Should the Press Adjust its Role in Wartime?
On O'Reilly's Fox News show, Ellis Henican, in discussing the Newsweek/Koran blunder, reminded O'Reilly that the press has an adversarial reliationship with the government. In wartime, many are troubled by a press which sees itself in such a role. If the press doesn't find a new role for itself, it may just continue to slide into irrelevancy.
Friday, May 27, 2005
Hugh Hewitt: Kool Aid drinker
His claims to being a big tent Republican to the contrary, Hewitt is advocating a purge of Republicans. At the very moment when Republicans should be cementing their majority in the face of divided and wandering Democrats, the Religious Right is demanding the whole cake. Attempts at a purge are going to result in primary fights around the country, and just like the contraversy in Michigan in 2000, McCain was in the right and Bush was over-reaching.
His description of the filibuster as a constitutional horror and a naked power grab is just wishful thinking. I also think Hewitt's reading of the blogoshpere is nothing more than listening to an echo chamber. There are plenty of people who prefer Republicans to Democrats who are plenty dubious about the agenda of the Religious Right, and they blog too. If Hewitt is accurate in so much as the Republican Primary process is captured by the Move-On's and Micheal Moores of the right, I hardly think that's a good thing. It hasn't done the left any good, and its not going to prove to be a winning strategy for Republicans.
Instead of putting forward Republicans who can hold the right as well as capturing moderates, Hewitt is advocating a strategy to push Republicans into the Democratic party. Is Jim Jeffords his philosopher's stone? Where is the Hugh of If Its Not Close, They Can't Cheat?
When it came to Arlen Spector, Hugh was right. On this list of "Seven Republicans", he's wrong.
He's not the only one, of course. Captain Ed had a great post just after the 2004 election called, Learning to be a Majority Party. More recently, his Not One Dime has been an effort to make Republicans more like the Democrats in their fund-raising as well.
The idea of a purge is a bad idea in its own right, but it supports an equally bad idea, stacking the court. The problem with this plan is that its based on a fundamentally misguided principle, that if we control the court, all the excesses of the court will magically go away. Wrong. The best case scenario that follows from a large number of court appointments is that the excesses of the court won't bother a lot of Republicans, because the excesses will be in areas where the party either agrees with the policy, or doesn't care. But that's just imposing bad government on the minority. Why not seek a policy that's good government in general. If as a matter of principle, the court errs when it over-reaches, why not restrict its powers? Ronald Reagan once said, government that has the power to give also has the power to take away. This was an argument for weak government, not merely our government.
Someone called in the final hour of Friday's Bill Bennett show. He read Federalist 66 as arguing that the Senate only had the authority to confirm the nominations of the President. This is true, but it misses the main point of Federalist 66, that the Senate sits as a court of impeachment. Its a lawyers reading, and is present-minded. Hamilton wrote, "It isimagined that [the Senate] would be too indulgent judges of the conduct of men, in whose official creation they had participated. The principle of this objection would condemn a practice, which is to be seen in all the State governments, if not in all the governments with which we are acquainted." Here is the problem, and Hamilton identified it: the reluctance to reign in the judiciary by removing judges.
Republicans have had the advantage in nominations to the court having a sitting President for five years (32.5 years compared to the Democrats 27.5 years) and far from having a slight edge in court rulings, or even an approximate equivilence, the judiciary is out of control and the result is a long train of abuses and usurpations. More nominations won't solve this problem, because its an abuse of office, not ideology. Judges are simply unelected and, without impeachment, unaccountable. Putting our people in the robes doesn't solve the unerlying problem. First, as I just mentioned, the best case is that there errors only offend the left. Second, is that Democrats will continue to get nominations, even if less frequently than Republicans. If Republicans were to get 36 of 60 years, leaving the Dems with 24, is it really likely that we'll get a substantially better judiciary than we did over the past 60 years?
The real problem in the courts is that they have usurped too much power from the legislature. Fix that problem and fix it in law. Putting conservative court justices won't fix the problem, it will just give us conservative legislation from the bench. How about legislation from the legislature?
Because the fundamental problem is not being addressed, the purge being advocated by the self-styled center-right won't fix the problem, but will more likely make it worse. It will throw power into the hands of the Democrats. In the case of court appointments, only the President and the Senate matter, so Republican control in the House is irrelevant (unless they withdraw power from the courts).
Proposal: The courts cannot rule by fiat, but can only send bad law back to the legislature for correction. Let's use old Federalist 66 as a guide. The courts can't make law, they can only accept or reject what the other branches have done. No more Lemon Test, no more Miller Test, no more Plessy v Ferguson's, or Swann v Charlotte-Mecklenburg's.
His claims to being a big tent Republican to the contrary, Hewitt is advocating a purge of Republicans. At the very moment when Republicans should be cementing their majority in the face of divided and wandering Democrats, the Religious Right is demanding the whole cake. Attempts at a purge are going to result in primary fights around the country, and just like the contraversy in Michigan in 2000, McCain was in the right and Bush was over-reaching.
His description of the filibuster as a constitutional horror and a naked power grab is just wishful thinking. I also think Hewitt's reading of the blogoshpere is nothing more than listening to an echo chamber. There are plenty of people who prefer Republicans to Democrats who are plenty dubious about the agenda of the Religious Right, and they blog too. If Hewitt is accurate in so much as the Republican Primary process is captured by the Move-On's and Micheal Moores of the right, I hardly think that's a good thing. It hasn't done the left any good, and its not going to prove to be a winning strategy for Republicans.
Instead of putting forward Republicans who can hold the right as well as capturing moderates, Hewitt is advocating a strategy to push Republicans into the Democratic party. Is Jim Jeffords his philosopher's stone? Where is the Hugh of If Its Not Close, They Can't Cheat?
When it came to Arlen Spector, Hugh was right. On this list of "Seven Republicans", he's wrong.
He's not the only one, of course. Captain Ed had a great post just after the 2004 election called, Learning to be a Majority Party. More recently, his Not One Dime has been an effort to make Republicans more like the Democrats in their fund-raising as well.
The idea of a purge is a bad idea in its own right, but it supports an equally bad idea, stacking the court. The problem with this plan is that its based on a fundamentally misguided principle, that if we control the court, all the excesses of the court will magically go away. Wrong. The best case scenario that follows from a large number of court appointments is that the excesses of the court won't bother a lot of Republicans, because the excesses will be in areas where the party either agrees with the policy, or doesn't care. But that's just imposing bad government on the minority. Why not seek a policy that's good government in general. If as a matter of principle, the court errs when it over-reaches, why not restrict its powers? Ronald Reagan once said, government that has the power to give also has the power to take away. This was an argument for weak government, not merely our government.
Someone called in the final hour of Friday's Bill Bennett show. He read Federalist 66 as arguing that the Senate only had the authority to confirm the nominations of the President. This is true, but it misses the main point of Federalist 66, that the Senate sits as a court of impeachment. Its a lawyers reading, and is present-minded. Hamilton wrote, "It isimagined that [the Senate] would be too indulgent judges of the conduct of men, in whose official creation they had participated. The principle of this objection would condemn a practice, which is to be seen in all the State governments, if not in all the governments with which we are acquainted." Here is the problem, and Hamilton identified it: the reluctance to reign in the judiciary by removing judges.
Republicans have had the advantage in nominations to the court having a sitting President for five years (32.5 years compared to the Democrats 27.5 years) and far from having a slight edge in court rulings, or even an approximate equivilence, the judiciary is out of control and the result is a long train of abuses and usurpations. More nominations won't solve this problem, because its an abuse of office, not ideology. Judges are simply unelected and, without impeachment, unaccountable. Putting our people in the robes doesn't solve the unerlying problem. First, as I just mentioned, the best case is that there errors only offend the left. Second, is that Democrats will continue to get nominations, even if less frequently than Republicans. If Republicans were to get 36 of 60 years, leaving the Dems with 24, is it really likely that we'll get a substantially better judiciary than we did over the past 60 years?
