Saturday, January 21, 2017

Department of Ed is about to get red-pilled: and everyone is losing their minds

No time for subtleties.  American teachers, administrators & bureaucrats but teachers more than anyone else… you suck. You have failed generations of students and this nation. There is no dancing around it any longer. Just accept the truth for what it is and maybe WE can fix your mess. I’ll get back to that.
Unless you live in some Unabomber utopia completely devoid of social media over the last week then you missed out on the high-tech lynching of one Betsy Devos. The school choice champion out of Michigan who was lambasted via her Senate confirmation hearing this week. There were some questions she either refused to answer or simply flat out did not know or even have an intelligent answer to. Under normal circumstances in this setting, it would be alarming and naturally, that’s all the red meat the liberals needed to declare DEFCON 5 across Twitter, Facebook and the like.
Suddenly your aunt, cousin or brother who happens to be one of 3.1 million full-time teachers across the country all of a sudden were instantly macro political scientists. People who normally don’t even know who makes up the three branches of government were “WOKE”. Pitchfork in one hand with the other shielding their sixteen students with the steadfast resolve of a mother grizzly bear protecting her cubbies.
Knowing full well, the overwhelming majority didn’t watch the hearing but instead picked up the cliff notes and immediately were enlightened. The irony of teachers taking the shortcut and coming up with subpar opinions/equivalencies is rich. Only in America can you spend a boatload on mediocrity and then have the perpetrators burn a strawman. And not get called on it. But those days are over. If we are to have this discussion let’s put all the cards on the table. If education is really the foundation for our Republic than its too important to mince words any longer.
First of all Devos, she’s a hatchet (wo)man. She was picked to grab the bull ( the education system) by the horns and push it to “school choice” as opposed to the traditional public education model. If and when she makes this a reality; mission accomplished. Devos has been a proponent of Common Core; a socialist/globalist wet dream where everyone at best achieves average. Just smart enough to run the machines but too dumb to think critically outside the box. Thus no threat to the power structure. Fittingly, that kind of sums up Devos here in both regards. Now that we got that out the way and are no longer mincing words…
Teachers? Yeah, back to them and I’m talking to all 3+ million of you. You suck. The results are in. The numbers don’t lie. We are floundering across the board compared to all other 1st world nations by just about every metric. No matter how much we shrink class sizes, no matter how much money we essentially set on fire IN THE NAME OF THE CHILDREN; nothing changes. And not only do you suck, you’re defiant and completely ignorant to your complicity in the rot that is at the core of the US Public education system.
We have seen a bureaucracy of a few powerful unions envelop the educational system like a Burmese python. This control and power so rigid and consolidated, it creates an environment where teachers performance and aptitude mean nothing and outside of giving a kid fellatio in his or her classroom with multiple witnesses… virtually impossible to fire them. Sure, there are some great teachers. Everyone can remember their favorite or most impactful teachers but we forget about the average or poor ones. Just how many poor teachers though are there?
There was an LA Weekly investigation done back in 2010 of the Los Angeles public school system that illustrates this. After a five-month investigation, LA Weekly determined that the Los Angeles Unified School District, with its 885 schools and 617,000 students who educate one in every 10 children in California spent $3.5 million trying to fire just seven of the district’s 33,000 teachers for poor classroom performance. The average cost of those cases was $500,000.
Not sure about the averages here but 33k teachers and only 7 were deemed incompetent? Apply those odds anywhere else in the American workforce and get back to me. Think about your drive-thru experiences. Think about contractors. Think about police (whom half are racist anyway, right?). How about priests? Think about watching your favorite football team. Or an MMA bout. You see what I did there at the end?
There are substandard or incompetent professionals everywhere; in every profession. Teaching is no exception. Yet it’s never even in the debate while our educational gains have been marginal if at all – over the last 30 years. We seem to have been inflicted with: Teacher Worship Syndrome. We’ve seen the Department of Education’s solutions for our educational apathy. We’ve tried no Child Left Behind. Common Core. We’ve incentivized teachers and students alike. From limo rides to Visa gift cards for just showing up. That’s right, we’ve resorted to paying for a public (free) education and still… not enough.
It’s gotten so bad and because teachers are so untouchable that Slate ran a story a few years ago on how “bad teachers can be made into good teachers”. It’s just our kids and all of our futures at stake, just capitulate, throw some training at them and viola. Presto, we have better teachers. Except for that doesn’t work. The study the article was built around was a study done in a school district in Ohio in 2001, that centered on Teacher Evaluation System or TES. Despite its success or failure, it didn’t pick up steam as the article points out: “a 2009 survey by the New Teacher Project found that school districts rarely use evaluation for any purpose other than remediation and dismissal”.
So… no oversight. No accountability. Par for the course.
James Marshall Crotty, who wrote a flaming deposition for Forbes back in 2012, came across some facts that only further compound my case, consider:

  • Despite high U.S. unemployment and far higher under-employment, major U.S. employers cannot find qualified American applicants to fill their job openings (skills gap). For instance, 63% of aerospace and life science firms report shortages of “qualified workers.”
  • 75% of U.S. citizens ages 17-24 cannot pass military entrance exams because they are not physically fit, have criminal records, or because they lack critical skills needed in modern warfare, including how to locate on a map military theaters in which the U.S. is fulsomely engaged, such as Afghanistan
  • According to a recent report by the not-for-profit testing organization, ACT, only 22 percent of U.S. high school students met “college ready” standards in all of their core subjects; these figures are even lower for Hispanic and African-American students. This means that, upon graduating high school, more than 50% of college-bound students need to take remedial classes in one or more subjects, though a far lower percentage actually do.
  • In 2009 PISA, U.S. students ranked fourteenth in reading, twenty-fifth in math, and seventeenth in science compared to students in other developed countries.

