The American Thinker
The American Left as "crisis cult"
Clinical psychologist Robert Godwin proposes an interesting framework for understanding the increasingly bizarre behavior of the American Left at his very interesting website One Cosmos. Drawing on the work of psychoanalytic anthropologist Weston LaBarre, he posits that the left has become a “crisis cult” such as are found in societies whose bedrock assumptions break down in the face of the superior strength of foreign cultures impinging on their territory.
Probably the most famous of the crisis cults are the cargo cults which developed in Melanesia.
The Cargo Cults believe that manufactured western goods (‘cargo’) have been created by ancestral spirits and intended for Melanesian people. White people, however, have unfairly gained control of these objects. Cargo cults thus focus on overcoming what they perceive as undue ‘white’ influences by conducting rituals similar to the white behavior they have observed, presuming that the ancestors will at last recognize their own and this activity will make cargo come. Thus a characteristic feature of Cargo Cults is the belief that spiritual agents will at some future time give much valuable cargo and desirable manufactured products to the cult members.
The crisis cult LaBarre wrote most about were the Ghost Dancers among Native Americans in the 19th century
when American Indians were facing the complete dissolution of their way of life—loss of their hunting territories, near extinction of the once vast buffalo herds, a series of disastrous military defeats, multiple droughts, and new and fatal diseases. The Ghost Dance was a fantasied solution to all their problems, involving the widespread idea that “a new skin would slide over the old earth, covering up the whites and all their works, and bringing upon it new trees and plants, great buffalo herds, the ghosts of the dead, and the great departed warriors and chiefs.” This utopia would come about if only each person in all the tribes danced the elaborate Ghost Dance.
Godwin explains:
...progressives are having to cope with a catastrophic collapse of their world and all of its comforting myths. As each myth crumbles in succession, they become increasingly frantic in papering over reality with the downright strange beliefs of their progressive crisis cult.
Thus come delusional assertions: Bush is an idiot despite degrees from Yale and Harvard; Republicans are questioning the patriotism of Democrats; the monitoring of international phone calls signals the onset of totalitarianism; and (my favorite) Air American founder Sheldon Drobny’s assertion that Karl Rove is behind the anti-Semitic posts at Daily Kos.
I think it is almost unquestionable that the Left’s belief systems have proven incongruent with the real world. Communism didn’t work and only survives as a pretext for despotism in North Korea and China. Welfare is a trap, and poor people’s lot in America has improved since access to it was term-limited. Higher taxes on “the rich” depress economic growth and throw people out of work. The list could go on.
With their gods having failed them, leftists have turned to cant, ritual, and hysterical repetition of their golden oldie playlist of slogans. And most of all, to demoinization of their opponents. It is fairly primitive, and often comic, with tinges of tragedy.
Metaphors are an effective way to understand such bizarre behavior. The more the merrier.
Hat tip: Larwyn
Thomas Lifson 7 27 06
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
You're a Great Dane!
What Breed of Dog Are You?
Brought to you by Tickle
You're a Pit Bull!
What Breed of Dog Are You?
Brought to you by Tickle
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Hmmm so the culture war is a myth.... peep this:
Democrats should try appealing to more married voters
The Christian Science Monitor ^ | 5/25/06 | Political scientist Michael Harrington op-ed
Posted on 05/25/2006 5:38:37 AM PDT by Gothmog
Much red and blue ink has been spilled on the narrative that's dominated our politics in recent years. We've all seen "the map" that outlines America's political divide and heard all the stereotypes and caricatures. And we've heard the explanations for the fissions: religion, race, intolerance and bigotry, homosexuality, moral values, and abortion. Others have debunked the whole thesis of a polarized America, saying there are really only purple-hued states and that this theory is a fabrication hyped by political activists, interest groups, and media elites.
Unfortunately, there appears to be little convergence on our understanding of what's going on here. How is one to make sense of it all? Are there red states and blue states? A closer look at the election results by county gives a different picture.
Many counties in blue states are actually red, but dominated by blue urban counties. In other words, the true pattern is blue urban vs. red rural and suburban. The mean population density for counties voting for President Bush was 108 inhabitants per square mile in 2000, and 110 in 2004. This compares to 739 for Al Gore and 836 for John Kerry. This is consistent across the board: As population density steadily decreases from the urban core to the rural periphery, Mr. Bush's share of the vote increases from 24 percent to more than 60 percent. Naturally, the Democratic candidates show the inverse relationship. Oddly, population density is highly correlated with the vote. This raises the question: Why do rural and suburban areas vote Republican and urban areas vote Democrat?
