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Labels: State Fair

Posted by Chad The Elder--Link

Very interesting photo from TPT today, Governor Pawlenty at the MN State Fair during his radio show:


Ah, shamelessly courting the Evangelical Christian vote. That's perhaps the clearest sign yet that he's going to be McCain's choice for VP.

The Elder Crawls Out From Under A Rock: Could it be that Saint Paul is just jealous that T-Paw is shamelessly stealing his Snakes On Radio bit from a few years back?

Labels: Foto Foolies

Posted by Saint Paul--Link

I see my good friend and valued colleague John Hinderaker was profiled at the prestigious Norm Blog.

The Q & A provides some fascinating insights into the mind of the man, the legend, behind Power Line. In particular, I thought this was an insightful observation:

Who are your intellectual heroes?

Aristotle, St. Paul, Hume, Locke, Washington, Madison, Lincoln, Coolidge, Chambers, Reagan, Sowell, and my partners Scott and Paul.

Wow, that's some heady company there. Me, alongside the likes of Brit Hume, Rita Coolidge, and Scott and Paul of Power Line (and some others I'm not familiar with). I am honored beyond the ability to express myself.

I think it was this post that finally established my intellectual qualifications for John. I'll continue to do my best to live up to this standard.

The Elder Casts A White Shadow: I'm a bit surprised that John mentions Coolidge as one of his intellectual heroes. I would have pegged him more as being a follower of the Salami school.

Labels: Fraters Inc

Posted by Saint Paul--Link

In today's WSJ, Shikha Dalmia and Lisa Snell write that universal pre-school is not all that it's cracked up to be:

In the last half-century, U.S. preschool attendance has gone up to nearly 70% from 16%. But fourth-grade reading, science, and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) -- the nation's report card -- have remained virtually stagnant since the early 1970s.

Preschool activists at the Pew Charitable Trust and Pre-K Now -- two major organizations pushing universal preschool -- refuse to take this evidence seriously. The private preschool market, they insist, is just glorified day care. Not so with quality, government-funded preschools with credentialed teachers and standardized curriculum. But the results from Oklahoma and Georgia -- both of which implemented universal preschool a decade or more ago -- paint an equally dismal picture.

A 2006 analysis by Education Week found that Oklahoma and Georgia were among the 10 states that had made the least progress on NAEP. Oklahoma, in fact, lost ground after it embraced universal preschool: In 1992 its fourth and eighth graders tested one point above the national average in math. Now they are several points below. Ditto for reading. Georgia's universal preschool program has made virtually no difference to its fourth-grade reading scores. And a study of Tennessee's preschool program released just this week by the nonpartisan Strategic Research Group found no statistical difference in the performance of preschool versus nonpreschool kids on any subject after the first grade.

What about Head Start, the 40-year-old, federal preschool program for low-income kids? Studies by the Department of Health and Human Services have repeatedly found that although Head Start kids post initial gains on IQ and other cognitive measures, in later years they become indistinguishable from non-Head Start kids.

Why don't preschool gains stick? Possibly because the K-12 system is too dysfunctional to maintain them. More likely, because early education in general is not so crucial to the long-term intellectual growth of children. Finland offers strong evidence for this view. Its kids consistently outperform their global peers in reading, math and science on international assessments even though they don't begin formal education until they are 7. Subsidized preschool is available for parents who opt for it, but only when their kids turn 6.

More on the Finnish approach to education and its results is available here.

Dalmia and Snell also note that there is some evidence that preschool may actually be bad for kids:

If anything, preschool may do lasting damage to many children. A 2005 analysis by researchers at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, found that kindergartners with 15 or more hours of preschool every week were less motivated and more aggressive in class. Likewise, Canada's C.D. Howe Institute found a higher incidence of anxiety, hyperactivity and poor social skills among kids in Quebec after universal preschool.

Of course, there are selected groups of children who do benefit:

The only preschool programs that seem to do more good than harm are very intense interventions targeted toward severely disadvantaged kids. A 1960s program in Ypsilanti, Mich., a 1970s program in Chapel Hill, N.C., and a 1980s program in Chicago, Ill., all report a net positive effect on adult crime, earnings, wealth and welfare dependence for participants. But the kids in the Michigan program had low IQs and all came from very poor families, often with parents who were drug addicts and neglectful.