How do we fix this mess? McKinsey & Company, an independent consulting firm outside of the education lynch-mob has made some rather compelling arguments on just how and why our teachers are to blame for our education ineptitude. From the Asian model, more specifically the Singapore model the proof is all in teacher selection and retention. How to select them and how to keep them is the largest indicator from boom or bust. Take Finland for example, the leading nation in education the world over:

  • Students don’t start school until they are of age seven. In the first two years of school, they spend 4-5 hours per day in it. Yet at the age of 15, Finnish students are atop of the world’s testing at math, reading science and problem-solving.
  • PAYS PRIMARY EDUCATORS MORE THAN SECONDARY EDUCATORS. Seems too logical. 
  • They recruit from the top 10% of college graduates in education to become teachers.
  • Finland has a two stage selection process just to get into university to train as teachers; here in the states all you need is a pencil and piece of paper and you can be a teacher.
  • Finland frontloads salaries. By starting at a higher salary either money isn’t an issue anymore as the gap from a teacher with 1-year service to a teacher of 30 years service is at most 18%.
  • Finland also requires all teachers to have a masters degree.     
  • They also require teachers to assemble together in groups. Collaborating on lesson plans, reviewing each other’s lessons thus helping each other improve. They even off time off (one afternoon each week) to accommodate this to happen.
  • Special Education is destigmatized. Finland has an average of 1 in 7 teachers are for special education as many as 30% of its students while need some assistance in a school year.
As I said, in the beginning, these are not the normal circumstances. Yes, the setting is the same with the hearings on Devos but this is a scene out of the Matrix. Where the bullets are in slow motion. Where you are fending off multiple enemies with martial arts while admiring the wall decor. Trump, is trolling anyone that got upset by this nomination or any of his other nominations for his cabinet. His selections for their respective posts are almost all adversaries of their cabinet position. Devos is no exception. She has been on record saying “government truly sucks” and called public education a “dead end” because, well because the results speak for themselves. Trump wants to burn a lot of these agencies to the ground and the Department of Education created only 37 years ago is at the top of his list. I mean how did we ever learn without it for 200+ years? But our cotton candy soft populous couldn’t handle that approach, there wouldn't be enough safe spaces and cuddling corners around academia for that fix. So the trojan horse method looks like the softest landing for what needs to be done.
Education here in the states via the federal communist monopoly is spinning its wheels, so why not try something completely different? Why not put it back into the hands of those very states where the advantage of a republic can take hold like its supposed to? Where a city or state can adopt a different pedagogy. Over time the cream rises to the top and all the states can learn from each other. Look at DC. The independent incubation process is what makes us the United States. Collaboration instead of capitulation. ProWestarian US culture over globalism. The individual over communism. School choice being an enemy to education is a farce. If public schools die as a result; so be it. Having fewer choices and competition is a close minded, scared and a fatally failed perspective. Not to mention completely un-American.  There is a lot of you teachers out there and of course, most of you don’t suck. However, if you want to keep ignoring the fact that those around you or even you, yourself, isnt the solution but are actually the problem; then keep blaming Trump and continue arm chairing senate committee hearings. Or in other words, shit in one hand and stuff your complaints inside the other. Do THAT math year after year and grade the results. 
Post Script:
Hero’s don’t get a summer vacation.   

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Build the Wall but know your Enemy

As Mr. Trump continues to double down on his campaign trail promises of building The Wall as we await his inauguration less than 48 hours from now, there remains an ominous symbolic result that will take place before the first shovel will have even broken ground. Consider the fundamental backdrop of this wall.

On one hand, it's obviously ideal to keep campaign promises. Especially if those promises are ones that will be challenging. This will not only build credibility from supporters and detractors alike but it would also show something in short supply of these days in The Swamp and that is - Character. For someone to actually campaign on something truly remarkable while on the trail and follow through with it once elected despite political and public pressure is nothing short of unicorn status anymore. The norm in modern political discourse is the ObamaCare debacle. For what was promised on the trail compared to what was passed once Obama gained office is like comparing Sammy Sosa circa 1998 to now. 




This wall would not only disrupt illegal immigration; it would also impact the drug trade. Despite my Libertarian stances and views on drugs, this would surely disrupt business as usual revolving drug and human trafficking. The DEA’s 2015 National Drug Assessment Summary illustrates just how dominate the Mexican cartels are in the illegal drug trade. As Joseph Borelli of the Hill opined exceptionally last week, drugs cost the U.S. economy $193 billion per year… and that was 2007 data, ie; before the current heroin epidemic.