The real problem in the courts is that they have usurped too much power from the legislature. Fix that problem and fix it in law. Putting conservative court justices won't fix the problem, it will just give us conservative legislation from the bench. How about legislation from the legislature?
Because the fundamental problem is not being addressed, the purge being advocated by the self-styled center-right won't fix the problem, but will more likely make it worse. It will throw power into the hands of the Democrats. In the case of court appointments, only the President and the Senate matter, so Republican control in the House is irrelevant (unless they withdraw power from the courts).
Proposal: The courts cannot rule by fiat, but can only send bad law back to the legislature for correction. Let's use old Federalist 66 as a guide. The courts can't make law, they can only accept or reject what the other branches have done. No more Lemon Test, no more Miller Test, no more Plessy v Ferguson's, or Swann v Charlotte-Mecklenburg's.
Funding Formula
Missouri has adopted a new funding formula. The new formula is based on district need rather than its tax base. It starts off equalizing all assumptions about local funding, so that it 1) doesn't give more to already wealthy districts, which is how a matching formula would work; and 2) doesn't penalize districts who raise their taxes by withdrawing state funds in compensation. Instead it assumes a local levy of $3.43, and then adjusts up for urban districts, higher levels of poverty (as measured by free lunches), and higher the average numbers of special ed students.
The formula still tracks by weighted average daily attendance, except, for very small school districts, who will get to use their 04-05 or 05-06 state aid as their base, which is then only adjusted by their attendance percentage, so that small dying districts are maintained, a popular political decision.
The Governor has been out advertising the deal. Word is he was a reluctant participant, but politics is the art of the possible.
Of course lots of folks don't like the fact that there is more money for education in this plan.
Missouri has adopted a new funding formula. The new formula is based on district need rather than its tax base. It starts off equalizing all assumptions about local funding, so that it 1) doesn't give more to already wealthy districts, which is how a matching formula would work; and 2) doesn't penalize districts who raise their taxes by withdrawing state funds in compensation. Instead it assumes a local levy of $3.43, and then adjusts up for urban districts, higher levels of poverty (as measured by free lunches), and higher the average numbers of special ed students.
The formula still tracks by weighted average daily attendance, except, for very small school districts, who will get to use their 04-05 or 05-06 state aid as their base, which is then only adjusted by their attendance percentage, so that small dying districts are maintained, a popular political decision.
The Governor has been out advertising the deal. Word is he was a reluctant participant, but politics is the art of the possible.
Of course lots of folks don't like the fact that there is more money for education in this plan.
Hitchens on Galloway
"Drink-sodden ex-Trotskyist popinjay" on the Soviet-admiring, charity-embezzeling, Saddam apologist. Must read.
"Drink-sodden ex-Trotskyist popinjay" on the Soviet-admiring, charity-embezzeling, Saddam apologist. Must read.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Is Star Wars an Art Film?
Boy the critics seem to have a lot of complaints. Sure they are saying nice things about Episode III, but not without slamming I and II. I must say I'm baffled by the complaints. Actually, I do recognize them. They sound like the complaints made about impressionist art.
MSN had a piece on the new records by Moby and Beck. It includes this line on Moby: "A second, mostly inconsequential bonus disc offers ambient soundscapes." I'm not into ambient soundscapes, but there is a whole genre devoted to it, with radio shows, internet sites, and apparently artists like Moby work in the area.
Art is not about satisfying a mass audience, its about satisfying the artist. Entertainment is about satisfying a mass audience. From the beginning of Lucas' work, his early films, his problem with the studios, the whole of his career, the complaints have been the same. He was interviewed on Charlie Rose last year, and they replayed the interview on one of our local PBS outlets. The studio didn't like American Graffiti because it lacked character and plot. Gee no one has ever complained about Lucas' other work lacking character and plot have they? Maybe, just maybe, Lucas, as an artist, isn't interested in character and plot, and his notion of story lies elsewhere. Perhaps in the feeling of a picture and the sense of it from a distance. The things that he is hailed for, his use of music (the studios complained about the music), his technical and visual innovations, and his use of mythology (Campbell has referred to him as his best student) are what he has tried to do. He has consciously rejected an emphasis on the normal narrative devices. Further, he's tried to insulate himself from the pressures that would force him to adapt to the expectations of a mass audience or studio executives.
Complaining about Lucas' very style of making movies is like complaining because you like westerns better and would have preferred Ep II as a western with cowboys and sixguns.
Lucas' films are not entertainment aimed at a mass audience, they are cult films whose cult happens to be very large. People don't dress up as characters of mere entertainments, Star Wars therefore should be considered an art film with a cult following. A very large cult following.
Boy the critics seem to have a lot of complaints. Sure they are saying nice things about Episode III, but not without slamming I and II. I must say I'm baffled by the complaints. Actually, I do recognize them. They sound like the complaints made about impressionist art.
MSN had a piece on the new records by Moby and Beck. It includes this line on Moby: "A second, mostly inconsequential bonus disc offers ambient soundscapes." I'm not into ambient soundscapes, but there is a whole genre devoted to it, with radio shows, internet sites, and apparently artists like Moby work in the area.
Art is not about satisfying a mass audience, its about satisfying the artist. Entertainment is about satisfying a mass audience. From the beginning of Lucas' work, his early films, his problem with the studios, the whole of his career, the complaints have been the same. He was interviewed on Charlie Rose last year, and they replayed the interview on one of our local PBS outlets. The studio didn't like American Graffiti because it lacked character and plot. Gee no one has ever complained about Lucas' other work lacking character and plot have they? Maybe, just maybe, Lucas, as an artist, isn't interested in character and plot, and his notion of story lies elsewhere. Perhaps in the feeling of a picture and the sense of it from a distance. The things that he is hailed for, his use of music (the studios complained about the music), his technical and visual innovations, and his use of mythology (Campbell has referred to him as his best student) are what he has tried to do. He has consciously rejected an emphasis on the normal narrative devices. Further, he's tried to insulate himself from the pressures that would force him to adapt to the expectations of a mass audience or studio executives.
Complaining about Lucas' very style of making movies is like complaining because you like westerns better and would have preferred Ep II as a western with cowboys and sixguns.
Lucas' films are not entertainment aimed at a mass audience, they are cult films whose cult happens to be very large. People don't dress up as characters of mere entertainments, Star Wars therefore should be considered an art film with a cult following. A very large cult following.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Some additional thoughts on teacher self-regulation
Friday I mentioned Bill Bennett's suggestion that teachers in a building know who the meritorious teachers are. My own sense that teachers would not self-regulate comes from discussions I have had with individuals and groups of teachers in schools and in ed classes. My sense in a discussion of teacher conduct and classroom discipline in a philosophy of ed class was that teachers wanted clear unambiguous rules which might cover every contingency. Bennett was rightly skeptical that this evasion of responsibility could ever be achieved. The very notion that it could is an example of the hold which positivism has on the teaching profession. A case of what Virginia Postrel coins as "the one best way." Positivists believe that by application of a positive method, one best way can be discovered. What Postrel's book, The Future and its Enemies argues, is that no such best way exists.
Tenure is, in its theoretical ends, just such a institution. Its purpose is to remove responsibilty from individuals and transfer it to a system of positive judgement. Rather than giving building administrators or teachers as a body of self-regulators the role of judging their peers' quality on a day by day or year by year basis, tenure abandons judgement.
Certainly its neccesary to protect unpopular ideas, but tenure as its practiced today seems to be a blanket protection for professors and teachers, rather than a protection limited to unpopular ideas. One should further note that by unpopular ideas, what is meant are ideas that meet the normal criteria for scholarly acceptance, being rigorous, methodical, and judged by scholarly peers as scholarly, but are also unpopular. What are not meant are ideas that are unpopular because they are nutty, unscholarly, or politics dressed up as scholarship.
