Education under Attack by Educators

While reading a NY Times article (The 150 Year War, about the Civil War and that it's reason for being fought is still being fought today) there was a mention about Virginia school systems having a textbook with a 'gross inaccuracy' - that "thousands of blacks fought for the South".

I checked their source - roanoke.com - and it has the source as the textbook by Five Ponds Press, (the publisher of "Our Virginia: Past & Present"), which apparently has no business printing books. 

The publisher can't get pictures right either. "The publisher plans to replace a photo of a brown bear that is not native to Virginia. The photo and caption were found to be of a brown bear, instead of a black bear."

 "The book's author, Joy Masoff, defended her work to The Washington Post, saying she found the passage on the Internet."

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????? This IDIOT woman found something on the internet, and without checking such an outrageous comment, decided it belonged in a School Textbook !!!!!

Now, some blacks DID fight for the Confederacy, but as I was taught in the 1960's, it was under duress and in "support roles" only as they were not trusted with rifles (umm, because they might shoot their white 'master' oppressors). 

But look at what you can find on the internet - (Christianity, or Islam) is the only true religion; white men are supreme over all life; Atlantis was a city with flying machines; China launched rockets over several thousand years ago; there are buildings on the Moon that NASA has 'blacked out' in photographs.

So, sure, you will find stupid stuff like "there were black battalions fighting under Stonewall Jackson". Stuff like that is on white supremacy sites, trying to claim that even the blacks knew that the whites were superior and therefore should be followed and obeyed. What a bunch of crap! Apparently, Joy Masoff uses such sites for her personal knowledge source - scary that any education company would hire someone like that.

This brings up other education worries, namely that the states California and Texas have, for decades, been given the de-facto role of determining what the rest of the country will be taught, and that Texas and other states are calling for "intelligent design" (another name for "creationism", or "God did it from nothingness") to be mandatorily taught in all schools. These people are trying to state that both "Intelligent design" and "Darwinism" are theories, and therefore should be given equal weight in thought.

Well, the many aspects and conclusions of Darwinism are theories; we look at fossils, make conclusions about what other fossil was its ancestor, and say "this is it". BUT when someone comes up with evidence that an earlier conclusion is wrong, changes to the thinking are made.

But with "intelligent design", there is no evidence to see, no trail to follow, and therefore no way to dispute or modify it's conclusion. It is simply someone saying "this is it, no questions allowed".

America is getting behind in education - there IS NO DISPUTING THAT. Schools that don't give homework because parents complain "my kid has not time to do homework because of all the other activities" the parent drags them to. Our kids are told they don't have to memorize multiplication tables. Schools worry more about how many computer they can get instead of being sure kids can read what is on the PC. Colleges graduate athletes because they don't want the public to know that they are only there to play football (or whatever) and really could not, upon graduation, even pass a qualification test to enter the school.

America is in a mess. Republicans (mainly) want to abolish the Dept. of Education, and want each local school district to decide what, and how, to teach. Yet we live in a Global Work Environment, and so need to have ALL kids learn the SAME stuff - there MUST BE A NATIONAL STANDARD FOR EDUCATION. Until we make education a National Imperative, we will fall further behind.

Economy Falters? Maybe Because ......

REUTERS - July home sales hit 15-year low - 8/24/10 - response to other commenters

GARY 54 minutes ago Report Abuse
Don't know how to break this to you folks, but there will be no coming out of this collapse this time.... the banks, and the media with all of their focus on doom and gloom
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You follow the MSNBC Kudlow way - the market should always go up, the economy will be fine if people will just keep buying things BEYOND their means, etc.

REALITY is that economies generally go up, but when irrational spending goes wild, the economy JUMPS, but when the debt starts to 'hit home' people pull back. They realize that paying 30% of their income to a credit card company is STUPID.

House prices in some markets went up 2%/yr, but other's 10%-20% per yr or more -- an unrealistic increase fueled by speculation, house flipping, low ARM % with owners planning to sell before the rate increased. Add to that the ones buying with no hope of ever paying because 'brokers' made loans that should have been illegal, and you had a condition that had to die. These 'brokers' made money on every 'closed deal', with no connection to the house, bank, or anything else.

It goes on and on -- if you can't follow, blame your "representatives", parents and schools. A BASIC education should have taught you that "what goes up must come down" and "bubbles break". That includes the results of bad banking, etc.

We ARE still in Trouble, America

I POSTED in comments for 
AP Exclusive: CIA whisked detainees from Gitmo --- 8/6/2010


America has been taken by radicals of both parties. If you ever watched CNN "Crossfire" you saw the manipulation. One side makes a good point, then tosses in some stupid comment, so the other side can jump on that instead of having to agree on the good idea.

It was designed just to keep the two parties fighting, screaming that the 'others' were destroying America.

Maybe both were right.
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This was brought out because of comments 'dissing' someone for a fairly clear argument, but someone else called 'rambling' or 'incoherent' (well, they didn't put it that way -- they didn't have the education).


All of us need to look at the decisions being made about America's schools; we constantly hear that they are not teaching our kids and that something has to be changed. Worse yet, they keep wanting to add some 'off the wall' class because of some new 'problem' (race relations, gender relations, or whatever).


But I think the real problem is that we have left behind what GOT US HERE - the education style done in the 1950's and 1960's. Those schools, and maybe better yet the decades before them, produced some fairly well educated people. We made cars, bridges, computers, and so much more, and we could, for the most part, tell when a politician was lying to us.


Today, the 'right' and the 'left' scream "doesn't care about America" and no one looks beyond that to the issue on the block.


Sad. Very sad. Americans just can't think clearly anymore.

Long-Term Unemployment: No Help For The 99ers

A response to the 'Titled" HuffintonPost story about Unemployment Benefits running out.


The country has been run into the ground. Give away things while the economy is good, lower taxes while it is good. And waste - waste more than you put to use. That is the mantra of the 2 parties.

But then when things are bad, there are no reserves to get you through the rough times. Sorry that schools stopped teaching economics decades ago, and replaced it with "keyboarding" (typing on computers that do the formatting for you). Sorry that we encouraged americans to spend more than they make.

"Lower taxes" on the people so they will spend more. "Lower taxes" on companies so they will make more, but when you can't buy with the air you breathe, the companies go under.

We are in this fix because they ruined the schools - most can't count change much less balance their living expenses. Because they kept tempting us with 'pretty things' instead of teaching the lessons that our earlier generations learned the hard way - work, save, buy with some and save for a 'rainy day'.

Today, we are getting drenched, and few are prepared.

To some less educated, it may sound like I am blaming those out of work. I am not. I am blaming a system that taught us all the wrong lessons. I am blaming "the rich get richer" and "let them eat cake" crowd; and the people who taught us not to care.