Have you taken a poll of readers just to see who prefers Central Standard Time and who prefers Central Daylight Time? If so, I missed it. I would just be interested to see how the readership breaks down (not that it will change anything). Might be fun to see what readers' reasons are, too.
I have read about the issue of DST as a national issue. Generally making DST permanent is more popular. In fact, some states have passed laws to make it so, but they need approval of the feds to enact them. The sleep expert people think Standard Time is the way to go because it is bad for our heath to wake up when there is so much darkness after that.
I am always up well before sunrise in the winter, so I don't know if it would matter to me. I would vote for summer hours all year round.
I’m apparently one of the few people who prefers the status quo, since I don’t like the idea of it being dark at 8 in the morning in winter, or having the sun fully shining at 4 in the morning in high summer. I also like the way the sun doesn’t set till close to 9 in summer, so if we have to pick one, I vote to keep summer hours.
Marc, you're not allowed to just think things are fine. You have to be annoyed no end, and whine twice a year about this trivial inconvenience that actually aligns with what most people probably want (more daylight in warm weather but without dark mornings in winter). You have to dutifully read and share the twice-yearly articles, including the ones that purport to prove that DST is actually bad for our health, and generally pretend that this is a real controversy.
i'd prefer year-round DST. i live in Mich, a cpl miles from Lake Mich, Eastern time. i love the late nites in the late spring & summer. would be willing to put up the late late sunrises in the winter.
Re: Bob Dylan, I must have missed the comments in previous posts,.but Johnny Cash called Dylan the greatest songwriter of his generation and that analysis is good enough for me to be a fan.
To your point regarding the pivotal question unanswered as a result of Crimo, Jr.’s guilty plea, not only has there been no adjudication of whether the son’s twenty first birthday was a superseding event that nullified any responsibility of the father for this tragedy, but the case’s standing as a “beacon” is unlikely. Unless there is an appeal, this outcome creates no legal precedent to rely on going forward. The best the prosecutor can hope for is to be contacted for guidance by other prosecutors (God forbid) facing similar situations.
Hopefully though, the case that will truly impact this area of the law is the one in Michigan where the shooter was a minor at the time his parents gifted him a gun (although allegedly they locked it away), and still a minor when the school called the parents in to discuss the student’s troubling behavior, immediately PRIOR to the mass shooting, the parents refused the administrator’s request to remove him from the school, and in fact left without taking him, either for the help he clearly needed or for the safety of others.
As horrific as it is that we have so many of these heartbreaking cases, this one with these parents currently incarcerated while awaiting trial, and charged with more serious offenses, could become the legal precedent that is so desperately needed from any direction, in light of current legislative intractability re: gun laws.
I don’t think Crimo only saved himself money and “ agita”. I think he could have been convicted, been required to go to prison while his appeal was pending, and spent more than 60 days behind bars even if eventually won. It would have been nuts not to take the deal even though the case against him legally is really fatally flawed.
However, I think that Crimo is now wide open to lawsuits, as he has admitted his negligence and responsibilities. Anyone suing him now only has to establish damages. I don't know if declaring bankruptcy would even protect him from all financial damage for legal and settlement costs.
No. I don’t think you are right. As part of a civil lawsuit the plaintiff will have to establish causation. Something that was not necessarily determined as part of the plea deal because as part of the deal he pled guilty to reckless conduct which includes conduct which “endangers the public” not just that which actually causes harm. So he can take the position that he was admitting that his actions certainly endangered the public as soon as he signed the card application but that the question of whether there was causation between his act and actual harm was not determined. If you think this is a “dance on the head of the pin” argument I assume you don’t do much work on collateral estoppel. But that’s something I do regularly and these sorts of arguments often prevail.
I bow to your expertise. But I have a hard time believing that a jury would have any trouble finding causation and damages in such an emotional case with such an unsympathetic defendant. I think that Crimo is already a party to the suit against Smith & Wesson and the gun stores, which I would think also have the causation defense, as well as not admitting anything. It will be interesting to see where that ends after appeals.
You assume that this question would get to a jury. It might, but since the facts are not disputed this is really an issue of causation as a matter of law; a legal question for the judge not the jury. Smith & Wesson's defense on this and Crimo's are not the same at all.