For teachers in public schools, this issue is complicated because where scholars might search for truth regardless of its popularity, many views of the role of school have no place for such contraversy. Teachers are often seen as being objective sources fo facts, or obligated to transmit the views of the community as surrugates for parents. On the other hand, deep in the Western tradition is the notion that education itself has at least a componant of the subversive. Plato's discussion of Socrates reminds us how truth and community can conflict. The Christian Gospels also conclude with such a conflict between truth and community. Neither Socrates nor Jesus had tenure. Are the demands of truth something that society should delay for higher education or adulthood, or is there a place for scholarly contraversy in the high school?
I'm of two minds on this subject and am not able to resolve this issue. If the community establishes a school, whether as a public school, or as a private school, and the parents pay to hire teachers, don't the teachers have an obligation to teach what and how the community decides? Yet how can a teacher claim any authority of learning if he doesn't also owe an obligation to truth?
The right answer probably involves acceptance of the tension between these competing goods, and the search for an Aristolean middle path, avoiding excesses of either obediance to parental will or disputatious truth telling.
Friday I mentioned Bill Bennett's suggestion that teachers in a building know who the meritorious teachers are. My own sense that teachers would not self-regulate comes from discussions I have had with individuals and groups of teachers in schools and in ed classes. My sense in a discussion of teacher conduct and classroom discipline in a philosophy of ed class was that teachers wanted clear unambiguous rules which might cover every contingency. Bennett was rightly skeptical that this evasion of responsibility could ever be achieved. The very notion that it could is an example of the hold which positivism has on the teaching profession. A case of what Virginia Postrel coins as "the one best way." Positivists believe that by application of a positive method, one best way can be discovered. What Postrel's book, The Future and its Enemies argues, is that no such best way exists.
Tenure is, in its theoretical ends, just such a institution. Its purpose is to remove responsibilty from individuals and transfer it to a system of positive judgement. Rather than giving building administrators or teachers as a body of self-regulators the role of judging their peers' quality on a day by day or year by year basis, tenure abandons judgement.
Certainly its neccesary to protect unpopular ideas, but tenure as its practiced today seems to be a blanket protection for professors and teachers, rather than a protection limited to unpopular ideas. One should further note that by unpopular ideas, what is meant are ideas that meet the normal criteria for scholarly acceptance, being rigorous, methodical, and judged by scholarly peers as scholarly, but are also unpopular. What are not meant are ideas that are unpopular because they are nutty, unscholarly, or politics dressed up as scholarship.
For teachers in public schools, this issue is complicated because where scholars might search for truth regardless of its popularity, many views of the role of school have no place for such contraversy. Teachers are often seen as being objective sources fo facts, or obligated to transmit the views of the community as surrugates for parents. On the other hand, deep in the Western tradition is the notion that education itself has at least a componant of the subversive. Plato's discussion of Socrates reminds us how truth and community can conflict. The Christian Gospels also conclude with such a conflict between truth and community. Neither Socrates nor Jesus had tenure. Are the demands of truth something that society should delay for higher education or adulthood, or is there a place for scholarly contraversy in the high school?
I'm of two minds on this subject and am not able to resolve this issue. If the community establishes a school, whether as a public school, or as a private school, and the parents pay to hire teachers, don't the teachers have an obligation to teach what and how the community decides? Yet how can a teacher claim any authority of learning if he doesn't also owe an obligation to truth?
The right answer probably involves acceptance of the tension between these competing goods, and the search for an Aristolean middle path, avoiding excesses of either obediance to parental will or disputatious truth telling.
Domestic Robots
Chris Anderson tells the story of his domestic robot. Such encounters will undoubtedly become more routine. When do theyt start being called droids?
Chris Anderson tells the story of his domestic robot. Such encounters will undoubtedly become more routine. When do theyt start being called droids?
World View Quiz
You scored as Materialist. Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together. You believe that anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements.
What is Your World View? (corrected...again) created with QuizFarm.com |
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Good news for the MAP
Education Next compares the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to the various state-wide tests. The states were ranked according to how predictive the state-wide tests were of results on the NAEP. Both 4th grade and 8th grade skills were considered. Missouri was ranked third out of forty (ten states have no such tests). The tests in South Carolina, Maine, Missouri, Wyoming, and Massachusetts were recorded as being highly predictive of the national test results.
Education Next compares the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to the various state-wide tests. The states were ranked according to how predictive the state-wide tests were of results on the NAEP. Both 4th grade and 8th grade skills were considered. Missouri was ranked third out of forty (ten states have no such tests). The tests in South Carolina, Maine, Missouri, Wyoming, and Massachusetts were recorded as being highly predictive of the national test results.
Realism and Idealism
In the realm of foreign policy, the idealists have the upper hand and are engaging in some triumphalist slamming of the realists. Robert Kaplan has an interesting peice on How We Would Fight China in the Atlantic. I heard him interviewed about the piece on Hugh Hewitt's show, and Bill Bennett had been all over the issue of China, looking at it from a variety of angles. Kaplan's a realist, and a smart one. Idealists generally give him respect and treat his writing seriously, even if Kaplan isn't influencing them very much. If Kaplan was on Bennett, I missed it, but it would be interesting to have heard Bennett's responce to the article given Bennett's concern with China.
Bennett, a species of Neocon and an idealist, rejects the Hamiltonian approach to China that was taken by Bush I and Clinton. He has a great concern with the absence of democratic reform, the political and religious repression, and the juggernaught of an economy China has. Part of Kaplan's strategy is to back away from our exclusive committment to democratization and work with strategic partners to oppose China, rather than drive all non-democratic states into China's arms.
My own sense is that we need accept that both realism and idealism speak essential truths and that the thing to do is know when to use realistic thinking, idealistic thinking, and when to attempt a hybrid. As I have argued before, realism was dominant during the Cold War for a reason. We defined the free world as anyone who was not communist, and so tried to enlist the largest possible coallition with which to resist communism. Looking at China as a global rival, there is a sense to building a big coallition against them rather than pursuing a democratic crusade and alienating Europe (which is realist to the point of cynicism) and other potential partners. However the realists need to understand that idealism and the pursuit of democracy is the most reliable way to flip states from the neutral or enemy columns into the friendly column. Democracy and freedom are powerful ideological forces; much more powerful than any other non-religious ideology, and more powereful than some theisms as well. Realists can't afford to ignore this valuable tool in any contest with China. No other tool, not money, not weapons, not diplomacy is as powerful as free markets and free societies are in combating despotism and rogue states. However, there is one more point to made in favor of the realists. Crusaders have an unlimited capacity to crusade, whether its for smoking bans, right to life, to social security reform. Realists understand that its neccesary to keep one's powder dry in preperation for unexpected conflicts and challenges by rivals. The War on Terror has the capacity to exhaust the people and create the kind of demand for normalcy which can sap any American responce to China. This is the danger of any perpetual war scenario. As conflict with China develops, if Americans have become conflict averse, we'll end up having to allow China to take the Saar, the Rhineland, Austria, Sudetenland, Bohemia, and threaten the Danzig corridor before we act. What the idealists understand that the realists can forget is that foreign polciy requires selling a policy to the people by advocacy rather than leaving it to experts at State and the Pentagon to manage in back channels.
Bearing and burden lead to excess commitment in Vietnam, and exhaustion from World War I lead to isolationism in the face of tyrants in the 30's. To avoid both extreams, the realists and idealists have to both take a role in the foriegn policy development.
In the realm of foreign policy, the idealists have the upper hand and are engaging in some triumphalist slamming of the realists. Robert Kaplan has an interesting peice on How We Would Fight China in the Atlantic. I heard him interviewed about the piece on Hugh Hewitt's show, and Bill Bennett had been all over the issue of China, looking at it from a variety of angles. Kaplan's a realist, and a smart one. Idealists generally give him respect and treat his writing seriously, even if Kaplan isn't influencing them very much. If Kaplan was on Bennett, I missed it, but it would be interesting to have heard Bennett's responce to the article given Bennett's concern with China.
