Suburban Republican Women's Club

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"'In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life and they lost it all—security, comfort and freedom... When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free.'...These words, written by 18th Century Historian Edward Gibbon are as relevant today as they were in the Fourth Century B.C.....

...the legal profession is the first profession of modern society. Lawyers form and shape the system of laws that govern us and you have to live by the principles of justice that our society requires. If you fail us, you betray the ideals of the rule of law that are necessary for the survival of a democratic society. You sow the seeds of civic despair...How do you maintain your financial commitments to family and to your own beliefs when the temptations to ignore those beliefs are so great? How can you stay true to what you think you should do when all around you are signs that your standards of right doing might be more exacting than technical readings of the law suggest?...well formed ideals are the bedrock requirement of a happy life. The first of these is to remember that you cannot serve your clients when you compromise what you truly believe. If a client serves purposes that are not in the interests of our society and not consistent with your values, you are under no obligation to serve that client...."

Great discussion about college degrees and their affect on futures -- See also NYT's Plan B: Skip College: "...
College degrees are simply not necessary for many jobs. Of the 30 jobs projected to grow at the fastest rate over the next decade in the United States, only seven typically require a bachelor’s degree, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics...Among the top 10 growing job categories, two require college degrees: accounting (a bachelor’s) and postsecondary teachers (a doctorate). But this growth is expected to be dwarfed by the need for registered nurses, home health aides, customer service representatives and store clerks. None of those jobs require a bachelor’s degree."

"...Rather than asking your child how he is doing, ask him what he is learning. Make the dialogue an animated discussion of the content of his education. Show interest, listen carefully, respond enthusiastically, follow up! To that end, I have created a list of the sort of questions I think make for a great conversation at home, and one that sends the right message about the purpose of education.

1. Tell me about one of the villains you have read about in literature.
2. Tell me about a character you admire.
3. Who is the funniest character you have encountered in a novel?
4. Who among the figures of history would you most like to have been?
5. What’s the funniest/most gruesome/most consequential story [your teacher] has told you about history?
6. About whom have you learned in history that you’d like to know more about? (Then help them go do it!)
7. I hear you sometimes make up your own word problems in math. Want to try to stump me with one?
8. Have you learned anything useful in math you think you could teach me (or your sibling)?
9. Tell me about something that was hard for you to understand at first but now you are really proud to grasp.
10. When we go outside, is there something that you can point to and talk about because you learned about it in science?"

The classroom is not a political platform...

Two sides to an issue at the least...

Seven professors comment on a controversial theory: "...the key reason why few conservatives go into the teaching profession is that the stereotype of the job of a professor just doesn’t fit the image they have of themselves..." Do you agree with the responses?

"...Only 3 percent of Detroit's fourth-graders scored proficient... the same story for Detroit's eighth-graders. Four percent scored proficient, 18 percent basic and 77 percent below basic ... The academic performance of black students in other large cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles is not much better than Detroit and Washington..." Sowell points out that these abysmal results are not due to teacher salaries or a lack of "role models" for black children. In addition, "Schools of education, either graduate or undergraduate, represent the academic slums of most any university. They are home to the least able students and professors. Schools of education should be shut down..."

Where's the education happening? In residential dorms on campus. This story is from 2007 about U of Delaware, but don't think for a moment it doesn't happen there and elsewhere today--at least ask when you do a college visit or want to make a donation. Freshmen make great candidates. Only private prep high schools and off-the-books college sessions get away with actively teaching “[a] racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality.” Ahhh, there's so much more, so read the article, but you get the idea. HT VMcKenna

After billions of dollars over the years following fads, private money in NY back a program in 10 schools that 9 found very effective. "The pilot curriculum is heavily focused on content knowledge, phonics and non-fiction books...It is based on the belief that when students struggle with reading comprehension in elementary school, middle school and beyond, a large part of the problem is that they lack basic knowledge in subjects like history, science and literature." And a common knowledge base allows for common understanding.

The emailed invite states, "...Republicans fret that the US is fast becoming a "socialist country" -- with government spending on bank bailouts and Barack Obama's proposed health care reform. But the genuine tradition of socialism is "socialism from below," which means something more than state intervention in the economy. Socialism is really about the struggle to oppose discrimination in all its forms and to put the needs of working people before corporate profits. Come to this meeting to discuss the idea of socialism -- and socialist strategies for changing the world." Who needs a history lesson on Socialism?!

Campus Report exposes the continuation of a problematic and systemic teaching of Islam in disproportion to the teachings of other religions.

Great advice. "... Students should take the opportunity to broaden in a way that will be unavailable when they get out of school. Dostoevsky will always be there for them to read as long as they remember how to read. But it will be much harder to figure out differential equations on their own time." There's more about making the most of your educational dollars.

