Is there really a president in this bunch? And I'm not just talking about the Republicans either. While exactly none of the GOP candidates thrill me at all for various reasons, I find myself also looking critically at the Democrats and asking if this really is the best we can do. Of course, Americans generally ask this question every four years unless there's a candidate that people are particularly passionate about, like Ronald Reagan or Barack Obama. Neither of those guys will be on the ballot this year.
Instead, we have a group of Republicans who are falling over each other to appeal to a shrinking pool of older white voters who somehow want the country to revert back to 1953, when men were men, women were supposed to be in the home and minorities were supposed to be in the back of the bus or in the fields picking our fruits and vegetables. Those days are not coming back for a very good reason. The problem is that the GOP candidates don't see it. Donald Trump is the commander in chief of this cabal, but his greatest support will turn out to be a a Potemkin village full of people who say they love their candidate but do not come out and vote in numbers enough to elect him. Which is a good thing.
The other Republican candidates are just as flawed, and getting flawedier as time goes on. Trump has set the tone on immigration and religious intolerance, and the rest of the field has gone along with him, except for Jeb Bush but he doesn't seem to matter these days because I suspect that the last person the party wants to see at the head of the ticket is another Bush. Not that Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Chris Christie or John Kasich are doing any better. Most of them deny any human hand in the changing climate and support various, intrusive policies for women who just want to get honest, impartial medical advice from their doctors. They've also come up with foreign policies that riff on bombings and sending American soldiers overseas without considering that other countries can do this work with limited US reserves. ISIS is a deadly threat, but sustained pressure from the sane Muslim world will go a long way towards turning the tables on them. We need to support that.
What strikes me particularly about the Republican candidates is that the two with arguably the best records in their previous jobs are Governors Bush and Kasich, and they seem to be having trouble breaking through the irresponsible and dangerous rantings of those above them in the polls. Aside from those two, none of the other candidates has done anything very notable, and that includes Christie, who asked the New Jersey Supreme Court to declare his one great accomplishment, public worker pension and benefit reform, as unconstitutional. And it did.
And if the spotlight ever turns on Christie because of a win in New Hampshire, his abysmal handling of the New Jersey economy will not endear him to economic conservatives. Similarly, Cruz, Rubio, Paul, Carson and Fiorina do not have a signature accomplishment to run on. And perhaps that doesn't matter: Mitt Romney did have an accomplishment, health care, and he ran faster than Usain Bolt away from it. Go figure.
As for the Democrats, Hillary is still faced with the drip drip of government e-mails being purged from her home server and she's less than stellar on the campaign trail. Bernie Sanders has the heart and passion, but his time was 1972, not 2016. The country is not ready to turn around and elect someone with his views, and if he's nominated (which he won't be) the Democrats will lose.
Don't get me wrong here; I believe that Hillary Clinton will be elected president in November and that she will do a fine job in the White House. It's just that the campaign's tone has focused on what makes us weak and though they try, none of the candidates is an uplifting presence who is telling us what they see as the future of this country. Perhaps that will come in the summer. But in the meantime, it's going to be a long winter.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Sunday, December 27, 2015
College Is For Everyone. Except for Those It's Not
Seeing as how I'm an education dinosaur, having taught for the past 32 years, I've seen many a fad, meme, phase and reform come and go during my career. Each of these aforesaid events was billed as the new reality and the change that would ignite the staid and conservative field into a dynamo that would catapult American students into the learning stratosphere, nay, outer space, when it came to classroom success and global competition.
It turns out that all of that change resulted in a lot of change which resulted in a lot of public money going to programs that were quickly abandoned for the next change. As for the students, well, SAT scores are up and more students are taking Advanced Placement tests in the suburbs, but poverty has increased and with it so has the attainment and achievement gap in the less wealthy areas of the country. This does not auger well for the latest and, perhaps, greatest new education focus which is, that all students must go to college.
