#education #PublicEducation #bathrooms #BookBans #pronouns #SchoolSports
It’s tough to improve public education when officials – many of whom are elected – talk more about bathrooms, book bans, pronouns and whether transgender students should play on girls sports teams.
No one seems to be talking about things like middle school design, high school size and pupil-teacher ratios, as they had in the past.
But, maybe that’s the point. If officials focus on seemingly extraneous issues, public education will go away, and students will be left to fend for themselves in the private school market.
Maureen Downey, recently retired education columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, addressed this in her November 26, 2024, column.
On the federal level, there’s a push to abolish the U.S. Department of Education. Of course, the states do not want to see the federal education money dry up, but they just don’t want all the regulations that may come with that money.
Besides, the bathroom and book-ban talk gets many voters riled up, Downey points out.
Regardless of what anyone thinks of public schools, they have to take every kid. Private schools can discriminate about which kids they take.
And, if public schools are underfunded, the students are very likely to be less well educated, especially when school officials focus more on extraneous, but provocative, issues more than they focus on student achievement, getting the best teachers and having everything students need to get the best education possible.
But, some elected officials don’t necessarily want smart kids. The smarter the kid, the smarter the adults they will become. They may actually see the extraneous issues for what they are, and vote out some of these elected officials.
These officials may prefer to simply teach obedience rather than creativity. They see danger in encouraging kids to have minds of their own.
These same officials also oppose widespread immigration. If the children we are educating don’t have the smarts it will take to do the jobs of tomorrow, those brains may have to come from other countries.
Many highly technical U.S. jobs are held by people with very foreign-sounding names. Some of these are American, but some are not.
As Downey points out, 56 percent of Georgia students test below proficiency in algebra. Algebra is the beginning of more advanced math, which is and will be required for the jobs of the future.
As discussed here previously, there’s a desire to control smart people, including teachers. Discrediting their work, creativity and ingenuity enhances desired political narratives.
If children become too smart, they can discredit and disprove those desired political narratives.
Therefore, highlighting extraneous issues in education creates the anger the officials want and makes it easier to dismantle public education.
So, if these officials succeed, if you have a student with disabilities or other learning issues and you are forced into the private market to educate them, good luck finding a school that will take them.
If your child is shut out of the private education market, it won’t matter what bathroom or pronoun that student uses.
Peter
Monthly Archives: January 2025
FALSEHOODS, CONTRACTIONS AND CLIMATE CHANGE
#ClimateChange #Greenland #PanamaCanal #ClimateChangeHoax
Recently, we mentioned that spoken falsehoods often lead to contradictions.
There are many who will tell you they believe climate change is a hoax.
Yet, some of those same people are advocating for the U.S. to buy Greenland.
Why? The world anticipates that the ice melt resulting from climate change will lead to a transcontinental waterway across the Arctic that will connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Our adversaries are already making plans to utilize it.
Advocates for buying Greenland say we need to get a piece of that waterway for financial, strategic and security reasons.
Greenland will be at the forefront of that ice melt.
Buying Greenland – which is largely independent but under the security control of Denmark – would give us a large position for access to that waterway.
Also, there are rare minerals underground in Greenland – which would be more easily accessed if the ice melted — which would help our high-tech manufacturing sector.
This begs the question: if climate change is a hoax, why would we go through the trouble of buying Greenland?
In short: climate change is not a hoax and those who say it is know that, too. It will not be easy to buy Greenland. Denmark isn’t selling it. Would we just take it by force, even though it’s not ours?
We are also hearing discussion of taking back the other Atlantic-Pacific shortcut, the Panama Canal.
The stated reason: too-high fees to get ships through. Yes, the U.S. built the canal, but transferred control of it to Panama decades ago. Panama is not likely to give up that control willingly.
Also, south of the canal is the Darien Gap, a 66-mile treacherous jungle that connects Panama to Colombia. Walking through that jungle is the only way for South American immigrants, and others who would infiltrate the groups of immigrants, to get to the United States strictly on foot.
Would we then set up troops along the Canal Zone to stop those immigrants? Would we build a wall there?
Incidentally, the exorbitant shipping fees through the Panama Canal are largely the result of reduced water levels, meaning that fewer ships physically can get through on any given day. What caused those reduced water levels? Drought and climate change.
Climate change has been cited as a big reason more immigrants from South America, and elsewhere, want to leave their countries. They can no longer easily live off the land because of drought, storms, rainforest deforestation for luxury developments etc.
The rhetorical hoax of climate change is rearing its ugly head. Therefore, those who promoted the hoax are telling us that we should now take advantage of climate change’s effects.
Takeover of Greenland or the Panama Canal will NOT be quick and easy. Many say it will be impossible.
But, don’t underestimate those who would lie to us to try something, well, ill-advised.
Let’s hope the rhetoric is much more bluster than intended action.
Peter
Recently, we mentioned that spoken falsehoods often lead to contradictions.
There are many who will tell you they believe climate change is a hoax.
Yet, some of those same people are advocating for the U.S. to buy Greenland.
Why? The world anticipates that the ice melt resulting from climate change will lead to a transcontinental waterway across the Arctic that will connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Our adversaries are already making plans to utilize it.
Advocates for buying Greenland say we need to get a piece of that waterway for financial, strategic and security reasons.
Greenland will be at the forefront of that ice melt.
Buying Greenland – which is largely independent but under the security control of Denmark – would give us a large position for access to that waterway.
Also, there are rare minerals underground in Greenland – which would be more easily accessed if the ice melted — which would help our high-tech manufacturing sector.
This begs the question: if climate change is a hoax, why would we go through the trouble of buying Greenland?
In short: climate change is not a hoax and those who say it is know that, too. It will not be easy to buy Greenland. Denmark isn’t selling it. Would we just take it by force, even though it’s not ours?
We are also hearing discussion of taking back the other Atlantic-Pacific shortcut, the Panama Canal.
The stated reason: too-high fees to get ships through. Yes, the U.S. built the canal, but transferred control of it to Panama decades ago. Panama is not likely to give up that control willingly.
Also, south of the canal is the Darien Gap, a 66-mile treacherous jungle that connects Panama to Colombia. Walking through that jungle is the only way for South American immigrants, and others who would infiltrate the groups of immigrants, to get to the United States strictly on foot.
Would we then set up troops along the Canal Zone to stop those immigrants? Would we build a wall there?
Incidentally, the exorbitant shipping fees through the Panama Canal are largely the result of reduced water levels, meaning that fewer ships physically can get through on any given day. What caused those reduced water levels? Drought and climate change.
Climate change has been cited as a big reason more immigrants from South America, and elsewhere, want to leave their countries. They can no longer easily live off the land because of drought, storms, rainforest deforestation for luxury developments etc.
The rhetorical hoax of climate change is rearing its ugly head. Therefore, those who promoted the hoax are telling us that we should now take advantage of climate change’s effects.
Takeover of Greenland or the Panama Canal will NOT be quick and easy. Many say it will be impossible.
But, don’t underestimate those who would lie to us to try something, well, ill-advised.
Let’s hope the rhetoric is much more bluster than intended action.
Peter