Conservatives Are Being Educated Out Of Existence

Chattanoogan.com, Chattanooga, Tenn. ^ | 2009-01-03 | Tim Price

[roses of sharon]

Conservatives aren’t ‘gutless’ on most issues, but when it comes to standing up against liberals, phew.. I dunno. There’s a certain fatalism involved often, which gets the GOP and conservatives both in bad shape way too often.

Political and religious "conservatives" have seen it more important to purify their own, eat their own, battle with their own, with such ferocity as to dilute their own out of existence.

Our enemies have benefited from our "righteousness", and now have enormous power in government/Academia/Hollywood/Media.

All while we have been lengthening the litmus test our candidates must meet.

Soon, only a pre-programmed robot with no past will suffice.

[browniexyz]

I do understand that certain “traps” await “newbies” to the DC scene, so that any bushy-tailed bright-eyed idealism they arrive in DC with is soon tarnished with sordid realities of sewer-like politics there. But I am absolutely furious with Newt Gingrich and sick and tired of hearing his whiny voice telling the rest of us how it should be —HE BLEW IT-—

[SoftballMominVA]

I think that it is hard to get states to go RTW. I know that CO had it on their ballot this year and it did not pass. I can’t see a RTW ever passing in MI

[SoftballMominVA]

Why are there not more private Christian schools

It may be because of cost. My in-laws' church has a school and they have gone from free to 5k for members and 10k for non-church members. And now they are at a point where the school may not continue as the membership of the church has dropped and therefore the financial support for the school has also dropped.

[Will88]

But I am absolutely furious with Newt Gingrich and sick and tired of hearing his whiny voice telling the rest of us how it should be —HE BLEW IT-—

Yeah, he did blow it after contributing so much toward the 1994 sweep. But we have so few national spokesmen who can even put out coherent ideas that he still serves some purpose, even though he drifts into the McCain-like "reaching across the aisle" foolishness at times.

Newt got "Drill here, drill now" started, but our candidate did next to nothing to take advantage of the issue, or of Newt's highlighting the issue. And he came up with a few other quotable issue statements during 2008. More than most Republicans could claim.

We are in dire need of some intelligent, well spoken, conservative spokesmen on the national scene.

[tpanther]

I’ve seen at least one occasion where a college told a kid applying that he diden’t “learn science the right way” and had to retake a science course in order to be admitted.

[Chgogal]

I used to tutor at Tilden High School for three years. The children from the Robert Taylor Homes’ were assigned to Tilden. The school was a combat zone.

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-4141698.html

The teachers were awful and uncaring and REFUSED to set a standard of behavior much less of learning. It was pathetic. They succumbed to the OREO philosophy that was rampant at the time. The Great Society's experiment was a total failure and the “homes” were quietly torn down.

http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0102/ob/ob02.html

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JAS/is_2_35/ai_n26972150

My guess things may have improved slightly since the tear down. What really angers me is the lack of anger among Chicagoans and Americans in general at the fact that Ayers has influence over our children. NO ONE is upset that that POS and his wife are educating our children. We area pathetic bunch of pussies.

[tpanther]

You do realize Atlas Shrugged was a work of fiction?

Imagine if conservatives confronted liberals to the point we didn’t have to take our ball and go home in the first place, be it the drive-by media, public schools, politics...

creating a parallel conservative universe doesn’t seem to be working very well.

[Will88]

It might be worth noting that there have been articles stating how the libs are aborting themselves out of existence. Libs have significantly fewer children then conservatives, but then we have to factor in whether legal and illegal immigration will still serve to replenish the leftist ranks.

But conservatives till need to take back control of the kid’s educations.

[Amelia]

It is true that union membership and influence varies significantly by state, and in some states, particularly in the South, union influence is practically non-existent.

As an aside, I think the "teacher firing rates" on that site might be a bit misleading - a lot of teachers who aren't doing a good job are allowed to resign rather than being fired...and some are so miserable they resign without being encouraged to. We've had some teachers resign in the middle of the year, and I know of one who only lasted 4 days.

[NucSubs]

You do realize 1984 was a work of fiction?

You do realize Darkness at Noon was a work of fiction?

You do realize The Iliad was a work of fiction?

You do realize almost everything Rudyard Kipling wrote was fiction?

You do realize everything William Shakespeare wrote was a work of fiction?

You do realize the enormous breadth of inspirational or insightful works of writing that were fiction?

As to your incessant repeating of the “its not working well” is a straw man because it has not been done yet? Your comments are akin to saying Sherman’s tactics were not working a year before Atlanta. Most conservatives still submit to the liberal PS system.

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

Your war on the liberal school systems cannot be won from within. Your efforts are a failure. It is only getting worse. It’s time to try a new strategy.

[Theodore R.]

It just shows how uninformed American voters are nearly everywhere.

[Gondring]

I am in my late 50s, a college graduate, a Vietnam vet, and I may very well be getting laid off from my job this year.

You probably okay unless you're also white and male. If you're a white male, well...I feel for you, man.

How does one go about getting certified as an “emergency teacher”? Does one have to go back to school to a get an Education degree?

This is handled state-by-state. At the time I did this, in Pennsylvania, an emergency substitute-teacher certification was available to those with a baccalaureate degree and a short training course. I'm not sure what is required in various places, and what the status is for substitute needs in any location.