Regarding Mincing Rascals comments about school funding and the Invest in Kids program, Tami S. has a very good point about student based funding. Austin Berg also had a good analogy that our federal tax dollars go to Pell Grants that benefit private and religious colleges and no one on the left or right complains about that. EZ, your comments often seem to assume that parents are choosing different schools only based on wrongly perceived teacher quality. As you probably know from your own choice to send your kids to certain CPS schools, parents want their children to be in schools with educationally motivated and well disciplined students so that their kids will maximize their educational potential. Moreover, especially at the high school level, they fear that their children will not only be influenced negatively by underachievers but by gangs, and other students who make poor life choices.
Another issue that needs to be addressed is the gerrymandering of the new elected school board maps for Chicago that is going on in Springfield. While elected school boards are the norm in the suburbs, the voters are able to vote directly and equally for all members. As Christopher Barry, the U of C professor of public policy explains in the Tribune this morning, the new unwieldy 21 member school board that is coming to Chicago is now subject to gerrymandering and political chicanery in Springfield that is likely to result in even more families and taxpayers escaping to the suburbs.
And another Cast of Characters parading down the ballot about whom most of us voters will likely know even less than we do about all those Judicial candidates who seem to keep getting elected no matter how many Not Recommended notes they accumulate on Bar Association guides. Can't see much good coming out of an elected school board in our current political scheme.
Part of the reason that charter / religious schools APPEAR to be doing a better job than public schools is their ability to discriminate against anyone that could bring their test scores down or need more resources. If there is essentially a 'you have to be this good to enter' gate, then the outcome is guaranteed.
absolutely incorrect. by and large charter schools in IL take students by lottery among those who apply.
i won't argue the issue of whether they discriminate against students with disabilities, because i don't know enough about that. but as to '... discriminat[ing] against anyone that could bring their test scores down ...', and '... you have to be this good to enter', that's incorrect - unless you can prove it.
To the list of things that demonstrate the deliquescence of the conservative snowflake, let us not forget the tendency to experience fits and seizures because a sales clerk at a department store bids you adieu with “Happy holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas” (even though December 25th might be weeks away). This pathetic trait is doubly lame, as it indicates a) a paranoid belief that Christianity is under attack by way of an imagined “War on Christmas”, and b) a whiny ingratitude and hostility at a simple gesture of good will.
Re this statement concerning studies into vouchers: "The impact is usually small and may vary depending on the program." This caveat could apply to virtually all research into educational interventions. When I studied to be a teacher, I was struck by how weak the scientific support was for not all but nearly all claims that people make about how to make kids do gooder in school. On reflection, I realized that this isn't surprising. It's very difficult to design effective studies. Also, I tend to think that people overstate nurture and discount nature. (I'm not saying it's all nature, but we act as though it's all nurture, which seems just as wrong.)
Is my guess correct that all of the studies are observational studies, as opposed to double-blind studies with control groups? I would think the latter would be very hard, which makes interpretation of studies more subjective.
If I understand the idea of double-blind research correctly, I think they're pretty much impossible in most social science research, because you're always going to know whether you're giving or receiving the intervention that you're trying to assess. (In dugs research, that's not so. Neither the subject nor the researcher knows whether they are taking or administering the drug being tested on the one hand or a placebo on the other, and so such studies are "double blind," blind to both patient and researcher, and thus have maximum reliability.)
The best social science studies are those that are not double blind but at least randomized and controlled, such that you are comparing the outcomes of two groups, a group that receives the intervention on the one hand and a group that doesn't (the control group) on the other, where selection is randomized. There are lots of studies that aren't that. But there are some that are. This is possible where there are lottery programs, for example -- where, say, all students want in to the program, but only some make it, and their selection has nothing to do with who the student is. Even with those, however, there are always confounding variables, and it's often difficult to attribute differences in outcomes to the intervention with a lot of confidence, especially where differences in outcomes are not that big, as is often the case.
