Public Education: Trying Desparately to Hold Children Back

Cato makes a stunning catch when reviewing a Wired piece about Khan academy:

Even if Khan is truly liberating students to advance at their own pace, it’s not clear that the schools will be able to cope. The very concept of grade levels implies groups of students moving along together at an even pace. So what happens when, using Khan Academy, you wind up with a kid in fifth grade who has mastered high school trigonometry and physics—but is still functioning like a regular 10-year-old when it comes to writing, history, and social studies? Khan’s programmer, Ben Kamens, has heard from teachers who’ve seen Khan Academy presentations and loved the idea but wondered whether they could modify it “to stop students from becoming this advanced.”

Thats our public education system for you in a nutshell. Perhaps "No Child Left Behind" should be changed to "No Child Moves Ahead".

You'll Eat What the Government Gives You Or You Won't Eat

"At Little Village, most students must take the meals served in the cafeteria or go hungry"

Seriously.

At his public school, Little Village Academy on Chicago's West Side, students are not allowed to pack lunches from home. Unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria.

Principal Elsa Carmona said her intention is to protect students from their own unhealthful food choices.

What she means is, it's their intention to protect students from the food choices of their parents. I sometimes wonder why the government doesn't just cut out parents entirely and go straight to government care facilities for children 0-18. If you can't trust parents to even feed their children, how can you entrust them with the responsibility of finishing at night the indoctrination you've spent all day cramming into their heads? Seems a bit inconsistent to me.

I'm also sure this had nothing to do with it either:

Any school that bans homemade lunches also puts more money in the pockets of the district's food provider, Chartwells-Thompson. The federal government pays the district for each free or reduced-price lunch taken, and the caterer receives a set fee from the district per lunch.

Shifting more power from parents to the government and conveniently lining the pockets of a local corporation? In statist terms, that's what they'd call a "win-win" situation.

Wisconsin: Just Like Nazi Germany

You couldn't make this stuff up, folks:



Apparently, the logical process goes something like this:

1. Ask you to contribute a small percentage to your own retirement and healthcare instead of dumping it all on the taxpayers.
2. ???
3. Round up all the Jews!

Spectacular Response by Gov. Chris Christie

New Jersey governor Chris Christie gives a spectacular, detailed smackdown to a disgruntled member of a teacher's union:



Perhaps not relevant to most people's lives outside New Jersey, but I do enjoy seeing a politician answer questions in such a straightforward manner.

The Coming California Meltdown

Oh, California, how I love thee. Every time I think about the incompetence of all the innumerable and unaccountable layers of government above me, I can at least take solace in one simple fact: It could be worse. I could live in California.

If anyone has been paying attention lately, California is in big trouble. They are basically bankrupt, but without the legal means to declare bankruptcy. One of the glaring missteps in California's long list of financial mismanagements has been its capitulation to the outrageous demands of the public employee unions, which are now crippling the state.