Bennett, a species of Neocon and an idealist, rejects the Hamiltonian approach to China that was taken by Bush I and Clinton. He has a great concern with the absence of democratic reform, the political and religious repression, and the juggernaught of an economy China has. Part of Kaplan's strategy is to back away from our exclusive committment to democratization and work with strategic partners to oppose China, rather than drive all non-democratic states into China's arms.
My own sense is that we need accept that both realism and idealism speak essential truths and that the thing to do is know when to use realistic thinking, idealistic thinking, and when to attempt a hybrid. As I have argued before, realism was dominant during the Cold War for a reason. We defined the free world as anyone who was not communist, and so tried to enlist the largest possible coallition with which to resist communism. Looking at China as a global rival, there is a sense to building a big coallition against them rather than pursuing a democratic crusade and alienating Europe (which is realist to the point of cynicism) and other potential partners. However the realists need to understand that idealism and the pursuit of democracy is the most reliable way to flip states from the neutral or enemy columns into the friendly column. Democracy and freedom are powerful ideological forces; much more powerful than any other non-religious ideology, and more powereful than some theisms as well. Realists can't afford to ignore this valuable tool in any contest with China. No other tool, not money, not weapons, not diplomacy is as powerful as free markets and free societies are in combating despotism and rogue states. However, there is one more point to made in favor of the realists. Crusaders have an unlimited capacity to crusade, whether its for smoking bans, right to life, to social security reform. Realists understand that its neccesary to keep one's powder dry in preperation for unexpected conflicts and challenges by rivals. The War on Terror has the capacity to exhaust the people and create the kind of demand for normalcy which can sap any American responce to China. This is the danger of any perpetual war scenario. As conflict with China develops, if Americans have become conflict averse, we'll end up having to allow China to take the Saar, the Rhineland, Austria, Sudetenland, Bohemia, and threaten the Danzig corridor before we act. What the idealists understand that the realists can forget is that foreign polciy requires selling a policy to the people by advocacy rather than leaving it to experts at State and the Pentagon to manage in back channels.
Bearing and burden lead to excess commitment in Vietnam, and exhaustion from World War I lead to isolationism in the face of tyrants in the 30's. To avoid both extreams, the realists and idealists have to both take a role in the foriegn policy development.
Friday, May 20, 2005
Peer Review in High Schools?
Bill Bennett has suggested that because teachers know who the other good teachers are, they are positioned to determine who deserves merit pay. Its true they are positioned to do so, but would they judge their peers on the quality of their teaching, or would other considerations dominate the process?
There are reasons to suppose that they would not. First among the evidence is the report of teachers themselves. I called Morning in America and related my experience discussing this issue in a room full of teachers in a graduate philosophy of education class. Working teachers were unanimously opposed, fearing abuse, favoritism, and payback. Callers to Bennett's show were in the same vein. One caller, perhaps half jokingly, predicted fighting in the parking lot.
As someone with a Lockean turn of mind, I am disturbed by the consensus that teachers cannot be self-governing. Yet there is evidence that this would be so. Self-governance or self-regulation, either as a polity or as a profession, such as doctors and lawyers, requires an established professional ethos. In education, there is nothing but philosophical chaos. The teacher's colleges and the NEA promote a progressive (positivist) philosophy. The state departments of education have a strong component of essentialism (back-to-basics plus testing). Teachers themselves run the gamut, including behaviorists (education by conditioning), existentialists (students create their own reality, or at least meaning), and social reconstructionists (the mission of the school is reform society), as well as the progressives and essentialists. There may even be a classicist or two running around. With such different views on the nature of the student, the role of the teacher, and the mission of the school in each philosophy, and the complicating factor that most teachers don't have a well developed philosophy (indeed in my experience they can't tell one from the other even after you explain it to them) and to tend to be an eclectic mix of habit, learning, and experience, establishing a professional ethos would have to come from outside the profession. Indeed, this is basically the current state of affairs, with progressives pushing their agenda from professional organizations and the teacher's colleges, and the state boards of ed responding to the parents, voters, and taxpayers demanding the back-to-basics curriculum and accountability. However, both forces are mostly stalemated as far as controlling the philosophical agenda. Ultimately, the parents, voters, and taxpayers have the greater power, but its a mostly unmotivated power, roused temporarily by bad news or obvious failure.
Even if the political system were to impose a single hybrid ideology (one must suppose it would look like the mission statements of the better suburban schools: mostly essentialist with some elements of the others) such an act would be outdated even before it was done. In the current era, it seems much more sensible to create a marketplace of competing ideologies rather than impose a uniform ideology by state action. In effect, each school would be formed around its guiding philosophy, which it would market to parents, and govern itself accordingly. Even still, decisions about hiring, merit rewards, and firing would probably reside in with the head of the school, whether the principal or some similar executive position.
Consider similar problems teachers have. Grade inflation, school politics, and the popularity contest phenomenon all undermine confidence that teachers would judge their peers by merit and would avoid an assessment proceedure to reward their friends, help out the sympathetic, punish their rivals, seek across the board pay raises unde the guise of merit increases, favor those of similar politics, or otherwise conflate a merit assessment with other purposes. Without a clear ideology adheared to by those who assess, its hard to imagine that any particular definition of merit would prevail.
Update:
Joanne Jacobs passes on this link to a California paper in which teachers elected everyone "teacher of the year" rather than select one meritorious teacher in protest of the very notion of merit pay.
Case closed.
Bill Bennett has suggested that because teachers know who the other good teachers are, they are positioned to determine who deserves merit pay. Its true they are positioned to do so, but would they judge their peers on the quality of their teaching, or would other considerations dominate the process?
There are reasons to suppose that they would not. First among the evidence is the report of teachers themselves. I called Morning in America and related my experience discussing this issue in a room full of teachers in a graduate philosophy of education class. Working teachers were unanimously opposed, fearing abuse, favoritism, and payback. Callers to Bennett's show were in the same vein. One caller, perhaps half jokingly, predicted fighting in the parking lot.
As someone with a Lockean turn of mind, I am disturbed by the consensus that teachers cannot be self-governing. Yet there is evidence that this would be so. Self-governance or self-regulation, either as a polity or as a profession, such as doctors and lawyers, requires an established professional ethos. In education, there is nothing but philosophical chaos. The teacher's colleges and the NEA promote a progressive (positivist) philosophy. The state departments of education have a strong component of essentialism (back-to-basics plus testing). Teachers themselves run the gamut, including behaviorists (education by conditioning), existentialists (students create their own reality, or at least meaning), and social reconstructionists (the mission of the school is reform society), as well as the progressives and essentialists. There may even be a classicist or two running around. With such different views on the nature of the student, the role of the teacher, and the mission of the school in each philosophy, and the complicating factor that most teachers don't have a well developed philosophy (indeed in my experience they can't tell one from the other even after you explain it to them) and to tend to be an eclectic mix of habit, learning, and experience, establishing a professional ethos would have to come from outside the profession. Indeed, this is basically the current state of affairs, with progressives pushing their agenda from professional organizations and the teacher's colleges, and the state boards of ed responding to the parents, voters, and taxpayers demanding the back-to-basics curriculum and accountability. However, both forces are mostly stalemated as far as controlling the philosophical agenda. Ultimately, the parents, voters, and taxpayers have the greater power, but its a mostly unmotivated power, roused temporarily by bad news or obvious failure.
Even if the political system were to impose a single hybrid ideology (one must suppose it would look like the mission statements of the better suburban schools: mostly essentialist with some elements of the others) such an act would be outdated even before it was done. In the current era, it seems much more sensible to create a marketplace of competing ideologies rather than impose a uniform ideology by state action. In effect, each school would be formed around its guiding philosophy, which it would market to parents, and govern itself accordingly. Even still, decisions about hiring, merit rewards, and firing would probably reside in with the head of the school, whether the principal or some similar executive position.
