Back to Basics

The commencement address has become part of the campaign trail. How better to showcase your candidate as a man with a vision for tomorrow than to feature him passing along some of his wisdom to the people of tomorrow, those bright-eyed and bushy-tailed graduates going off with an average twenty grand in debt into a marketplace with few job prospects.

Not everyone can get Obama to deliver their commencement address. It helps if your college is female and affiliated with the Ivy League, where downtrodden Barnard students can be counseled to “fight for your seat at the head of the table” by an unqualified man who began and ended his career by pushing out better qualified female candidates from Alice Palmer to Hillary Clinton. Barnard women are free to fight for a seat at the head of the table, so long as it’s not his seat or a seat that he wants.

These days the man whose administration pays women less than men, which has been repeatedly accused of sexist treatment of its female staff and whose chief speechwriter was photographed groping a cardboard cutout of Hillary Clinton, has taken to the campaign trail to warn about a “War on Women”. And where better to sell the war on women than on campuses which are becoming more female than male.

There’s something blatantly patriarchal about a powerful man arriving on a female campus promising to protect its graduates from that other man, but liberalism has long been immune from its own contradictions. Only Obama can protect women from Romney, when he isn’t protecting them from being President or saddling them with massive amounts of debt.

The 57 percent tilt of female to male enrollment on campus has also meant a disproportionate share of student loan debt being amassed by women. The students profiled in the recent New York Times article on student debt are almost all female and if anyone has been fighting a war on women, it would be the entire system of academic loan sharks who trade mostly useless degrees for five and six figure debt.

The sheepskin was once a doorway to a privileged world of achievement, but diplomas aren’t made of real sheepskin anymore, and the college degree has become as ubiquitous as tacky commencement speeches. Just about anyone who pays a limited amount of attention in school and is willing to take on a pile of debt can get a college degree from somewhere. It won’t be worth much, but it will cost a lot.

Universalizing college has not universalized education; it has not made us a better educated country, only a dumber one. Universal education has led to dumbed-down education and meaningless degrees. The only way we could keep moving more and more students up the ladder was by making the ladder as short as possible. Promotion, populist education and educators who barely knew more than the students have taken care of the rest.

A college degree was once a mark of distinction, now it’s a checkmark even for jobs that don’t have any innate reason for requiring it, and fortunes have been spent by government and students just to “stay in place” with the jobs of yesterdays high school graduates going to tomorrow’s college grads.

Does it make sense for the government to take taxes from the big majority of Americans who never managed to win college degrees in order to subsidize the pricey education of the fortunate few who get to attend top universities?

Why is it fair to increase burdens on stressed-out working families so the feds can reduce future interest payments on student loans for members of the elite?

Isn’t President Obama’s current push to spend a $6 billion on college-loan relief precisely the sort of rob-from-the-poor-to-give-to-the-rich outrage that any conscientious progressive ought to oppose?

These are questions that even Mitt Romney and his fellow Republicans refuse to pose, as they retreat or temporize concerning the president’s shameless student-loan scam. The big duel in Congress concerns the best way to pay for continuing the subsidized loans, with no real debate about the wisdom of the subsidy itself.

Republicans and Democrats alike feel so intimidated by the brute political power of college students and their families that no one will point out it’s the beneficiaries themselves who ought to cough up the extra money. It’s not unreasonable to suggest that they do so when interest rates revert to their normal, pre-2007 level on July 1st—especially since those students aren’t obligated to begin making those interest payments or retiring their principal until they’ve completed their education or dropped out of school. In effect, our leaders suggest that future millionaire attorneys who graduate from Harvard Law School (as both Obama and Romney did) ought to get reduced payments on their student loans at the ultimate expense of all taxpayers—including janitors who toil away at the very Ivy League campus where the two presidential candidates once matriculated.

The lies surrounding this proposed ripoff ought to embarrass everyone who dutifully recycles them, but prominent reporters, perhaps recalling their own student-loan experiences, repeat the nonsense without blushing. For instance, the notion of crushing student-loan debt hobbling millions of U.S. families counts as an urban legend or deliberate distortion. According to figures from the New York Fed, a full two-thirds of the total student-loan debt is held by people under 30, suggesting that the great majority of borrowing is quickly repaid. President Obama’s example of repaying his debts only at age 43 (when he was already a state senator) would count as atypical.

