“Key Take-Aways
Programs that offer alternative methods to complete high school provide a pathway for students to achieve their dreams.
A larger proportion of students in institutional education need to catch up on credits. Students often need more access to timely special education evaluations and supports.”
Sometimes you come across a book with such an intriguing title that you just have to dive into it. That was the case when I saw a reference to Paper Belt on Fire by Michael Gibson. The book’s subtitle sealed the deal: How Renegade Investors Sparked a Revolt Against the University. Too iconoclastic to pass up!
The author, I learned, is a college graduate (New York University) who had embarked on a Ph.D. in philosophy at Oxford when he decided that the academic life wasn’t really what he wanted. Why? Because, he came to understand, it wouldn’t allow him free rein for deep and original thinking.
So he bailed out on the doctorate and, after doing nothing at all for a while, found himself working for Silicon Valley legend Peter Thiel. He was hired as an investment analyst but was soon on the Thiel Fellowshipteam, evaluating young people for the $100,000 grants that Thiel was making available to innovation-minded Americans who would get the money in lieu of enrolling in college.
College degrees have become a new form of the indulgences the Church used to sell the faithful.
That assignment was ideal for Gibson, who had already concluded that college degrees had become a new form of the indulgences the Church used to sell to the faithful who wanted salvation. Just like the Church, today’s universities are flush with money, looking obsessively to amass even more. They sell prestige degrees at a high price, but most of the graduates have forgotten everything they have learned by the time they get into the workforce, usually doing jobs that have nothing to do with what they studied.
It’s a huge waste of time and talent.
“Key Take-Aways
Programs that offer alternative methods to complete high school provide a pathway for students to achieve their dreams.
A larger proportion of students in institutional education need to catch up on credits. Students often need more access to timely special education evaluations and supports.”
Sometimes you come across a book with such an intriguing title that you just have to dive into it. That was the case when I saw a reference to Paper Belt on Fire by Michael Gibson. The book’s subtitle sealed the deal: How Renegade Investors Sparked a Revolt Against the University. Too iconoclastic to pass up!
The author, I learned, is a college graduate (New York University) who had embarked on a Ph.D. in philosophy at Oxford when he decided that the academic life wasn’t really what he wanted. Why? Because, he came to understand, it wouldn’t allow him free rein for deep and original thinking.
So he bailed out on the doctorate and, after doing nothing at all for a while, found himself working for Silicon Valley legend Peter Thiel. He was hired as an investment analyst but was soon on the Thiel Fellowshipteam, evaluating young people for the $100,000 grants that Thiel was making available to innovation-minded Americans who would get the money in lieu of enrolling in college.
College degrees have become a new form of the indulgences the Church used to sell the faithful.
That assignment was ideal for Gibson, who had already concluded that college degrees had become a new form of the indulgences the Church used to sell to the faithful who wanted salvation. Just like the Church, today’s universities are flush with money, looking obsessively to amass even more. They sell prestige degrees at a high price, but most of the graduates have forgotten everything they have learned by the time they get into the workforce, usually doing jobs that have nothing to do with what they studied.
It’s a huge waste of time and talent.
Increasingly, medical schools and schools of public health are enthusiastically embracing the values of DEI and instituting far-reaching policies to demonstrate their commitments to the cause. To many in the universities and perhaps in the country at large, these values sound benign—merely an invitation to treat everyone fairly. In practice, however, DEI policies often promote a narrow set of ideological views that elevate race and gender to matters of supreme importance.
That ideology is exemplified by a research methodology called “public health critical race praxis” (PHCRP)—designed, as the name suggests, to apply critical race theory to the field of public health—which asserts that “the ubiquity of racism, not its absence, characterizes society’s normal state.” In practice, PHCRP involves embracing sweeping claims about the primacy of racialization, guided by statements like “socially constructed racial categories are the bases for ordering society.”
These race-first imperatives have now come to influence the research priorities of major institutions. Perhaps no better case study exists than that of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), an institution devoted exclusively to the medical sciences, and one of the top recipients of federal grants from the National Institutes of Health. Last May, UCSF took the unprecedented step of creating a separate Task Force on Equity and Anti-Racism in Research, which proceeded to make dozens of recommendations.
That task force builds on layers of prior DEI bureaucratic expansion, spanning nearly a decade. This programming includes the “UCSF Anti-Racism Initiative,” started after the summer of 2020, which established dozens of new institutional policies throughout the university, such as “evaluating contributions to diversity statements in faculty advancement portfolios.” The School of Medicine, meanwhile, has published its own Timeline of DEI and Anti-Racism Efforts, which documents such steps as adding a “social justice pillar” to the school’s curriculum and creating an anti-racist curriculum advisory committee.
Angela Davis’ ancestors arrived in America on the Mayflower. pic.twitter.com/dnwrG6fB6U
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) February 22, 2023
Increasingly, medical schools and schools of public health are enthusiastically embracing the values of DEI and instituting far-reaching policies to demonstrate their commitments to the cause. To many in the universities and perhaps in the country at large, these values sound benign—merely an invitation to treat everyone fairly. In practice, however, DEI policies often promote a narrow set of ideological views that elevate race and gender to matters of supreme importance.
That ideology is exemplified by a research methodology called “public health critical race praxis” (PHCRP)—designed, as the name suggests, to apply critical race theory to the field of public health—which asserts that “the ubiquity of racism, not its absence, characterizes society’s normal state.” In practice, PHCRP involves embracing sweeping claims about the primacy of racialization, guided by statements like “socially constructed racial categories are the bases for ordering society.”
These race-first imperatives have now come to influence the research priorities of major institutions. Perhaps no better case study exists than that of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), an institution devoted exclusively to the medical sciences, and one of the top recipients of federal grants from the National Institutes of Health. Last May, UCSF took the unprecedented step of creating a separate Task Force on Equity and Anti-Racism in Research, which proceeded to make dozens of recommendations.
That task force builds on layers of prior DEI bureaucratic expansion, spanning nearly a decade. This programming includes the “UCSF Anti-Racism Initiative,” started after the summer of 2020, which established dozens of new institutional policies throughout the university, such as “evaluating contributions to diversity statements in faculty advancement portfolios.” The School of Medicine, meanwhile, has published its own Timeline of DEI and Anti-Racism Efforts, which documents such steps as adding a “social justice pillar” to the school’s curriculum and creating an anti-racist curriculum advisory committee.
Joan Johns Cobbs was 13 and afraid as she looked onto the stage where her older sister, Barbara Johns, urged her fellow students at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Va., to protest the poor conditions of their segregated Black school. Like the students around her, Cobbs was inspired to join, and the 1951 student-led strike would eventually make civil rights history.
Their student-initiated lawsuit protesting the conditions of their school would eventually become part of Brown v. Board of Education, the case that led to the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring “separate but equal” public schools unconstitutional.
A statue of Cobbs’ sister, Barbara Johns, is being built to represent Virginia in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall, replacing a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Last month, the Virginia commission tasked with leading the effort selected a sculptor and unveiled a mock-up of the coming statue, which is rife with symbols alluding to the historic strike. The mock-up shows a teenage Johns in a defiant stance holding up a book; the floorboards beneath her feet are held up by stacks of books by Black authors. Johns died in 1991, and the high school is now a National Historic Landmark and civil rights museum.
Joan Johns Cobbs was 13 and afraid as she looked onto the stage where her older sister, Barbara Johns, urged her fellow students at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Va., to protest the poor conditions of their segregated Black school. Like the students around her, Cobbs was inspired to join, and the 1951 student-led strike would eventually make civil rights history.
Their student-initiated lawsuit protesting the conditions of their school would eventually become part of Brown v. Board of Education, the case that led to the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring “separate but equal” public schools unconstitutional.
A statue of Cobbs’ sister, Barbara Johns, is being built to represent Virginia in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall, replacing a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Last month, the Virginia commission tasked with leading the effort selected a sculptor and unveiled a mock-up of the coming statue, which is rife with symbols alluding to the historic strike. The mock-up shows a teenage Johns in a defiant stance holding up a book; the floorboards beneath her feet are held up by stacks of books by Black authors. Johns died in 1991, and the high school is now a National Historic Landmark and civil rights museum.
A tricky math exam question aimed at fifth graders has gone viral after perplexing thousands of people on the internet.
The challenging problem was posted to a Reddit group called ‘r/mildyinteresting community’ under the subject line: ‘A test problem on my 5th grade brother’s math exam’
The question, meant for students aged between 10 and 11, said: ‘Klein read 30 pages of a book on Monday and 1/8 of the book on Tuesday. He completed the remaining 1/4 of the book on Wednesday. How many pages are there in the book?’
Scores of commenters appeared to have no idea what the answer was, claiming they were almost certainly fail fifth grade math as adults.
Thankfully, others were quick off the mark to solve the tough equation and posted the answer – but can you work it out?
After 2008, Wall Street & Silicon Valley got in bed with the new left. Together they birthed a new woke-industrial complex that duped both political parties into submission. It’s a new hybrid of government & business that together can do what neither can on its own. pic.twitter.com/Nh19aCrT7G
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) February 23, 2023
The Equal Protection Project is devoted to the fair treatment of all persons without regard to race or ethnicity.
