As the Worm Turns...

We are all born with blinders on, and over time, though we fight to see peripherally, we are largely unsuccessful in doing so. Some few people try to invite us to embrace the task of seeing more comprehensively, but each generation, it seems, remains largely unable to accept that cultural spirals are inevitable. So what is the point? We are currently, in the US, dealing with myriad issues, not all of them political/economic, which serve as parallels to situation that have played themselves out in the not-so-distant past. For instance, I have recently received emails regarding our current immigration policies where the point of reference is a quote from Teddy Roosevelt. In said email, Teddy focuses on assimilation as the aim and condition of continued acceptance of all the huddled masses yearning to be free. Teddy was commenting on a situation that was then current - over 100 years ago. Yet the contemporary position seems to be that what we are currently experiencing is new and more serious than the issue that Teddy was responding to a century ago. It is the same issue, and we should respoind to it similarly, though of course, we may not. If we do, we will most likely gather some sense of control over the situation, and then wait for its return in a few generations. If we do not follow something of the same series of reactions, then the cycle will alter dramatically. However, even under these circumstances, the result will likely bear more resemblance to the past than we ever let on. You see, were are bounded and confined by a world-view that is very constrained. At the risk of sending a 'so what?' message, perhaps I can suggest that we make a stronger effort to be evaluative and reflective. I don't know the answer to our current immigration dilemma. On the one hand, we have millions of people here illegally, and many of them are gainfully employed and operating outside the purview of the IRS. On the other hand, we have millions of illegals who are contributing nothing to the economy, and are literally going one step further and robbing the US citizenry by gaining access to perks and privileges granted by the government to try to prevent them from being a drain on society. If that sound convoluted to you, I apologize. I know of no way to simplufy it. The gainfully employed illegals are hurting the US by not paying their fair share of taxes, but the truth is that their tax contribution would be very small anyway. They are largely the working poor that we hear about often. Worse yet, we have trained a subset of the illegal population to rely upon the charity that exists already. They do not work because they can't find work, or because they have learned that they don't have to; they will be able to access food, shelter, and clothing through the various assistance programs. Worse yet, we have created a subculture of illegals who are here to earn money that will go directly to their families in their home country. Worse yet, we have allowed a subculture of illegals who 'live' here only to participate in criminal activities of one sort or another. The ultimate worst is that embedded in each of the above statements is the acknowledgment that we have created or allow all of these things to happen. We have in fact encouraged them to happen because we don't want to use common sense. We don't want people to go hungry and cold, so we create safety nets to prevent this from happening. Then we provide access to the safety nets to people who don't need them, thereby ensuring that the resouces will be depleted, guaranteeing that people will go hungry and cold.

Dreading Hope

I am changing gears here, as another life change has thrust itself into the pole position at the moment. I want to publicly mull over the circumstances that are part of fatherhood. At least I think they are a common part of the fatherhood experience, and I cross my fingers that I am not being presumptuous. Currently, I have a 25 year old who has embarked on the next phase of his life. He has boldly dropped everything to trek 1200 miles from PA to Miami, FL, hoping that he and his girlfriend are ready to undertake a scary and exciting experiment with true independence. My daughter is graduating from college, and holding her breath that she can figure out how best to proceed with the next phase of her life. My youngest is finishing up his junior year of college, and trying to determine if he will have prospects to pursue a year or so from now. Me? I think my job is to believe in all of them. Mother has the same job, only slightly different. She needs to believe in them too, but she is supposed to make her primary message that she will be there for them no matter what. I feel, rightly or wrongly, that my job is to let them know that I have high expectations. Maybe I am wrong about that, but I feel that my father, who was a flawed individual on a good day, always conveyed the message that my success was expected, a given, and that anything less than success would be a disappointment. Consequently, I don't want to mimic his approach, as I don't know that his position always worked to my betterment. Therefore, I want my children to know that, while I do expect much from them, I don't have a measuring stick in mind. Iw want them to know that the standard I expect them to meet - and exceed - is predicated on what they want to achieve. Following that reasoning, their relative level of success is connected to their living up to their own expectations. I want the bar to be set where they say. My measurement of their achievement is controlled entirely by what they want to squeeze out of life. I am not sure if I have been clear, though I know exactly what I am in the process of meaning. In short, my expectations are high, but I have no concrete benchmarks that I expect them to reach. Instead, I expect them to set their own high goals, and to convey their own expectations in regard to achieving them. If the eldest aspires to the Nobel Peace Prize, and the youngest aspires to a steady job at the local supermarket, and they each attain their goal, I will be proud of them. In short, I want them to set worthy goals and struggle and sacrifice to reach them. Perhpas the middle child has it in her to cure a deadly disease; if so, then I want her still working in that direction until she reaches that goal. Ultimately, I am not the judge. I want them to be their own judges, and if or when they decide to have children, I want them to impose these same attitudes on their children. My wife and I have managed to raise great kids. I think we have been very lucky, but I also think we have done some things right. I am certain that the luck part is most observable in the fact that our mistakes - and there have been many - have not been major impediments to our children's development. Because they are great kids, they have masked or overcome our shortcomings as parents. I will not delineate what I know have been the mistakes. At this point, our kids have not been hobbled by them. They have a chance to become what they wish to become, and their having reached this point makes me very proud. I am not sure if I am right to be so proud, but the older I get, the less I care about that.