Moreover, borrowers owe a median of $12,800, a figure that the Associated Press describes as “an amount even advocates for student borrowers acknowledge is usually manageable and more than worthwhile factoring in the economic benefits of a college degree.” Surely, borrowers who owe less than $12,800 don’t need a massive federal rescue to save them from paying at most an extra $34 a month in interest.

Of course, the president prefers to talk about the average loan balance rather than the median, since that average is thoroughly distorted by a handful of big-time borrowers (like the Obamas themselves) who attended the nation’s most expensive universities. As Josh Barro writes at Forbes.com: “A below-market interest rate for Stafford Loans is just another subsidy mechanism…. This pushes students, at the margin, to choose more expensive educational institutions than they otherwise would, and to finance more of their education with borrowing than they otherwise would.

President Obama spoke at the University of North Carolina today about keeping lower interest rates for students, and the speech had a bit of a “debt revival” feel to it:

Obama told the students that since they were born, tuition and fees at colleges have doubled.

“And that forces students like you to take on a lot more loans, there are fewer grants, you rack up a lot more debt,” Obama stated.

“Can I get an Amen for that?” he asked the crowd who cheered, “AMEN!”

“Now, the average student who borrows to pay for college, now graduates with with about $25,000 in debt, that’s the average, he added,

“Some have more,” he said. “Can I get an Amen for that?”

“AMEN!” the crowd who cheered.

“Because some folks have a lot more debt like that,” Obama chuckled, as another person in the crowd shouted, “AMEN!”

Amazingly, I think that last “amen” came from an American who hasn’t even been born yet.

If these students are counting on Obama and the Dems (along with a sizable chunk of the rest of Washington for that matter) to be the ones to deliver them from a life of insurmountable debt, they are in for some serious dissapointment. “OMG Tiffany, we’ve got to do something about our out of control student debt — let’s ask the people who say you have to spend money to keep from going bankrupt for some advice!”

What the students didn’t hear:

“In 2007 I missed two votes to extend the student loan bill that I now want you to believe is the most important things I’ve ever promoted. Can I get an amen?”

“More than half of all young college grads are now jobless or underemployed. Can I get an amen?”

“According to my own Vice President, government meddling in the free market actually increases college tuition. Can I get an amen?”

“Since I took office, over $5 trillion has been added to the national debt — or over $16,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States. Can I get an amen?”

“Student loan interest rates are set to double because the then Democrat-controlled Congress voted to do so. Can I get an amen?”
*****

President Obama suggested Twitter users make use of the hashtag #DontDoubleMyRate, and boy are they.

This new staffer is no doubt charged with finding ways to jam Obama administration propaganda into the nooks and crannies of as many games possible under the guise of “education”:

If you’re training for a new job someday soon with a video game controller in your hands, thank Constance Steinkuehler.

This summer, when your kids’ favorite science museum boasts a new augmented-reality environmental simulation? Same deal.

If in the next few years a video game teaches you anything — how to conserve energy, eat a balanced diet or solve quadratic equations — consider the invisible hand of one of the most unconventional White House hires in recent memory.

Steinkuehler studies video games. Since last September, she has been a senior policy analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she’s shaping the Obama administration’s policies around games that improve health, education, civic engagement and the environment, among other areas.

So someday if you’re playing “Call of Duty” and Obama pops up to remind you to eat your peas, you can thank Constance Steinkuehler.

President Obama has been critical of parents who don’t set limits on children’s screen time, but he is also coming around to the benefits of well-designed games. In a speech last March at TechBoston Academy, a public middle- and high school, Obama told students he wanted to create “educational software that’s as compelling as the best video game.” He added, “I want you guys to be stuck on a video game that’s teaching you something other than just blowing something up.”

Using the video game industry to push a national agenda makes perfect sense to Ben Sawyer, founder of the group Games for Health. “It’s a strategic asset of the United States,” he says. “Why should we let it sit where it is?”

Screw “Let’s Move,” people — sit on your asses and get indoctrinated all day!

We’ve spent the past three-plus years witnessing the creation of this administration’s debut video game: Grand Theft Economy.

There’s been a great deal of upheaval involving teacher’s unions over the last year. There was and is great drama in Wisconsin where teacher’s and their Democrat lackeys in the legislature went hands on with Gov. Scott Walker to fight his efforts to reform public employee unions.

But here in Prince William County, VA, where I live, it’s been comedy.

It began in Richmond, where the teacher’s statewide union and Democrat lackeys in the legislature defeated Gov. Bob McDonnell’s effort to reform tenure rules. Encouraged by this victory, local teachers and the Prince William Education Assn. began a ‘work to rule’ campaign to put pressure on the school board to include a raise in next year’s budget. This meant they didn’t stay after school to help students with extra curricular activities unless they were paid extra.

