Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Fraudulent People, Fraudulent Ideas
There seems to be a non-trivial correlation between fraudulent ideas, and the fraudulent people who promote them. From the fundamental dimness of DEI “scholars” to the perversions of Kinsey, to the DDT scare of Rachel Carson, there is a destructive path of overclaims, thinly sourced, misrepresented, or downright fraudulent research. The latest seems to involve a math “scholar”, Jo Boaler, who has been influential in California adopting “heterogeneous classes” that throttle high performers and fail to support low performers, and to delay teaching algebra until the 10th grade.
Dr Boaler gives bad advice and charges a lot for it from her coveted perch in the Stanford University education department.
Though some of the specific allegations are new, the complainant’s conclusion — that Boaler has “engaged in reckless disregard for accuracy” throughout her career — won’t be surprising to those familiar with her track record. Besides routinely misrepresenting citations for decades, Boaler also has a history of deceptively presenting her professional credentials, charging underperforming schools exorbitant consulting fees, and pushing to water-down public school courses while placing her own children in elite private schools.
Academic/research fraud is at a crisis level (IMO). It was bad in 2020 when reviewed by Lee Harvey in an issue of Quality in Higher Education. Events since then do not suggest things are getting better.
I have long held the belief that fads in elementary and secondary education have been largely driven by a desire for teachers not to be bored by the repetition. I sympathize, but making kids your (involuntary) guinea pigs is a violation of your fiduciary duties.
When you blend in bad ideology with ineffective instruction you have quite a stew of malpractice. And when you have miseducated two generations of students your society may be doomed.
Published in General
Jo Boaler is not a mathematician, but rather a researcher in “math education.” I probably studied more math in my undergrad college that she has in her entire career. And I did not major in math!
Nah, it’s because in general, the least-smart students major in education. Most teachers at the elementary level have no mastery of any subject; they major in things like “early childhood education.” Very few at the secondary level have any mastery of the subject they teach. You can’t teach what you don’t know.
IMHO, elementary school teachers should major in an actual discipline, like math, English, history, etc. They can learn “teaching” on-the-job. Secondary school teachers should have at least a Master’s degree in the subject they teach.
What kind of sick people spend a lifetime preparing children for failure? It’s pathetic, a real tragedy.
Military kids move from school to school just as parents more from base to base. We saw it all. Private Lutheran school K-4- very good. Moved. Middle school very bad. Students weren’t issued books to take home so we demanded one and got it. No homework because kids didn’t bother to do it. Husband had retired so we ordered Abeka home school books and he worked with her several hours a day after school. Moved. Schools were much better but lumped all performers together so smart ones could raise the dumb ones up. Teacher confided with us that daughter was smart but underperforming because dumb ones had teased her. We pushed her but she resisted because she was already the smartest in the class and didn’t believe us when we said it wasn’t enough. Moved here. Finally a school with honors and AP courses. We enrolled and demanded they ignore her less than A average. They enrolled her in honors and teacher was one of their most demanding. Daughter got her butt kicked the first reporting period and said she had no idea how hard she really needed to work. We assured teacher she would be Ok, to not ease up. Each reporting period she gained ground and was recommended to continue in honors. She rose to the challenges. She majored in chemistry in college because she had a good HS chemistry teacher. Her college required all students to pass a freshman competency test she passed first time and her professor wanted her to major in English. California had it all wrong. Why? Teacher performance judgments depend on student performance. Teachers are resisting failures. Remember when we heard of schools caught helping students cheat on standardized tests? Even in adult ed, people who teach can’t administer the GED to students.
Enemy agents.
If one has an agenda, one requires a crisis.
It’s not just boredom, it’s that many of them – especially the Ph.Ds etc – have their own pet theories that they want to try out.
And as with management pretty much everywhere, anyone new coming in figures they have to shake things up in order to justify their hiring; otherwise, if they leave things alone, that shows the previous people were already doing it right.
Maybe that’s a contributing factor at the higher levels – the “professors” at teaching colleges might need variety. More likely they just need to validate their status – nobody gets ahead by doing what’s worked for centuries, right? Of course, educational theoreticians have to innovate if they want to publish, and they’re all selected for their Communism anyway.
That, and they are willing tools of the left.
Trained professional early childhood educators, that’s who.
When I was going to Oregon State in the 70s, the average GPA of those going into education was lower than the athletes’.
Great statement; may I borrow it?
Students majoring in Education have the lowest SAT/ACT scores of all test takers who indicate a major. Been this way for decades.
Better than bad ideology with effective instruction, I guess.
You are welcome to it. I certainly didn’t come up with it.