Education has run into this "all" problem before. Presidents Bush, Clinton and Bush proposed education programs that required that all students become proficient in their subjects and that all students pass either state or national tests to prove their learning. Of course, this is impossible; not all students can pass all tests and not all students can become proficient in every subject as measured by a test. So we know that, at least in statistics, all three of these presidents were substandard. All students can certainly learn, but not all students can achieve at the level they need in order to succeed in higher education. And the dirty little secret is that they should not be forced into doing so.
One of the consequences of this race to college is playing out across the country, and is laid bare in this article about the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district in New Jersey. The problem there is endemic to other suburban, wealthier school districts where the focus is on competition, grades, extracurricular activities and building a resume for college. I can say from first hand experience that this is the norm in many of these districts and it is also the norm that many students to feel too much pressure to succeed, to earn high grades consistently, and to be busy at all hours of the day doing homework, or not, as some districts including West Windsor have adopted a modified no-homework policy, playing sports, which has become a major conduit for girls to get scholarships for college, performing community service, or taking part in the arts, especially the Off-Broadway quality of many schools' music, dance and theater programs (and no, they are not Broadway quality. Sorry.).
The problem is that schools are now starting to abandon their roles as educational institutions and are quietly becoming warehouses where students spend a less-than-engaging part of their day until they can get to the fun stuff. The issue is that the school day places enormous pressure on the students to do things that do not come naturally, such as analyzing data and writing, manipulating ideas, and creating new knowledge out of disparate theories. They also need to, here goes, fail. That's right. If you truly want to learn, you need to fail a few times before you can master ideas. It's necessary to fail, but failure--goodness, even a C--is not an option. So parents put pressure on children. The school puts pressure on children. Children put pressure on themselves, and society says that if you don't go to college your life will be ruined.
Thus, the problem described in the article. I do not agree with relaxing standards or enacting less or no-homework policies (another fad), but I do think that we need to rethink the college part. It's not an admission of failure if your child does not go to college right away or ever if that's truly in their best interests. Not all students are academically inclined, and that's what higher education is all about. Colleges and universities are not job factories or technical-training institutions. They are laboratories for academic and theoretical research. They do provide internships and work experiences, but very few students who graduate with a BA or BS are well qualified or ready to actually work. That's another step in the process that all adults need to master.
Students who do well in college are proficient readers and can organize their time. They can sit for long periods and can absorb sophisticated and often contradictory ideas. They can navigate the social structure of an institution that might be radically different in scope, size and demographics from the community in which they lived, grew up and were educated. Does that sound like everyone? No, it does not. It's no wonder that 35% of adults in this country have a college degree. It's not for everyone and it wasn't meant to be for everyone.
Our challenge is not to shoehorn (dinosaur term) all students into an experience that is not meant for them but rather to find experiences in which they can succeed, enjoy and challenge themselves. Many parents want colleges to be those kinds of institutions, and that's why colleges are fighting back and saying that their purpose lies in other areas. We would do far better as a nation if we recognized that there are, or at least should be, other avenues for students who can be productive citizens without academic work. Then we can reduce some of the pressures that students feel and address
the problems associated with outrageous and unnecessary expectations.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
It turns out that all of that change resulted in a lot of change which resulted in a lot of public money going to programs that were quickly abandoned for the next change. As for the students, well, SAT scores are up and more students are taking Advanced Placement tests in the suburbs, but poverty has increased and with it so has the attainment and achievement gap in the less wealthy areas of the country. This does not auger well for the latest and, perhaps, greatest new education focus which is, that all students must go to college.
Education has run into this "all" problem before. Presidents Bush, Clinton and Bush proposed education programs that required that all students become proficient in their subjects and that all students pass either state or national tests to prove their learning. Of course, this is impossible; not all students can pass all tests and not all students can become proficient in every subject as measured by a test. So we know that, at least in statistics, all three of these presidents were substandard. All students can certainly learn, but not all students can achieve at the level they need in order to succeed in higher education. And the dirty little secret is that they should not be forced into doing so.
