counts is a death in the immediate family, extreme illness, etc). Yet if the school allows their majors to do such a thing... you see where this gets us. It's not difficult, once you get to know students and how they operate, how these policies develop.
Let's take a conflicting policy, however. A student is offered an internship at a high-power financial firm, like Morgan Stanley or Barclay's. For liability reasons, the company can not employ the student without compensation. Compensation can include pay, which costs the company money, or it can include college credit, for which the student pays and costs the company nothing.
You see where the conflict begins to develop. The student cannot do the internship unless he receives credit, yet for various policy reasons (often developed because previous students abused privilege), he cannot get credit. So he calls the front desk of the advising office (i.e. me) to complain, asks for the dean, calls the career center, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The next step (which I'm waiting for now) is for him to have his parents call us.
Bureaucracy. It's not democracy, that's for sure.
The word bureaucracy comes from the French "bureau" (desk/office), and the Greek "-cracy" meaning rule. Since I don't know Greek, or anything about Greece, I'll stick to the French. "Bureau" means desk. One of the quotations in the Oxford English Dictionary uses "office tyranny" to describe bureaucracy. And that's exactly what it is. It's a bunch of little people in little offices with little rules, and something about the whole process makes all people petty.
Why do bureaucracies develop? Basically, there are so many people and problems to treat, and only so many hours in the day. So a bureaucracy begins to form. It begins with a few forms that people have to fill out, and a few policies to make things run more smoothly. The problem arises when you have several bureaucratic organizations with several different, sometimes conflicting, sets of policies and paperwork.
Case in point - where I work, we only allow our majors to do internships in the summertime. I'm not actually sure why that policy developed, but I'm sure it arose out of experience. Students may have been doing internships during the school year, and it impacted their schoolwork. So they tried to drop classes after the drop/add date but appealed so they wouldn't receive a penalty in their grade. This, of course, is not an excuse to drop a course after a drop/add date (normally the only thing that counts is a death in the immediate family, extreme illness, etc). Yet if the school allows their majors to do such a thing... you see where this gets us. It's not difficult, once you get to know students and how they operate, how these policies develop.
Let's take a conflicting policy, however. A student is offered an internship at a high-power financial firm, like Morgan Stanley or Barclay's. For liability reasons, the company can not employ the student without compensation. Compensation can include pay, which costs the company money, or it can include college credit, for which the student pays and costs the company nothing.
You see where the conflict begins to develop. The student cannot do the internship unless he receives credit, yet for various policy reasons (often developed because previous students abused privilege), he cannot get credit. So he calls the front desk of the advising office (i.e. me) to complain, asks for the dean, calls the career center, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The next step (which I'm waiting for now) is for him to have his parents call us.
Bureaucracy. It's not democracy, that's for sure.
NCLB
I received an email this morning that a hearing for the No Child Left Behind reauthorization will take place in the Senate on Thursday, Feb. 8 in 216 Hart Building at 10am. It came from my department listserv... and I thought, wow, you guys are actually interested in something taking place inside the Beltway?
I'm catty. Oh well.
In case you wanted to attend or listen online/on CSPAN, there you go!
I'm catty. Oh well.
In case you wanted to attend or listen online/on CSPAN, there you go!
Thursday, February 1, 2007
No Chinese
Wow. I have to say that today has been just plain awful. And not even any snow to make class tonight go away.
In any case, the Palo Alto school board has rejected a Chinese plan for two classrooms, mostly because it's "undemocratic" and wouldn't be offered to everyone. That most of these programs start small and grow seems beyond them. Plus, couldn't they do a lottery of everyone who is interested? It seems that's a nice compromise between democracy and starting the new program. Or, don't do the program at all. Ok, I see how that's... better?
"Palo Alto Board Rejects Classes in Mandarin." (McKinley, J. The New York Times. Feb. 1, 2007.)
In any case, the Palo Alto school board has rejected a Chinese plan for two classrooms, mostly because it's "undemocratic" and wouldn't be offered to everyone. That most of these programs start small and grow seems beyond them. Plus, couldn't they do a lottery of everyone who is interested? It seems that's a nice compromise between democracy and starting the new program. Or, don't do the program at all. Ok, I see how that's... better?
