Moderation, not censorship...

In light of the violence in response to the Pope's recent speech, Betsy addresses the question of whether we should practice self-censorship when we suspect our words will lead to violence.

This is something I've been thinking about also. The purest in me says "speak your mind." But when your words can cost innocent lives, it's well to consider them carefully. I advocate self-moderation over self-censorship. We have a moral duty to the truth, and to speak it clearly, but we need also be aware that words have consequences, and that the highest wisdom may be found in temperance.

I remember living in Los Angeles during the riots set off by the Rodney King verdict. Then-Mayor Tom Bradley went on the air and made statements to the effect that the violent reaction was "understandable." I always thought this an outrageous and irresponsible act. His job was to restore order, but his public comments served to justify and fuel the rioting. The wisdom of his opinion aside, the city would have been better served if he had expressed himself in a different way and, in that situation, at a different time.

The pope's case is different, of course. This is not a conflict that will soon be resolved, and the pope's message is vitally relevant to that resolution. Accordingly, I cannot endorse that he should have held his voice. However, the violent reaction to his speech was somewhat predictable, which suggests that he should have sought a more restrained tone--not out of respect for the Islamic radicals, but out of mercy for those they would murder.

Show us how much you care...

Dick Morris has an article on The Hill disputing many of the claims Bill Clinton made in his recent interview with Chris Wallace. In it, he does something that has always been a pet peeve of mine:

Why didn’t the CIA and FBI realize the extent of bin Laden’s involvement in terrorism? Because Clinton never took the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center sufficiently seriously. He never visited the site...

I won't dispute Morris' assertion that Clinton didn't take the attack seriously enough. Morris worked for Clinton, so he was in a position to know, and he does go on to offer several significant observations to support his conclusion.

My problem is with this "he never visited the site" bit. Journalists often slip this in as a way to prove that some official didn't care or didn't take something seriously. It's a cheap tactic that doesn't prove anything.

It's not like Clinton could have actually done anything at the site, or gathered information that wasn't already available to him. The truth is, visiting the site is a primarily a symbolic gesture, a photo op, an expedient way to say, See look! I really do care!

I guess Morris' reasoning is that Clinton didn't even care enough to make a big show about how much he cared. Who needs that?

This happens all the time. When Bush flew over the areas damaged by Katrina, he was widely criticized because he didn't land. No one explained why that would have been better, but apparently, if your feet don't touch the ground, it doesn't count as caring. Bush cheated.

Which brings me to Hollywood, and a related pet peeve. I hate it when, on a show like Commander in Chief or West Wing, in reaction to some tragedy that killed a dozen Americans, the first words out of the president's mouth are, "What were their names?" Then the advisers look on in dumbfounded silence, prompting the president to exclaim "These were people dammit! They had names!"

Barf. Bad writing, at it's best. Or worst. Or something.

Don't get me wrong. I get it. They want to show how much the president cares--really cares--about these lost souls. I just think they could find a less cliched, less predictable way to get the point across. I don't have any suggestions, but I bet one of those writer guys they hire could come up with something. If not, maybe one of those actor people could find a way to get the point across.

I wish politics didn't have to be so much like Hollywood.

Educational malpractice in the guise of diversity...

On September 16th, Velasco Elementary School, in Freeport, Texas, held a celebration of Mexican Independence Day.

The schools 635 students--pre-kindergarten through fourth grade--were assembled in the school gym, issued small Mexican flags, and instructed to stand while they listened to a recitation of the Mexican Pledge of Allegiance. The school's bilingual classes also performed songs.

What on earth is going on here? Last time I checked, Texas was still in America. And further, last time I checked, our schools were failing miserably. Why are we taking valuable learning time away from our kids in order to honor a holiday of another country?

The school's principle, Sam Williams, said he was "taken aback" when he learned that parents were offended by the ceremony. Taken aback.

This man's job should be "taken aback."

In hindsight, he said, the program should have been presented differently.

No. In hindsight, the program shouldn't have been presented at all. The fact that Williams doesn't see this suggests that the only reason he'd do it differently is because he got called on it.

“We have stated in our mission statement that we are a campus that is a beacon of hope for a culturally diverse population,” Williams said.

And there's the problem, right there. When educators start talking about cultural diversity, it's a sure thing that "social justice", not academics, will be the priority. The school's mission statement goes on to state that "diversity is recognized as a strength." Two mentions of diversity in a short four-sentence mission statement. It's not hard to see what the real agenda is here.

We are constantly hearing that the early grades are the "formative years"--that kids who fall behind in English and math by grade three have little or no chance of catching up later. Yet here we are wasting time on "cultural diversity" programs that are meaningless, at best. How meaningless?

“My students don’t even know the Mexican pledge,” Williams said. “In the minds of my little kids here at the elementary school ... they were simply holding a flag.”

If the only thing the kids take away from this exercise is that they were "simply holding a flag," then the entire thing was a waste of time and the assembly shouldn't have taken place to begin with.

But Principal Williams can't have it both ways. He can't defend the program as innocent because the only thing the kids take from it is "simply holding a flag," and at the same time insist that the program has value. The truth is, he hopes "the minds of my little kids" take away a lot more than "simply holding a flag." He hopes to mold these 4-to-9-year olds into Citizens of the World, who are sensitized and accepting of all ways of life. He hopes to deemphasize America and American values and embrace the warm fuzziness of multiculturalism.