Teachers conducted “grade–ins” at grocery stores and government meetings. They wore buttons to school and made a big solidarity production out of entering the school building together in the morning and leaving en masse in the afternoon.

After writing about the campaign, I discovered area teachers are avid readers, because many of them took time to send me irate email. To recap, in my view the PWC school board has gone out of its way to protect teachers from the economy pounding the taxpaying private sector.

While 300,000 teaching jobs have been lost nationwide, there have been no layoffs in Prince William County. In Loudoun teachers were threatened with unpaid furlough days, but not here in PWC. And although the county government employees took a 5 percent hit to their paycheck to cover costs passed down from the state, teachers didn’t lose a dime.

It was striking to me how many of the hostile teachers complained about dealing with children. It’s like a surgeon griping about cutting people open.

Kids are unruly, there are too many of them, they clutter up the hallways, they turn in papers that need to be graded. According to those emails, working conditions rivaled that of a Chinese iPad assembly line worker. With long hours, oppressive supervision and no noodles for lunch.

Many of the emails were also confused about the practice of journalism and the cushy life reporters lead. Although I currently enjoy a lofty perch in the journalistic pantheon, I started out in this business as a sports director for a TV station in West Texas. After a month the news director informed me I was now the Midland city reporter AND the sports director, effectively doubling my workload with the same pay.

This meant my day could either start at 10 AM or 2 PM but it always ended at 10:30 PM after the last newscast. What’s more, we worked Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year’s and the Fourth of July, if those dates came during the week. There were no four–day weekends or Easter Break in the news business. And we didn’t get the summer off.

But enough about me. Another correspondent complained that with a master’s degree and nine years experience she “scarcely make(s) over $50,000” a year. If she’s at step nine on the pay scale it means her salary is $58,312 annually.

In a couple of years Louisiana will have a pretty amazing educational system. The Milton Friedman Foundation put this out:

Louisiana will be home to one of the nation’s largest school voucher programs once Gov. Bobby Jindal signs legislation that recently passed his state’s legislature. Today, by a vote of 60-42, the Louisiana House of Representatives approved Gov. Jindal’s voucher expansion, which passed the Senate last night 24-15. “This is a momentous day for the families of Louisiana,” State Superintendent of Education John White said. “All students deserve a fair chance in life, and that begins with the opportunity to attend a high-quality school. These policy changes are aligned with that central belief, and Gov. Jindal and state lawmakers have demonstrated a clear commitment to prioritize the educational rights of Louisiana’s next generation above all else.” The expansion of the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program will allow low- and middle-income students in Louisiana public schools graded “C,” “D,” or “F” by the state accountability system to receive government-funded vouchers to attend private schools. Currently, that option is available only to children in New Orleans and students with special needs in eligible parishes. . . .

We mandate no belief in this country. We are free to believe or not believe whatever we want. Yet our country and its laws were established on the fundamental belief that our individual rights comes not from government, but from God. The recognition of this fact by our Founding Fathers and by citizens throughout the years has allowed this nation to prosper beyond its wildest dreams.

The Tampa Liberty School was founded last year to provide an opportunity for children learn about these principles, and I have been privileged to be its Director. The school is run by adult volunteers from the community, and is dedicated to educating, enlightening, and exciting children to the values on which this country was established.

Children are taught that beginning in the 1600s, many settlers came to what they considered this new Promised Land seeking religious freedom. They could relate to the biblical Jewish Exodus from Egypt because they had left an oppressive Old World seeking the blessings of liberty in this New World. Ours was the only country to identify with Old Testament Jewish beliefs, and is why we are called a “Judeo-Christian” nation. These values include the importance of laws, fighting for justice, and a belief in judgment by loving and forgiving God.

By the 1770s, colonists were seeking freedom from the British Crown with reliance upon, what the Declaration of Independence calls, “Nature’s God,” the “Creator,” and “the Supreme Judge of the World.” The Founders understood there is a divine order that rises above the human order.

They recognized that there is a Natural Law in which individual rights do not come from a king, a congress, a court, a president, or any other form of government. These unalienable rights can only come from a Creator. Under Natural Law, the government works for the people, and not the other way around. These rights include the rights of life and liberty, the right to own private property, the right to self-defense, to assemble peaceably, and so on.