This is usually where the nonsense about religious rednecks and bluenose moral degeneracy begins. But an objective look at the census profiles of counties offers more plausible answers. A simple regression equation matching county characteristics against vote outcomes across 3,142 counties shows two significant variables: population density and the percentage of married households vs. female heads of household. For example, of the 100 counties with the lowest proportions of married households, Mr. Gore won 85 and Mr. Kerry won 90. Of the 100 counties with the highest proportions of married households, Bush won 96 in 2000 and 97 in 2004.
With one exception, age, sex, and race/ethnic characteristics are very weakly correlated with the votes - this includes classifications of Hispanics, Asians, Pacific Islanders, native Americans, and mixed race. But counties with higher proportions of white residents tended to vote for Bush while those counties with higher proportions of blacks tended to vote for Gore or Kerry. However, proportions of black voters are also highly correlated with female heads of household, and this proved to be the more significant factor.
These results offer us more reasonable insights into party polarization. Certainly urban singles, with or without children, have different policy priorities than suburban and rural married couples. These differences are somewhat reflected in the platforms of the two parties. The purpose of politics is to reconcile different preferences and order social priorities. But one suspects there's more to this story.
The issue of religion may give us a clue, but not the one we assume. It's not religious belief that distinguishes red rural from blue urban, but church attendance. Church attendance serves different functions in rural and urban communities. Whereas in rural Oklahoma church is the place to meet neighbors and friends on Sunday morning, in the city, that social function may be better served by Starbucks. The true political importance of religion is found in the nature of belief, between what sociologists call absolutism and contextualism. Religious denominations are divided politically in the US based on whether they are orthodox or not. But this distinction also divides the secular world, between traditional conservatives and progressive moderates. This means we have different ways of understanding the world that we can't merely dismiss as ignorant fundamentalism or misguided modernism.
These three legitimate distinctions among Americans - urbans vs. nonurbans; marrieds vs. nonmarrieds; and absolutists vs. contextualists - help illuminate our political differences over a variety of issues such as gun control, social spending vs. taxes, abortion, stem-cell research, education, foreign policy, immigration, and judicial nominations. I suggest that this framework might be considerably more productive in resolving political differences and setting our social priorities than calling each other funny names.
• Michael Harrington is a political scientist, policy analyst, and writer. He has taught at UCLA and has received national awards for his policy research.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nothing too shocking in this analysis, but perhaps of interest to political junkies. I found this most interesting:
"A simple regression equation matching county characteristics against vote outcomes across 3,142 counties shows two significant variables: population density and the percentage of married households vs. female heads of household. For example, of the 100 counties with the lowest proportions of married households, Mr. Gore won 85 and Mr. Kerry won 90. Of the 100 counties with the highest proportions of married households, Bush won 96 in 2000 and 97 in 2004."
"With one exception, age, sex, and race/ethnic characteristics are very weakly correlated with the votes. ... But counties with higher proportions of white residents tended to vote for Bush while those counties with higher proportions of blacks tended to vote for Gore or Kerry. However, proportions of black voters are also highly correlated with female heads of household, and this proved to be the more significant factor."
Democrats should try appealing to more married voters
The Christian Science Monitor ^ | 5/25/06 | Political scientist Michael Harrington op-ed
Posted on 05/25/2006 5:38:37 AM PDT by Gothmog
Much red and blue ink has been spilled on the narrative that's dominated our politics in recent years. We've all seen "the map" that outlines America's political divide and heard all the stereotypes and caricatures. And we've heard the explanations for the fissions: religion, race, intolerance and bigotry, homosexuality, moral values, and abortion. Others have debunked the whole thesis of a polarized America, saying there are really only purple-hued states and that this theory is a fabrication hyped by political activists, interest groups, and media elites.
Unfortunately, there appears to be little convergence on our understanding of what's going on here. How is one to make sense of it all? Are there red states and blue states? A closer look at the election results by county gives a different picture.