Our guiding principle is that there is no ‘good’ form of racism. The remedy for racism never is more racism.
We will INVESTIGATE wrongdoing, EDUCATE the public, and LITIGATE when necessary.
Sarah Karp and Tessa Weinberg:
When news broke last month that Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s reelection campaign had solicited help from Chicago Public Schools and City Colleges of Chicago educators to recruit student volunteers, the incumbent candidate apologized, calling the effort a “bad mistake” by one young staffer.
But the campaign had for months been sending CPS and City Colleges staff thousands of other emails unrelated to the student volunteer solicitation — some from multiple campaign staffers. The emails ranged from generic fundraising appeals to invitations to private town halls and requests for help gathering petitions, records newly obtained by WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times show.
Four emails were sent to City Colleges of Chicago Chancellor Juan Salgado — who reports to the mayor — at his work email address inviting him to a Lightfoot campaign event.
In all, the mayor’s reelection campaign sent more than 9,900 emails to CPS and City Colleges staff since last April, according to documents obtained through public records requests that reveal the previously unreported breadth of the outreach to government employees. The emails went to at least 64 City Colleges staff members since July. It’s unclear how many individual CPS staff members were emailed, as those details were not provided.
DOCUMENTS: Through a records request, I have acquired the University of Missouri’s rubric for evaluating diversity statements.
As usual, the rubric proves the critics’ point: DEI evaluations invite viewpoint discrimination. pic.twitter.com/5FX9dCTg0e
— John Sailer (@JohnDSailer) February 23, 2023
DOCUMENTS: Through a records request, I have acquired the University of Missouri’s rubric for evaluating diversity statements.
As usual, the rubric proves the critics’ point: DEI evaluations invite viewpoint discrimination. pic.twitter.com/5FX9dCTg0e
— John Sailer (@JohnDSailer) February 23, 2023
Where are the Oompa Loompas when you need them. Willy Wonka’s helpers asked “who do you blame when your kid is a brat? Pampered and spoiled like a Siamese cat?” The same question could be asked about publishers after Puffin Books hired sensitivity readers to “update” portions Roald Dahl’s classic books. The changes include dropping references to Augustus Gloop being “fat.” Yet, unlike the Oompa Loompas, who found sanctuary “from hornswogglers and snozzwangers and those terrible wicked whangdoodles,” there is no safe place from woke whangdoodles today.
While European publishers have refused to rewrite Dahl’s classics, Puffin Books believes that it is perfectly acceptable to change books after an author has died. Puffin simply could not abide references to things like the weight of Gloop. So they changed “fat” to “enormous.” (It is not clear what Puffin Books will do with Walter Tevis’ character “Minnesota Fats” in The Hustler. “Minnesota Enormous” just doesn’t quite have that same authentic gritty quality in a pool hall drama).
Where are the Oompa Loompas when you need them. Willy Wonka’s helpers asked “who do you blame when your kid is a brat? Pampered and spoiled like a Siamese cat?” The same question could be asked about publishers after Puffin Books hired sensitivity readers to “update” portions Roald Dahl’s classic books. The changes include dropping references to Augustus Gloop being “fat.” Yet, unlike the Oompa Loompas, who found sanctuary “from hornswogglers and snozzwangers and those terrible wicked whangdoodles,” there is no safe place from woke whangdoodles today.
While European publishers have refused to rewrite Dahl’s classics, Puffin Books believes that it is perfectly acceptable to change books after an author has died. Puffin simply could not abide references to things like the weight of Gloop. So they changed “fat” to “enormous.” (It is not clear what Puffin Books will do with Walter Tevis’ character “Minnesota Fats” in The Hustler. “Minnesota Enormous” just doesn’t quite have that same authentic gritty quality in a pool hall drama).
The University of Chicago is offering a racially segregated scholarship that explicitly prohibits white and Asian men from applying. This is a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act—U Chicago is brazenly and openly violating the law.https://t.co/BqHAmt1ttB pic.twitter.com/5uCQtq31Cn
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) February 23, 2023
After 2008, Wall Street & Silicon Valley got in bed with the new left. Together they birthed a new woke-industrial complex that duped both political parties into submission. It’s a new hybrid of government & business that together can do what neither can on its own. pic.twitter.com/Nh19aCrT7G
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) February 23, 2023
Thompson Center Summit on Early Literacy Event Archive:
Over one third of Wisconsin students are unable to read at grade level and our state’s Black children have the lowest reading scores in the nation. Reading below grade level brings both short term and long term challenges, from a lower chance of graduating high school to a higher chance of living in poverty.
Join the Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership for a luncheon discussion with state and national experts on how Wisconsin can address our literacy crisis.
The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
#1 David Sacks breaks down how the safety layer of ‘ChatGPT is a Democrat’:
“There is mounting evidence OpenAI’s safety layer is very biased… If you thought trust and safety were bad under Vijaya or Yoel, wait until the AI does it.”https://t.co/X63j1DmJdu@DavidSacks @amuse pic.twitter.com/yyzLb19NLy
— kanekoa.substack.com (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 20, 2023
Ed Cumming ; Genevieve Holl-Allen and Benedict Smith
“Words matter,” begins the discreet notice, which sits at the bottom of the copyright page of Puffin’s latest editions of Roald Dahl’s books. “The wonderful words of Roald Dahl can transport you to different worlds and introduce you to the most marvellous characters. This book was written many years ago, and so we regularly review the language to ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by all today.”…
Ed Cumming ; Genevieve Holl-Allen and Benedict Smith
“Words matter,” begins the discreet notice, which sits at the bottom of the copyright page of Puffin’s latest editions of Roald Dahl’s books. “The wonderful words of Roald Dahl can transport you to different worlds and introduce you to the most marvellous characters. This book was written many years ago, and so we regularly review the language to ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by all today.”…
South Korea’s fertility rate dropped last year to a record low, data showed on Wednesday, in yet another grim milestone for the country with the world’s lowest number of expected children for each woman.
The average number of expected babies per South Korean woman over her reproductive life fell to 0.78 in 2022 down from 0.81 a year earlier, the official annual reading from the Statistics Korea showed.
South Korea’s fertility rate dropped last year to a record low, data showed on Wednesday, in yet another grim milestone for the country with the world’s lowest number of expected children for each woman.
The average number of expected babies per South Korean woman over her reproductive life fell to 0.78 in 2022 down from 0.81 a year earlier, the official annual reading from the Statistics Korea showed.
Fritz François and Gbenga Ogedegbe:
A growing number of medical schools have announced that they will no longer share data with U.S. News & World Report. These schools claim that the magazine’s annual rankings hinder their ability to increase diversity. New York’s Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai asserted that the rankings undermine its “commitment to anti-racism, and outreach to diverse communities.”
Such claims aren’t supported by evidence. The ranking methodology, as currently constructed, includes consideration of students’ Medical College Admission Test scores and undergraduate grade-point averages, as well as other criteria. But medical schools have always been free to admit anyone they choose, regardless of their rankings. It’s true that diversity isn’t a criterion in the U.S. News methodology, but why should that stop schools from recruiting minority applicants or establishing a campus culture that encourages and values diversity? There is nothing in a thoughtful admissions process that explicitly prevents medical schools from assembling a student body based on anything other than academic performance, holistic reviews and interviews of candidates.
Additionally, U.S. News makes its decisions independent of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education standards on diversity and inclusion, which are part of the accreditation requirements for all medical schools. These schools have always had the opportunity to demonstrate a strategic approach with respect to diversity in their accreditations.
What these schools are really saying is that meritocracy can’t coexist with diversity. This is a presumptuous—and dangerous—perpetuation of the negative stereotype that students from backgrounds that are underrepresented in medicine are of lesser quality or unable to compete. Diversity is no reason to opt out of a competitive process, especially as some of those medical schools actually encourage their alumni to vote in the U.S. News “Best Hospitals” ranking.
We have been discussing various cases of professors being investigated or terminated for raising dissenting views on subjects like systemic racism or Critical Race Theory (CRT). The latest such controversy is at the University of Texas where a professor is suing after he was allegedly threatened for criticizing as having “no scientific basis.” Notably, the complaint of Dr. Richard Lowery (below) admits that, despite being tenured, he began to self-censor his comments — a problem that is widespread among academics who now fear to speak freely in class or even outside of their universities.
Dr. Richard Lowery is an associate professor of finance at the McCombs School of Business and has written on a variety of subjects in The Hill, the Texas Tribune, the Houston Chronicle, the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, the Washington Times, and The College Fix.
He claims that he was warned about his continuing criticism, including the possible loss of his affiliation with the Salem Center, which would cost him a $20,000 stipend and research opportunities.
The complaint details pressure put on Lowery and his superior to get him to “tone down” his criticisms. The includes alleged lobbying by Meeta Kothare, director of the Global Sustainability Leadership Institute “to have UT Administrators censor Lowery.” At the same time, another Sustainability Institute employee, Madison Gove, emailed UT police officer Joseph Bishop, to ask for police surveillance of Lowery’s public statements.