While Natural Law may have been forgotten over the years, the Framers recognized it and established it as the basis of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They knew that if we, as a people, ever lost our biblical foundation, no amount of Constitutional protection could preserve the republic. They recognized that without Divine Providence, their struggle for freedom would be lost.

John Adams wrote, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people.”

Adams and the other Founders knew that without God there could be no prompting of the conscience. And only those humble enough to admit they are imperfect before God could bring to an imperfect democracy the tolerance it requires to endure.

God’s authority and eternal laws are therefore prerequisites for or way of governing. Children instinctively know that people should have equal rights under the law, and that we should have the freedom to try new things, and to fail sometimes. We should expect equal rights, but not to expect equal results. The Framers knew these concepts. So should we. This is what we teach at our school.

From Rasmussen Reports:

The U.S. Supreme Court last week agreed to hear a case involving the use of race as a factor in college admissions. Most voters oppose the use of so-called affirmative action policies at colleges and universities and continue to believe those policies have not been successful despite being in place for 50 years.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 24% of Likely U.S. Voters favor applying affirmative action policies to college admissions. Fifty-five percent (55%) oppose the use of such policies to determine who is admitted to colleges and universities. Twenty-one percent (21%) are undecided.  (To see survey question wording, click here.)

It’s been a busy week on the education front in Virginia. The General Assembly, concerned about academics and discipline, defeated the “Tebow” bill that would have allowed homeschoolers to try out for high school athletic teams.

And Assembly also defeated a tenure reform bill that would have made it easier to fire incompetent teachers mostly because of the fear that educators might be dismissed for personality conflicts with their boss. An outrageous state of affairs as former Washington Redskins defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth can personally attest.

So it was more than a little ironic when the day before local teachers were scheduled to hold a Saturday ‘grade–in’ at Wegmans grocery store to protest a budget that lacks a raise for next year; one of those homeschooled, academically–challenged, discipline problems the General Assembly is so worried about won the county spelling bee.

Lori Anne Madison took the crown at the 34th annual bee by spelling “vaquero,” which is quite an accomplishment for a 6–year–old since the word is not even English.

(It also makes me wonder if spelling bees held in Mexico City ever ask anyone to spell “cowboy?”)

Meanwhile, back at Wegmans, public school teachers were grading papers and preparing lesson plans among the arugula to demonstrate to a cheap, penny–pinching public all the work they do outside the classroom.

As Jim Livingston, a board member of the Prince William Education Assn. said, “The grade–in is designed so that the public can see that there is a lot more in the daily life of a professional educator than just 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., or 7 to 2.”

Livingston had also better hope the public doesn’t do the math, because both of those number sets only add up to a seven–hour work day (including lunch), which is at least an hour shorter than the work day of most taxpayers.

In addition to grading papers by the light reflected off the sneeze guards, county teachers are also “working to rule,” which means they will no longer come in early to help students or stay after school for extracurricular activities unless they are paid for the extra time.

This labor action only serves to prove teacher’s memories are as short as that of their students.

Let’s step outside the ivory tower of academia and examine what’s been going on in what I call Taxpayer World. Nationally unemployment for taxpayers is between 8 and 9 percent, unless you count those who have given up looking for work entirely, which puts the figure in double digits.

During the past four years approximately 300,000 public school employees lost their jobs outside of Prince William County where I live and, according to school board Chairman Milton C. Johns, those jobs are not coming back.

Yet here not one school employee lost their job or was forced to take an unpaid furlough. What’s more, last year when county government employees took a 5 percent hit in their paycheck to cover costs passed down to the local level from the state, teachers did not lose a penny and were even given a small bonus that did not affect their base pay. But somehow being sheltered from a recession that’s hammering taxpayers — no layoffs, no furloughs, no pay cuts and a one–time bonus — equals unhappiness.

This just in from the Federal Department of Counter-Productivity and Mixed Messages…

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius screened a Cartoon Network anti-bullying video for some middle school students recently. The video instructs kids not to call others names like “stupid,” “fat” and “jerk.”

Sebelius was asked what people should take away from the film and how to respond to bullies. Her response:

“I think, very important, is for kids to understand how powerful you really are. You might feel like you’re not big enough, not strong enough, not–don’t have enough tools. But just saying, ‘Stop it! You know, you’re being a jerk!’–walk away, get away from this person can make a huge amount of difference.”

Heh.

By the way, the anti-bullying video stars Barack Obama, naturally. I haven’t seen the video yet, but it can’t be completely accurate unless Obama brought along his union thug pals to play the part of the bullies.