Category: Education

Even one more reason to make today a national holiday

It’s National Teacher Day.

Around 1944 Arkansas teacher Mattye Whyte Woodridge began corresponding with political and education leaders about the need for a national day to honor teachers. Woodbridge wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt, who in 1953 persuaded the 81st Congress to proclaim a National Teacher Day.

NEA, along with its Kansas and Indiana state affiliates and the Dodge City (Kan.) Local, lobbied Congress to create a national day celebrating teachers. Congress declared March 7, 1980, as National Teacher Day for that year only.

NEA and its affiliates continued to observe National Teacher Day on the first Tuesday in March until 1985, when the National PTA established Teacher Appreciation Week as the first full week of May. The NEA Representative Assembly then voted to make the Tuesday of that week National Teacher Day.

Thanks to all the wonderful teachers in NewMexiKen’s life, K-12 and beyond.

Stay in School to Outsmart Death?

Researchers from Harvard Medical School looked at data from the National Health Interview Study from 1966 to 2003. From the 1980s to 2000, the findings show that those who lived the longest were the most highly educated.

The “highly educated” were defined as anyone who had had at least one year of college. The researchers defined “low level” of education as having at most graduated from high school.

WebMD

It isn’t the education itself but rather that educated folk are less likely to smoke and less likely to be obese.

Hey kids, no more truant officers

John McCain:

Also, I do not believe in mandates. I believe that every American should have affordable and available health care and I’d like to talk just an additional minute about that. But I’m not going to mandate that they do. I want every American to have affordable and available education. But I’m not going to mandate that they do.

Transcript from CNN.com. Pointer via digby.

Best story of the day, so far

As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:

“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.

The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”

“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.

The above from author Susan Jacoby in an article in The New York Times. Ms. Jacoby has recently written The Age of American Unreason.

There’s also this: “A few years ago she participated in the annual campaign to turn off the television for a week. ‘I was stunned at how difficult it was for me,’ she said.”

NewMexiKen knows I’m unusual, but my television hasn’t been on since the Grammy Awards show Sunday. The computer — now that’s another story.

At 71, Physics Professor Is a Web Star

Walter H. G. Lewin, 71, a physics professor, has long had a cult following at M.I.T. And he has now emerged as an international Internet guru, thanks to the global classroom the institute created to spread knowledge through cyberspace.

Professor Lewin’s videotaped physics lectures, free online on the OpenCourseWare of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have won him devotees across the country and beyond who stuff his e-mail in-box with praise.

“Through your inspiring video lectures i have managed to see just how BEAUTIFUL Physics is, both astounding and simple,” a 17-year-old from India e-mailed recently.

Steve Boigon, 62, a florist from San Diego, wrote, “I walk with a new spring in my step and I look at life through physics-colored eyes.”

Professor Lewin delivers his lectures with the panache of Julia Child bringing French cooking to amateurs and the zany theatricality of YouTube’s greatest hits. He is part of a new generation of academic stars who hold forth in cyberspace on their college Web sites and even, without charge, on iTunes U, which went up in May on Apple’s iTunes Store.

New York Times

Follow the link to learn more about Professor Lewin and find links to his podcast lectures. An MIT education for free. Aren’t the internets grand?

Yet another cost of college

College towns bring together academic minds, alumni, students and sports enthusiasts, especially in the fall when football fans flock to reconnect with the nostalgia of happy college years.  The reasons they come – pageantry, culture, tradition and idyllic settings – are also the reason many want to stay and become homeowners in their college town.  According to the third annual Coldwell Banker® College Home Price Comparison Index (HPCI), while Ohio State may be leading the nation in the football polls, it is the Ball State Cardinals and Stanford Cardinal and their athletic conferences that hold the distinction of being located in the nation’s most affordable and expensive college towns, respectively.

Coldwell Banker-HPCI

The link above has all the details. Pointer via The Quad, which had this convenient summary. Price is for “a 2,220-foot, 4 bedroom 2 ½ bath home with a family room and two car garage.”