We have been discussing various cases of professors being investigated or terminated for raising dissenting views on subjects like systemic racism or Critical Race Theory (CRT). The latest such controversy is at the University of Texas where a professor is suing after he was allegedly threatened for criticizing as having “no scientific basis.” Notably, the complaint of Dr. Richard Lowery (below) admits that, despite being tenured, he began to self-censor his comments — a problem that is widespread among academics who now fear to speak freely in class or even outside of their universities.
Dr. Richard Lowery is an associate professor of finance at the McCombs School of Business and has written on a variety of subjects in The Hill, the Texas Tribune, the Houston Chronicle, the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, the Washington Times, and The College Fix.
He claims that he was warned about his continuing criticism, including the possible loss of his affiliation with the Salem Center, which would cost him a $20,000 stipend and research opportunities.
The complaint details pressure put on Lowery and his superior to get him to “tone down” his criticisms. The includes alleged lobbying by Meeta Kothare, director of the Global Sustainability Leadership Institute “to have UT Administrators censor Lowery.” At the same time, another Sustainability Institute employee, Madison Gove, emailed UT police officer Joseph Bishop, to ask for police surveillance of Lowery’s public statements.
I agree with Tyler Goodspeed in his critique of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s two-pillar project: It’s an overly complicated proposal that will do little to limit competition for direct investment from multinationals (“The Global Minimum Tax Crackup,” op-ed, Feb. 6). Unfortunately, the complexity also means some of his arguments fall flat.
His suggestion that only low-tax jurisdictions have a new playbook available to them is incorrect. Large, high-tax countries can review their systems of capital allowances, top personal income-tax rates and other aspects of their tax system in light of the OECD rules. This new form of tax competition could end up being pervasive.
Mr. Goodspeed is right to suggest that double taxation is a risk for U.S. companies because of the mismatch between U.S. rules and the minimum-tax rules. But this risk isn’t new. The limitation on foreign tax credits under the Global Intangible Low-Tax Income (Gilti) regime leads directly to double taxation even without the new “Pillar Two” rules in place.
David Henderson and Philip Magness:
Hulu’s series “The 1619 Project” blames economic inequality between blacks and whites on “racial capitalism.” But almost every example presented is the result of government policies that, in purpose or effect, discriminated against African-Americans. “The 1619 Project” makes an unintentional case for capitalism.
These and other government policies caused immense economic harm to African-Americans. But they aren’t capitalism. They’re interventions into markets, state-sanctioned theft, and political payoffs to segregationists.
The answer to these problems isn’t to place the burden on the market through reparations. It’s to root out bad government policies that continue, sometimes unintentionally, the long legacy of state-sponsored racial discrimination. That would be a worthy 2023 project.
David Henderson and Philip Magness:
Hulu’s series “The 1619 Project” blames economic inequality between blacks and whites on “racial capitalism.” But almost every example presented is the result of government policies that, in purpose or effect, discriminated against African-Americans. “The 1619 Project” makes an unintentional case for capitalism.
These and other government policies caused immense economic harm to African-Americans. But they aren’t capitalism. They’re interventions into markets, state-sanctioned theft, and political payoffs to segregationists.
The answer to these problems isn’t to place the burden on the market through reparations. It’s to root out bad government policies that continue, sometimes unintentionally, the long legacy of state-sponsored racial discrimination. That would be a worthy 2023 project.
Biden’s new executive order creating a national DEI bureaucracy has a special mandate for woke AI. The order instructs the federal government to “[protect] the public from algorithmic discrimination” and to deploy AI systems “in a manner that advances equity.” pic.twitter.com/pGKRWdTtIS
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) February 21, 2023
But when Hamburg passed new legislation in 2019 allowing police to use data analytics software built by the CIA-backed company Palantir, she feared she could be pulled further into the big data dragnet. A feature of Palantir’s Gotham platform allows police to map networks of phone contacts, placing people like Eder—who are connected to alleged criminals but are not criminals themselves—effectively under surveillance.
“I thought, this is the next step in police trying to get more possibilities to observe people without any concrete evidence linking them to a crime,” Eder says. So she decided to become one of 11 claimants trying to get the Hamburg law annulled. Yesterday, they succeeded.
A post from seven years ago floated up in my FB memories this morning. It was a rant from a former student about the loss of discourse and discussion in the classroom. At the time, this student was in a grad class and had raised a differing point of view only to be greeted with gasps of astonishment. I had copied the rant and posted it as Reason #47 for why I teach. In reality, rants like this, demonstrating the critical thinking skills of my students, remain Reason #1 for why I taught. Yes, I’ve left that world, and the inability to have constructive discussions and arguments in the classroom is my primary reason for leaving.
Here’s the rant: When did the classroom become an echo chamber? I was not taught to blindly consume everything a professor says, let alone a fellow classmate. I just had a class where I offered a different view point on a subject matter and people literally gasped audibly. It was not even a “provocative” view point or even a hot topic issue. When did conformity become the goal? What happened to intellectual discourse?!
As I said in my original FB post, I am a very proud professor here. I worked very hard to keep my political opinions out of classroom discussions. At the beginning of every semester, and periodically throughout, I told all my classes that they were free to speak any opinion or analysis of a problem they held… with one caveat. They had to be ready to defend the logic behind that opinion, point to reputable sources backing up that opinion, and be open to having everything questioned. They were also informed, that if they were going to question an opinion or analysis, they needed to be ready to back that up as well. It was perfectly fine if they didn’t have an answer right then and there, but I let them know that they were expected to return with a response for the next class meeting.
My college education taught me to always ask “why?” and I still pride myself on the fact that I strived to instill that questioning in my students and to teach them howto think and not what to think. How do I know I succeeded even a little bit? By running across rants like that above, and by the comments/complaints in my end-of-semester evaluations – from students in the same class, mind you – that I was both a flaming liberal and a hard-core conservative. I had evals where students commented that they had figured out the political opinions of most of my colleagues, including all my political science departmental colleagues, but they couldn’t figure out mine.
That’s how I know I had at least a small impact.
Biden’s new executive order creating a national DEI bureaucracy has a special mandate for woke AI. The order instructs the federal government to “[protect] the public from algorithmic discrimination” and to deploy AI systems “in a manner that advances equity.” pic.twitter.com/pGKRWdTtIS
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) February 21, 2023
But when Hamburg passed new legislation in 2019 allowing police to use data analytics software built by the CIA-backed company Palantir, she feared she could be pulled further into the big data dragnet. A feature of Palantir’s Gotham platform allows police to map networks of phone contacts, placing people like Eder—who are connected to alleged criminals but are not criminals themselves—effectively under surveillance.
“I thought, this is the next step in police trying to get more possibilities to observe people without any concrete evidence linking them to a crime,” Eder says. So she decided to become one of 11 claimants trying to get the Hamburg law annulled. Yesterday, they succeeded.
A post from seven years ago floated up in my FB memories this morning. It was a rant from a former student about the loss of discourse and discussion in the classroom. At the time, this student was in a grad class and had raised a differing point of view only to be greeted with gasps of astonishment. I had copied the rant and posted it as Reason #47 for why I teach. In reality, rants like this, demonstrating the critical thinking skills of my students, remain Reason #1 for why I taught. Yes, I’ve left that world, and the inability to have constructive discussions and arguments in the classroom is my primary reason for leaving.
Here’s the rant: When did the classroom become an echo chamber? I was not taught to blindly consume everything a professor says, let alone a fellow classmate. I just had a class where I offered a different view point on a subject matter and people literally gasped audibly. It was not even a “provocative” view point or even a hot topic issue. When did conformity become the goal? What happened to intellectual discourse?!
As I said in my original FB post, I am a very proud professor here. I worked very hard to keep my political opinions out of classroom discussions. At the beginning of every semester, and periodically throughout, I told all my classes that they were free to speak any opinion or analysis of a problem they held… with one caveat. They had to be ready to defend the logic behind that opinion, point to reputable sources backing up that opinion, and be open to having everything questioned. They were also informed, that if they were going to question an opinion or analysis, they needed to be ready to back that up as well. It was perfectly fine if they didn’t have an answer right then and there, but I let them know that they were expected to return with a response for the next class meeting.
My college education taught me to always ask “why?” and I still pride myself on the fact that I strived to instill that questioning in my students and to teach them howto think and not what to think. How do I know I succeeded even a little bit? By running across rants like that above, and by the comments/complaints in my end-of-semester evaluations – from students in the same class, mind you – that I was both a flaming liberal and a hard-core conservative. I had evals where students commented that they had figured out the political opinions of most of my colleagues, including all my political science departmental colleagues, but they couldn’t figure out mine.
That’s how I know I had at least a small impact.
Reminder that 45% of all black students at Harvard only got in because they’re black pic.twitter.com/bzpTYb58w6
— Daniel Schmidt (@RealDSchmidt) February 20, 2023
Reminder that 45% of all black students at Harvard only got in because they’re black pic.twitter.com/bzpTYb58w6
— Daniel Schmidt (@RealDSchmidt) February 20, 2023
The Supreme Court declined to hear a constitutional challenge to a secretive government surveillance program, dealing a setback to privacy groups including the American Civil Liberties Union ahead of a looming debate in Congress over whether to renew the law that authorizes the intelligence tool.