The problem is thinking that since preschool helps these kids, it will help all children. The reality is that for most children the results of preschool are mixed at best.

In far too many aspects of life today, children are pushed to grow up far too fast. Why should school be another one? Let kids just be kids for a while. There will be plenty of time for formal education later.

Labels: Education

Posted by Chad The Elder--Link

MSP Magazine editor Adam Platt on the Bush administration and the Republicans who support it:

I despise this Bush administration as much as anyone. And I recognize that among the delegates to the RNC are the truest of its true believers. But c'mon--don't these Republicans know the country hates their war, their abrogation of the Constitution, their manipulation of science, their attempts to politicize every once-sober function of government, and their attempts to label anyone who would disagree with them as unpatriotic?

Adam Platt on his own political orientation:

A year later, I seem to be one of the few moderate lefties who still wants to see Al Franken elected.

{Rim shot!}

Jeff Fecke, call your lawyer, somebody is stealing your act.

Of course, it is a long tradition in this town for the most partisan voices on the Left to call themselves moderates or centrists. They may even believe this to be true, which is a sobering comment on the nature of their social and professional circles. The fact that many of these people are in the media illustrates the uphill battle conservatives have in getting a fair hearing for their ideas and candidates.

This over-the-top, teeth grinding, garment rending language engaged in by these "moderates" also illustrates the mental state necessary for supposedly intellectual and sophisticated people to believe empty suit candidates like Al Franken and Barack Obama are OBVIOUSLY superior to their more qualified and moderate Republican rivals.

If you allow yourself to accept the worst possible slanders about one candidate (or party), you can turn your brain off and support the other guy, no matter what his flaws or fitness for the job.

Who wouldn't automatically vote against candidates responsible for abrogating the Constitution, manipulating science, politicizing EVERY once sober function of government, etc. etc. And who wouldn't despise the voters who support these candidates. I know I would.

The problem is, none of these assumptions are true about the GOP. These are wildly hyperbolic distortions and outright falsehoods about George Bush and Republican voters. They are products of the most strident and partisan elements of the Left, engaged in a propaganda effort to demonize and assassinate the character of those standing in their way to power.

I don't take Platt to be a member of this particular cohort. He doesn't produce these notions. He's just happy to accept them, allegedly base is voting behavior on them, and pass this info along to all his readers as his own wise judgment.

If only he would take the time to critically analyze these irresponsible accusations! If he would make a point of truly understanding what the responses of the accused are to these charges! If he would read the best and brightest of Conservative observers on these issues before jumping to conclusions! I'm sure he'd see the light and he'd be much more fair in his commentary about Republicans. Maybe even realize people like George Bush, Norm Coleman and John McCain are honorable men working with difficult, complex jobs. And perhaps acknowledged they were/are the superior choice in an election, given the alternative.

{Rim shot!}

Uh no, I don't believe that's possible. Because I don't believe the incidence of George Bush abrogating the Constitution has anything to do with the votes of people like Platt. He'll vote against Bush whether he abrogates his brains out or not. It really doesn't matter. Platt is a man of the Left. He's going to vote for his fellow travelers, always. You just can't say that publicly when you're trying to come off as a moderate in order to persuade people to vote against Republicans.

Instead we get more demonization and the politics of personal destruction. Victor Davis Hanson noted this phenomenon recently and had these thoughts on what is bound to happen if Obama wins in November:

After destroying the protocols of good taste and decorum, an infantile 60s generation in their age and sobriety will now understand that they themselves (see Thucydides on Corcyra) are likewise in need of some shared standards of public expression, rightly fathoming that such easy venom weakens a free society.


Yes, the Left will suddenly adopt a new maturity about a President Obama, and responsibly demand of us all to excise from our vocabulary over the top hate speech, such as comparing an elected administration to Nazis or fantasies about killing American presidents. (Ed. note - like this?)


And this, once again, will be as it should be-albeit eight years too late.


Amen.

Labels: Media-Local

Posted by Saint Paul--Link