10 MOST EXPENSIVE
1. Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif. $1,677,000
2. Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Mass., $1,381,250
3. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Calif., $1,306,333
3. U.C.L.A., Los Angeles, Calif., $1,306,333
5. University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, Calif., $1,287,500
6. San Jose State University, San Jose, Calif., $1,145,000
7. University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii, $843,750
8. Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., $708,000
9. Florida International University, Miami, Fla., $638,333
9. University of Miami, Miami, Fla. $638,333

10 LEAST EXPENSIVE
1. Ball State University, Muncie, Ind. $150,000
2. Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas, $151,250
3. University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Okla., $153,750
4. Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Okla., $162,000
5. Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, $163,250
6. University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio, $163, 278
7. University of Louisiana Monroe, Monroe, La., $164,499
8. University of Houston, Houston, Texas, $169,736
8. Rice University, Houston, Texas, $169,736
10. Utah State University, Logan, Utah $172,978

The University of New Mexico is tagged at $317,319. My alma mater, The University of Arizona, at $286,667.

How the news gets it wrong

The Daily Howler takes apart a report on schools in The Washington Post, which had written how one Maryland elementary school had improved its reading scores. As Somerby reveals, the whole state had pretty much the same gains. In other words, the journalist didn’t do his homework to provide context. (Here’s the Post’s report.)

It’s not dissimilar to the journalist here in Albuquerque who reported school taxes hadn’t gone up in so many years because the rate hadn’t changed. A simple look at any sequence of tax bills would have shown that during the same period assessments had risen markedly, so of course actual taxes had risen.

Or the journalist here who reported that 150,000 people were expected at a three-day event in an 18,000 seat arena.

I simply do not understand these kinds of mistakes.

There was an expression in my old profession that applies, I’m sure, to many other fields including journalism: “A lot of journalists are underpaid, and many of them deserve to be.”

Death and Taxes

Well, taxes anyway.

NewMexiKen received the property tax bill today — just seven days before the first half is due. (Nice work, Bernalillo County!)

Most of the agencies are up a few dollars but a couple are down a few too. One however, is a big change. The taxes for Albuquerque Public Schools are up a whooping 29.2% over last year.

Now I happen to think schools are underfunded and teachers (most of them anyway) underpaid. But 29% in one year? I need to start paying attention — it’s 36% of my tax bill.

Here’s another interesting one — taxes for the University of New Mexico Hospital are 22% of my total bill.

And overall, in eight years, my property taxes are up 50%. (The assessment is up just 22%, so most of the increase is in the tax rates.)

How about you? Do you ever look at your property tax bill?

Top 10 Best Law Schools for Hispanics

  1. New Mexico (27%; 22%)
  2. Miami (12%; 8%)
  3. Texas (17%; 4%)
  4. USC (16%; 6%)
  5. American (14%; 6%)
  6. Florida State (8%; 7%)
  7. Arizona State (15%; 7%)
  8. Stanford (11%; 7%)
  9. Arizona (12%; 8%)
  10. Florida International (28%; 17%)

First number is percentage of Hispanic students; second Hispanic faculty.

Source: HispanicBusiness.com via Discourse.net.

NewMexiKen finds HispanicBusiness.com’s headline (which is the post title here) interesting. Shouldn’t the top 10 “best” law schools for Hispanics parallel the top 10 best law schools period?

Why college?

A provocative essay by Anthony Kronman, Sterling Professor of Law at Yale University, on the meaning of college — and finding the meaning to life. Well-worth reading, but hard to summarize, but here’s two key thoughts:

… But despite their differences, all rest on a set of common assumptions, which together define a shared conception of humane education.