Politics - blogging - ranting - raving

I have contributed to a blog that was originally built to support the candidacy of Ron Paul for President. I cannot vote for Ron Paul for president. I have what I think are sound political principles, and I am sometimes certain of the soundness of my views because, when I delineate them, liberals who see them are offended.

My positions are rather simple: I value the individual over the bureaucracy, to the extent that I am comfortable with the notion that government programs that offer assistance may fall short of providing adequate supports for everyone who needs them.

Yes, I said that i believe the premise of support programs should be that we will deliberately provide less than is absolutely necessary. For that reason, many left leaning people think I am a far right conservative. In fact, when I have take the on-line polls to determine my ideological placement, I always fall just to the right of the aisle. How can that be when my second paragraph is translated by liberals to be caustic, rigid, and unsympathetic?

The answer to me is simple. People are animals at their core. Yes, they are capable of honor, integrity, nobility, bravery, and many other traits that separate them from their animal core. However, they are still animals at the center. Consequently, government support for the poor and downtrodden must stop short, by design, from helping them to survive. Rather, governmental safety nets should provide them with a temproary reprieve from destruction, but no more.

My reason for the callous position is that I know that human nature is base, and so government safety nets that really provide everything a poor soul needs will ultimately lead the poor soul to decide to do nothing but lean on the government program. Complacency and dissolution are the only logical outcomes for a poor soul who learns that when he is at his lowest and most destitute, he need only solicit the assistance of some other to shield him from ownership of his own status or state. In simple terms, if a poor soul knows he will not perish, no matter what, when things are most dire, then he will eventually learn that there is no sense in trying hard. Psychological research has demonstrated variations of this principle over the years, and yet humans somehow think that, because the human mind can sugjugate and dominate his animal behaviors to some extent, he can therefore deny their existence or power.

Consequently, I think my position the most humane. If I want what is best for the majority of people, I must support the notion that people are at their best when they are forced to be self-sufficient and empowered. Government assistance demeans and weakens people. Government dependency debases humans.

I acknowledge that deliberately providing less than necessary will result in some individuals perishing. However, I learned from 1980's Star Trek that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one - or some similar statement. Soldiers live and die with that concept. The greatest good is still in teaching a man to fish, rather than handing him a haddock.

Republican principles align more closely with the ideas mentioned above, so I rightfully test out as a moderate Republican. The line between the left and right in this country is really located at that point between assisting and enabling. Extrapolate from there and the litmus test for governmental intervention is clear for me. If what you propose the government do will most logically lead to a subset of dependent people, I am against it. If the government intervention you propose is conceived to prop up the temporarily incapacitated, I am for it with reservations. Those reservations are relateed to the question of how temporary, or how invasive.

I have been having email and message board arguments with friends and relatives who are liberal-minded. They are also mostly young, which skews their thinking in my opinion. The jump I can't seem to get them to make is to see the severe side-effects of the governmental control they seem to condone and actively support. They seem to me to think only the best of most people at all times, despite overwhelming evidence that people under the most dire circumstances will always revert to their most animalistic drives. Government programs therefore should be designed to intervene when circumstances are most dire, and compel by design the individual to return to independence and self-sufficiency. The only way to do that, in my opinion, is to allow for the fact that some will perish when they don't find a road to self-reliance.