Consider similar problems teachers have. Grade inflation, school politics, and the popularity contest phenomenon all undermine confidence that teachers would judge their peers by merit and would avoid an assessment proceedure to reward their friends, help out the sympathetic, punish their rivals, seek across the board pay raises unde the guise of merit increases, favor those of similar politics, or otherwise conflate a merit assessment with other purposes. Without a clear ideology adheared to by those who assess, its hard to imagine that any particular definition of merit would prevail.
Update:
Joanne Jacobs passes on this link to a California paper in which teachers elected everyone "teacher of the year" rather than select one meritorious teacher in protest of the very notion of merit pay.
Case closed.
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Locke, Rousseau, and Hobbes still fighting over the nature of mankind
In the Spring 2005 issue of the City Journal, Kay Hymowitz has a piece on the sluggish attainment of Black students. Her conclusion is that class is a strong componant of the problem. The core of her argument is that middle class parents have a mission that provides clear means and ends reagarding learning. I'll place it in the terms of the eighteenth century world of ideas.
John Locke described human beings as capable of forming a social contract in which ultimate soveriegnty lay with the people: "Men being, by nature, all free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subject to the will of another, without his own consent." In the individualistic, democratic, and commercial societies that took Locke to heart, there was a new problem that confronted society. This problem was obvious to and acute in the newly formed American republic. How do you raise virtuous republicans capable of maintaining a free people in their independence?
Middle class families, the commercial class, throughout Western Europe were struggling with this problem and the cultural solution in America and Europe was the Cult of Domesticity. [note: be warry of descriptions of the Cult of Domesticity which often admix other ideas from Victorian societies into their descriptions. They also tend to be written from a modern feminist perspective and ignore men's domesticity.] This idea held that the family was the center of training for civic virtue and that both mothers and fathers had duties to attend to the proper upbringing of children. Women were clearly seen as taking a strong role in this upbringing of children, and indeed early feminists argued that mothers , well educated, had just as vital a role in the preservation of civic virtue as men. Men were summoned to attend to their families and to be good fathers, not just disciplinarians and providers. It was this movement that played a vital role in creating a modern sexual culture that condemned male homosexuality, whoring, and other kinds of infidelity as these activities took men and their affections out of the house. The family was not to be just an economic unit, but an affective enviroment for the raising of children, and consequently a happily married couple. By the end of the eighteenth century you can find many examples of men arguing that true happiness is to be found only among close friends and within the family and explicitly rejecting and active public life.
Hymowitz looks at some critics of what they call "hyperparenting," but she does not locate this theory as a different in kind from the "mission." Locke imagined a capable human who is self-governing and educable. The idea of hyperparenting, imagins a less capable human, at least as a child. Indeed, this model seems to have more in common with Thomas Hobbes Leviathan as the controlling master of the incapable subject. Much of the theory that the state should be an all powerful controling entity was indeed based on the 17th century patriarchal family. (See Filmer) So let us recognize that the notion that parents should govern their children in such a fashion, what in modern use looks to be hyperparenting, is in fact the parent being the Leviathan to their children.
Consider Locke's Section 73 of Some Thoughts Concerning Education.
"None of the things [children] are to learn, should ever be made a burden to them, or imposed on them as a task. Whatever is so proposed presently becomes irksome, the mind takes an aversion to it, though before it were a thing of delight or indifferency. Let a child be ordered to whip his top at a certain time every day, whether he has a mind to it, [...] and see whether he will not soon be weary of any play at this rate."
Locke advocates a skilled tutor who introduces subjects to his student in such a way as to win his excitement and curiousity, to utilize what we call "teachable moments,"and to emphasize character education. In his theory of learning, Locke identifies all knowledge as being reflection on sensory experience. And so we can say of the Lockean model, that parents will seek out useful experiences, read to their children, buy educational toys, and help them develope a couriosity about the world and an interest in learning, as well as an understanding that learning is important. What Berger called the "Mission."
Hymowitz also makes mention of the work of Annette Lareau, an ethnography of class and child rearing. In Unequal Childhoods, Lareau identifies a theory of "natural growth" which she desribes as prevelent among the poor and the working poor. This brings us to Rousseau. Rousseau argued that children were good by nature, and that education was corruption. Therefore, we should let the child express himself, and develop according to his unfolding nature without the interfearance of teachers or parents. Look to his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences to see his rejection of the civil for the natural. He doesn't use the phrase "noble savage" but the term is linked to his name because he does embrace a rejection of the corruption of civilization: "See how luxury, dissolution, and slavery have in every age been the punishment for the arrogant efforts we have made in order to emerge from the happy ignorance where Eternal Wisdom had placed us." See Emile to discover how the purpose of education is the restoration of this "happy ignorance." (Or rather, don't, I advise the gentle reader to avoid Rousseau except as a study of error.)
So we have now identified three theories of childcare and education, corresponding to Hobbes, the hyperparenting leviathan; Locke who proposes that with good education whe shall be self-governing; and Rousseau, who believes children are better left to their own natural development. Lurking in the background is a fourth theorist: Decartes. Here Hobbes saw man's nature as savage (his life therefore nasty, brutish, and short), Rousseau as good and pure, and Locke as a blank slate, Decartes saw man possesing an innate knowledge of God and right and wrong. Decartes is therefore a naturalist, in so much as he regarded the knowledge of God and other ideas to be innate. Yet, unlike Rousseau, Descartes did not believe that goodness itself was innate. The ability to discover this was possible by reflection from first principles according to the practice of rationalism.
Locke rejected Cartesian rationalism and was a leading proponant of empiricism. Empiricism argued that knowledge was aquired more reliably not by reflection and deduction, but by experiment. An experiment is a controlled observation to address a specific question. In fact, Locke's education is an application of empiricism. Students don't recieve a set of thought provoking questions to ponder, the contemplation of which constitute education, but rather Locke begins with guided experience, spontanous opportunities for teaching, and finally, some reflection.
The middle class, with its mission, is predominatly Lockean. What struck me about Hymowitz' article was its connection of poor parents and a Rousseauean theory of learning. "Natural-growth believers are fatalists; they do not see their role as shaping the environment so that Little Princes or Princesses will develop their minds and talents, because they assume that these will unfold as they will. As long as a parent provides love, food, and safety, she is doing her job." The notion of developing the child is Locke. Rousseau can look to the casual observer to be a program of development, but it is in fact a sophistocated neglect. Rousseau places his fictional student Emile in a situation where he breaks a window and then learns that with its loss, he is cold. So we see how Emile's will has not been disciplines so that he goes about breaking things, and that second, he is supposed to learn that a broken window is a state to be corrected. This fantasy imagines that Emile will put together some complex ideas and draw the kind of sophisticated conclusion that leads to Home Depot. Instead, as James Q Wilson has demonstrated, the lesson actually learned re broken windows is that nobody cares about this stuff, and I can break it with out consequences.
Bart Landry suggests in Black Working Wives that Black women rejected the Cult of Domesticity for the virtues of a broader commitment to community, including work and family. But this ideology seems to have missed that the purpose of domesticity was the Lockean mission of educating children. John McWhorter has suggested that Black Americans were denied a sense of a tradition of education by the heritage of slavery, in which 1) slaves were denied education by law, and 2) the seperation of people from culture groups undermined an oral history, so that Blacks were unaware that they had a tradition of learning. (See his Explaining the Black Education Gap in the Summer 2000 issue of The Wilson Quarterly, subscription required)This might explain why Black working wives might have seen no need to embrace "the mission" of domesticity, and settled their ideology on the community. The poor as a class have not embraced the ideologist of the middle class, Locke, in any of his facets. That Blacks should have an additional reason to have failed to embrace Locke, at least his educational theory, and the mission that stems from it, seems well explained by McWhorter. How it manifests is well explained by Annette Lareau.
Too often I find Locke condemned as if he were Hobbes, and Rousseau's ideas praised when the descriptions of the ideas are those compatible with Locke and the others ignored. When I see someone advocating ignoring the teaching of literacy until a child has need of it (Rousseau supposed 12 years of age) then I'll say we have a real Rousseau. In the mean time, let us know Locke and be able to recognize his program for education.