Many counties in blue states are actually red, but dominated by blue urban counties. In other words, the true pattern is blue urban vs. red rural and suburban. The mean population density for counties voting for President Bush was 108 inhabitants per square mile in 2000, and 110 in 2004. This compares to 739 for Al Gore and 836 for John Kerry. This is consistent across the board: As population density steadily decreases from the urban core to the rural periphery, Mr. Bush's share of the vote increases from 24 percent to more than 60 percent. Naturally, the Democratic candidates show the inverse relationship. Oddly, population density is highly correlated with the vote. This raises the question: Why do rural and suburban areas vote Republican and urban areas vote Democrat?
This is usually where the nonsense about religious rednecks and bluenose moral degeneracy begins. But an objective look at the census profiles of counties offers more plausible answers. A simple regression equation matching county characteristics against vote outcomes across 3,142 counties shows two significant variables: population density and the percentage of married households vs. female heads of household. For example, of the 100 counties with the lowest proportions of married households, Mr. Gore won 85 and Mr. Kerry won 90. Of the 100 counties with the highest proportions of married households, Bush won 96 in 2000 and 97 in 2004.
With one exception, age, sex, and race/ethnic characteristics are very weakly correlated with the votes - this includes classifications of Hispanics, Asians, Pacific Islanders, native Americans, and mixed race. But counties with higher proportions of white residents tended to vote for Bush while those counties with higher proportions of blacks tended to vote for Gore or Kerry. However, proportions of black voters are also highly correlated with female heads of household, and this proved to be the more significant factor.
These results offer us more reasonable insights into party polarization. Certainly urban singles, with or without children, have different policy priorities than suburban and rural married couples. These differences are somewhat reflected in the platforms of the two parties. The purpose of politics is to reconcile different preferences and order social priorities. But one suspects there's more to this story.
The issue of religion may give us a clue, but not the one we assume. It's not religious belief that distinguishes red rural from blue urban, but church attendance. Church attendance serves different functions in rural and urban communities. Whereas in rural Oklahoma church is the place to meet neighbors and friends on Sunday morning, in the city, that social function may be better served by Starbucks. The true political importance of religion is found in the nature of belief, between what sociologists call absolutism and contextualism. Religious denominations are divided politically in the US based on whether they are orthodox or not. But this distinction also divides the secular world, between traditional conservatives and progressive moderates. This means we have different ways of understanding the world that we can't merely dismiss as ignorant fundamentalism or misguided modernism.
These three legitimate distinctions among Americans - urbans vs. nonurbans; marrieds vs. nonmarrieds; and absolutists vs. contextualists - help illuminate our political differences over a variety of issues such as gun control, social spending vs. taxes, abortion, stem-cell research, education, foreign policy, immigration, and judicial nominations. I suggest that this framework might be considerably more productive in resolving political differences and setting our social priorities than calling each other funny names.
• Michael Harrington is a political scientist, policy analyst, and writer. He has taught at UCLA and has received national awards for his policy research.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nothing too shocking in this analysis, but perhaps of interest to political junkies. I found this most interesting:
"A simple regression equation matching county characteristics against vote outcomes across 3,142 counties shows two significant variables: population density and the percentage of married households vs. female heads of household. For example, of the 100 counties with the lowest proportions of married households, Mr. Gore won 85 and Mr. Kerry won 90. Of the 100 counties with the highest proportions of married households, Bush won 96 in 2000 and 97 in 2004."
"With one exception, age, sex, and race/ethnic characteristics are very weakly correlated with the votes. ... But counties with higher proportions of white residents tended to vote for Bush while those counties with higher proportions of blacks tended to vote for Gore or Kerry. However, proportions of black voters are also highly correlated with female heads of household, and this proved to be the more significant factor."
Thursday, April 27, 2006
CowDems
A West Texas cowboy was herding his herd in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"
The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his AT&T cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full color, 150 page report on his Hi-tech, miniaturized HP Laser Jet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1586 cows and calves."
"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says the cowboy. He watches the young man select one of his animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then the cowboy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"
"You're a consultant for the Democratic Party of Virginia," says the cowboy.
"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required" answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a damn thing about cows....... Now give me back my dog."
A West Texas cowboy was herding his herd in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"
The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his AT&T cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full color, 150 page report on his Hi-tech, miniaturized HP Laser Jet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1586 cows and calves."