School board spokesman Stuart Dornburg came to William's defense:

Velasco’s assembly was a cultural educational activity. The district values and respects diversity, he said.

“We study different cultures, that’s part of the educational process,” Dornburg said.

But having students stand and wave flags during the recitation of Mexico's Pledge of Allegiance isn't studying anything. It's a waste of time, at best, and destructive and disrespectful to our own values and culture, at worst.

There are nearly 200 countries in the world. I wonder if Principle Williams plans on taking time out to honor national holidays from all of them. At least that would ensure that America was in the mix somewhere.

(via Right Wing News)

The party of ideas...

I've been trying to sort through this whole military tribunal/Geneva Conventions thing. It's a complex issue, with a lot of subtle underpinnings. After spending hours reading and listening to arguments for both sides, I still don't feel I have a deep enough understanding to accurately summarize the positions of Senators McCain, Graham, and Warner, on the one hand, and President Bush, on the other--let alone form a responsible opinion.

One thing does stand out to me in all this, however: All the serious debate on this serious issue seems to be coming from the Right. Republicans have rolled up their sleeves and engaged each other in an effort to find the right path for the country. The Democrats main contribution to the debate has been something along the line of, "Ha, ha, ha! Look at the Republicans fighting!"

Not that the Republicans are entirely pure in their methods. Camp McCain, as always, seems to be basking in their contrariness. There is a presidential election just around the corner, after all. And my sense is that the President protests too much regarding the CIA interrogation program--to some extent holding national security hostage by stating that the CIA program is in limbo unless and until the issue is resolved.

But these quibbles aside, the Republicans are doing exactly what we elect officials to do: debating important issues, exploring them thoughtfully and thoroughly, and attempting to craft policies that sustain and protect America interests. Meanwhile, the Democrats are unengaged beyond any political traction they can get out of the issue.

It's time that Democrats get beyond their adolescence and grant to the cause of freedom a mature and responsible political party worthy of the American people in this time of crisis.

Why class size DOESN'T matter...

Over at California LiveWire, ms-teacher, makes the case for why small class sizes are so important in our schools. Her arguments are compelling: better rapport with students, more individualized instruction, quicker identification of students who need help, fewer problems with classroom management. As she points out, anyone with a modicum of common sense can see the benefits of reducing class sizes. It really does make a difference!

Except, it doesn't.

The thing that is so often overlooked in this discussion is that there is a shortage of good teachers. In fact, there is such a shortage of teachers of any quality that, for decades, districts across the country have been forced into hiring inexperienced, uncredentialed (so called "emergency credentialed") teachers just to fill out their staffs. Obviously, teacher quality suffers as a result of this; it's tough to be choosy when there isn't a lot to choose from.

To be clear, it's not that we don't have good teachers. There are plenty of them--just not enough to go around. And therein lies the rub.

Smaller classes translates to more classes, and that translates to more teachers--a lot more. Let's say our average class size is 30, and we'd like to reduce it to 20 (very close to the example ms-teacher gives). This one-third decrease in class size means we'd need to hire 50% more teachers--50%, when we're already scraping the bottom of the barrel just to get warm bodies in the classrooms.

Where are these teachers going to come from, and how much more will we need to relax our hiring standards so that we can still pretend they are "qualified?" Would you rather have your kid in a class of 30 with a good teacher, or a class of 20 with a poor one?

And while you're pondering that, let's look at some real world evidence. Class size reduction isn't a new idea. We've been trying it for decades with poor results. As Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom explain in their book No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning,

Over the past thirty years, the number of teachers employed in our public schools has increased by 48 percent more than the number of students they have to teach...

In fact, pupil-teacher ratios have continued to fall, dropping from 17.7 in 1992 to 15.1 by the 2000-2001 academic year.

What do they conclude?

Decades of research... have failed to establish that smaller classes have any measurable impact on student achievement. If this seems counterintuitive, it is not. If districts have to hire a great many teachers in order to reduce average class size, they are forced to be less selective in picking those teachers, with a decline in quality as a consequence. The key question, therefore, is teacher quality, not class size.

In California, where ms-teacher teaches, average class size was reduced from 29 to 19 between the 1995 and 1999 school years. The results were both predictable and disappointing, causing the California Department of Education to acknowledge that the program "may have increased underlying inequities in the state's education system. The Thernstroms explain:

This costly effort... may have done more harm than good to some categories of students... [Many of those hired] were inexperienced and underqualfied, and they tended to end up in schools serving low-income and non-Asian minority children.

The end result was a law suit, filed by the ACLU, specifically citing the "underprepared and inexperienced" teachers hired to bring about the class size reductions.

Class size reduction is one of those reforms that is easy to support. It just seems to make so much sense. But experience has taught us that these reforms yield poor results, while being very costly to implement (teacher salaries/benefits and classroom construction/maintenance are the top two items in a school system's budget). Once the scarcity of well-qualified teachers is taken into account, the equation changes, and it's easy to see why such reforms are ill-advised. Hopefully, we can put this down as a lesson well learned.