I forgot who said “they don’t seek power to advance an agenda, they seek an agenda to advance their power”
addendum- this really applies to the “greens” aka watermelons- green on the outside- All red on the inside.
I’m not sure that the miseducation isn’t the goal of the enterprise. I did grade school in the ’70s (Catholic School through 8th Grade and private College Prep for 9-11). I note that because my Mother was a public school teacher and a huge believer in education. She believed in it so much that she sent all three of her sons to private schools. So, I cannot speak to that experience, but for my entire educational experience, we learned about how great the US was and is, and how it is a force for good in the world. Yes, some of that is made up, but the overarching concept (we won WWI, we won WWII, we stopped communism in Korea, we didn’t talk Viet Nam much, but we knew why we went there (Truman Doctrine)) that concept was part of our education. We were the “melting pot” and needed “elbow room” and possessed a “manifest destiny” to do good and bring freedom to the world.
But that isn’t the goal of education now at all. We focus on the dark parts of history and downplay the positive aspects of what the US has done and does throughout the world. I have my thoughts about why that is, and it isn’t as nefarious as a grand conspiracy to undermine the country. I think it is more that historians (of which my Father taught at the college level for 50 years, and my degree) as they delve deeper into the details of history want to show their knowledge. Think of it as the “actually…” tendency to show the normal person how smart one is by demonstrating that the common view is flawed because of ignorance. The more outrageous the “elite information” the more the person seems to be special and thus we saw history turn into a race to show how terrible the US is making them seem more intelligent
The purpose of a system is what it does.
Bingo!
the elites want to use ESG as their own credit rating system – like the CCP have.
In the 90s, the opening up China was supposed to move them more towards the west, the elites want to move more towards the CCP.
Did You Know That You Have an ESG Score and it Can Be Used Against You? – HotAir
Yes, based on recent reporting I couldn’t help but thinking yesterday as I was driving to a dinner engagement, that someone could likely reconstruct (if not directly access) my movements that day. We are not truly free — although we remain free-ish.
Someone else said, “The purpose of terrorism is not to achieve the revolution; the purpose of revolution is to achieve permanent terrorism” or something like that.
EDIT: A cite and accurate quotation would be appreciated.
Indeed.
The purpose of a system is what it does (POSIWID), coined by Stafford Beer
and
And thus we dismiss with contempt all cries of “That wasn’t real socialism!”… and many other excuses made for abject failure.
Or, in short visual form, still one of my all-time favorites:
I went looking for that and while I didn’t find it per se, I did find a couple of interesting things. The first was Robespierre talking about why the Reign of Terror was a “good thing”. This is an excerpt from a longer speech:
Interestingly he continues to talk about whom the gov’t should protect:
Not quite what you were looking for, but it is calling for a permanent state of terror against the enemies of the state, which are further described as strangers.
This led me to a scholarly article on Modern Terrorism which also noted the importance of the concept of strangers in terrorism in the concept of friends and enemies:
The entire article (while long) is rather interesting though it has some issues IMO. I would have to think longer on the topic to really decide.,..perhaps a full post makes sense on this when I can read it in depth and think about it.
The central thesis is that the public’s “acceptance” of terrorism is based on the claim to legitimacy that the group has. The initial wave of terrorism in the late 19th and early 20th century tended toward the ideal of anarchy and it is where we get our idea of the bomb-throwing anarchist or iconoclast. Their claim was to overthrow the state in the cause of personal liberty and as a result, they weren’t very accepted, even though many were Russian, and post the October Revolution there was a tinge of communism overtaking the anarchy. The other concurrent wave of terrorists in this period and later were often partisans who often represented the poor and rural people against the urban elite. They were seen as more legitimate because they were fighting for a cause as opposed to anarchy.
Lastly:
One part of her conclusion is that each subsequent wave of terrorism focuses more on the entirety of the Westphalian concept of the State (one reason that I think the date of the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) should be the start of the Common Era from a dating standpoint, but I digress). The Anarchists failed in part because the States grew and adapted, and in the author’s opinion because of the rise of international society and then by decolonization. Universal suffrage became a reality and not a facade. She ascribes much to the rise of socialism as well, but I do think she has a point that later terrorist groups like the ones in the US in the 60s and 70s were angry with the system, and it is certain that the current Islamoterrorist movement is not directed at toppling the US per se, but toppling Western Culture
Thanks! I have heard the maxim many times, but I never knew the origin.
And it is often very difficult to track down the source, because few people bother to give citations for quotes. Professional journalists are nearly as bad as bloggers and tweeters.