Blacks Voting for School Choice With Their Feet

Year by year the education establishment gets bigger and bigger. Year by year the kids seem to learn less and less. And everyone seems to shrug their shoulders as though nothing can be done.

At least people are writing books. Henry T. Edmondson III has written an attack on John Dewey and progressive education in John Dewey & the Decline of
American Education: How the
Patron Saint of Schools Has
Corrupted Teaching and Learning, which seems fair enough. M. D. Aeschliman writes in National Review that

Dewey promoted a futuristic, socialistic idea of “the Great Community,” whose “seer” for him was the polymorphous, promiscuous, egalitarian egotist-aesthete Walt Whitman, who sang both of himself and of future “democratic vistas.” Democracy, Dewey wrote, “is a name for a life of free and enriching communion,” and this mystical-pantheistic idea had its institutional vehicle in the “child-centered” school.

The trouble is that the child-centered school may be a dandy idea for the children of upper middle-class progressives, preparing them to a life of creativity and peace studies. But it also denies poor children an education in literacy and numeracy.

And now the poor, particularly the black poor, are starting to vote against Dewey-inspired education with their feet. Writes Michael Strong in TCSDaily, “While pundits and academics argue away, the quiet sucking sound you don't yet hear are African-American families leaving our public schools when allowed to do so.”

In Minneapolis, public school officials now admit that black flight is a serious problem; the district enrollment is projected to be down to 33,000, from 48,000 in 2000, a 30% decrease, largely due to black students escaping to charter schools. The Washington D.C. school district has lost 10,000 students in five years; 25% of D.C. students are now enrolled in charter schools. A Rand Corporation study of charter schools in Texas and California discovered that in both states black students are significantly more likely to move to charter schools than are white students.

This is profoundly encouraging news. It means that the movement begun by Polly Williams of Milwaukee is gathering momentum. It was back in 1990 that she began her campaign to bring school choice to Milwaukee’s black community, and she was opposed every step of the way by white liberals. When they saw, finally, that they couldn’t stop some sort of school choice plan they countered Williams’ plan with a fake one.

This fake choice plan was the product of a white, do-good liberal legislator named Barbara Nostein. Liberals backed her; they weren't for my bill. We finally won when we got 200 parents to testify for three hours in favor of my bill. In good conscience, my colleagues could not vote against those parents.

The common-sense interpretation of the data on school choice is that parents, especially minority parents, want it. In a democracy, the people rule, right? So why are progressives standing in the school house door preventing people of color from getting the kind of education they want for their children?

The answer is simple. The progressives want their “child-centered” education not because they are advocates for the poor but because they are advocates for themselves. They want progressive education to make the United States into a progressive society, just like Dewey did a century ago.

What the people want has nothing to do with it.

How Do They Treat the Help?

One of the important tests of character is: How does he treat the help? When Scoop Jackson, longtime senator from Washington, died, we suddenly learned how all the staff in the Senate dining room adored him. We had no idea.

The Clintons, we learned, were not liked by the White House staff. And the report on Katie Couric is that people dive for their offices when they hear her heels clicking down the hall.

Why bother to treat the help with respect? As usual, Agatha Christie has the reason. When a friend of young Agatha dissed a servant she was told off in no uncertain terms. The servant was a professional, and worked hard. And above all, because of their position, servants could not talk back.

In the US armed forces, it turns out, mistreating the help can send you out the door. Victor Davis Hanson tells of one career-ending incident. It was quite simple. Vice-Admiral Richard J. Naughton tried to enter the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis without the proper ID.

Naturally expecting that the young Marine sentry on duty would recognize his all-important superintendent, Naughton boldly tried to pass. But instead, the Marine asked him to produce identification. Angry words and some sort of altercation ensued between the admiral and the enlisted man.



Later, Naughton claimed he couldn't "remember" whether he had "touched" the guard, but he did concede he "might" have done so.