As a newish teacher, I often found that I wanted to attribute different outcomes to something I did, and I sometimes tried doing little experiments. As in, in Section 1 of Class A, I would do more group projects than in Section 2 of that same class, and see what happened on assessments. I soon realized that this is pathetic research, scientifically speaking. Differences could just as well hinge on the slightly different make-up of the two sections, even though they were sorted randomly, the intangibles of class dynamics (do students develop a rapport in their group or not, just because they click or are friends anyway, for example), maybe the time of day, some other aspect of my performance, who knows? It's well-nigh impossible to isolate just the thing you want to assess and exclude or account for everything else. The best you can do is try.
Meanwhile, one is overwhelmed as a teacher by everything you can't even get close to "fixing," especially at the high school level. Students come in with pretty widely varying ability levels (intellectual/cognitive capacity), willingness levels (do I care, do my parents care?), and social/emotional/executive functioning levels (organization, time management, grit) that, in most cases, don't change much, even as they are gaining skills and knowledge they didn't have before to varying degrees. This isn't surprising when you think about it.
Don't get me wrong. One tries to move the needles to the extent they're not in green territory. We owe it to them to try. But we're not magicians!
Interesting comments. It sheds light that at best anything found in research has at best a weak effect because learning is influenced by so many variables. A problem I see from some school district administrators arises when they want to try something new. I think it is good to try new things, but to get that to happen they have to overstate the certainty and/or magnitude of what they want to do. In Evanston, I have seen the K-8 district try several things which were rolled out to great fanfare only to be abandoned within a few years. My guess is you have seen your fair share of hair-brained ideas working as a teacher.
Yep, that's it. The tale of the tape is pretty much one of breathlessly promoted fads, backed by overstated research or theory, that consistently fail to deliver on goals nobody wants to admit are really tough nuts. People need to look busy, display requisite urgency, virtue-signal, and justify their jobs. Maybe that's harsh, a broad brush, but I'd argue there's more than a grain of truth to it.
I agree there are motivations for overstating things that are corrupt. But another reason is people are reluctant to change. At a public entity like a school district there needs to be enough buy-in to try something out, and that simply can't happen without a lot of hype.
In Evanston a good idea that was floated was to swap the start times of K-5 schools with the middle schools. At the time, and still today. middle school started an hour earlier than the elementary schools. The different start times were there to make efficient use of buses. Middle school kids would get more benefit from the extra hour of sleep inn the morning than younger kids. I thought it was a good idea. As with any change there was significant push back from the public, so they dropped the idea.
In all the fuss over the southern border, I wonder how many here ever ever seen the northern border. From Minnesota to the Pacific, in most cases, one simply walks across. No fences or natural borders exist in most areas. There is a small town in Vermont called Derby Line, where entire buidings are split by the border. One could walk in one door, cross the border, and walk out. And Canada is relatively easy to enter. Are we so sure all the terrorists are entering through Mexico? Writers have penned several novels with this very thing happening. But I hear no outcry over buiding a wall with Canada.. Too many people are building false narratives over what is hapening at the southern border. Most of the crossers are poor people escaping violence and poverty in their home countries and conservatives are protecting their wallets. The protestors are not totally wrong. I just wish they would be honest about their motives.
Laurence - Borders matter. Without them, a nation does not have sovereignty.
The very material reason there is more attention and concern over the southern border than the northern border is a matter of numbers. Is estimated that up to 6 million illegal immigrants have crossed our Southern Border in the less than 3 years time since Biden became president, the Department of Homeland Security is estimating that over 600,000 people crossed our Southern border just this year without detection. That is a tiny fraction of the number of people who are estimated to be crossing our northern border illegally.
Biden's open Southern border is a very real security concern for the United States, and it is by far the number one concern of a majority of voters going into 2024. If liberals cannot understand why so many people would vote for Trump over Biden, this is reason number one.
Garth Brooks' cover of Dylan's "To Make You Feel My Love" is sublime. Dylan's Christmas album is an excruciatingly painful listen. My husband plays it to torture me.
Humbug! Dylan has gifted us with the antidote to the omnipresent sugar coma holiday fare of “All I Want for Christmas is You” and “The Christmas Shoes.” It also provoked the finest critical comment of all time: Dylan’s “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” sounds more like a threat than a promise.”