In a brief order issued on Tuesday, the high court said it wouldn’t hear arguments challenging the legality of the National Security Agency program known as “Upstream,” in which the intelligence agency collects and monitors internet communications without obtaining search warrants. Classified details about the program were among those exposed a decade ago by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who has been charged with theft of government property and violating espionage laws and lives in Russia.
The Supreme Court declined to hear a constitutional challenge to a secretive government surveillance program, dealing a setback to privacy groups including the American Civil Liberties Union ahead of a looming debate in Congress over whether to renew the law that authorizes the intelligence tool.
In a brief order issued on Tuesday, the high court said it wouldn’t hear arguments challenging the legality of the National Security Agency program known as “Upstream,” in which the intelligence agency collects and monitors internet communications without obtaining search warrants. Classified details about the program were among those exposed a decade ago by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who has been charged with theft of government property and violating espionage laws and lives in Russia.
NEW: @UTSystem Board of Regents chairman Kevin Eltife says the @UTSystem has paused any new DEI efforts at all of its campuses.
The system has also asked for a report on DEI policies at each campus for review.
The full statement he made at the regents meeting just now: pic.twitter.com/HXOlwcvbrN
— Megan Menchaca (@meganmmenchaca) February 22, 2023
Whenever the Biden Administration lectures us about DEI, I will think of this cross dresser fetishist stealing a Tanzanian woman’s luggage to wear her clothes. pic.twitter.com/HRRTsu53L7
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) February 23, 2023
Parents are hungry for schools where opportunity abounds — where kids are taught to lead lives of purpose for the good of their families, their communities and their futures.
Yet, it’s difficult to create that opportunity when Wisconsin students are so inequitably funded. Students attending choice schools are funded at 60% the value of their public-school counterparts, meaning schools must spend time and energy raising funds in order to provide the quality education that every child deserves.
So, instead of playing favorites, why not fund what should matter most to everybody in the Badger State? Students and the lives of purpose they choose to create.
Parents are hungry for schools where opportunity abounds — where kids are taught to lead lives of purpose for the good of their families, their communities and their futures.
Yet, it’s difficult to create that opportunity when Wisconsin students are so inequitably funded. Students attending choice schools are funded at 60% the value of their public-school counterparts, meaning schools must spend time and energy raising funds in order to provide the quality education that every child deserves.
So, instead of playing favorites, why not fund what should matter most to everybody in the Badger State? Students and the lives of purpose they choose to create.
Maybe — most insidiously — poor children of color weren’t likely to succeed in school no matter how well-funded their schools. This idea was spreading, appearing in academic journals and publications like the Atlantic and the Washington Post. A New York Times news article from 1970 included this startling line: “In the case of a slum child,” it read, citing supposedly cutting-edge research, “his chances of learning to read were quite limited, even though large amounts of money might be devoted to his education.”
Fifty years ago this year, the Supreme Court cited some of that same research to rule against the Rodriguez family. The racist notion that children in poverty could not benefit from additional or even equal resources may well have influenced the court’s decision.
“The poor people have lost again, not only in Texas but in the United States, because we definitely need changes in the educational system,” Demetrio Rodriguez told one of the reporters that Alex recalls descending on their home. The media soon left, and Alex went back to the same underfunded school. “It was famous for a day or two — then that was it,” he says now.
Admittedly, the legal and practical merits of the Court’s 1973 decision in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez are complex and up for legitimate debate. In the long run, the ruling was not the devastating blow to funding equality efforts that many advocates feared. Funding gaps due to property taxes have narrowed or fully closed, in part because state courts stepped in after the Supreme Court stepped aside.
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
I gave a talk at Urbit Assembly in the fall and turned part of it into a movie with my friends at Praxis.
Trailer here
[Full movie below] pic.twitter.com/xcU1XkdRJx
— Riva (@rivatez) February 8, 2023
I gave a talk at Urbit Assembly in the fall and turned part of it into a movie with my friends at Praxis.
Trailer here
[Full movie below] pic.twitter.com/xcU1XkdRJx
— Riva (@rivatez) February 8, 2023
Resources and expectations:
Education has become by far the largest community expenditure in the American economy…Teachers of all kinds, now the largest single occupational group in the American labor force, outnumber by a good margin steelworkers, teamsters and salespeople, indeed even farmers…Education has become the key to opportunity and advancement all over the modern world, replacing birth, wealth, and perhaps even talent. Education has become the first value choice of modern man.
This is success such as no schoolmaster through the ages would have dared dream of…Signs abound that all is not well with education. While expenditures have been skyrocketing–and will keep on going up–the taxpayers are getting visibly restless.
Credentials and social mobility:
The most serious impact of the long years of schooling is, however, the “diploma curtain” between those with degrees and those without. It threatens to cut society in two for the first time in American history…By denying opportunity to those without higher education, we are denying access to contribution and performance to a large number of people of superior ability, intelligence, and capacity to achieve…I expect, within ten years or so, to see a proposal before one of our state legislatures or up for referendum to ban, on applications for employment, all questions related to educational status…I, for one, shall vote for this proposal if I can.
Resources and expectations:
Education has become by far the largest community expenditure in the American economy…Teachers of all kinds, now the largest single occupational group in the American labor force, outnumber by a good margin steelworkers, teamsters and salespeople, indeed even farmers…Education has become the key to opportunity and advancement all over the modern world, replacing birth, wealth, and perhaps even talent. Education has become the first value choice of modern man.
This is success such as no schoolmaster through the ages would have dared dream of…Signs abound that all is not well with education. While expenditures have been skyrocketing–and will keep on going up–the taxpayers are getting visibly restless.
Credentials and social mobility:
The most serious impact of the long years of schooling is, however, the “diploma curtain” between those with degrees and those without. It threatens to cut society in two for the first time in American history…By denying opportunity to those without higher education, we are denying access to contribution and performance to a large number of people of superior ability, intelligence, and capacity to achieve…I expect, within ten years or so, to see a proposal before one of our state legislatures or up for referendum to ban, on applications for employment, all questions related to educational status…I, for one, shall vote for this proposal if I can.
Another interesting point about “Adams-we’re going out of business if you don’t raise taxes-Friendship” is that 76% of their students cannot read at grade level, and 74% of their students can’t do math at grade level. What exactly are taxpayers paying for? @oherken https://t.co/612WTC21nJ
— Dan Lennington (@DanLennington) February 21, 2023
Another interesting point about “Adams-we’re going out of business if you don’t raise taxes-Friendship” is that 76% of their students cannot read at grade level, and 74% of their students can’t do math at grade level. What exactly are taxpayers paying for? @oherken https://t.co/612WTC21nJ
— Dan Lennington (@DanLennington) February 21, 2023
Over lunch recently a fellow writer uttered a word that rather took me by surprise. My companion described the trend of people making private digital communications public — such as Kanye West’s recent leaking of text messages from his personal trainer, or a Vox journalist’s decision to publish Twitter messages from the former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried — as plain “dishonourable”.
The idea that our behaviour should be guided not solely by respect for the law, nor even by a certain moral code, but by a sense of honour is an unfashionable one. Google’s Ngram viewer, which tracks the frequency with which words and phrases are used in books from 1800 onwards, shows a sharp decline in the use of the words “honour”, “honourable” and “dishonourable” from the early 19th century to the present day. Usage of all three words has fallen by about 90 per cent over the period.
When members of the British parliament sling insults at the “honourable” members sitting across the chamber from them — or indeed at their own side — we are not, one assumes, expected to take this descriptor seriously.
Yet while it might be an antiquated notion, if these members of parliament did have a sense that they should behave with honour, we would have much better politicians, who were more concerned with telling the truth and doing the right thing even when they thought they could get away with the opposite.
Our finding: States with more severe government interventions did not have better health outcomes than less restrictive states.
But imposing more severe lockdowns led to much worse economic outcomes — increased unemployment and decreased gross domestic product — and much worse education outcomes — less in-person schooling, which studies show leads to decreased test scores and long-term, possibly permanent, educational and economic disadvantages.
Our finding: States with more severe government interventions did not have better health outcomes than less restrictive states.
But imposing more severe lockdowns led to much worse economic outcomes — increased unemployment and decreased gross domestic product — and much worse education outcomes — less in-person schooling, which studies show leads to decreased test scores and long-term, possibly permanent, educational and economic disadvantages.
In just the last two years, Hurst said, the number of children under 13 coming into her department with suicidal ideation has gone up 77%. And over the last decade, the number of pediatric visitors needing psychiatric care has nearly tripled, with the majority of cases the result of suicidal ideation, drug or alcohol intoxication, and overdoses.