The first is that there is more than one good answer to the question of what living is for. A second is that the number of such answers is limited, making it possible to study them in an organized way. A third is that the answers are irreconcilably different, necessitating a choice among them. A fourth is that the best way to explore these answers is to study the great works of philosophy, literature, and art in which they are presented with lasting beauty and strength. And a fifth is that their study should introduce students to the great conversation in which these works are engaged – Augustine warily admiring Plato, Hobbes reworking Aristotle, Paine condemning Burke, Eliot recalling Dante, recalling Virgil, recalling Homer – and help students find their own authentic voice as participants in the conversation.

Though critics have attacked “great books” programs as a kind of indoctrination into a European-dominated intellectual canon, the students in my Directed Studies class respond in the opposite way. They become rambunctiously independent. For they learn that the greatest minds in the world are on their side – or aren’t, and feel entitled to quarrel with them. A college freshman who has read Descartes, and who crafts her own reasons to reject his invitation to doubt, is on her way to an independence of spirit that is surely one of the conditions to living a meaningful life.

Thanks much to dangerousmeta! for the link.

Lipstick In School

According to a news report, a certain school in Garden City, MI was recently faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the washroom.That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints.

Every night, the maintenance man would remove them and the next day the girls would put them back. Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. He called all the girls to the washroom and met them there with the maintenance man. He explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night. To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, he asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required. He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it. Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

Neal Boortz

American History for the iPod

Want to hear one of the most popular courses at Berkeley, History 7B, The U.S. From the Civil War to the Present? It’s available free as 38 podcasts (of roughly 50 minutes each). The lecturer is Professor Jennifer Burns, who will be leaving Berkeley for the University of Virginia next year.

There are other courses and lectures available from Cal and other schools. Check out iTunes U via the iTunes store in iTunes, not your browser.

One way to keep the high school dropout rate low

Don’t have any high schools.

“The first class of 33 students at the Territorial Normal School in 1886 was greeted by its first teacher and principal, Hiram Bradford Farmer. This initial student body included 16-year-old students with no high school education, since there were no high schools in the Arizona Territory.”

The New ASU Story

The Territorial Normal School evolved into Arizona State College in 1945 and Arizona State University in 1958.

University of Arizona fans still refer to ASU as Tempe Normal. 1-2-3, Beat Tempe.

Stuff ‘R’ Us

Try to unscramble a rack of letters from GRE Vocabulary Word Scramble. Hit play again (after checking the answer) or refresh your browser to get a new word.

Here’s a short item on a Pregnant Woman On The Way To Hospital Charged With Reckless Driving And Subject To Virginia’s Abusive Driver Fee of $1050. 57 mph in a 35 zone. (She wasn’t in labor, but thought she was.) What d’ya think?

It still surprises me a little when I click on a page and it knows where I am.

Some of these are LOL. Annoying things to do on an elevator.

The Fifteen Most Dynamic Duos in Pop Culture History.

Somebody’s idea of The 20 Most Beautiful Colleges in the USA.

Confusing headline of the day: Men’s Undiagnosed Diabetes Down. How could they know?

Trade easy pleasures for more complex and challenging ones

Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, gave the commencement speech at Stanford a couple weeks ago. It’s quite good and worth your time.

NewMexiKen particularly had to agree with this sentiment:

I grew up mostly among immigrants, many of whom never learned to speak English. But at night watching TV variety programs like the Ed Sullivan Show or the Perry Como Music Hall, I saw—along with comedians, popular singers, and movie stars—classical musicians like Jascha Heifetz and Arthur Rubinstein, opera singers like Robert Merrill and Anna Moffo, and jazz greats like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong captivate an audience of millions with their art.

The same was even true of literature. I first encountered Robert Frost, John Steinbeck, Lillian Hellman, and James Baldwin on general interest TV shows. All of these people were famous to the average American—because the culture considered them important.

Today no working-class or immigrant kid would encounter that range of arts and ideas in the popular culture. Almost everything in our national culture, even the news, has been reduced to entertainment, or altogether eliminated.

Read the prepared text.

Thanks to dangerousmeta! for the link.