Very small effects and I've yet to see or read anything that genuinely explains what these improving schools have done to improve scores (often a bit of a fishy measurement) that they wouldn't otherwise have done. Post hoc ergo propter hoc doesn't work for me in this case.
But as a supporter of public schools, why don’t you want them to improve, even if a small amount? It seems win-win. Schools get a bit better for those who stay, and others have a choice they prefer.
Because shorrt-term results are uneven and the long-term effect on public education is likely negative. And because I don't want tax dollars going to support private schools, particularly ones with a religious focus. Those of you who are all-in for helping kids go to private schools are totally free to donate to scholarship funds.
This is a non-sequitor. Of course everyone is free to donate and many do. The claim that short-term gains will reverse is simply an assertion that could be made in either direction. The on-point part of your response is that your principal of separation of church trumps your desire for improving education.
I think keeping church and state separate is VERY important, yes, and the short and long term evidence that diverting tax money to private schools results in improved overall educational outcomes is weak and not very persuasive. I suspect the long-term impact is negative.
"An argument’s a collective series of statements to establish a definite proposition." You are providing your naked opinion and suspicions.
However, I do agree that the evidence is LIKELY to be weak. I need to look at it to determine what I think of its strength. Like almost all studies supporting regulations (gun control, circumcision, taxes, welfare payments, etc) the tendency of researchers is to look for evidence supporting a conclusion. Hence the replication crisis. And governments are notoriously opposed to actual evidence-based policies, especially random-control trials.
I would favor more controlled experiments in education - via opt-in lotteries (Waiting For Superman) for example. Are you in favor of this? And I am strongly in favor of supporting the most effective educational outcomes, be they home schooling, religious schools, non-religious private schools, open-enrollment public schools, etc. Public / private co-operation with religious groups is everywhere. In Oak Park we are looking to fund migrant housing via churches. Children will literally live in the churches.
Eric, agree with your view of the Crimo Jr case. What if the defendant had been Donald Trump?
He would have fought the case, appealed and likely won. Since Trump has many homes, he would not have to deal with the locals anger. And of course, no jail time at all.
He would declare the whole thing a witch hunt and fund raise off of it.
There is one level of justice for poor people, another for the middle class, still another for the rich. But the ultimate level of “justice” is reserved for one Donald Trump.
I do enjoy getting the extra sun in the early morning right now - at 7 am today it wasn't pitch dark like it was last week at 7 am - which was glum. Of course it sucks big time now when the sun goes away at 5 pm. I liked it better last week when the sun set at 6 pm. My solution: instead of fiddling around with the clock, we should just order Mother Nature to set the days to be the same length year round. If we elect Trump in 2024, he will solve this problem in 24 hours.
Upon coming across the Dew Dogs photo, I immediately googled it and found the article you noted when I returned and scrolled further down. Holy Crap!
The shopping duck tweet I felt is a visual dad tweet - barely a groaner. I also liked the high voltage tweet. I ended up voting for the Opera Spoilers, however.
To answer the question that Ms Metz raises in her Dew Dogs tweet, we have been meticulously transformed into a culture of coprophagiacs. This is reflected in the quality of everything that we consume from the “food”, to our phones, to the music, to the movies, to the news, to television, to most contemporary literature, and to our political choices.
Why would anyone yell “psyche” before sending this product out when our entire culture displays daily such a readiness to consume such vast quantities of almost nothing but excrement?
It also seems like there is far more acceptance of products that are intentionally bizarre or disgusting in taste and presentation. Not sure when this began to seem humorous or interesting. But I also don't get why newlyweds would want to smash cake in their faces.
Marc, agree with you big time on the cake smashing thing. I think it would be an interesting study to see how many of these folks stay married after 5 years.
Have you taken a poll of readers just to see who prefers Central Standard Time and who prefers Central Daylight Time? If so, I missed it. I would just be interested to see how the readership breaks down (not that it will change anything). Might be fun to see what readers' reasons are, too.
I have read about the issue of DST as a national issue. Generally making DST permanent is more popular. In fact, some states have passed laws to make it so, but they need approval of the feds to enact them. The sleep expert people think Standard Time is the way to go because it is bad for our heath to wake up when there is so much darkness after that.