One of the consequences of this race to college is playing out across the country, and is laid bare in this article about the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district in New Jersey. The problem there is endemic to other suburban, wealthier school districts where the focus is on competition, grades, extracurricular activities and building a resume for college. I can say from first hand experience that this is the norm in many of these districts and it is also the norm that many students to feel too much pressure to succeed, to earn high grades consistently, and to be busy at all hours of the day doing homework, or not, as some districts including West Windsor have adopted a modified no-homework policy, playing sports, which has become a major conduit for girls to get scholarships for college, performing community service, or taking part in the arts, especially the Off-Broadway quality of many schools' music, dance and theater programs (and no, they are not Broadway quality. Sorry.).
The problem is that schools are now starting to abandon their roles as educational institutions and are quietly becoming warehouses where students spend a less-than-engaging part of their day until they can get to the fun stuff. The issue is that the school day places enormous pressure on the students to do things that do not come naturally, such as analyzing data and writing, manipulating ideas, and creating new knowledge out of disparate theories. They also need to, here goes, fail. That's right. If you truly want to learn, you need to fail a few times before you can master ideas. It's necessary to fail, but failure--goodness, even a C--is not an option. So parents put pressure on children. The school puts pressure on children. Children put pressure on themselves, and society says that if you don't go to college your life will be ruined.
Thus, the problem described in the article. I do not agree with relaxing standards or enacting less or no-homework policies (another fad), but I do think that we need to rethink the college part. It's not an admission of failure if your child does not go to college right away or ever if that's truly in their best interests. Not all students are academically inclined, and that's what higher education is all about. Colleges and universities are not job factories or technical-training institutions. They are laboratories for academic and theoretical research. They do provide internships and work experiences, but very few students who graduate with a BA or BS are well qualified or ready to actually work. That's another step in the process that all adults need to master.
Students who do well in college are proficient readers and can organize their time. They can sit for long periods and can absorb sophisticated and often contradictory ideas. They can navigate the social structure of an institution that might be radically different in scope, size and demographics from the community in which they lived, grew up and were educated. Does that sound like everyone? No, it does not. It's no wonder that 35% of adults in this country have a college degree. It's not for everyone and it wasn't meant to be for everyone.
Our challenge is not to shoehorn (dinosaur term) all students into an experience that is not meant for them but rather to find experiences in which they can succeed, enjoy and challenge themselves. Many parents want colleges to be those kinds of institutions, and that's why colleges are fighting back and saying that their purpose lies in other areas. We would do far better as a nation if we recognized that there are, or at least should be, other avenues for students who can be productive citizens without academic work. Then we can reduce some of the pressures that students feel and address
the problems associated with outrageous and unnecessary expectations.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Ugliness in the Season of Beauty
I usually look forward to the December holidays because, for at least one month, people in the United States tend to he hopeful, helpful, optimistic and happy. They look backward at the year that was and take stock, and they look forward with anticipation at what the new year will bring.
This year, things are most certainly different. The terrorist attacks here at home and in France, Afghanistan, Iraq and other locales have sapped some of the love and light from the season. We are a scared nation with no clear path forward for our national leaders to take us. Want to bomb Syria far more brutally? An option. Want to send ground troops to Syria and Iraq? Another option. Want to create a coalition of American, European and Middle Eastern countries to fight ISIS and other terrorist groups? A third option. But none of them seems like THE option and they all involve terrible risks both overseas and at home.
President Obama has been steadfast in his insistence that we will not send masses of American troops to Syria or Iraq and I think that's exactly the correct strategy for now. He has rightly been criticized for downplaying the ISIS threat and for not standing behind his threat to attack Syria if Assad used Chemical weapons in the war, but most Americans do not want to see our men and women coming home in body bags. The old joke is that we shouldn't elect anyone who actually wants to be president because it's a terrible, impossible job. These are the times.
The focus on attacks from radical terrorists has overshadowed the home-grown terror that has also shaken the nation. The killings at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs was quickly forgotten in the wake of San Bernardino, but both were shocking events by people who were motivated by hatred, a misplaced fanaticism, and unbending ideology. In both shootings, the perpetrators should never have been allowed to get their guns, but because we are rapidly making the Second Amendment more important than the First, more people will get guns and use them on innocent people.