If Santorum Wins...

The plan is for this posting to be short. If Rick Santorum, a Catholic from my home state of PA, wins the Republican nomination, I will be calling for Ron Paul, or someone, to run as a third party candidate.

I have to get the religion stuff out of the way first. I don't believe in abortion, and I think pre-natal testing can be used heinously. However, I don't think my private beliefs are any of the government's business, and so shouldn't be part to the legislative landscape. This may be hard for pro-lifers to swallow, but I don't know when human life begins. Science may someday determine that human consciousness absolutely begins at conception, or soon thereafter, and then the pro-choicers will have to make some decsions of their own.

My position is that Roe vs. Wade shouldn't be on the books, precisely because the issue is one the government can't answer. Of course, that may sound crazy to some, but no argument I have yet heard tells me why a ruling should declare a right to kill a fetus. I may be odd, but I am comfortable leaving the accessibility and the 'rightness' up to the hospitals.

My problem with Santorum is actually fairly complex. He can make his religious beliefs known if he wants, but he obviously thinks the government should legislate his and his church's beliefs for everyone. Furthermore, I don't think Santorum can win in a general election. Let me be clear: I don't think he could win against any candidate in a general election. If Obama were abducted by aliens - the UFO kind, not the undocumented visitors who live and raise families here, and stay forever without contributing much to the general weal - and the Dems had to find another candidate in a hurry, whomever they find will defeat Santorum.

I am a little squeamish also in the number of times his candidacy has been described in some way as a mission from God. The last time this country attributed its actions to Manifest Destiny, the purpose was to legislate the Native American tribes almost out of existence. He can believe he's been chosen and that he's being directed if he wants, but he should keep that particular opinion to himself. Opinions like that one are a serious hindrance, in my opinion. The number of citizens who are leery of such a concept far outnumber the ones who have similar beliefs in an overt and obvious calling from above.

I think the Republican leadership should be very concerned about his current success and popularity. If I am right, and his nomination guarantees a victory for Obama, they should be strategizing on how to help Romney or Paul rally for a comeback. I am absolutely serious about this, and I am a pretty secure Republican, though all those on-line tests usually characterize me as a moderate one.

If Santorum is really not thinking he can pull ahead and win, but he is posturing for a place on the ticket, I am just as concerned, for the same reasons. He would theoretically prop up Romney in some areas, but he would sway many of the undecided's who share my concerns with his views.

In conclusion, I don't disagree with all of Santorum's ideas, but I am strongly opposed to the suggestion that his personal beliefs should be a part of the platform.

What's Wrong with Obama's Latest Mandate?

In case the news doesn't concern you, or perhaps you mistakenly think the mandate is a good thing, I offer a few things to consider in response to Obama's 'ruling' that insurance companies must offer contraceptive services in plans where the purchasers of the plans do not want them. Forget that these buyers reject it on religious grounds for just a minute, though that objection is a serious one to me.

The president is essentially saying that the government can dictate what products are available to everyone, since insurance is essentially a product. Companies that offer insurance of any kind take a calculated risk on an individual basis. However, they really face little statistical risk if they can sell enough policies to minimize the effect of individual claims. If that doesn't make sense to you, you may not be able to follow this post, and you might want to check out something lighter.

The point is that insurance is a product that is bought and sold. How it ever became viewed as a right is beyond me. Regardless, the greedy insurance companies, and the greedy pharmaceutical companies who have created an astonishing arsenal of treatments and medicines over the past 100 years, fueled primarily by capitalism, are now subject to governmental strangleholds that are sure to curtail innovation and advancement to some unknown extent, since one can never measure what might have happened if some outside force hadn't prevented it. If Jimi Hendrix were still alive, would he have created the greatest catalogue of modern music ever seen?

Our current incarnation of government foolishly believes that creating a national healthcare program will provide better living conditions for the poor, the downtrodden, and the destitute. What will happen, however, is this. The poor people may very well gain better access to treatment, but their having such will not make their lot better. Every system has managed to find a way to create or allow a peasant class. Human nature says that people will take less care of themselves, since the response to poor health will be more frequent doctor visits, or more demand, not less.