I am always up well before sunrise in the winter, so I don't know if it would matter to me. I would vote for summer hours all year round.
I’m apparently one of the few people who prefers the status quo, since I don’t like the idea of it being dark at 8 in the morning in winter, or having the sun fully shining at 4 in the morning in high summer. I also like the way the sun doesn’t set till close to 9 in summer, so if we have to pick one, I vote to keep summer hours.
I'm fine the way things are. I would vote for Standard Time if forced to change. I would hate dark mornings in the winter.
Marc, you're not allowed to just think things are fine. You have to be annoyed no end, and whine twice a year about this trivial inconvenience that actually aligns with what most people probably want (more daylight in warm weather but without dark mornings in winter). You have to dutifully read and share the twice-yearly articles, including the ones that purport to prove that DST is actually bad for our health, and generally pretend that this is a real controversy.
i'd prefer year-round DST. i live in Mich, a cpl miles from Lake Mich, Eastern time. i love the late nites in the late spring & summer. would be willing to put up the late late sunrises in the winter.
Re: Bob Dylan, I must have missed the comments in previous posts,.but Johnny Cash called Dylan the greatest songwriter of his generation and that analysis is good enough for me to be a fan.
To your point regarding the pivotal question unanswered as a result of Crimo, Jr.’s guilty plea, not only has there been no adjudication of whether the son’s twenty first birthday was a superseding event that nullified any responsibility of the father for this tragedy, but the case’s standing as a “beacon” is unlikely. Unless there is an appeal, this outcome creates no legal precedent to rely on going forward. The best the prosecutor can hope for is to be contacted for guidance by other prosecutors (God forbid) facing similar situations.
Hopefully though, the case that will truly impact this area of the law is the one in Michigan where the shooter was a minor at the time his parents gifted him a gun (although allegedly they locked it away), and still a minor when the school called the parents in to discuss the student’s troubling behavior, immediately PRIOR to the mass shooting, the parents refused the administrator’s request to remove him from the school, and in fact left without taking him, either for the help he clearly needed or for the safety of others.
As horrific as it is that we have so many of these heartbreaking cases, this one with these parents currently incarcerated while awaiting trial, and charged with more serious offenses, could become the legal precedent that is so desperately needed from any direction, in light of current legislative intractability re: gun laws.
I don’t think Crimo only saved himself money and “ agita”. I think he could have been convicted, been required to go to prison while his appeal was pending, and spent more than 60 days behind bars even if eventually won. It would have been nuts not to take the deal even though the case against him legally is really fatally flawed.
However, I think that Crimo is now wide open to lawsuits, as he has admitted his negligence and responsibilities. Anyone suing him now only has to establish damages. I don't know if declaring bankruptcy would even protect him from all financial damage for legal and settlement costs.
No. I don’t think you are right. As part of a civil lawsuit the plaintiff will have to establish causation. Something that was not necessarily determined as part of the plea deal because as part of the deal he pled guilty to reckless conduct which includes conduct which “endangers the public” not just that which actually causes harm. So he can take the position that he was admitting that his actions certainly endangered the public as soon as he signed the card application but that the question of whether there was causation between his act and actual harm was not determined. If you think this is a “dance on the head of the pin” argument I assume you don’t do much work on collateral estoppel. But that’s something I do regularly and these sorts of arguments often prevail.
I bow to your expertise. But I have a hard time believing that a jury would have any trouble finding causation and damages in such an emotional case with such an unsympathetic defendant. I think that Crimo is already a party to the suit against Smith & Wesson and the gun stores, which I would think also have the causation defense, as well as not admitting anything. It will be interesting to see where that ends after appeals.
You assume that this question would get to a jury. It might, but since the facts are not disputed this is really an issue of causation as a matter of law; a legal question for the judge not the jury. Smith & Wesson's defense on this and Crimo's are not the same at all.
Regarding Mincing Rascals comments about school funding and the Invest in Kids program, Tami S. has a very good point about student based funding. Austin Berg also had a good analogy that our federal tax dollars go to Pell Grants that benefit private and religious colleges and no one on the left or right complains about that. EZ, your comments often seem to assume that parents are choosing different schools only based on wrongly perceived teacher quality. As you probably know from your own choice to send your kids to certain CPS schools, parents want their children to be in schools with educationally motivated and well disciplined students so that their kids will maximize their educational potential. Moreover, especially at the high school level, they fear that their children will not only be influenced negatively by underachievers but by gangs, and other students who make poor life choices.