"...a few Free Online School Rules I'd learned by the end of my experiment:
1. You get what you pay for. "Free" means no asking questions in the middle of class, which can be a dealbreaker with a subject as potentially confusing as physics.
2. That said, it might help if you actually buy the textbook.
3. Free online learning is not going to teach you anything substantial overnight, or in a week (unless you are Rain Man, in which case you're just memorizing anyway). Plan to do a whole course.
4. There are few things better than hot bread made with your own two hands, especially when you understand the science of why it's so delicious.
5. We are at the beginning of this experiment, not the end..."
 Here are his links to openware courses (OCW).   An MIT student commentator makes good points.  HT JoanneJacobs

"...Today, Keegan Abendschoen is just 25 years old—but now has two people working full-time for him. He's also taken courses in landscaping management and design from the County College of Morris, with the result that Keegan's Landscaping has expanded its offerings to include laying out driveways and walkways and such. In other words, young Mr. Abendschoen is not just a worker: He's the proprietor of a successful enterprise who continues to invest in himself so he can expand his business...Of course, working in the trades or starting up a small business is not for everyone. Then again, neither is college."  William McGurn

"...The top National Universities choices are pretty predictable: Every year, the three or four top Ivies shuffle places with a few massive state schools—not surprising, since nearly half each college's score is based on a) What administrators at other schools say about a college and b) how much the college spends per student. What is worse, the U.S. News guide pretty much pretends that campus politics, classroom bias, and threats to free expression aren't problems—which is rather like ranking restaurants without worrying about their hygiene." Lamest curricula in academia? Learn about Brown, Amherst, and Hamilton.

"School choice advocates in America can gain inspiration from the education revolution that is sweeping the developing world...[one father in the largest slum in Africa who pays to send his daughter to a private school] would have warmed the heart of Milton Friedman: he told me 'if you go to the market and are offered free fruit and vegetables, they'll be rotten. If you want fresh produce, you have to pay for it.'"

"...parents and students are doing a tougher cost-benefit analysis of the true value of a pricey undergraduate degree...Chelsea returned to the family’s home in Boulder, Colo., last year and became a partner in the real-estate-investment business that her mother and aunt own jointly. Now 20 years old, Chelsea co-owns two rental houses and is working on a bachelor’s degree at a nearby public university. Chelsea says she misses her Amherst friends and the stimulating campus environment. Still, she adds, a degree from a top school 'is worth a lot, but it’s not worth that much.'”

No tuition. No Federal money. Conservative investment of endowment. Interesting background: "Cooper has a rich, 150-year history. Founder Peter Cooper, a 19th-century inventor and industrialist with less than a year of formal schooling, aimed to provide working-class students a "first rank" education "as free as air or water." ... Cooper's most valuable asset is a gift from Peter Cooper's family -- the land under the Chrysler Building [in NY, NY]." Cooper Union sounds interesting---especially for budding architects.

"When the Bamberger family opened a haberdashery 65 years ago, they insisted their staff use mental arithmetic to price up customers' purchases...Colin Bamberger, 82, whose parents founded the Remnant Shop in 1944, said that less than one in ten applicants are now able to solve basic maths problems without turning to a calculator or till...In the past, around eight in ten made the grade." Everyday Math, indeed.

"...Better high schools frequently use the same textbooks for the mandatory requirements that are used in the first two years of college. If a high school draws from the upper end of the socioeconomic scale, the courses will be more demanding than the first two years of most colleges..." The commentary is great as well.

Government officials give away loads of our money to expensive, high-paying, whiny colleges. Why doesn't the "government" intervene there? FYI: "A 2003 survey by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture found these ratios of Democrats to Republicans: Swarthmore: 21-1. Bowdoin College: 23-1. Wellesley College: 23-1. Brown University: 30-1. Amazingly, the study couldn't identify a single Republican at the faculties of Williams, Oberlin, MIT, and Haverford, nor a single Republican administrator at Penn, Carnegie Mellon, or Cornell." Just in case you are wondering, the gap is due to discrimination, not intelligence.

Interesting and clear explanation comparing lessons in what is essentially a pc-world versus an academic world. At least scroll down and find the two lessons. Her questions are relevant. Lesson 1 is definitely pushed in today's colleges of education. Classical education is sorely lacking.

Cato Unbound offers an incredible exchange of ideas on whether college is worth it. Perhaps you're asking yourself Can schools be fixed? Many other subjects in the Archives section. EagleForum's Education Reporter provides a great summary Questioning College. Bennington College is led by someone FAR left (her "betrayal" of US is breathtaking, esp. vis-a-vis our founders...start 7 min. in if you lack time). She defines education as a "framework for action; "...achieving economics of equity"..."action-oriented curriculum"... learning to organize "the world of words to maximum design." Filmed Feb. 2009.