Each school district and open-enrollment charter school shall provide for the use of a phonics curriculum that uses systematic direct instruction in kindergarten through third grade to ensure all students obtain necessary early literacy skills (TEC §28.0062)
Using PISA 2018 data from nearly half a million 15-year-olds across 72 middle- and high-income countries, this study investigates the relationship between economic development and adolescent subjective well-being. Findings indicate a negative log-linear relationship between per-capita GDP and adolescent life satisfaction. The negative nexus stands in stark contrast to the otherwise positive relationship found between GDP per capita and adult life satisfaction for the same countries. Results are robust to various model specifications and both macro and micro approaches. Moreover, our analysis suggests that this apparent paradox can largely be attributed to higher learning intensity in advanced countries. Effects are found to be more pronounced for girls than for boys.
Each school district and open-enrollment charter school shall provide for the use of a phonics curriculum that uses systematic direct instruction in kindergarten through third grade to ensure all students obtain necessary early literacy skills (TEC §28.0062)
The following post was co-authored with Steve Morris, Chief of Digital Collections Management and Services and Tom Rieger, Manager of Digitization Services.
The Library of Congress has a new Digitization Strategy for its collections. As we did for the Library’s Digital Collections Strategy, we are excited to share this overview of it with readers of The Signal blog. We get a lot of questions about what we digitize and why, and hopefully this provides a little bit of insight into our institutional plans and priorities.
The Library has expanded the amount and throughput of our digitization efforts dramatically over the past three decades. In 2020 we finished digitizing the last of our presidential papers – all of the personal papers of the presidents from George Washington to Calvin Coolidge are now available to anyone with an internet connection. In 2021, we opened a new Digital Scan Center, which significantly increased digital image production capabilities and postproduction processes. So far, we have digitized more than nine million items in our collections, with particular strengths in newspaper issues, manuscripts, and pictorial materials.
Over the next five years, the Library will expand, optimize, and centralize its collections digitization program to significantly expand access to users across the country to rare, distinctive, and unique collection materials which can be made openly available online and use digitization as a core method for preservation reformatting of rights restricted collection materials. Below are the five guiding strategic objectives for this work.
The following post was co-authored with Steve Morris, Chief of Digital Collections Management and Services and Tom Rieger, Manager of Digitization Services.
The Library of Congress has a new Digitization Strategy for its collections. As we did for the Library’s Digital Collections Strategy, we are excited to share this overview of it with readers of The Signal blog. We get a lot of questions about what we digitize and why, and hopefully this provides a little bit of insight into our institutional plans and priorities.
The Library has expanded the amount and throughput of our digitization efforts dramatically over the past three decades. In 2020 we finished digitizing the last of our presidential papers – all of the personal papers of the presidents from George Washington to Calvin Coolidge are now available to anyone with an internet connection. In 2021, we opened a new Digital Scan Center, which significantly increased digital image production capabilities and postproduction processes. So far, we have digitized more than nine million items in our collections, with particular strengths in newspaper issues, manuscripts, and pictorial materials.
Over the next five years, the Library will expand, optimize, and centralize its collections digitization program to significantly expand access to users across the country to rare, distinctive, and unique collection materials which can be made openly available online and use digitization as a core method for preservation reformatting of rights restricted collection materials. Below are the five guiding strategic objectives for this work.
McCreesh told Krakauer that leadership at the Times “completely lost their nerve” in the face of “angry backbiting staffers” including some Bennet had brought to the Times. McCreesh said he was “so fucking freaked out” by the mob and remarked that the scene “was like a murder.”
McCreesh said:
“There was like this giant communal Slack chat for the whole company that became sort of the digital gallows,” he told me. “And all these angry backbiting staffers were gathering there and demanding that heads roll and the most bloodthirsty of the employees were these sort of weird tech and audio staffers and then a handful of people who wrote for like the Arts and Leisure section, and the Style section, and the magazine, which, in other words, you know, it was no one who was actually out covering any of the protests or the riots or the politics. It was just sort of like a bunch of Twitter-brained crazies kind of running wild on Slack. And the leadership was so horrified by what was happening. They just completely lost their nerve.”
“The worst part was that a lot of the people who were stabbing James in the front were the ones that he hired and brought to the newspaper,” McCreesh added. “It was like Caesar on the floor of the Roman Senate or something. Just this sort of horrible moment, and I remember closing my laptop and pouring a huge glass of wine, even though it was at like noon. Because I was so fucking freaked out by what we had just witnessed.”
McCreesh told Krakauer that leadership at the Times “completely lost their nerve” in the face of “angry backbiting staffers” including some Bennet had brought to the Times. McCreesh said he was “so fucking freaked out” by the mob and remarked that the scene “was like a murder.”
McCreesh said:
“There was like this giant communal Slack chat for the whole company that became sort of the digital gallows,” he told me. “And all these angry backbiting staffers were gathering there and demanding that heads roll and the most bloodthirsty of the employees were these sort of weird tech and audio staffers and then a handful of people who wrote for like the Arts and Leisure section, and the Style section, and the magazine, which, in other words, you know, it was no one who was actually out covering any of the protests or the riots or the politics. It was just sort of like a bunch of Twitter-brained crazies kind of running wild on Slack. And the leadership was so horrified by what was happening. They just completely lost their nerve.”
“The worst part was that a lot of the people who were stabbing James in the front were the ones that he hired and brought to the newspaper,” McCreesh added. “It was like Caesar on the floor of the Roman Senate or something. Just this sort of horrible moment, and I remember closing my laptop and pouring a huge glass of wine, even though it was at like noon. Because I was so fucking freaked out by what we had just witnessed.”
The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses — including Covid-19 — was published late last month. Its conclusions, said Tom Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist who is its lead author, were unambiguous.
“There is just no evidence that they” — masks — “make any difference,” he told the journalist Maryanne Demasi. “Full stop.”
But, wait, hold on. What about N-95 masks, as opposed to lower-quality surgical or cloth masks?
“Makes no difference — none of it,” said Jefferson.
What about the studies that initially persuaded policymakers to impose mask mandates?
“They were convinced by non-randomized studies, flawed observational studies.”
Related: Dane County Madison Public Health “mandates”.
According to nationwide MAP testing, the average high school student in the United States learns… nothing. 👇
— Austin Scholar (@AustinScholar) February 17, 2023
The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses — including Covid-19 — was published late last month. Its conclusions, said Tom Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist who is its lead author, were unambiguous.
“There is just no evidence that they” — masks — “make any difference,” he told the journalist Maryanne Demasi. “Full stop.”
But, wait, hold on. What about N-95 masks, as opposed to lower-quality surgical or cloth masks?
“Makes no difference — none of it,” said Jefferson.
What about the studies that initially persuaded policymakers to impose mask mandates?
“They were convinced by non-randomized studies, flawed observational studies.”
Related: Dane County Madison Public Health “mandates”.
According to nationwide MAP testing, the average high school student in the United States learns… nothing. 👇
— Austin Scholar (@AustinScholar) February 17, 2023
His budget proposal contains $162 million over the next two years to get the science of reading instructional approach into all of Ohio’s public schools.
At the same time, Ohio State University has been an epicenter of the approach to reading instruction that DeWine wants to get away from – known as “balanced literacy” or “whole language” – since 1984, holding a trademark for an intervention program used to catch struggling readers up with their peers. Hundreds of thousands of students across the country have been educated using the program – called Reading Recovery – which OSU professors take into local schools across the country.
Balanced literacy encourages students, when they encounter a word they don’t know, to use strategies such as looking at the book’s pictures and considering context, sentence structure and the word’s letters.
But DeWine, in his State of the State speech, cited the most recent results of Ohio’s State Test as a reason for schools to change their approach. Just 60.1% of third-grade students scored proficient or higher on reading.
Note that spending increases annually, with Madison taxpayers supporting at least $23,000 per student.
The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
1)There is a perception that the multiple ladders of success which have existed in American society are increasingly being collapsed into a single ladder, with access tightly controlled via educational credentials
2)It is increasingly observed that these credentials actually have fairly low predictive power concerning an individual’s actual ability to perform important tasks and make wise judgments about institutional or national issues. The assumption that school-based knowledge generally trumps practical experience seems increasingly questionable as the sphere of activity for which this assertion is made has expanded, and is indeed increasingly viewed with suspicion or with outright disdain.
3)It is observed that people working in certain fields arrogate to themselves an assumed elite status despite the fact that their jobs actually require relatively little in terms of skill and judgment. Ace of Spades cites a history writer on class distinctions in Victorian England:
She noted, for example, that a Bank of England clerk would be a member of the middle/professional class, despite the fact that what he did all day was hand-write numbers into ledgers and do simple arithmetic and some filing work and the like, whereas, say, a carpenter actually did real thinking, real planning, at his job, with elements of real creativity. And yet it was the Bank of England clerk who was considered a “mind” worker and the carpenter merely a hand-laborer.
Ace suggests that “that distinction has obviously persisted, even in America, with the ingrained sort of idea that a low-level associate producer making crap money and rote choices on an MSNBC daytime talk show was somehow “above” someone making real command decisions in his occupation, like a plumber. And this sort of idea is very important to that low-level producer at MSNBC, because by thinking this way, he puts himself in the league of doctors and engineers.”