The other event that is dampening the holiday spirit is the presidential election. The Republican candidates are falling over themselves to blame Muslims and immigrants for our problems and have created an atmosphere where attacks on American Muslims are rising, and overreactions to a school assignment in Virginia that led to the entire school system being shut down because a teacher asked her students to copy a passage from the Koran using calligraphy. Dangerous, inflammatory rhetoric has its consequences and we are now living them large.
The left also has its problems when it comes to these issues. Calls for safe spaces and trigger warnings on college campuses only serve to segregate students and ideas, making common cause that much more difficult. If a person doesn't feel safe in the general population, that's a problem that needs to be addressed head-on. The answer is not to provide areas where people can retreat or have their ideological bubble reinflated.
The unfortunate aspect of this particular racist, phobic spasm we're living in now is that it's a very American trait. In fact, it's more a part of our history than acceptance of different people and ideas. We eventually do make room in our society for those we first shun and isolate, but it takes too long and we backslide far too often. One need only look at how African-Americans are being treated by police forces to understand just how much more work we need to do on justice, even as we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.
We will eventually move forward as a country and I'm looking forward to a shift in tone from politicians and a shift in attitude from many of my fellow Americans. In the meantime, I wish you peace and joy, humility and introspection, thoughtfulness and forthrightness, love and honor. And let's turn the ugliness around. Now.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
This year, things are most certainly different. The terrorist attacks here at home and in France, Afghanistan, Iraq and other locales have sapped some of the love and light from the season. We are a scared nation with no clear path forward for our national leaders to take us. Want to bomb Syria far more brutally? An option. Want to send ground troops to Syria and Iraq? Another option. Want to create a coalition of American, European and Middle Eastern countries to fight ISIS and other terrorist groups? A third option. But none of them seems like THE option and they all involve terrible risks both overseas and at home.
President Obama has been steadfast in his insistence that we will not send masses of American troops to Syria or Iraq and I think that's exactly the correct strategy for now. He has rightly been criticized for downplaying the ISIS threat and for not standing behind his threat to attack Syria if Assad used Chemical weapons in the war, but most Americans do not want to see our men and women coming home in body bags. The old joke is that we shouldn't elect anyone who actually wants to be president because it's a terrible, impossible job. These are the times.
The focus on attacks from radical terrorists has overshadowed the home-grown terror that has also shaken the nation. The killings at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs was quickly forgotten in the wake of San Bernardino, but both were shocking events by people who were motivated by hatred, a misplaced fanaticism, and unbending ideology. In both shootings, the perpetrators should never have been allowed to get their guns, but because we are rapidly making the Second Amendment more important than the First, more people will get guns and use them on innocent people.
The other event that is dampening the holiday spirit is the presidential election. The Republican candidates are falling over themselves to blame Muslims and immigrants for our problems and have created an atmosphere where attacks on American Muslims are rising, and overreactions to a school assignment in Virginia that led to the entire school system being shut down because a teacher asked her students to copy a passage from the Koran using calligraphy. Dangerous, inflammatory rhetoric has its consequences and we are now living them large.
The left also has its problems when it comes to these issues. Calls for safe spaces and trigger warnings on college campuses only serve to segregate students and ideas, making common cause that much more difficult. If a person doesn't feel safe in the general population, that's a problem that needs to be addressed head-on. The answer is not to provide areas where people can retreat or have their ideological bubble reinflated.
The unfortunate aspect of this particular racist, phobic spasm we're living in now is that it's a very American trait. In fact, it's more a part of our history than acceptance of different people and ideas. We eventually do make room in our society for those we first shun and isolate, but it takes too long and we backslide far too often. One need only look at how African-Americans are being treated by police forces to understand just how much more work we need to do on justice, even as we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.
We will eventually move forward as a country and I'm looking forward to a shift in tone from politicians and a shift in attitude from many of my fellow Americans. In the meantime, I wish you peace and joy, humility and introspection, thoughtfulness and forthrightness, love and honor. And let's turn the ugliness around. Now.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
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