In simple terms, people behave most appropriately when influenced by fear of something. Why worry about getting sick, or not taking care of yourself if the medical community will have to bail you out? Some might say that such an opinion reveals a dim view of human nature. Guilty. I know that people can be noble, altruistic, and amazingly resourceful and resilient. I also know that these traits are born and nurtured most effectively when effort and setback, and persistence has ultimately been rewarded - either extrinsically or intrinsically. Moreover, I know that those who do not have fear of calamity woven into their being still find a way to foment calamity upon themselves and others.

I may have lost you there, so let's get back to the mandate. If the governemnt has the right to determine the characteristics and features of a product, which insurance is, they also have a right to mandate that other products have the features they decide are right and just and true. Taken to an extreme, it means that the government can decide that all cars must be blue, and all shirts yellow.

The liberals are now dismissing this as ridiculous, and they are allowed, since I will defend their right to think and act for themselves, even if I find their choices stupid or wrong-headed. If I don't believe in contraception, or sterilization, or abortion, or a vegetarian lifestyle, or homosexuality, why should I be driven to impose those beliefs on others. At present, all of those things are legal in fact. Some may not like the law, but I don't see that the government should be in the business of telling individuals what to think.

So the fact that religious institutions have enjoyed some protections is, in my opinion, a great thing. If I want my health care plan to include services that prevent pregnancy, and unwanted births, then I need to work for one of the million organizations that offers such care. An employee of an organization that does not espouse these things will know the rules when he pursues employment. What right does the government have to force the issue?

Seriously, what is gained in this case by forcing any religious organization to offer health care options that are contrary to their creed? How is that making the country stronger, or the world a better place?

JoePa Redux

I throw out the perspective of the tried and true Nittany Lion alum, fan, supporter, or current student. They are incapable of objectivity because they are too close to the scene.
I throw out the perspective of the haters. They have had an agenda for quite awhile, and it is grounded in their distaste for the perspective of the group identified in paragraph one.
I also have to throw out the perspective of the talking heads, the pundits, the radio and TV hosts: their viewpoint is too heavily influenced by the need to be 1) politically correct, or 2) outspoken enough to get ratings.

I believe Joe's legacy will ultimately be only marginally blemished by the Sandusky scandal. Sixty years of altruism, philanthropy, integrity, and honor will not be eradicated by association with someone else's crimes, someone else's negligence, and someone else's moral turpitude.

Joe's legacy can be tainted only if the facts disclose that he made a conscius decision to cover up the crimes, or that he was asleep at the wheel when the facts related to him reveal that he had a duty to report directly to the police, thereby subverting the principles his institution reasonably expected him to follow.

In simple terms, the grand jury would have held him accountable if what they learned suggested he were culpable. Those on their high horses have conveniently discounted the judgment of those who have all the facts, and who have gone out of their way to declare that Paterno was not named to the list of PSU officials who were guilty of either shirking their duties or deliberately creating a mechanism for abandoning them.

I don't think Joe was guilty of anything except not being suspicious or jaded enough. In many instances where players or people within his program were guilty of actions contrary to the principles he espoused, he responded decisively. In some cases, he was accused of responding too harshly. Of course, he chose unwisely in a few instances, but so has everyone when faced with information that doesn't dictate a clear choice.

Here's what I think happened. McQueary witnessed a heinous crime, but lacking the courage to live up to his responsibility he turned it over to Joe. Like a coward, he deliberately presented a sanitized account of what he saw, so that the mantle of responsibility did not fall on him. Burdened by an inexplicit report, Joe turned the case over to the proper authorities. Since he either didn't know or understand the severity of the situation, Joe relied on the people 'in charge' to take care of the business.

I refuse to believe that Joe never bothered to ask the AD or the administrator of the university police, perhaps unofficially, for an update on the report he filed. If those officials have any scruples, they will ultimately tell the truth: they did as much as they could to keep Joe in the dark. My guess is that they told Joe that the proper authorities were doing a full investigation, even encouraging him to not throw his weight around. Remember, if Joe had used his influence to force the details into the open, Sandusky would have been guilty until proven innocent.