"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says the cowboy. He watches the young man select one of his animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then the cowboy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"
"You're a consultant for the Democratic Party of Virginia," says the cowboy.
"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required" answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a damn thing about cows....... Now give me back my dog."
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Thomas Sowell: Are Facts Obsolete?
Creator's Syndicate ^ | April 4, 2006 | Dr. Thomas Sowell
Posted on 04/04/2006 2:31:22 AM PDT by RWR8189
What is more frightening than any particular policy or ideology is the widespread habit of disregarding facts. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey put it this way: "Demagoguery beats data."
People who urge us to rely on the United Nations, instead of acting "unilaterally," or who urge us to follow other countries in creating a government-run medical care system, often show not the slightest interest in getting facts about the actual track record of either the UN or government-run medical systems.
Those who believe in affirmative action likewise usually see no reason to find out what actually happens under such policies, as distinguished from what they wish, hope, or imagine happens.
The crusade for "a living wage" that will enable a worker to support a family proceeds without the slightest interest in finding out whether most people who are making low wages actually have any family to support -- much less seeking out the facts about what actually happens after the government sets wages.
People who have made up their minds and don't want to be confused by the facts are a danger to the whole society. Since the votes of such people count just as much as the votes of people who know what they are talking about, politicians have every incentive to pass laws and create policies that pander to ignorant notions, if those notions are widespread.
Even institutions that are set up to pass on facts -- the media, schools, academia -- too often treat facts as expendable and use their strategic positions to filter out facts which go against their own preconceptions.
Crimes against homosexuals, blacks, or the homeless are big news to be dramatized, repeated, and denounced. Crimes committed by homosexuals, blacks, or the homeless are not -- and are often passed over in silence by much of the media. The net result is that the public gets filtered facts, which can create an impression the direct opposite of the truth.
We learn from the media's filtered facts that there are countries with stronger gun-control laws than ours which have lower murder rates. We seldom, if ever, learn from the media about countries which have stronger gun-control laws than ours and whose murder rates are two or three times higher than ours.
The media also filter out facts about countries where gun ownership is far more widespread than in the United States -- and who nevertheless have lower murder rates.
Those who are in the business of teaching the young, whether in the public schools or on college campuses, too often see this not as a responsibility to pass on what is known but as an opportunity to indoctrinate students with their own beliefs. Many "educators" and the gurus who indoctrinated them actively disparage "mere facts," which they say you can get from an almanac or encyclopedia.
The net result is a student population that does not even know enough to know what needs to be looked up, much less how to analyze facts, so as to test opposing beliefs -- as distinguished from how to gather information to support a preconceived notion that happens to be fashionable in the schools and colleges.
Yet people are considered to be "educated" after they have spent so many years in ivy-covered buildings, absorbing the preconceptions that prevail there.
Facts that go against preconceived notions are likely to be ignored, even by many scholars. For example, slavery is an issue that is widely discussed as if it were something peculiar to Africans enslaved by Europeans, instead of something suffered and inflicted around the world by people of every race, color, and religion.
Two books about more European slaves brought to North Africa than there were African slaves brought to America have been published in recent years. They are "Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters" by Robert Davis and "White Gold" by Giles Milton. Both books have been largely ignored by the media and academia alike -- and the first went out of print, less than 6 months after being published.
Apparently scholars, as well as journalists, have made up their minds and don't want to be confused by the facts.
Copyright 2006 Creators Syndicate
Creator's Syndicate ^ | April 4, 2006 | Dr. Thomas Sowell
Posted on 04/04/2006 2:31:22 AM PDT by RWR8189
What is more frightening than any particular policy or ideology is the widespread habit of disregarding facts. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey put it this way: "Demagoguery beats data."
People who urge us to rely on the United Nations, instead of acting "unilaterally," or who urge us to follow other countries in creating a government-run medical care system, often show not the slightest interest in getting facts about the actual track record of either the UN or government-run medical systems.
Those who believe in affirmative action likewise usually see no reason to find out what actually happens under such policies, as distinguished from what they wish, hope, or imagine happens.
The crusade for "a living wage" that will enable a worker to support a family proceeds without the slightest interest in finding out whether most people who are making low wages actually have any family to support -- much less seeking out the facts about what actually happens after the government sets wages.