1)There is a perception that the multiple ladders of success which have existed in American society are increasingly being collapsed into a single ladder, with access tightly controlled via educational credentials
2)It is increasingly observed that these credentials actually have fairly low predictive power concerning an individual’s actual ability to perform important tasks and make wise judgments about institutional or national issues. The assumption that school-based knowledge generally trumps practical experience seems increasingly questionable as the sphere of activity for which this assertion is made has expanded, and is indeed increasingly viewed with suspicion or with outright disdain.
3)It is observed that people working in certain fields arrogate to themselves an assumed elite status despite the fact that their jobs actually require relatively little in terms of skill and judgment. Ace of Spades cites a history writer on class distinctions in Victorian England:
She noted, for example, that a Bank of England clerk would be a member of the middle/professional class, despite the fact that what he did all day was hand-write numbers into ledgers and do simple arithmetic and some filing work and the like, whereas, say, a carpenter actually did real thinking, real planning, at his job, with elements of real creativity. And yet it was the Bank of England clerk who was considered a “mind” worker and the carpenter merely a hand-laborer.
Ace suggests that “that distinction has obviously persisted, even in America, with the ingrained sort of idea that a low-level associate producer making crap money and rote choices on an MSNBC daytime talk show was somehow “above” someone making real command decisions in his occupation, like a plumber. And this sort of idea is very important to that low-level producer at MSNBC, because by thinking this way, he puts himself in the league of doctors and engineers.”
Net-tuition revenue — the money that institutions earn through enrollment minus any discounts and allowances provided to students — is the lifeblood of many universities.
It’s the largest source of revenue for private four-year institutions, and it accounts for just over $1 of every $5 of revenue for public four-year institutions, about the same, on average, as their combined earnings from state grants, contracts, and appropriations.
Earlier this week I had dinner with a small group of MIT professors from a variety of scientific disciplines. Among other topics, they shared their concerns about threats to the culture of free inquiry and the intellectual playfulness and audacity on which it depends. Whatever the form of threat—and they vary—these scientists worry that the institute is letting its concern for protecting its brand and pleasing government funders trump its dedication to scientific inquiry. In response, I recalled this talk I gave at a FIRE conference in, I believe, 2017. I’ve long thought I’d expand it into a “real article,” backed by more research, but never have. Until that day comes, I’m posting it here. (For more on FIRE, now the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, visit their website here.)
I am speaking this afternoon (Thursday, February 16) at Brown. Details here.
Two stories to start, one about academic ethics and intellectual safety, and the other about how strange an American university seems to a foreigner.
First story: When I was a senior in college, I took a graduate class in Elizabethan drama. When we got to the final paper, I had a big problem. The Christopher Marlowe plays that I found most interesting were already the subject of my senior thesis. I wasn’t inspired by the Shakespeare comedies that made up most of the other good stuff in the course and, while I liked Richard II, I had nothing interesting to say about it. The only play I found thought-provoking enough for a paper was The Merchant of Venice. That presented another problem: The professor had written a whole book about it. To make matters worse, I disagreed with his thesis, and even though it wasn’t exactly what I set out to write, once I’d read his book that disagreement inevitably became the subject of my paper.
I wasn’t trying to be obnoxious. I just didn’t have anything to say about the other plays.
There are two problems with writing a paper disagreeing with your professor’s book. The first is that he has spent years, not weeks, thinking about the subject. He’s the expert and you are not. He will find every flaw in your argument and you won’t find every flaw in his. Plus he has a whole book to make his case and you have only a few pages. The second, of course, is that he could get mad and give you a bad grade just for disagreeing with him.
I worried a little about the first but not at all about the second.
1/ Trying to signal boost w a short 🧵
Amateur Go player Kellin Pelrine can consistently beat “KataGo”, an AI system that was once classified as “strongly superhuman”.
Strikingly, the strategies employed to beat the AI do not foil other amateur players. https://t.co/2AgK3gKVYP pic.twitter.com/couAi5sHfG
— Dan Elton (@moreisdifferent) February 18, 2023
1/ Trying to signal boost w a short 🧵
Amateur Go player Kellin Pelrine can consistently beat “KataGo”, an AI system that was once classified as “strongly superhuman”.
Strikingly, the strategies employed to beat the AI do not foil other amateur players. https://t.co/2AgK3gKVYP pic.twitter.com/couAi5sHfG
— Dan Elton (@moreisdifferent) February 18, 2023
The purge of heretical scholars and ideas in academia is intensifying.1 Many job applications now require loyalty oaths to woke orthodoxy in the form of “diversity statements.”2 In the humanities and social sciences, large numbers of faculty are being hired to engage in what is effectively leftist activism.3Simply ranting about how much you hate conservatives, Christians, or straight white men can be considered “scholarship” and the basis for a distinguished career. Entire departments devoted to ideology-driven fields like gender studies have been established to promote “social justice” and provide sinecures to activists.4 Academic papers that undermine the woke narrative are being retracted,5 and journals are adopting implicit or explicit polices to ensure that crimethink is never published again.6 Many undergraduate and graduate programs have stopped asking for standardized test scores and are increasingly making admissions decisions based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and ideological conformity.
Seven years ago, Heterodox Academy (HxA) came on the scene to promote “ideological diversity” in academia. Cofounder Jonathan Haidt—a prominent social psychologist who is now chair of the board of directors and the person most associated with the organization—spoke forcefully about the scholarship-corrupting effects of liberal groupthink. The leaders of HxA led people to believe that they were going to organize a meaningful resistance.
Seven years later, you can count HxA’s accomplishments in promoting heterodoxy on the fingers of zero hands. It has focused mainly on aggrandizing celebrity academics who hold conventional leftist views, and giving a platform to liberals to engage in empty virtue signaling about their alleged commitment to free inquiry. Scholars whose work is genuinely heterodox have been systematically marginalized. In at least one instance, a psychologist known for his work on race differences (Helmuth Nyborg) was denied membership.
At the same time, Rouleau refused to confine “misinformation and disinformation” to protesters:
Protest organizers’ mistrust of government officials was reinforced by unfair generalizations from some public officials that suggested all protesters were extremists… Where there was misinformation and disinformation about the protests, it was prone to amplification in news media… The fact that protesters could be at once both the victims and perpetrators of misinformation simply shows how pernicious misinformation is in modern society.
In the report you also find significant criticism of Canda’s Covid-19 policies and heavy-handed emergency measures like allowing Canada’s Border Services Agency (CBSA) to keep foreigners out. Rouleau even said he came to his main conclusion, that Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Order was legal, “with reluctance.”
But such musings have no propaganda benefit, and Rouleau’s report was reduced to a single thought, that Trudeau’s Emergencies Order “Met the Threshhold.” This was almost exactly like the American press reaction to the 2019 report by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, which tore into FBI malfeasance for hundreds of pages but gave the press the headline it wanted: “Justice Watchdog Finds Russia Probe Was Justified, Not Biased Against Trump.”
The free speech advocacy organization FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) creates an annual ranking of colleges from best to worst environments for free speech on campus. 2022/2023’s list, based on responses from 45,000 students at more than 200 schools, placed University of Chicago in the top spot, meaning the school “promotes and protects the free exchange of ideas” more than any other college on the list. Columbia University was dead last, with “by far, the lowest score,” and its speech climate rated as “abysmal.”
There are a few notable things about the rankings (a detailed methodology, highlights, summary, and full list is available here). Many of our nation’s most prestigious private universities, including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Amherst, Vassar, Johns Hopkins, Penn, and Northwestern, are in the bottom twenty percent. Conversely, the majority of the top fifth of the list are public and state schools.
It seems pretty clear that while the alumni of fancy colleges may get to enjoy humblebragging and an easier acceptance into top graduate programs or certain professional tracks, if a student is interested in an environment that encourages a diverse range of views and in becoming a heterodox thinker they’re likely better off elsewhere.
But, as someone who has investigated and writtenextensively about Covid-19 vaccines, and vaccine mandates, there’s something even more intriguing about the list:
The purge of heretical scholars and ideas in academia is intensifying.1 Many job applications now require loyalty oaths to woke orthodoxy in the form of “diversity statements.”2 In the humanities and social sciences, large numbers of faculty are being hired to engage in what is effectively leftist activism.3Simply ranting about how much you hate conservatives, Christians, or straight white men can be considered “scholarship” and the basis for a distinguished career. Entire departments devoted to ideology-driven fields like gender studies have been established to promote “social justice” and provide sinecures to activists.4 Academic papers that undermine the woke narrative are being retracted,5 and journals are adopting implicit or explicit polices to ensure that crimethink is never published again.6 Many undergraduate and graduate programs have stopped asking for standardized test scores and are increasingly making admissions decisions based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and ideological conformity.
Seven years ago, Heterodox Academy (HxA) came on the scene to promote “ideological diversity” in academia. Cofounder Jonathan Haidt—a prominent social psychologist who is now chair of the board of directors and the person most associated with the organization—spoke forcefully about the scholarship-corrupting effects of liberal groupthink. The leaders of HxA led people to believe that they were going to organize a meaningful resistance.