If you want to go for teaching certification, you might be able to go for a masters degree in education instead of a 4-year degree in it, but again, it varies state-to-state (also, some take prior work experience as credit, while some don't).

The problem that I found, in going back for a masters in education, was that many of the education classes were very valuable (and I wish more teachers paid attention to them!), but many were propaganda or worthless.

[tpanther]

It seems to me it gets worse as more people abandon our schools, journalism, the MSM, politics, etc., not improved.

[Gondring]

Volunteering is not enough. The system is broken beyond repair. It must be abandoned by conservatives and Christians for homeschooling, private, and conservative or at least neutral charter schooling.

I'm not arguing against that.

The Heritage Foundation supplies stuff free of charge. Pocket copies of the Constitution Declaration for instance.

And does every schoolchild have one? Are there lesson plans pre-made to go along with them, meeting state/school board requirements?

What role playing did you do? I’d like to use it in my homeschooling maybe (my kids go to private school but i augment it heavily with homeschooling).

Note that I first taught the lesson required by the teacher (supply and demand curves, with only the positive effects of price controls). Generally, teachers don't leave long assignments for substitutes, which would be helpful if a sub had a problem with a class. At that time, I was a very good teacher, too, so there was lots of time left and the students had a good grasp of what I'd covered (they were senior honors students, too :-)

Here's what I did off-the-cuff, with refinements for the afternoon section of the same class:

I told everyone to write down a number for their population (something like 10), and another number for their money ($5000?), and I passed out paper clips (to only some students) and asked them to bend them so they stood up. The paper clips were generators. I told the students the usual price of a generator.

I told the ones near the windows that they were coastal residents The ones across the room were northern residents and in the middle were central US. I told them they'd be graded on the well-being of their people, both in population and money.

Then I announced a hurricane hitting the coastal residents. Generators were essential to keep food and medicine safe, and to provide climate control and to run medical facilities, etc.

I can't recall the numbers I used, but I assigned a cost of transporting a generator from across the room or the middle of the room (1/2 as much). Every so often, I'd announce that any student who didn't have a generator had to cross off a person from his population.

Soon, the Coastal residents were desperately trying to pay the northern residents for generators and the prices demanded by the inlanders went up.

Then I asked, "isn't that an outrageous price for a generator? Shouldn't we put a price cap on them?" and many said yes.

I reset the game and tried again...

And man, those coastal folks were dropping like flies. The other students weren't willing to lose money on delivering a generator to the coast, so there were fewer generators and the situation was miserable! Of course, I didn't really grade them unfairly. :-)

In the afternoon session, I tweaked things a bit (yes, I'm a dedicated substitute and gave up lunch breaks :-) and allowed production of additional "generators"--but with price controls, that production was limited, of course. (But instead of "generators," I switched to gasoline for the afternoon session, deducting money from business owners unable to fuel their vehicles. That way, when the afternoon class all tried to sit away from the windows [having heard about the game from their buddies], they got hit with fuel shortages that the Gulf didn't have! That also got rid of the "I'm not going to let someone die for money" issue that could obscure the lesson.)

Adapting this for homeschooling, if your kids trade candy at Christmas or Easter, for example, put a cap on how many M&Ms can be traded for something one child wants, for example. :-) Note how both sides get unhappy under price controls.

[Gondring]

Speaking for myself (and everyone else here at 668), I don’t believe college is necessary.

There are many fields for which college is not at all necessary.

On the other hand, there are fields where a good education can be VERY valuable in both tangible knowledge as well as intangibles (e.g., experience with the lingo, seeing how experts in the field tackle problems, etc.), while a bad education in that same field is nearly worthless.

[Gondring]

What really angers me is the lack of anger among Chicagoans and Americans in general at the fact that Ayers has influence over our children. NO ONE is upset that that POS and his wife are educating our children.

I am at a loss to understand why parents care so little about their children.

They want the kudos but they don't care whether the kid actually knows anything or not.

[familyop]

During the late 1980s, a Women’s Studies instructor said something to the effect that feminist didn’t get the “good ol’ boys” in business or other institutions but exclaimed that “we got ‘em in education, didn’t we, girls!”

...not that anyone wants to hear that. You’ll get my vote, when feminism is completely out of politics.

[little jeremiah]

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I'm pinging both lists because the leftist agendas are several, including indoctrinating entire generations (as much as they can) with pro-homosexual, pro-abortion, anti-family and anti-self responsibility poison. Why are Repubs silent on this - or actually allowing and promoting this? I think that Dems have a lot of dirt on many Repubs and have blackmailed them. Also RINOs run the party, sneering at social conservatives - wanting our support, and ditching us when they get to DC.

The Fedgov should have nothing to do with education, arts, or about 80% of the stuff it does. Stop feeding these evils with government money, and many of these problems would wither on the vine. Local control will make all the difference.

[Post Toasties]

I want to commend you for taking the initiatives you described in public school. I have a couple very intelligent nephews and nieces in high school and college now and their attitude (due to educational system conditioning) is ‘that’s it’s a good thing 0bama won’. They cannot give a coherent reason for espousing such a belief because they’ve been indoctrinated, not educated.