Some skeptics thought that Naughton would skate, but he didn’t. There was a lengthy investigation and Naughton ended up resigning his position as superintendent of the academy and his commission.

In other words, the boss of Annapolis had to obey the rules or he was out.

That brings us, as you knew it would, to Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. She thought the rules didn’t apply to her, either.

But she has even less class than the admiral. After an incident in which she is alleged to have struck a police officer who restrained her for bypassing a metal detector, she didn’t apologize. Instead she played the race card, the gender card, and the sexual harassment card in a naked attempt to blame the servant, in this case the Capitol Hill police officer, rather than admit that she was a “Do You Know Who I Am” narcissist and abuser of power and privilege.

Tom Delay had a telling point about the McKinney incident. He said that he would be filing ethics charges against her if nobody else did, and that he had a personal interest in the case. A few years ago, a Capitol Hill police officer died in Delay’s office, shot to death doing his job defending the congressman against an intruder who had jumped around a metal detector.

So there you have it. The superintendent of the United States Naval Academy had to resign for pushing a Marine sentry. What will happen to a congresswoman who does the same thing?

Before you judge anyone, check to see how they treat the help.

The Angry Left Asks Bush If He's Ashamed

It’s good that lefty Harry Taylor got a chance to ask President Bush about the NSA surveillance program. Lefties ought to get a chance to question the president. Often. According to the Associated Press he got to

tell Bush that he's never felt more ashamed of the leadership of his country. He said Bush has asserted his right to tap phone calls without a warrant, to arrest people and hold them without charges and to revoke a woman's right to an abortion, among other things.

His question gave Bush a chance to tell his side of the story: That he had been criticized for not connecting the dots, and had asked his people what else the government could do, and they told him that they needed to monitor the conversations between Al Qaeda and contacts in the United States, and that they told him it was legal.

Harry Taylor’s question gave Bush a chance to play the good guy. The audience booed Taylor but Bush “urged the audience to let Taylor finish.”

You wonder. What would Bill Clinton have done? And what would the MSM have done with a right-wing questioner attacking the president back in the 1990s?

A Radical Architect, Classical

Philosopher Roger Scruton used to be Britain’s one and only conservative. Until he gave up and came to live in the United States. But he is not so Americanized that he does not know the protectors of the permanent things in England. Like architect Quinlan Terry.

Terry is a radical architect. That is, he rejects the modernist terrorism and the postmodernist irony and designs in the classic tradition. Thus the book about his work, Radical Classicism, reviewed by Roger Scruton (reg. reqd.) in the London Spectator.

For three millennia Western builders looked back to their predecessors, respecting the temple architecture of the ancients, refining its language, and adapting it to the European landscape in ways that are subtly varied, entirely memorable and above all humane. Then Le Corbusier burst on the scene. His plan was to demolish Paris north of the Seine and to put all the people into glass boxes.

When Quinlan Terry was studying architecture he had to educate himself, traveling to see great monuments, country churches, and ordinary streets in defiance of his tutors.

Needless to say, Terry’s projects, submitted as his thesis, were failed by the examiners. In satirical spirit he submitted hubristic modernist designs instead, and was allowed to pass.

What are we talking about here? We are talking about architecture as a near erotic experience, as the cover of the book tells us.

See what I mean? Why on earth did we throw all that away?

Well, Quinlan Terry didn’t, and now he’s built buildings all over the place.

Terry’s break came in 1984, when Haslemere Estates commissioned his designs for Richmond Riverside, which was to become one of London’s most popular tourist attractions. This harmonious collection of classical buildings, rising on a knoll above the Thames and enclosing offices, restaurants and private dwellings, illustrates Terry’s principles: to fit into the landscape and townscape; to use an architectural language that puts a building into relation with its neighbours and with the passer-by; to use natural materials and load-bearing walls so that the building will last and weather; to respect the realities of climate and the human need for light and air; to create forms and spaces that will lend themselves to the changing purposes of their residents and which will not die, as modernist buildings usually die, with their initial function.