I found Kay Hymowitz' City Journal article via Joanne Jacobs.
In the Spring 2005 issue of the City Journal, Kay Hymowitz has a piece on the sluggish attainment of Black students. Her conclusion is that class is a strong componant of the problem. The core of her argument is that middle class parents have a mission that provides clear means and ends reagarding learning. I'll place it in the terms of the eighteenth century world of ideas.
John Locke described human beings as capable of forming a social contract in which ultimate soveriegnty lay with the people: "Men being, by nature, all free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subject to the will of another, without his own consent." In the individualistic, democratic, and commercial societies that took Locke to heart, there was a new problem that confronted society. This problem was obvious to and acute in the newly formed American republic. How do you raise virtuous republicans capable of maintaining a free people in their independence?
Middle class families, the commercial class, throughout Western Europe were struggling with this problem and the cultural solution in America and Europe was the Cult of Domesticity. [note: be warry of descriptions of the Cult of Domesticity which often admix other ideas from Victorian societies into their descriptions. They also tend to be written from a modern feminist perspective and ignore men's domesticity.] This idea held that the family was the center of training for civic virtue and that both mothers and fathers had duties to attend to the proper upbringing of children. Women were clearly seen as taking a strong role in this upbringing of children, and indeed early feminists argued that mothers , well educated, had just as vital a role in the preservation of civic virtue as men. Men were summoned to attend to their families and to be good fathers, not just disciplinarians and providers. It was this movement that played a vital role in creating a modern sexual culture that condemned male homosexuality, whoring, and other kinds of infidelity as these activities took men and their affections out of the house. The family was not to be just an economic unit, but an affective enviroment for the raising of children, and consequently a happily married couple. By the end of the eighteenth century you can find many examples of men arguing that true happiness is to be found only among close friends and within the family and explicitly rejecting and active public life.
Hymowitz cites something sociologist Brigitte Berger, the author of The Family in the Modern Age, identifies as a middle class educational "mission" and traces how the nuclear family was employed to achieve this mission. Such a program to educate children for an individualistic, democratic, commercial society, to uphold civic virtue, and in America, preserve the achievments of the Revolution, required not only an affectionate domestic enviroment with attentive mothers and fathers, but a new kind of education. It may not be surprising that the theorist of the liberal social contract, John Locke, is also outlined the program for such education. Locke's ideas are found in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding and in Some Thoughts Concerning Education. Locke regards people as possessing animal instincts, and having different talents, but the larger share of our makeup is based on our experience. Unlike our human inheritance, or particular family inheritance, experience is subject to control and manipulation. So that the enviroment in which is child is raised is important and what a child is exposed to is important.
Hymowitz looks at some critics of what they call "hyperparenting," but she does not locate this theory as a different in kind from the "mission." Locke imagined a capable human who is self-governing and educable. The idea of hyperparenting, imagins a less capable human, at least as a child. Indeed, this model seems to have more in common with Thomas Hobbes Leviathan as the controlling master of the incapable subject. Much of the theory that the state should be an all powerful controling entity was indeed based on the 17th century patriarchal family. (See Filmer) So let us recognize that the notion that parents should govern their children in such a fashion, what in modern use looks to be hyperparenting, is in fact the parent being the Leviathan to their children.
Consider Locke's Section 73 of Some Thoughts Concerning Education.
"None of the things [children] are to learn, should ever be made a burden to them, or imposed on them as a task. Whatever is so proposed presently becomes irksome, the mind takes an aversion to it, though before it were a thing of delight or indifferency. Let a child be ordered to whip his top at a certain time every day, whether he has a mind to it, [...] and see whether he will not soon be weary of any play at this rate."
Locke advocates a skilled tutor who introduces subjects to his student in such a way as to win his excitement and curiousity, to utilize what we call "teachable moments,"and to emphasize character education. In his theory of learning, Locke identifies all knowledge as being reflection on sensory experience. And so we can say of the Lockean model, that parents will seek out useful experiences, read to their children, buy educational toys, and help them develope a couriosity about the world and an interest in learning, as well as an understanding that learning is important. What Berger called the "Mission."
Hymowitz also makes mention of the work of Annette Lareau, an ethnography of class and child rearing. In Unequal Childhoods, Lareau identifies a theory of "natural growth" which she desribes as prevelent among the poor and the working poor. This brings us to Rousseau. Rousseau argued that children were good by nature, and that education was corruption. Therefore, we should let the child express himself, and develop according to his unfolding nature without the interfearance of teachers or parents. Look to his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences to see his rejection of the civil for the natural. He doesn't use the phrase "noble savage" but the term is linked to his name because he does embrace a rejection of the corruption of civilization: "See how luxury, dissolution, and slavery have in every age been the punishment for the arrogant efforts we have made in order to emerge from the happy ignorance where Eternal Wisdom had placed us." See Emile to discover how the purpose of education is the restoration of this "happy ignorance." (Or rather, don't, I advise the gentle reader to avoid Rousseau except as a study of error.)
So we have now identified three theories of childcare and education, corresponding to Hobbes, the hyperparenting leviathan; Locke who proposes that with good education whe shall be self-governing; and Rousseau, who believes children are better left to their own natural development. Lurking in the background is a fourth theorist: Decartes. Here Hobbes saw man's nature as savage (his life therefore nasty, brutish, and short), Rousseau as good and pure, and Locke as a blank slate, Decartes saw man possesing an innate knowledge of God and right and wrong. Decartes is therefore a naturalist, in so much as he regarded the knowledge of God and other ideas to be innate. Yet, unlike Rousseau, Descartes did not believe that goodness itself was innate. The ability to discover this was possible by reflection from first principles according to the practice of rationalism.
Locke rejected Cartesian rationalism and was a leading proponant of empiricism. Empiricism argued that knowledge was aquired more reliably not by reflection and deduction, but by experiment. An experiment is a controlled observation to address a specific question. In fact, Locke's education is an application of empiricism. Students don't recieve a set of thought provoking questions to ponder, the contemplation of which constitute education, but rather Locke begins with guided experience, spontanous opportunities for teaching, and finally, some reflection.
The middle class, with its mission, is predominatly Lockean. What struck me about Hymowitz' article was its connection of poor parents and a Rousseauean theory of learning. "Natural-growth believers are fatalists; they do not see their role as shaping the environment so that Little Princes or Princesses will develop their minds and talents, because they assume that these will unfold as they will. As long as a parent provides love, food, and safety, she is doing her job." The notion of developing the child is Locke. Rousseau can look to the casual observer to be a program of development, but it is in fact a sophistocated neglect. Rousseau places his fictional student Emile in a situation where he breaks a window and then learns that with its loss, he is cold. So we see how Emile's will has not been disciplines so that he goes about breaking things, and that second, he is supposed to learn that a broken window is a state to be corrected. This fantasy imagines that Emile will put together some complex ideas and draw the kind of sophisticated conclusion that leads to Home Depot. Instead, as James Q Wilson has demonstrated, the lesson actually learned re broken windows is that nobody cares about this stuff, and I can break it with out consequences.
Bart Landry suggests in Black Working Wives that Black women rejected the Cult of Domesticity for the virtues of a broader commitment to community, including work and family. But this ideology seems to have missed that the purpose of domesticity was the Lockean mission of educating children. John McWhorter has suggested that Black Americans were denied a sense of a tradition of education by the heritage of slavery, in which 1) slaves were denied education by law, and 2) the seperation of people from culture groups undermined an oral history, so that Blacks were unaware that they had a tradition of learning. (See his Explaining the Black Education Gap in the Summer 2000 issue of The Wilson Quarterly, subscription required)This might explain why Black working wives might have seen no need to embrace "the mission" of domesticity, and settled their ideology on the community. The poor as a class have not embraced the ideologist of the middle class, Locke, in any of his facets. That Blacks should have an additional reason to have failed to embrace Locke, at least his educational theory, and the mission that stems from it, seems well explained by McWhorter. How it manifests is well explained by Annette Lareau.