People who have made up their minds and don't want to be confused by the facts are a danger to the whole society. Since the votes of such people count just as much as the votes of people who know what they are talking about, politicians have every incentive to pass laws and create policies that pander to ignorant notions, if those notions are widespread.
Even institutions that are set up to pass on facts -- the media, schools, academia -- too often treat facts as expendable and use their strategic positions to filter out facts which go against their own preconceptions.
Crimes against homosexuals, blacks, or the homeless are big news to be dramatized, repeated, and denounced. Crimes committed by homosexuals, blacks, or the homeless are not -- and are often passed over in silence by much of the media. The net result is that the public gets filtered facts, which can create an impression the direct opposite of the truth.
We learn from the media's filtered facts that there are countries with stronger gun-control laws than ours which have lower murder rates. We seldom, if ever, learn from the media about countries which have stronger gun-control laws than ours and whose murder rates are two or three times higher than ours.
The media also filter out facts about countries where gun ownership is far more widespread than in the United States -- and who nevertheless have lower murder rates.
Those who are in the business of teaching the young, whether in the public schools or on college campuses, too often see this not as a responsibility to pass on what is known but as an opportunity to indoctrinate students with their own beliefs. Many "educators" and the gurus who indoctrinated them actively disparage "mere facts," which they say you can get from an almanac or encyclopedia.
The net result is a student population that does not even know enough to know what needs to be looked up, much less how to analyze facts, so as to test opposing beliefs -- as distinguished from how to gather information to support a preconceived notion that happens to be fashionable in the schools and colleges.
Yet people are considered to be "educated" after they have spent so many years in ivy-covered buildings, absorbing the preconceptions that prevail there.
Facts that go against preconceived notions are likely to be ignored, even by many scholars. For example, slavery is an issue that is widely discussed as if it were something peculiar to Africans enslaved by Europeans, instead of something suffered and inflicted around the world by people of every race, color, and religion.
Two books about more European slaves brought to North Africa than there were African slaves brought to America have been published in recent years. They are "Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters" by Robert Davis and "White Gold" by Giles Milton. Both books have been largely ignored by the media and academia alike -- and the first went out of print, less than 6 months after being published.
Apparently scholars, as well as journalists, have made up their minds and don't want to be confused by the facts.
Copyright 2006 Creators Syndicate
Sunday, March 26, 2006
'Marriage Is for White People'
By Joy JonesSunday, March 26, 2006; Page B01
I grew up in a time when two-parent families were still the norm, in both black and white America. Then, as an adult, I saw divorce become more commonplace, then almost a rite of passage. Today it would appear that many -- particularly in the black community -- have dispensed with marriage altogether.
But as a black woman, I have witnessed the outrage of girlfriends when the ex failed to show up for his weekend with the kids, and I've seen the disappointment of children who missed having a dad around. Having enjoyed a close relationship with my own father, I made a conscious decision that I wanted a husband, not a live-in boyfriend and not a "baby's daddy," when it came my time to mate and marry.
The loneliest number: Declining marriage rates among African Americans hit women the hardest. (By Sarah Blodgett -- Images.com/ipn) ' --->
The Post's opinion and commentary section runs every Sunday.• My time never came.
For years, I wondered why not. And then some 12-year-olds enlightened me.
"Marriage is for white people."
That's what one of my students told me some years back when I taught a career exploration class for sixth-graders at an elementary school in Southeast Washington. I was pleasantly surprised when the boys in the class stated that being a good father was a very important goal to them, more meaningful than making money or having a fancy title.
"That's wonderful!" I told my class. "I think I'll invite some couples in to talk about being married and rearing children."
"Oh, no," objected one student. "We're not interested in the part about marriage. Only about how to be good fathers."
And that's when the other boy chimed in, speaking as if the words left a nasty taste in his mouth: "Marriage is for white people."
He's right. At least statistically. The marriage rate for African Americans has been dropping since the 1960s, and today, we have the lowest marriage rate of any racial group in the United States. In 2001, according to the U.S. Census, 43.3 percent of black men and 41.9 percent of black women in America had never been married, in contrast to 27.4 percent and 20.7 percent respectively for whites. African American women are the least likely in our society to marry. In the period between 1970 and 2001, the overall marriage rate in the United States declined by 17 percent; but for blacks, it fell by 34 percent. Such statistics have caused Howard University relationship therapist Audrey Chapman to point out that African Americans are the most uncoupled people in the country.