Naturally, I don't know all the facts. I could be wrong. However, the spin that the media has put on the case doesn't jibe with any of the facts about Joe's character that preseded this scandal. I don't remember in forty years of following Penn State any instances of Joe putting the program or his image above his ethics. Were he a hypocrite, I suspect that one or more of the haters would have screamed to the heavens. Joe's tenure has spanned decades where the public has paid extravagantly to hear the sordid details of any and all discrepancies between image and fact. We are to believe that as his tneure drew to an end, Joe made the misguided decision to risk undermining everything he had stood for over more than sixty years? Sorry, this doesn't make sense.

I think the legacy may always come with an asterisk. The scandal that came at the end is real, and disgusting, and disheartening. Nevertheless, I truly believe that the facts will eventually vindicate Joe. I know from experience how ruthless people can be, and to what lengths they will go to hide an ugly truth to protect themselves. I simply don't believe that Joe Paterno was one of those people.

I measure the man by the gifts he gave, and I do not mean the monetary contributions. Joe recruited boys to play a game, and turned them into the best of men more often than not. How can someone make a more valuable contribution than that?

Data Driven Decision Making

I don't know if the TV show "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader," is still on the air, but I hope that the audience here has seen it or heard of it, since I plan to use the premise of the show to make a larger point.

Adults are brought on to the program and are tested by questions that are integral content points of a typical 5th grade classroom in the US. The adult contestants are usually productive citizens who have found a way to contribute to their families and communities. The premise itself speaks loudly about the importance of 5th grade content. You see, if the content were critical to an adult's efficacy, the adult contestants would answer every or most questions correctly. Instead, the contestants rarely know all of the answers because the material is not critical in and of itself. What fifth graders need to know as it applies to adulthood and citizenship is not really represented by the 5th grade curriculum.

In short, the information covered in 5th grade is inconsequential to the productive adult. He or she can be very high functioning in his field without knowing very much material that is covered in 5th grade. This is true because the knowledge imparted in 5th grade is chosen on the basis of what the 5th grade mind can process. In other words, the skills are more important than the content.

This principle remains true at all levels of education, although to different degrees. I personally completed a BA at a private liberal arts college, and an MS at a well-respected university. The importance of most of the raw content I processed in these programs is dubious. I would venture a guess that I have maintained a knowledge base that includes about 10% of the information I have been asked to learn and to know.

What this has to do with Data Driven Decision Making, as it applies to secondary education, is as follows: Data Driven Decision Making has the potential to make a mess of education.

Presupposing that the date collectd presents a genuine reflection of the knowledge imparted and acquired by a given student (and such a supposition is itself questionable), the data collected is based on knowledge that is dubious in and of itself. To be a productive citizen, does every person need to have a facility with chemistry, with biology, with literature, with geometry? The question is rhetorical. We all know the answer?

The composition of the high school curriculum is generally formulated on the basis of exposure to ways of thinking. The type of thinking that is integral to an uderstaning of chemistry is peculiar to the chemistry classroom. Similarly, the type of thinking that is critical to the successful navigation of a literature lesson is peculiar to the literature classroom. The raw content in each and all cases is inconsequential and relatively unimportant.

In case I haven't been clear in pulling all of these points together, chew on this. Schools across the counrty are currently engaged in implmenting data teams, and RtI programs, as well as school specific programs, that are dedicating enormaous amounts of money and time to the creation of assessments which are supposed to provide diagnoses and prescriptions which will 'cure' learning ills. Because the data being collected is itself dubious, the resultant 'interventions' are dubious to the 2nd power.

I will end with a simple example. A 10th grade English teacher finds that one of her classes hasn't yet mastered an understanding of figurative language. The test item asked students to say what is meant when a character is described as 'cold as ice.' The assessments all agree that such facility is necessary. What does the teacher do? Tutoring? Remediation? Collaborative learning? More work sheets?

What if the test item itself is flawed? What if the students answered incorrectly because the context used in the assessment was unfamiliar and unrelated to their classroom curruculum materials? What if this question came up on the fourth consecutive day of standardized testing, and the students were disinclined to care?

Hopefully, the above was clear enough in touching on all of the concerns associated with data driven decision making. More information is almost always better than not enough information. But operating in response to information that is not what it purports to be sets off an expensive chain reaction where gobs of time and energy are expended in attacking a problem that may not be there, or in treating an illness that is merely a symptom.

More later.