Too often I find Locke condemned as if he were Hobbes, and Rousseau's ideas praised when the descriptions of the ideas are those compatible with Locke and the others ignored. When I see someone advocating ignoring the teaching of literacy until a child has need of it (Rousseau supposed 12 years of age) then I'll say we have a real Rousseau. In the mean time, let us know Locke and be able to recognize his program for education.
I found Kay Hymowitz' City Journal article via Joanne Jacobs.
Fair Weather Federalism?
I have another word for it: triumphalism. There is a lot of pressure coming from the right to damn the torpedoes and charge into the maelstrom. They argue that victory has its rewards, three branches of government, &c, &c, and go on to demand the full expression of their will, now, I mean right now.
Instapundit links to David Boaz posting at Fox News.
There are two things at work here. One is that Federalism is not really a part of the current Republican agenda, and second, Federalism protects those who don't control the House, Senate, and Executive. If you control the Federal legislature and executive, who needs Federalism? Should the Dems ever find themselves in control of these institutions, Republicans will discover a renewed love for Federalism. But, like the troglodytes who prefered a king to the hard task of governing, will they be able to recover those liberties so easily alienated?
I have another word for it: triumphalism. There is a lot of pressure coming from the right to damn the torpedoes and charge into the maelstrom. They argue that victory has its rewards, three branches of government, &c, &c, and go on to demand the full expression of their will, now, I mean right now.
Instapundit links to David Boaz posting at Fox News.
There are two things at work here. One is that Federalism is not really a part of the current Republican agenda, and second, Federalism protects those who don't control the House, Senate, and Executive. If you control the Federal legislature and executive, who needs Federalism? Should the Dems ever find themselves in control of these institutions, Republicans will discover a renewed love for Federalism. But, like the troglodytes who prefered a king to the hard task of governing, will they be able to recover those liberties so easily alienated?
Friday, May 13, 2005
Government Archives Still Primitive
I was trying to find population figures of St Joseph and Kansas City from the mid-19th century. I wanted to find out of St Joseph ever had more population than Kansas City. I could find the addresses of archives to send snail mail to for paper documents, and I found the locations of micro-film sites I could visit. But I didn't need to pour over original documents or seek out patterns from raw data. I just wanted the summative populatuion for either the cities or the counties.
Question: Why did the first railroad in Kansas, the Atchison and Topeka, connect these two cities? Was a link to Atchison (across the Missouri River from St Joseph) better than a link to Kansas City, Kansas (across the River from Kansas City, Missouri)? Popultion was my original interest. Finally I abandon a Census search and just used keywords "1840, city name, population," and found a census figure for Kansas City, 4418, and a rough figure for St Joseph, 6000. That begs the question, how big was Independence. Another line of searches, on rialroads uncovered that the first railroad was built between St Joseph and Hannibal, and only two years later did a link go out between Kansas City and St Louis. Further, the fact that St Louis was trying to be a hub of local resource collection, rather than a point on a larger network (they didn't want to undermine the riverboat traffic) meant that there was not a route from St Louis to other eastern points until later. Meanwhile the line to Hannibal puts it across the river (more or less) from Quincy, a point on the Chicago, Burlinton & Quincy railroad, later Burlington Northern.
So on the one hand, the Kansas railroad could either link to St Joseph, where a railroad had pushed east in 1847, linking with the line out of Hannibal in 1859, the very year that the Atchison & Topeka was founded. A spur connected the St Joseph & Hannibal link the next year. And this link is certainly complete through Quincy as far as Chicago by 1864, but its unclear whether the Kansas railroaders would have known that the Aurora Branch would get to Quincy (they became Chicago, Burlington & Quicny in 1864). On the other hand, the Kansas railroad could link to Kansas City, would not be connected to the St Louis line moving west until 1865. And would terminate in a city, St Louis, where the city fathers wanted to put their eggs in the riverboats.
So this is almost certainly the reason for the line at Atchison, but it would have been nice to find the population data on-line, rather than getting microfilm locations.
I was trying to find population figures of St Joseph and Kansas City from the mid-19th century. I wanted to find out of St Joseph ever had more population than Kansas City. I could find the addresses of archives to send snail mail to for paper documents, and I found the locations of micro-film sites I could visit. But I didn't need to pour over original documents or seek out patterns from raw data. I just wanted the summative populatuion for either the cities or the counties.
Question: Why did the first railroad in Kansas, the Atchison and Topeka, connect these two cities? Was a link to Atchison (across the Missouri River from St Joseph) better than a link to Kansas City, Kansas (across the River from Kansas City, Missouri)? Popultion was my original interest. Finally I abandon a Census search and just used keywords "1840, city name, population," and found a census figure for Kansas City, 4418, and a rough figure for St Joseph, 6000. That begs the question, how big was Independence. Another line of searches, on rialroads uncovered that the first railroad was built between St Joseph and Hannibal, and only two years later did a link go out between Kansas City and St Louis. Further, the fact that St Louis was trying to be a hub of local resource collection, rather than a point on a larger network (they didn't want to undermine the riverboat traffic) meant that there was not a route from St Louis to other eastern points until later. Meanwhile the line to Hannibal puts it across the river (more or less) from Quincy, a point on the Chicago, Burlinton & Quincy railroad, later Burlington Northern.
So on the one hand, the Kansas railroad could either link to St Joseph, where a railroad had pushed east in 1847, linking with the line out of Hannibal in 1859, the very year that the Atchison & Topeka was founded. A spur connected the St Joseph & Hannibal link the next year. And this link is certainly complete through Quincy as far as Chicago by 1864, but its unclear whether the Kansas railroaders would have known that the Aurora Branch would get to Quincy (they became Chicago, Burlington & Quicny in 1864). On the other hand, the Kansas railroad could link to Kansas City, would not be connected to the St Louis line moving west until 1865. And would terminate in a city, St Louis, where the city fathers wanted to put their eggs in the riverboats.
So this is almost certainly the reason for the line at Atchison, but it would have been nice to find the population data on-line, rather than getting microfilm locations.
Monday, May 09, 2005
Pop Quiz
Mark Goldblatt, who teaches remedial English at a New York University, offers this final quiz for graduating high school seniors. He doesn't seem pleased with the state of grammer knowledge.
Mark Goldblatt, who teaches remedial English at a New York University, offers this final quiz for graduating high school seniors. He doesn't seem pleased with the state of grammer knowledge.
IU survey on student engagement
The University of Indiana Bloomington has conducted an extensive survey of nearly one hundred thousand students on their engagement and attitudes about high school.
So far only the highlights appear to have been released.
The University of Indiana Bloomington has conducted an extensive survey of nearly one hundred thousand students on their engagement and attitudes about high school.
So far only the highlights appear to have been released.
Quality High Schools
Newsweek has a piece on quality high schools, The 100 Best High Schools in America. However I will quibble with their little historical introduction. Since the advent of the university in the middle ages, students would be tutored in basic literacy then enter the university around 12-14 years old. By the end of the 18th century, so much new learning had taken place, and was available at the university, that it made sense to introduce an intermediate school, between grammar school and college. This was the high school.
Newsweek says, "Ever since, Americans have been trying to figure out exactly what public high schools should do. Should they concentrate on preparing the best and the brightest for college? Should there be more emphasis on vocational training? Should students with different abilities and goals learn in the same classrooms, or should they be segregated into different tracks or even different schools?"
But this is untrue. For their first century, public high schools were preparation for college. Most people stopped after 8th grade armed with a strong literacy (read Civil War letters by soldiers) ready to become citizens in a free republic and economic actors in a market capitalism. Those who went on to high school were preparing for the university. It is with the rise of the progressive education movement before and after WWI that alternate theories and uses for the high school were developed. Debate and disagreement about the purpose of the high school are a feature of the high school's second century. This is even evident by examining the evidence within the article. For example, "The initial graduates were all white males who studied literature, science, math and history." This is college preparation. Its the development of vocational arts, home economics, and health and sexual education that now has crowded out so much of the old curriculum.
