Unions Simply Don’r Want Teacher Evaluations

Personally I don’t care about the methodology of teacher evaluation — process is not important as performance, and so long as the bottom 10% are fired each year the process is not particularly important. I have the distinct impression from Mr. Freeman that NO evaluation methodology will ever get his acceptance.

The US Military has developed as good a method as any, and it produces the best military in the world. Teachers like to think that, like the children of Lake Woebegone, they are all above average — but the SEALS flunk out many, as do Annapolis and West Point, and the Astronaut Corps. Alone among those who believe themselves above average, teachers think they are so unique that their performance cannot be judged.

Can you imagine more than 3,500,000 K-12 teachers, more than twice the combined population of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, and every one of the 3,500,000 teachers is so perfect that their performance cannot be judged?

No, I don’t believe that either. Mr. Freeman writes; ” There are many factors within and outside of the school walls that impact student learning. ” I remember the first time I saw the Obstacle Course at the Naval Academy, and can only imagine my exclaiming “but, some of us are non-athletes, some from urban schools, some are scholars…there are many factors outside these walls…”

The Marine Captain would have simply said, “Everyone must complete the course in the designated time. Do it, or go home.”

Set the performance standards, reward the top 10% and fire the bottom 10%. Personally, I would let administration rank all teachers on a ladder, and weight their ranking 50%: let their peers rank other peers, and let that count 40%. Students ranking counts 10%. EVERYONE knows the good and bad teachers, even the janitorial staff and the parents.

This is not rocket science, Those that say it is “complicated” simply want to delay teacher evaluation.

Probing the Liberal Mindset(sic)

The liberal tenet of supporting the underdog even when the underdog is wrong, lets liberals support convicted felons and the criminally mentally ill– both to the general detriment of society.

It is a congenital proclivity they cannot escape, even as they deplore crime and the devastation that the criminally insane cause to society, liberal need to protect the underdog overwhelms their senses.

Sometimes, the underdog is wrong. Sometimes the little guy is wrong. Sometimes poor people are REALLY bad people, but when bad and poor combine, poor overcomes bad in the liberal mind.

Even if the criminally insane are not poor, the liberal empathy for the underdog is present. Their actions are explained, excused, UNLESS THEY USE A GUN!

Then, the gun is the problem.

Hence, Kathy Boudin, once a member of the radical Weather Underground, convicted of bombing an armored car and acting as the getaway driver while two policemen and an armored car driver were killed, spent 22 years in prison. She is now an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University School of Social Work.

If that does not cause Cognitive Dissonance in your mind, consider that she is also Sheinberg Scholar-in-Residence at NYU Law School.

Now, I understand Christian redemption but this just blows my mind. Columbia university has also invited Angela Davis, Communist for many decades and former professor right here in San Diego, to lecture this year.

Of course, there is no liberal bias in academia.

Really. Honest. What makes you think differently!

(How about common sense!)

Of course there is. The question is “why.” The answer, I submit is the liberal love of the underdog, the despised. They simply cannot differentiate between the deserving underdog, and the undeserving underdog.

How Wide Is Our Reach?

I am not certain that two parries can constitute a conspiracy, but it seems to me that a two-party conspiracy would be the easiest to be successful.

Stay with me here…how’s this: North Korea is ramping up their threats to get some of the heat off their nuclear/missile friend, Iran.

The president himself says that Iran is within a year of getting the bomb, and that he doesn’t want to cut it that close. North Korea supplies much of the know-how to Iran both in nuclear technology and missiles. Both nations are somewhat isolated as to deep knowledge of the outside world, and it is just possible that there is some question in their mind if we can walk and chew gum simultaneously – or at least have the reach to bomb Iran while keeping sufficient forces at the ready off North Korea to contain them.

Certainly Iran has successfully gamed the West through a five-point stall, and certainly North Korea has threatened successfully, and gamed the West for food for their starving masses. Each nation believes the West, and particularly the US is managed by fools.

They have a point.

North Korea may also be managed by a fool – one who believes his Generals when they tell him, even as Saddam Hussein’s Generals told him, that they can beat an American army. North Korea actually did that once, or at least they ran us all the way to the Pusan Perimeter with a lightning strike and managed at least an overall draw.  The NK also has our reluctance to retaliate for the USS Pueblo, and the destruction of the EC-121 as proof of our reluctance to retaliate, and their actions on sinking a South Korean ship and raking a disputed island with artillery fire reinforces their misinterpretation of our overall power.

The NK can certainly destroy most of Seoul in a couple of hours before our bombers can destroy their artillery.  Right now, there are 20 million civilians in the immediate line of fire who would take the brunt of the attack, should it come, and those civilians would also be a huge displaced person burden to a counter-attack by the South.

Iran is the benefactor of our current build-up in the South, because it takes needed aircraft and ships away from the Middle East – whether the North Koreans attack or not. Similarly, the need to keep the Mediterranean strong is weakened by the need to try to dissuade the Boy King.

The Boy king could just be dumb enough to think his love for video games is sufficient to make him a master strategist, and that the fourth-largest army in the world could indeed rush all the way to the bottom of the peninsula before the US could mount a sufficient counter-attack. They came within a few miles of doing it once before, and I suspect they could do it again UNLESS we were willing to use tactical nuclear weapons.

Could President Obama do that? Doubtful.

Meanwhile Iran is rushing their centrifuges for a date no one knows, while we look the other way.

If Israel thinks we are too engaged in the Pacific, will they act alone out of fear? Can they do it alone?

I hope everyone plays their cards right, or we could see two losses simultaneously, and a great disaster.

Still Musing About Sandy Hook

Those with insurance have mental care available.

Care of the indigent mentally ill is a church/synagogue/mosque/temple responsibility, as I have expressed before.

When the mentally ill are determined by the professionals in the private insurance or church(etc), and determine that one of their charges are potentially dangerous, they are ALREADY required to report to the police/courts.

We have a problem in that many of these disturbed individuals intend to commit suicide anyway, so, like suicide bombers of the terrorist sort, “punishment” of the sort we think of (jail and execution) is worthless. There are “evil” people — some are mentally ill, most are not legally mentally ill, but society needs to be separated from them.

In a population as large as 315 million, some predictable % will be dangerous mentally ill. It is finding needles in a haystack, but we can predict that the population of dangerous mentally ill will be in the already identified population of males in mentally ill populations, as (usually) known to school’s and public and private mental health professionals.

Will individuals escape identification, or if identified, escape reporting. Obviously. Nothing is foolproof, but we can certainly tighten up the process. The Gifford shooter was KNOWN crazy by his college — identified as dangerous by that college. The Colorado theater shooter was identified and in therapy with his university psychologist.

We don’t know yet about the Sandy Hook killer, but it is recently reported that his mother was working to have him committed. (There is so much bum dope about this most recent case that we need to wait just a bit to see if this shooter was in therapy.)  It is a good bet that someone(s) have previously identified him. These guys (and thy are guys) don’t  drop out of orbit.

My late attorney told the story of being told to wait while his client showed up in Court, and in the meanwhile the judge held hearing to send many people to mental institutions.  My attorney said that in every case he told the person being institutionalized that in case they were permitted weekend release, they could keep their driver license.

So, just remember when you drive — they may be out there in your lane.