Seven years later, you can count HxA’s accomplishments in promoting heterodoxy on the fingers of zero hands. It has focused mainly on aggrandizing celebrity academics who hold conventional leftist views, and giving a platform to liberals to engage in empty virtue signaling about their alleged commitment to free inquiry. Scholars whose work is genuinely heterodox have been systematically marginalized. In at least one instance, a psychologist known for his work on race differences (Helmuth Nyborg) was denied membership.
The free speech advocacy organization FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) creates an annual ranking of colleges from best to worst environments for free speech on campus. 2022/2023’s list, based on responses from 45,000 students at more than 200 schools, placed University of Chicago in the top spot, meaning the school “promotes and protects the free exchange of ideas” more than any other college on the list. Columbia University was dead last, with “by far, the lowest score,” and its speech climate rated as “abysmal.”
There are a few notable things about the rankings (a detailed methodology, highlights, summary, and full list is available here). Many of our nation’s most prestigious private universities, including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Amherst, Vassar, Johns Hopkins, Penn, and Northwestern, are in the bottom twenty percent. Conversely, the majority of the top fifth of the list are public and state schools.
It seems pretty clear that while the alumni of fancy colleges may get to enjoy humblebragging and an easier acceptance into top graduate programs or certain professional tracks, if a student is interested in an environment that encourages a diverse range of views and in becoming a heterodox thinker they’re likely better off elsewhere.
But, as someone who has investigated and writtenextensively about Covid-19 vaccines, and vaccine mandates, there’s something even more intriguing about the list:
Walker [17-19] Last Biennial Budget: $76 billion
Evers[19-21] First Biennial Budget: $87.5 billion
Evers [23-25] Proposed Biennial Budget: $103.8 billionWill you get $27.8 BILLION more value from govt? Sell underused properties, consolidate overlapping agencies. $0 INCREASE! pic.twitter.com/DNXG1aSozd
— Will Martin, Business Owner & Govt Reformer (@willmartinWI) February 20, 2023
Walker [17-19] Last Biennial Budget: $76 billion
Evers[19-21] First Biennial Budget: $87.5 billion
Evers [23-25] Proposed Biennial Budget: $103.8 billionWill you get $27.8 BILLION more value from govt? Sell underused properties, consolidate overlapping agencies. $0 INCREASE! pic.twitter.com/DNXG1aSozd
— Will Martin, Business Owner & Govt Reformer (@willmartinWI) February 20, 2023
Yet:
Note that spending increases annually, with Madison taxpayers supporting at least $23,000 per student.
The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
Data show that there was a significant uptick in research focused on various forms of bias and discrimination starting in 2011, but the rate of production of scholarly papers exploring these topics seems to have slowed in recent years.
After 2011, there was a rapid change in discourse and norms around social justice issues, particularly among knowledge economy professionals (i.e., people who work in fields like journalism, the arts, entertainment, law, tech, finance, consulting, education, and research).
As I detail in my forthcoming book, this “awokening” manifested in everything from poll and survey responses, to media outputs, to changes in political alignments, and beyond. Within academia, there was a sharp increase in student protest activity beginning in 2011, accompanied by growing tensions around “cancel culture” and self-censorship. There were ballooning investments in (demonstrably ineffective) mandated diversity-related training and rapid expansions of campus “sex bureaucracies.”
Changes were also apparent in research outputs.
In a recent paper for the National Association of Scholars, computer scientist David Rozado analyzed 175 million scholarly abstracts from articles published from 1970 to 2020. He found that, after 2011, there was a sharp increase in the use of prejudice-denoting terms. This held for virtually all forms of bias and discrimination (racism, sexism, transphobia, Islamophobia, ableism, ageism, fatphobia, and derivatives of the same). Statistical analyses suggested that a single underlying shift, likely among the people who produce academic research, could explain most of the observed change across all of these terms since 2011.
As Taibbi has written, the Twitter Files “show the FBI acting as doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship, encompassing agencies across the federal government—from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA.”
The Twitter Files contain multitudes, but for the sake of brevity let us consider just three installments and their related implications: the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, the suspension of Trump, and the deputization of Twitter by the FBI. Together, these stories reveal not just a social media company willing to do the bidding of an out-of-control federal bureaucracy, but a federal bureaucracy openly hostile to the First Amendment.
As Taibbi has written, the Twitter Files “show the FBI acting as doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship, encompassing agencies across the federal government—from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA.”
The Twitter Files contain multitudes, but for the sake of brevity let us consider just three installments and their related implications: the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, the suspension of Trump, and the deputization of Twitter by the FBI. Together, these stories reveal not just a social media company willing to do the bidding of an out-of-control federal bureaucracy, but a federal bureaucracy openly hostile to the First Amendment.
UPDATED: This piece was updated on Feb. 17, 2023, at 7:30 p.m. CST to include an apology from the EDI Office. It was further updated on Feb. 17, 2023, at 9:05 p.m. CST to include a statement from the university about its use of AI in generating messages.
A note at the bottom of a Feb. 16 email from the Peabody Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion regarding the recent shooting at Michigan State Universitystated that the message had been written using ChatGPT, an AI text generator.
Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Nicole Joseph sent a follow-up, apology email to the Peabody community on Feb. 17 at 6:30 p.m. CST. She stated using ChatGPT to write the initial email was “poor judgment.”
“While we believe in the message of inclusivity expressed in the email, using ChatGPT to generate communications on behalf of our community in a time of sorrow and in response to a tragedy contradicts the values that characterize Peabody College,” the follow-up email reads. “As with all new technologies that affect higher education, this moment gives us all an opportunity to reflect on what we know and what we still must learn about AI.”
The initial email emphasizes the importance of maintaining safe and inclusive environments amid ongoing gun violence across the country. It states that “respect” and “understanding” are necessary for doing so.
Lindsey Burke, Ph.D. and Jonathan Butcher
The U.S. Department of Education opened its doors on May 4, 1980. Forty years after its establishment, academic achievement remains largely unimproved, and gaps in achievement outcomes between low-income children and their higher-income peers persist. Elevating education to Cabinet-level status has not led to education excellence; rather, it has codified education decision making in Washington among government officials who have less knowledge than state and local school leaders of the needs of local schools. Devolving the department and housing remaining programs at other agencies can make space for a return to education subsidiarity, enabling local actors to determine which policies meet local needs. Remaining federal involvement should focus primarily on gathering education statistics. In the spirit of the “Education at a Crossroads” report published in 1998, this Backgrounder maps out a plan for eliminating the agency and restoring state, local, and parental control of education.
UPDATED: This piece was updated on Feb. 17, 2023, at 7:30 p.m. CST to include an apology from the EDI Office. It was further updated on Feb. 17, 2023, at 9:05 p.m. CST to include a statement from the university about its use of AI in generating messages.
A note at the bottom of a Feb. 16 email from the Peabody Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion regarding the recent shooting at Michigan State Universitystated that the message had been written using ChatGPT, an AI text generator.
Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Nicole Joseph sent a follow-up, apology email to the Peabody community on Feb. 17 at 6:30 p.m. CST. She stated using ChatGPT to write the initial email was “poor judgment.”
“While we believe in the message of inclusivity expressed in the email, using ChatGPT to generate communications on behalf of our community in a time of sorrow and in response to a tragedy contradicts the values that characterize Peabody College,” the follow-up email reads. “As with all new technologies that affect higher education, this moment gives us all an opportunity to reflect on what we know and what we still must learn about AI.”
The initial email emphasizes the importance of maintaining safe and inclusive environments amid ongoing gun violence across the country. It states that “respect” and “understanding” are necessary for doing so.
Yale University played a prominent role in the American fight for democracy, with four graduates signing the Declaration of Independence. Now some Yalies want to bring a more modest revolution to campus by re-introducing an element of democracy for the Yale Board of Trustees, known as the Yale Corporation.
The Yale Daily News reports that nearly 90% of Yale students overwhelmingly voted “yes” to two questions on a referendum. These were: “Should the board of trustees for Yale Corporation consist of democratically elected trustees?” and “Should students, professors, and staff be eligible to vote for candidates for the board of trustees for Yale Corporation?”
It’s the latest backlash against Yale’s May 2021 decision to eliminate a process that had allowed alumni to become candidates for the board if they submitted 4,394 signatures (3% of alumni) on a petition. Now only candidates nominated by the official Alumni Fellow Nominating Committee qualify. A Connecticut lawsuit filed by two alumni accuses Yale of voter suppression and will proceed to trial some time this spring.
The Yale Corporation consists of the president, six trustees elected by alumni, 10 appointed members and two ex-officio members (Connecticut’s governor and lieutenant governor). Even when Yale allowed alumni candidates by petition, the last one to be elected to the board was William Horowitz in 1965—the first Jewish trustee.
