Professor Removed for Though Grading

Thomas Lifson at American Thinker brings us this gem:

Grade inflation appears to have become policy at Louisiana State University, where Professor Dominique G. Homberger was removed from teaching an introductory biology course for giving tough grades. USA Today reports that the professor

… gives brief quizzes at the beginning of every class, to assure attendance and to make sure students are doing the reading. On her tests, she doesn’t use a curve, as she believes that students must achieve mastery of the subject matter, not just achieve more mastery than the worst students in the course. For multiple choice questions, she gives 10 possible answers, not the expected 4, as she doesn’t want students to get very far with guessing.

Diversity vs Free Speech in Canada

Counterculture Conservative has a nice little clip in which Fox News’ Megyn Kelly interviews a feminist journalist from Canada regarding the Ann Coulter lecture that was canceled because leftists threatened to riot is Coulter was actually allowed to speak her opinions in an open forum. Her main argument is that Canada values diversity over free speech. Does that attitude make anyone else nervous? Because that’s the attitude of the left in America as well.

School Propaganda in Texas

For those who expected this post to be about the reworking of the Texas textbook standards, I’m sorry to disappoint. (Okay, not really.) No, this is about another case of left wing bias passing for education in the government school systems.

Kathleen McKinley at Right Wing News gives us this gem in which a high school teacher passed out a sheet describing the different between liberal and conservative ideologies. Students were not allowed to take the sheet home, which should have been a red flag from the get go. One student was concerned enough about the teacher’s political bias that he took the sheet home anyway and showed it to his parents (He’s probably facing suspension).

Attitude Change Propaganda

From IUSB Vision: a lecture on how attitude change propaganda works and how the media are using it.

Texas Textbooks and School Social Studies Curricula

The Texas Board of Education has approved social studies curriculum changes put forth by conservative critics. The conservative push on the curriculum came partially as a result of efforts by a Hispanic groups to include more material on Hispanic figures and history in textbooks, as well as a perceived liberal bias in modern textbooks.

The New York Times covers the story:

Hate Register

Jason Kuznicki at the Cato Institute recently penned an analysis that argued that hate speech laws encourage outrage over increasingly petty offenses. (I can see it as a valid argument — now all you have to do to be a racist is diagree with the President’s spending proposals.) Kunznicki has found more evidence for his argument: in the UK, grade schools have established “hate registers” which record alleged hate crimes on students’ records.

Conservatives on Campus

Warner Todd Huston at Right Wing News covers a case at Florida Atlanic University where a conservative group had their meeting interrupted and the police called on them, because they were conservative.

Group Work and Group Think

Mary Grabar at Townhall delivers a scathing piece on the use of group work and emotional education techniques in modern education. Whereas many critics of government-run education have pointed to the politically and emotionally charged material and curricula being taught to students, Grabar focuses on some of the techniques used to indoctrinate educate students.

Teachers seem to love “group work.” It gives them a sense of power over children and allows them to catch up on Facebook or their nails.

I have college students coming to class expecting to spend class time sitting in little groups to discuss their “feelings.”

Today, students don’t expect to learn—especially from a teacher or professor.

Self-Esteem and Coddling Kids

George Will at Townhall comments on the dangers of coddling our children in order to preserve their precious self-esteem, and some of the myths perpetrated by the self-esteem crowd. Will column is a partial review of the book “NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children,” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, which looks at how we treat our children, and how overprotecting them to save their self-esteem can cause more harm than good.

Tea Party Extremists

The buzz that has been generated by the left and the mainstream media is that the Tea Party movement is filled with violent, racist, hate-mongering, unenlightened, ignorant, theocratic, anti-government militia types that want people to fly airplanes into federal offices. It seems to be accepted that agreeing in any way with positions advocated by the Tea Party makes you a John Birch birther seperatist militia who jumps when Glenn Beck sneezes and froths at the mouth whenever the neurons in Bill Maher’s elitist brain make connections to each other.