Another issue that needs to be addressed is the gerrymandering of the new elected school board maps for Chicago that is going on in Springfield. While elected school boards are the norm in the suburbs, the voters are able to vote directly and equally for all members. As Christopher Barry, the U of C professor of public policy explains in the Tribune this morning, the new unwieldy 21 member school board that is coming to Chicago is now subject to gerrymandering and political chicanery in Springfield that is likely to result in even more families and taxpayers escaping to the suburbs.
And another Cast of Characters parading down the ballot about whom most of us voters will likely know even less than we do about all those Judicial candidates who seem to keep getting elected no matter how many Not Recommended notes they accumulate on Bar Association guides. Can't see much good coming out of an elected school board in our current political scheme.
Part of the reason that charter / religious schools APPEAR to be doing a better job than public schools is their ability to discriminate against anyone that could bring their test scores down or need more resources. If there is essentially a 'you have to be this good to enter' gate, then the outcome is guaranteed.
absolutely incorrect. by and large charter schools in IL take students by lottery among those who apply.
i won't argue the issue of whether they discriminate against students with disabilities, because i don't know enough about that. but as to '... discriminat[ing] against anyone that could bring their test scores down ...', and '... you have to be this good to enter', that's incorrect - unless you can prove it.
To the list of things that demonstrate the deliquescence of the conservative snowflake, let us not forget the tendency to experience fits and seizures because a sales clerk at a department store bids you adieu with “Happy holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas” (even though December 25th might be weeks away). This pathetic trait is doubly lame, as it indicates a) a paranoid belief that Christianity is under attack by way of an imagined “War on Christmas”, and b) a whiny ingratitude and hostility at a simple gesture of good will.
Deliquescence?
A tendency to melt or dissolve.
My debts to the late great film and theater critic John Simon for “deliquescence”, which seemed to be one of his favorite words.
Nice word. I get smarter every week reading this blog. :-)
Re this statement concerning studies into vouchers: "The impact is usually small and may vary depending on the program." This caveat could apply to virtually all research into educational interventions. When I studied to be a teacher, I was struck by how weak the scientific support was for not all but nearly all claims that people make about how to make kids do gooder in school. On reflection, I realized that this isn't surprising. It's very difficult to design effective studies. Also, I tend to think that people overstate nurture and discount nature. (I'm not saying it's all nature, but we act as though it's all nurture, which seems just as wrong.)
Is my guess correct that all of the studies are observational studies, as opposed to double-blind studies with control groups? I would think the latter would be very hard, which makes interpretation of studies more subjective.
If I understand the idea of double-blind research correctly, I think they're pretty much impossible in most social science research, because you're always going to know whether you're giving or receiving the intervention that you're trying to assess. (In dugs research, that's not so. Neither the subject nor the researcher knows whether they are taking or administering the drug being tested on the one hand or a placebo on the other, and so such studies are "double blind," blind to both patient and researcher, and thus have maximum reliability.)
The best social science studies are those that are not double blind but at least randomized and controlled, such that you are comparing the outcomes of two groups, a group that receives the intervention on the one hand and a group that doesn't (the control group) on the other, where selection is randomized. There are lots of studies that aren't that. But there are some that are. This is possible where there are lottery programs, for example -- where, say, all students want in to the program, but only some make it, and their selection has nothing to do with who the student is. Even with those, however, there are always confounding variables, and it's often difficult to attribute differences in outcomes to the intervention with a lot of confidence, especially where differences in outcomes are not that big, as is often the case.
As a newish teacher, I often found that I wanted to attribute different outcomes to something I did, and I sometimes tried doing little experiments. As in, in Section 1 of Class A, I would do more group projects than in Section 2 of that same class, and see what happened on assessments. I soon realized that this is pathetic research, scientifically speaking. Differences could just as well hinge on the slightly different make-up of the two sections, even though they were sorted randomly, the intangibles of class dynamics (do students develop a rapport in their group or not, just because they click or are friends anyway, for example), maybe the time of day, some other aspect of my performance, who knows? It's well-nigh impossible to isolate just the thing you want to assess and exclude or account for everything else. The best you can do is try.