Newsweek has a piece on quality high schools, The 100 Best High Schools in America. However I will quibble with their little historical introduction. Since the advent of the university in the middle ages, students would be tutored in basic literacy then enter the university around 12-14 years old. By the end of the 18th century, so much new learning had taken place, and was available at the university, that it made sense to introduce an intermediate school, between grammar school and college. This was the high school.
Newsweek says, "Ever since, Americans have been trying to figure out exactly what public high schools should do. Should they concentrate on preparing the best and the brightest for college? Should there be more emphasis on vocational training? Should students with different abilities and goals learn in the same classrooms, or should they be segregated into different tracks or even different schools?"
But this is untrue. For their first century, public high schools were preparation for college. Most people stopped after 8th grade armed with a strong literacy (read Civil War letters by soldiers) ready to become citizens in a free republic and economic actors in a market capitalism. Those who went on to high school were preparing for the university. It is with the rise of the progressive education movement before and after WWI that alternate theories and uses for the high school were developed. Debate and disagreement about the purpose of the high school are a feature of the high school's second century. This is even evident by examining the evidence within the article. For example, "The initial graduates were all white males who studied literature, science, math and history." This is college preparation. Its the development of vocational arts, home economics, and health and sexual education that now has crowded out so much of the old curriculum.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Where was his Advisor?
"Scott McConnell says he wasn't warned that ideological conformity was a requirement for successful completion of the graduate program." Joanne Jacobs tells us, "Despite excellent grades and evaluations, he was dropped from the program after he wrote a paper suggesting that corporal punishment might be an effective way to manage a classroom."
More at Cranky Professor
"Scott McConnell says he wasn't warned that ideological conformity was a requirement for successful completion of the graduate program." Joanne Jacobs tells us, "Despite excellent grades and evaluations, he was dropped from the program after he wrote a paper suggesting that corporal punishment might be an effective way to manage a classroom."
More at Cranky Professor
Writing and Scoring Guides
Kimberly Swygert has a post on the SAT essay. The core problem in the post is the difficulty of scoring writing. Indeed, scoring writing is not nearly as transparent as scoring the more objective kinds of test questions. There is a movement to develope better scoring guides, but I think that can only go so far. I think scoring guides only conceal just how subjective writing is. In Bloom's Taxonomy, Evaluation is the highest level, and so must involve cumulative disagreements about choices made at lower levels. Yet, good writers can generally distnguish between low, middle, and high quality writing. Getting more accurate is probabaly an illusion. But is it even neccesary? Further, different instructors will emphasize different writing goals, which is said to undermine validity of the scoring, but is it? In the real world, writing requirements are often specific and sometimes arbitrary. Is learning to please an instructor any different than learning to please and employer? Indeed, it may be a valuable skill. It would be nice to imagine an ideal rhetoric to aspire to, but its also not how the world actually works.
When teaching writing, the scoring guide has some uses, but its not by itself a teaching tool. Much more useful are examples of high quality writing and a process of revision and critique. Students should have access to one to three pieces of quality writing for every piece of writing they make (this ratio can decrease as you move into more and more advanced students) of their own. Revision should go beyond a single re-write to two or three revisions. The skills reqired at the third revision are different from those at then first. All require practice. Students should review each other's writing in a randomly or systematically selected process, so that students recieve a wide critique. With such criteria met, a scoring guide can be useful to guide students to the next step in quality. Without models, revision, and critique, a scoring guide creates a pseudo-objectivity.
Kimberly Swygert has a post on the SAT essay. The core problem in the post is the difficulty of scoring writing. Indeed, scoring writing is not nearly as transparent as scoring the more objective kinds of test questions. There is a movement to develope better scoring guides, but I think that can only go so far. I think scoring guides only conceal just how subjective writing is. In Bloom's Taxonomy, Evaluation is the highest level, and so must involve cumulative disagreements about choices made at lower levels. Yet, good writers can generally distnguish between low, middle, and high quality writing. Getting more accurate is probabaly an illusion. But is it even neccesary? Further, different instructors will emphasize different writing goals, which is said to undermine validity of the scoring, but is it? In the real world, writing requirements are often specific and sometimes arbitrary. Is learning to please an instructor any different than learning to please and employer? Indeed, it may be a valuable skill. It would be nice to imagine an ideal rhetoric to aspire to, but its also not how the world actually works.
When teaching writing, the scoring guide has some uses, but its not by itself a teaching tool. Much more useful are examples of high quality writing and a process of revision and critique. Students should have access to one to three pieces of quality writing for every piece of writing they make (this ratio can decrease as you move into more and more advanced students) of their own. Revision should go beyond a single re-write to two or three revisions. The skills reqired at the third revision are different from those at then first. All require practice. Students should review each other's writing in a randomly or systematically selected process, so that students recieve a wide critique. With such criteria met, a scoring guide can be useful to guide students to the next step in quality. Without models, revision, and critique, a scoring guide creates a pseudo-objectivity.
Saturday, May 07, 2005
Danger Signs
Hugh Hewitt's post early on May 6, reminds me of students who are caught goofing off in chemistry class, and refuse to accept the criticism that they might do harm (break equipment, &c) because they have no such intentions. Good intentions do not guarantee that one will do no harm, nor should they exempt anyone from criticism. There is no doubt that some people who criticize avowed Christian political actors are as much bothered by their Christian conviction as they are by their disagreements over policy. But there does seem to be a creeping defensiveness in Hewitt's dismissals as well as others (Ingraham, Hannity, &c) that all critics of the agenda of Catholic conservatives and evangelicals are anti-Christian. This creates a reason to ignore all critics, and that is a dangerous condition.
Christine Todd Whitman, Arlen Spector, John McCain and others in the Republican party itself have raised concerns at various times and places. But responces seem to range from purging them from the ranks to marginalizing them to just ignoring them. None of these are strategies for electoral victory in 2006 and 2008.
We need to expand the party, not engage in purges to create ideological purity. This means reaching out to centerists. But that doesn't have to mean that the party moves to the left, though it will mean that some on the right will have to put up with a party more to the left then they would like. What the party should do is to reassure moderates and centerists by making appeals that are broad and arguing the case for reforms in social security and tax policy, rather than casting appeals to the already committed and using language that isn't limited in its appeal to the already committed.
This is impossible if a large block of Republicans cut themselves off from ideas held by other than the like-minded, and regard others suspiciously.
Hugh Hewitt's post early on May 6, reminds me of students who are caught goofing off in chemistry class, and refuse to accept the criticism that they might do harm (break equipment, &c) because they have no such intentions. Good intentions do not guarantee that one will do no harm, nor should they exempt anyone from criticism. There is no doubt that some people who criticize avowed Christian political actors are as much bothered by their Christian conviction as they are by their disagreements over policy. But there does seem to be a creeping defensiveness in Hewitt's dismissals as well as others (Ingraham, Hannity, &c) that all critics of the agenda of Catholic conservatives and evangelicals are anti-Christian. This creates a reason to ignore all critics, and that is a dangerous condition.
Christine Todd Whitman, Arlen Spector, John McCain and others in the Republican party itself have raised concerns at various times and places. But responces seem to range from purging them from the ranks to marginalizing them to just ignoring them. None of these are strategies for electoral victory in 2006 and 2008.
We need to expand the party, not engage in purges to create ideological purity. This means reaching out to centerists. But that doesn't have to mean that the party moves to the left, though it will mean that some on the right will have to put up with a party more to the left then they would like. What the party should do is to reassure moderates and centerists by making appeals that are broad and arguing the case for reforms in social security and tax policy, rather than casting appeals to the already committed and using language that isn't limited in its appeal to the already committed.
This is impossible if a large block of Republicans cut themselves off from ideas held by other than the like-minded, and regard others suspiciously.
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