On the other hand, its cost is completely unknown. There have been reports as low as 8 billion to others as high as 50 billion. By today's standards, that's a drop in the bucket but this along with everything else Mr. Trump wants to do will cost money. And in case anyone hasn't noticed the last two presidents to serve full terms have each doubled the national debt by the time they left. This irresponsible result isn't sustainable long term.  

A potentially troubling outcome could be another hammer blow into the divide of a public that seems to splinter by the day. In contrast with many of most in my Libertarian ilk, while I'm firmly in the “a nation is no nation without borders” camp I'm also a realist and think of myself as being pragmatic. And in what I'm about to suggest might have some Machiavellian undertones but it's paramount in my view for the survival of The West.

The Wall while functional and surely within its merits does not override the United States relationships with her neighbors from the south. And I say, neighbors because Mexico illegal immigration has slumped over the years instead of being replaced by immigrants further south. Some of you may be thinking: “Yeah but they still come via Mexico” and that would be correct but besides the point.

The point of this essay and the fundamental foundation for all my writing is the preservation of Western ideals and culture. So much so, I would rather deploy an armada of Disney like TRAM’s at the border with free baked apple pies, complimentary Budweiser and Mcdonalds cheeseburgers for all, while immigrants (legal, illegal and any otherwise) while they wait to board than I would the alternative.

I would assume we rename the state of Texas to “Little Mexico” before I accept the alternative

I would push for legislation to include the empanada as the official partner of Thanksgiving day on behalf of Americans everywhere; then I would be willing to entertain even the thought of the alternative.

That alternative? The creeping tidal wave of intolerance that is Islam.


Consider the birthrate


“THERE ARE SIGNS THAT ALLAH WILL GRANT ISLAM VICTORY IN EUROPE—WITHOUT SWORDS, WITHOUT GUNS, WITHOUT CONQUEST—WILL TURN IT (EUROPE) INTO A MUSLIM CONTINENT WITHIN A FEW DECADES." MUAMMAR GADDAFI


Gaddafi, of course, was speaking about the migrants and subsequent births from those migrants across the European continent. Anyone that follows Black Pigeon Speaks knows full well the situation with migrants and Europe's downward spiral via multiculturalism.  Why would they not only allow this but continue to do nothing continuously, DESPITE the egregious and blatant primitive actions seems dumbfounding? The reality is Europe is dying off. The birth rates in most of its nations are well below the replacement level of 2.1 with some like Spain at 1.4. It is irreversible unless you start convincing the natives (of Europe) to embark on a baby boom. Sadly, the world cup is only once every four years.

So with low birthrate and an aging population, SOMEONE has to come in to make the car, stock the shelves, sell the beer and fill out the ranks. Ah, yes… Europe evidently didn't learn from their predecessor. As it was the Romans embracing conquests that led to the pillaging and absorbing of other cultures that would one day make up the bulk of their armies. Instead of Romans it was immigrated or captured barbarians flooding the ranks. Not surprisingly, they did not share as high esteem of the Roman culture as did the legendary legion’s (predominantly native men) before them. How’d that turn out?

According to a Pew Research study, between 2010 and 2015 “In every region for which data were available, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) for Muslims (3.1) is at or above the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman (the number needed to maintain a stable population, all else being equal).” In fact, Muslims have a larger fertility rate than the world’s population overall (2.5)

Islam will grow from 1.8 billion in 2010 to 2.8 billion in 2050. Thus making Islam growing twice as fast as the world population. And when this subject comes up there is always someone who points out that Islam will slow in terms of growth in the next fifty years but what they leave out is so will everyone else. All religions will. Care to guess what religion is still growing the fastest even then? Of course, Islam.

How does this relate to us? And how do I tie this into the wall? Consider these statistics from another Pew Research study from 2014 on religion in Latin America:


Latin America is home to more than 425 million Catholics – nearly 40% of the world’s total Catholic population

Overall, 84% of Latin American adults report that they were raised Catholic

Today, the Pew Research survey shows, 69% of adults across the region identify as Catholic


In this study, much of the premise is the loss of catholics to protestant churches. These are Christians now matter how you dice it. Regardless of your religious affiliation, if you're Pro West then you have to understand that the West was built upon, to a large extent, Judeo-Christian values. By all accounts, Latin America is the best ally we have in the culture war that is being waged on various fronts. From the PC-SJW-Left to the Islamic expansion; there is nobody better equipped to do battle against these grenades from a fundamental level than Latin America both domestic and abroad.

Does this mean the wall should not be built? Of course not. This just means we need to be cognitive in our discourse regarding the ideological battlefield. Mexicans and the rest of South America are not a threat to our culture. To our ideals. They want we want. They share the same god. Assimilation is not an issue for them. But can we say the same for the Left? Can we say the same for Islam? The answer is a resounding: NEGATIVE.  


“Know yourself, know your enemy, and you shall win a hundred battles without loss”