Popular tourist attraction, eh?

Girl, 14, Drives Drunk; Parents Disabled

The Brits have been enjoying the spectacle of the family from hell, the Blacks, whose daughter Leighanne got arrested and then convicted for driving under the influence without a license. What’s the fuss, you ask? Leighanne is only 14, and this is her second driving offense.

The fair Leighanne is a bit young for driving and drinking, it’s true. But that is not why she became famous.

She got famous because of the forcible manner in which she expressed exception to her sentence: she shouted abuse at the magistrates and then threw a carafe of water over them, before punching the prosecuting counsel.

That’s more like it. And then her mother “mooned” the journalists attending upon this solemn occasion.

But that is not the point. The point is that, according to Ron Liddle in the London Spectator, her parents, Nora and Maurice, are both disabled.

Nora and Maurice are on benefits on account of his cancer and angina and her lung trouble and high blood pressure.

Oh well, Nora is 54 and Maurice is 62. Maybe they need to slow down a bit. It’s all perfectly harmless. But there are 2.7 million Brits on disability, around nine percent of the work force of 30 million. Only about 900,000 are unemployed. A pretty sickly lot, those Brits.

Here in the United States, things are far different. Out of a work force of 150 million a mere 8.1 million under 65 are drawing benefits under the Disability Income and Supplemental Security Income programs. That’s a mere 5.4 percent.

Let us put this in perspective. In Britland, there are about three times as many people getting money from the government for disability as there are people unemployed. In the ruthless United States, the ranks of the disabled are about the same as the ranks of the unemployed.

What does that tell you?

John Stossel and the Teachers, contd.

Remember John Stossel and his ABC-TV documentary, “Stupid in America?”
Remember how the teachers union demonstrated in front of ABC, chanting “Shame on You?” And remember how they invited John Stossel to teach at a public school so that he could find out what it was really like teaching kids?

And remember how John Stossel agreed to take the teachers union up on their offer?

A funny thing happened on the way to the classroom, writes John Stossel.

First of all, the union selected Beacon High School in New York, a special high school. “Ninety percent of Beacon's students graduate, while the average graduation rate for New York City public schools is only 53 percent.” OK. So the teachers union wanted Stossel to see the best of the schools, not the worst.

Then there were meetings. Lots of meetings. Finally they decided that Stossel could teach history and media studies. Then they had Stossel sit in a class with a “superstar” teacher who “seemed to teach 'victimhood in racist America' rather than history.”

Then it was all called off. They said that Stossel’s project “might be 'disruptive' and that it might 'set a precedent' that would open their doors to other reporters.” I’ll say.

Too bad. Letting cameras into schools would be a good thing. Taxpayers might finally get to see how more than $200,000 per classroom of their money was being spent.

And that is exactly why the education establishment does not want cameras in the classroom. It’s ok to stage a rent-a-crowd demo for the cameras down at ABC headquarters and shout “Shame.” But God forbid that TV watchers should actually get to see what goes on inside the classrooms for which they cough up five percent of their income.

What do you think, you mothers of America? Are you fed up enough yet?

Global Warming, Global Cooling, Natch

Conservatives love to recall how Newsweek heralded a new ice age back in 1975 just as the current warming trend was getting under way. Now the Washington Times has actually printed on line the article from thirty years ago, The Cooling World by Peter Gwynne.

There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production... The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now.

That must have got their attention back in the April 28, 1975 edition of Newsweek. The growing season in England had declined by 2 weeks between 1950 and 1975, and guess what: violent weather was a factor.

Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.

You gotta love this stuff. An outburst of tornados means we are in for global cooling. But what about the devastating hurricanes of the 1960s. Don’t they get a mention? Then there are the experts.

Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth's average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras -- and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average.

Of course, Newsweek was deeply worried that nothing was being done about the looming crisis. “The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.” There’s a voice from the past. Remember the “planners?” Haven’t heard much about them lately. Not since the end of the Soviet Union.