Meanwhile, one is overwhelmed as a teacher by everything you can't even get close to "fixing," especially at the high school level. Students come in with pretty widely varying ability levels (intellectual/cognitive capacity), willingness levels (do I care, do my parents care?), and social/emotional/executive functioning levels (organization, time management, grit) that, in most cases, don't change much, even as they are gaining skills and knowledge they didn't have before to varying degrees. This isn't surprising when you think about it.
Don't get me wrong. One tries to move the needles to the extent they're not in green territory. We owe it to them to try. But we're not magicians!
Interesting comments. It sheds light that at best anything found in research has at best a weak effect because learning is influenced by so many variables. A problem I see from some school district administrators arises when they want to try something new. I think it is good to try new things, but to get that to happen they have to overstate the certainty and/or magnitude of what they want to do. In Evanston, I have seen the K-8 district try several things which were rolled out to great fanfare only to be abandoned within a few years. My guess is you have seen your fair share of hair-brained ideas working as a teacher.
Yep, that's it. The tale of the tape is pretty much one of breathlessly promoted fads, backed by overstated research or theory, that consistently fail to deliver on goals nobody wants to admit are really tough nuts. People need to look busy, display requisite urgency, virtue-signal, and justify their jobs. Maybe that's harsh, a broad brush, but I'd argue there's more than a grain of truth to it.
I agree there are motivations for overstating things that are corrupt. But another reason is people are reluctant to change. At a public entity like a school district there needs to be enough buy-in to try something out, and that simply can't happen without a lot of hype.
In Evanston a good idea that was floated was to swap the start times of K-5 schools with the middle schools. At the time, and still today. middle school started an hour earlier than the elementary schools. The different start times were there to make efficient use of buses. Middle school kids would get more benefit from the extra hour of sleep inn the morning than younger kids. I thought it was a good idea. As with any change there was significant push back from the public, so they dropped the idea.
In all the fuss over the southern border, I wonder how many here ever ever seen the northern border. From Minnesota to the Pacific, in most cases, one simply walks across. No fences or natural borders exist in most areas. There is a small town in Vermont called Derby Line, where entire buidings are split by the border. One could walk in one door, cross the border, and walk out. And Canada is relatively easy to enter. Are we so sure all the terrorists are entering through Mexico? Writers have penned several novels with this very thing happening. But I hear no outcry over buiding a wall with Canada.. Too many people are building false narratives over what is hapening at the southern border. Most of the crossers are poor people escaping violence and poverty in their home countries and conservatives are protecting their wallets. The protestors are not totally wrong. I just wish they would be honest about their motives.
Laurence - Borders matter. Without them, a nation does not have sovereignty.
The very material reason there is more attention and concern over the southern border than the northern border is a matter of numbers. Is estimated that up to 6 million illegal immigrants have crossed our Southern Border in the less than 3 years time since Biden became president, the Department of Homeland Security is estimating that over 600,000 people crossed our Southern border just this year without detection. That is a tiny fraction of the number of people who are estimated to be crossing our northern border illegally.
Biden's open Southern border is a very real security concern for the United States, and it is by far the number one concern of a majority of voters going into 2024. If liberals cannot understand why so many people would vote for Trump over Biden, this is reason number one.
Garth Brooks' cover of Dylan's "To Make You Feel My Love" is sublime. Dylan's Christmas album is an excruciatingly painful listen. My husband plays it to torture me.
Humbug! Dylan has gifted us with the antidote to the omnipresent sugar coma holiday fare of “All I Want for Christmas is You” and “The Christmas Shoes.” It also provoked the finest critical comment of all time: Dylan’s “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” sounds more like a threat than a promise.”
It sounds more like a cow pulling its foot out of the mud to me, but I will defend to the death the right to love Dylan.
“Evidence on both small-scale and large-scale programs suggests that competition induced by vouchers leads public schools to improve.”
Like magic or something.