Lindsey Burke, Ph.D. and Jonathan Butcher
The U.S. Department of Education opened its doors on May 4, 1980. Forty years after its establishment, academic achievement remains largely unimproved, and gaps in achievement outcomes between low-income children and their higher-income peers persist. Elevating education to Cabinet-level status has not led to education excellence; rather, it has codified education decision making in Washington among government officials who have less knowledge than state and local school leaders of the needs of local schools. Devolving the department and housing remaining programs at other agencies can make space for a return to education subsidiarity, enabling local actors to determine which policies meet local needs. Remaining federal involvement should focus primarily on gathering education statistics. In the spirit of the “Education at a Crossroads” report published in 1998, this Backgrounder maps out a plan for eliminating the agency and restoring state, local, and parental control of education.
After having to fight for his first win last year, Blessed Sacrament seventh-grader Aiden Wijeyakulasuriya swiftly defended his All-City Spelling Bee title the second time around, pushing past his fellow top-three finishers in less than 10 minutes Saturday.
The awards presentation at the All-City Spelling Bee on Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023.
The 12-year-old powered through the spelling of “milliner,” “comprimario,” and “amyloid” as he faced runner-up Jay Jadhav, seemingly keeping his cool until the very end.
“There’s a lot of mixed thoughts as you’re going up there,” Wijeyakulasuriya said after the competition. “What was going through my head was, ‘I never heard some of those words.’ What I do, I just focus on my breathing, focus on the word and just forget about what the outcome will be.”
Maybe that’s to be expected of a kid whose favorite word is “cynghanedd” — an intricate system of patterning of consonants, accents and rhymes.
Note that spending increases annually, with Madison taxpayers supporting at least $23,000 per student.
The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
When you see “school district could shut it’s doors” headlines, be sure to google per pupil funding levels. You won’t learn this from the article. Then google the local budgets of your high achieving choice school. https://t.co/gATUrXRFVU pic.twitter.com/snXeikpsGK
— Dan Lennington (@DanLennington) February 19, 2023
The article.
Note that spending increases annually, with Madison taxpayers supporting at least $23,000 per student.
The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
TWITTER FILES #16
Comic Interlude: A Media Experiment pic.twitter.com/Knp0UjfaMp— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) February 19, 2023
TWITTER FILES #16
Comic Interlude: A Media Experiment pic.twitter.com/Knp0UjfaMp— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) February 19, 2023
Moreover, why should someone get preferential treatment because they’re missing a leg or something? Why should they be forced to disclose such a private, personal thing as their sexual orientation just to not lose an edge with their submission?
For a lot of people, they’re upset at the fact that this is ultimately discriminatory, and I get that. I’m not thrilled with it either.
However, one can’t help but see a lot of people feeling pressured to reveal something about themselves that they might not be ready to share with the world, all for a prestigious placement in the journal.
Then we have to face the fact that we’re living in Clown World, where what we used to call someone with normal, traditional values regarding sex is “demi-sexual.” It’s almost as if anyone can fall under the LGBT+ umbrella, so that means anyone could get oppression points they can use for the journal, right?
So it seems to me that if that’s the case, this effort is nothing but a way to force people to disclose things about themselves whether they want to or not.
Sorry, but I’m unamused.
Moreover, why should someone get preferential treatment because they’re missing a leg or something? Why should they be forced to disclose such a private, personal thing as their sexual orientation just to not lose an edge with their submission?
For a lot of people, they’re upset at the fact that this is ultimately discriminatory, and I get that. I’m not thrilled with it either.
However, one can’t help but see a lot of people feeling pressured to reveal something about themselves that they might not be ready to share with the world, all for a prestigious placement in the journal.
Then we have to face the fact that we’re living in Clown World, where what we used to call someone with normal, traditional values regarding sex is “demi-sexual.” It’s almost as if anyone can fall under the LGBT+ umbrella, so that means anyone could get oppression points they can use for the journal, right?
So it seems to me that if that’s the case, this effort is nothing but a way to force people to disclose things about themselves whether they want to or not.
Sorry, but I’m unamused.
Today CNN did a segment on Texas Tech’s decision to stop using diversity statements in faculty hiring, citing my report. https://t.co/h9d5kuqiAa
— John Sailer (@JohnDSailer) February 16, 2023
Today CNN did a segment on Texas Tech’s decision to stop using diversity statements in faculty hiring, citing my report. https://t.co/h9d5kuqiAa
— John Sailer (@JohnDSailer) February 16, 2023
Three journalists – from Radio France, Haaretz and TheMarker – approached Team Jorge pretending to be consultants working on behalf of a politically unstable African country that wanted help delaying an election.
The encounters with Hanan and his colleagues took place via video calls and an in-person meeting in Team Jorge’s base, an unmarked office in an industrial park in Modi’in, 20 miles outside Tel Aviv.
Hanan described his team as “graduates of government agencies”, with expertise in finance, social media and campaigns, as well as “psychological warfare”, operating from six offices around the world. Four of Hanan’s colleagues attended the meetings, including his brother, Zohar Hanan, who was described as the chief executive of the group.
In his initial pitch to the potential clients, Hanan claimed: “We are now involved in one election in Africa … We have a team in Greece and a team in [the] Emirates … You follow the leads. [We have completed] 33 presidential-level campaigns, 27 of which were successful.” Later, he said he was involved in two “major projects” in the US but claimed not to engage directly in US politics.
In 2009, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, then a top executive at the biotechnology company Genentech, was the primary author of a scientific paper published in the prestigious journal Nature that claimed to have found the potential cause for brain degeneration in Alzheimer’s patients. “Because of this research,” read Genentech’s annual letter to shareholders, “we are working to develop both antibodies and small molecules that may attack Alzheimer’s from a novel entry point and help the millions of people who currently suffer from this devastating disease.”
But after several unsuccessful attempts to reproduce the research, the paper became the subject of an internal review by Genentech’s Research Review Committee (RRC), according to four high-level Genentech employees at the time; two were senior scientists and two were scientists who also served as executives. Three spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the allegations and non-disclosure agreements. The scientists, one of whom was an executive who sat on the review committee and all of whom were informed of the review’s findings at the time due to their stature at the company, said that the inquiry discovered falsification of data in the research, and that Tessier-Lavigne kept the finding from becoming public.
I’m into my seventh year teaching. I’ve taught in rich schools and poor schools, private and public, middle school and high school. My class schedule has been both unforgivingly busy and also free to the point of leaving me bored at midday. I’ve had great administrators and terrible ones. I’ve used more curricula than I care to count. I’ve spent entire Saturdays and Sundays grading and prepping. But nothing has left me more stressed or anxious than student discipline.
It was worst in my first year of teaching, when both my classroom management skills were at their weakest and the school in which I taught was distinctly weak-kneed. Every day was chaos, and the unpredictability of it scared me the most. What insult would fly across the room? Would I have to break up a fight today? For what educational failure or emotional damage was I responsible because of the chaos in this room? I still remember one student laughing at me after I asked him to sit down.
But it wasn’t just me. An experienced educator across the hall quit that year and checked into a mental hospital because of the verbal abuse she suffered from students. The shift from “these students are disrespectful” to “I am unworthy of respect” comes quickly, and it’s emotionally crushing.
In 2009, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, then a top executive at the biotechnology company Genentech, was the primary author of a scientific paper published in the prestigious journal Nature that claimed to have found the potential cause for brain degeneration in Alzheimer’s patients. “Because of this research,” read Genentech’s annual letter to shareholders, “we are working to develop both antibodies and small molecules that may attack Alzheimer’s from a novel entry point and help the millions of people who currently suffer from this devastating disease.”
But after several unsuccessful attempts to reproduce the research, the paper became the subject of an internal review by Genentech’s Research Review Committee (RRC), according to four high-level Genentech employees at the time; two were senior scientists and two were scientists who also served as executives. Three spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the allegations and non-disclosure agreements. The scientists, one of whom was an executive who sat on the review committee and all of whom were informed of the review’s findings at the time due to their stature at the company, said that the inquiry discovered falsification of data in the research, and that Tessier-Lavigne kept the finding from becoming public.
The latest move toward rational hiring is in Georgia, where the state Senate voted last week to pursue the removal of unnecessary requirements from certain government jobs. The bill directs the Department of Administrative Services to review the minimum level of education, training and experience needed for every state job, and to reduce requirements when reasonable.
“We used to mandate a college degree for almost everything,” said state Sen. John Albers, the lead sponsor. “Now we’re looking at that differently.” The state House and Gov. Brian Kemp are also likely to back the bill, which passed the Senate 49 to 1, including yes votes from 17 Democrats.
The bipartisan support is no fluke. If Mr. Kemp signs on, he’ll join two Republican Governors and two Democrats who have cut degree requirements in their states since last year. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an executive order last month to focus state job postings on experience and skills rather than education. It was one of the first policy moves by the newly inaugurated Democrat.
“Whether you went to college or gained experience through work, on-the-job training or an apprenticeship, we value what you bring to the table,” he said.
Democrats tend to describe cutting job restrictions as a way to spread opportunity. That goes for Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who reformed government hiring practices last April.
Republicans put more emphasis on efficiency. Take former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who started the trend when he reformed state hiring last March. As a former real-estate executive, he aimed to “find new ways to build a steady pipeline of talented, well-trained, skilled workers,” and he gutted restrictions to widen the applicant pool. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox made the same point when he nixed degree requirements for many state jobs in IT and health services.