"Palo Alto Board Rejects Classes in Mandarin." (McKinley, J. The New York Times. Feb. 1, 2007.)
Barbaric Yawp
Actually, it's more like a barbaric yawn. You know, a really loud one.
So I've recently realized that I often feature opinion articles in the guise of news, and make no distinction between them and news stories. It seems that news and opinion bleed together these days anyway, but I'll try now to do a better job of distinguishing them for you.
Today in the Washington Post, conservative columnist George Will wrote about school choice at Sumner Elementary School, the historical landmark famous for rejecting Linda Brown in 1950 from enrolling, thus leading to the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. Will compares the rejection of Linda Brown by Sumner then to the school board's rejection now of a charter school that wishes to use the now closed school facility.
While the comparison is obviously one designed to provoke, Will does make an interesting point that liberal activists such as the ACLU are often behind opposition to charter schools. I think the liberal view stems from two ideological points: 1) public schools which serve all should be the principle recipients of state/federal funding for education, rather than a loosely-supervised network of sectarian, non-sectarian, and other schools; and 2) the funding that might go to sectarian schools would violate the separation of church and state that while it is not in the Constitution per se, is protected as many see by the First Amendment clause that the state shall establish no religion.
What the liberal activists don't acknowledge is that minority groups underserved by the public school systems in many areas have a strong desire to have more school choice. The system as it is established now makes it so the only people who benefit from the best public schools schools are those who can afford the property taxes to live in those districts, and the upper echelon don't even bother with the public schools, regardless of the high property tax they pay. They send their kids to private schools where they can mingle with others like themselves.
My issue with charter schools and school choice at the moment is that small schools don't allow for diverse subjects to be taught, because the schools just don't have the resources. So which subjects suffer? Art, music, and foreign language. Plus the evidence is inconclusive that small schools work better; this article from Business Week about a Gates Foundation funded school outside of Denver provides an interesting case study.
That's my thought for this morning. Back to being the fall guy for professors who don't want to let students into their classes, and to being told I can't go to the bathroom by my professor. What a life. I can't wait to have a real job.
"A Tide for School Choice." (Will, G. The Washington Post. Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007. Page A15.)
So I've recently realized that I often feature opinion articles in the guise of news, and make no distinction between them and news stories. It seems that news and opinion bleed together these days anyway, but I'll try now to do a better job of distinguishing them for you.
Today in the Washington Post, conservative columnist George Will wrote about school choice at Sumner Elementary School, the historical landmark famous for rejecting Linda Brown in 1950 from enrolling, thus leading to the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. Will compares the rejection of Linda Brown by Sumner then to the school board's rejection now of a charter school that wishes to use the now closed school facility.
While the comparison is obviously one designed to provoke, Will does make an interesting point that liberal activists such as the ACLU are often behind opposition to charter schools. I think the liberal view stems from two ideological points: 1) public schools which serve all should be the principle recipients of state/federal funding for education, rather than a loosely-supervised network of sectarian, non-sectarian, and other schools; and 2) the funding that might go to sectarian schools would violate the separation of church and state that while it is not in the Constitution per se, is protected as many see by the First Amendment clause that the state shall establish no religion.
What the liberal activists don't acknowledge is that minority groups underserved by the public school systems in many areas have a strong desire to have more school choice. The system as it is established now makes it so the only people who benefit from the best public schools schools are those who can afford the property taxes to live in those districts, and the upper echelon don't even bother with the public schools, regardless of the high property tax they pay. They send their kids to private schools where they can mingle with others like themselves.
My issue with charter schools and school choice at the moment is that small schools don't allow for diverse subjects to be taught, because the schools just don't have the resources. So which subjects suffer? Art, music, and foreign language. Plus the evidence is inconclusive that small schools work better; this article from Business Week about a Gates Foundation funded school outside of Denver provides an interesting case study.
That's my thought for this morning. Back to being the fall guy for professors who don't want to let students into their classes, and to being told I can't go to the bathroom by my professor. What a life. I can't wait to have a real job.
"A Tide for School Choice." (Will, G. The Washington Post. Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007. Page A15.)
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