Very small effects and I've yet to see or read anything that genuinely explains what these improving schools have done to improve scores (often a bit of a fishy measurement) that they wouldn't otherwise have done. Post hoc ergo propter hoc doesn't work for me in this case.
But as a supporter of public schools, why don’t you want them to improve, even if a small amount? It seems win-win. Schools get a bit better for those who stay, and others have a choice they prefer.
Because shorrt-term results are uneven and the long-term effect on public education is likely negative. And because I don't want tax dollars going to support private schools, particularly ones with a religious focus. Those of you who are all-in for helping kids go to private schools are totally free to donate to scholarship funds.
This is a non-sequitor. Of course everyone is free to donate and many do. The claim that short-term gains will reverse is simply an assertion that could be made in either direction. The on-point part of your response is that your principal of separation of church trumps your desire for improving education.
I think keeping church and state separate is VERY important, yes, and the short and long term evidence that diverting tax money to private schools results in improved overall educational outcomes is weak and not very persuasive. I suspect the long-term impact is negative.
"An argument’s a collective series of statements to establish a definite proposition." You are providing your naked opinion and suspicions.
However, I do agree that the evidence is LIKELY to be weak. I need to look at it to determine what I think of its strength. Like almost all studies supporting regulations (gun control, circumcision, taxes, welfare payments, etc) the tendency of researchers is to look for evidence supporting a conclusion. Hence the replication crisis. And governments are notoriously opposed to actual evidence-based policies, especially random-control trials.
I would favor more controlled experiments in education - via opt-in lotteries (Waiting For Superman) for example. Are you in favor of this? And I am strongly in favor of supporting the most effective educational outcomes, be they home schooling, religious schools, non-religious private schools, open-enrollment public schools, etc. Public / private co-operation with religious groups is everywhere. In Oak Park we are looking to fund migrant housing via churches. Children will literally live in the churches.
Eric, agree with your view of the Crimo Jr case. What if the defendant had been Donald Trump?
He would have fought the case, appealed and likely won. Since Trump has many homes, he would not have to deal with the locals anger. And of course, no jail time at all.
He would declare the whole thing a witch hunt and fund raise off of it.
There is one level of justice for poor people, another for the middle class, still another for the rich. But the ultimate level of “justice” is reserved for one Donald Trump.
I do enjoy getting the extra sun in the early morning right now - at 7 am today it wasn't pitch dark like it was last week at 7 am - which was glum. Of course it sucks big time now when the sun goes away at 5 pm. I liked it better last week when the sun set at 6 pm. My solution: instead of fiddling around with the clock, we should just order Mother Nature to set the days to be the same length year round. If we elect Trump in 2024, he will solve this problem in 24 hours.
Easy peasy. Just move to Ecuador.
In Turandot, “she” (Turandot) doesn’t die, although another woman (Liù) does kill herself mid-opera.
She should, though. What a rotten person.
If you’re curious about the background of the Highland Park shooter, Robert Crimo, check out this website: https://nemfsdopie.fandom.com/wiki/Robert_Crimo#Biography
We are still bound to say "alleged."
Upon coming across the Dew Dogs photo, I immediately googled it and found the article you noted when I returned and scrolled further down. Holy Crap!
The shopping duck tweet I felt is a visual dad tweet - barely a groaner. I also liked the high voltage tweet. I ended up voting for the Opera Spoilers, however.
To answer the question that Ms Metz raises in her Dew Dogs tweet, we have been meticulously transformed into a culture of coprophagiacs. This is reflected in the quality of everything that we consume from the “food”, to our phones, to the music, to the movies, to the news, to television, to most contemporary literature, and to our political choices.
Why would anyone yell “psyche” before sending this product out when our entire culture displays daily such a readiness to consume such vast quantities of almost nothing but excrement?
We are all smarter today from reading Steven K's comments!
It also seems like there is far more acceptance of products that are intentionally bizarre or disgusting in taste and presentation. Not sure when this began to seem humorous or interesting. But I also don't get why newlyweds would want to smash cake in their faces.
Marc, agree with you big time on the cake smashing thing. I think it would be an interesting study to see how many of these folks stay married after 5 years.