How have we gotten here? What has shifted in African American customs, in our community, in our consciousness, that has made marriage seem unnecessary or unattainable?
Although slavery was an atrocious social system, men and women back then nonetheless often succeeded in establishing working families. In his account of slave life and culture, "Roll, Jordan, Roll," historian Eugene D. Genovese wrote: "A slave in Georgia prevailed on his master to sell him to Jamaica so that he could find his wife, despite warnings that his chances of finding her on so large an island were remote. . . . Another slave in Virginia chopped his left hand off with a hatchet to prevent being sold away from his son." I was stunned to learn that a black child was more likely to grow up living with both parents during slavery days than he or she is today, according to sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin.
Page 2 of 2 <'Marriage Is for White People'
Traditional notions of family, especially the extended family network, endure. But working mothers, unmarried couples living together, out-of-wedlock births, birth control, divorce and remarriage have transformed the social landscape. And no one seems to feel this more than African American women. One told me that with today's changing mores, it's hard to know "what normal looks like" when it comes to courtship, marriage and parenthood. Sex, love and childbearing have become a la carte choices rather than a package deal that comes with marriage. Moreover, in an era of brothers on the "down low," the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and the decline of the stable blue-collar jobs that black men used to hold, linking one's fate to a man makes marriage a risky business for a black woman.
"A woman who takes that step is bold and brave," one young single mother told me. "Women don't want to marry because they don't want to lose their freedom."
Among African Americans, the desire for marriage seems to have a different trajectory for women and men. My observation is that black women in their twenties and early thirties want to marry and commit at a time when black men their age are more likely to enjoy playing the field. As the woman realizes that a good marriage may not be as possible or sustainable as she would like, her focus turns to having a baby, or possibly improving her job status, perhaps by returning to school or investing more energy in her career.
As men mature, and begin to recognize the benefits of having a roost and roots (and to feel the consequences of their risky bachelor behavior), they are more willing to marry and settle down. By this time, however, many of their female peers are satisfied with the lives they have constructed and are less likely to settle for marriage to a man who doesn't bring much to the table. Indeed, he may bring too much to the table: children and their mothers from previous relationships, limited earning power, and the fallout from years of drug use, poor health care, sexual promiscuity. In other words, for the circumspect black woman, marriage may not be a business deal that offers sufficient return on investment.
In the past, marriage was primarily just such a business deal. Among wealthy families, it solidified political alliances or expanded land holdings. For poorer people, it was a means of managing the farm or operating a household. Today, people have become economically self-sufficient as individuals, no longer requiring a spouse for survival. African American women have always had a high rate of labor-force participation. "Why should well-salaried women marry?" asked black feminist and author Alice Dunbar-Nelson as early as 1895. But now instead of access only to low-paying jobs, we can earn a breadwinner's wage, which has changed what we want in a husband. "Women's expectations have changed dramatically while men's have not changed much at all," said one well-paid working wife and mother. "Women now say, 'Providing is not enough. I need more partnership.' "
The turning point in my own thinking about marriage came when a longtime friend proposed about five years ago. He and I had attended college together, dated briefly, then kept in touch through the years. We built a solid friendship, which I believe is a good foundation for a successful marriage.
But -- if we had married, I would have had to relocate to the Midwest. Been there, done that, didn't like it. I would have had to become a stepmother and, although I felt an easy camaraderie with his son, stepmotherhood is usually a bumpy ride. I wanted a house and couldn't afford one alone. But I knew that if I was willing to make some changes, I eventually could.
As I reviewed the situation, I realized that all the things I expected marriage to confer -- male companionship, close family ties, a house -- I already had, or were within reach, and with exponentially less drama. I can do bad by myself, I used to say as I exited a relationship. But the truth is, I can do pretty good by myself, too.
Most single black women over the age of 30 whom I know would not mind getting married, but acknowledge that the kind of man and the quality of marriage they would like to have may not be likely, and they are not desperate enough to simply accept any situation just to have a man. A number of my married friends complain that taking care of their husbands feels like having an additional child to raise. Then there's the fact that marriage apparently can be hazardous to the health of black women. A recent study by the Institute for American Values, a nonpartisan think tank in New York City, indicates that married African American women are less healthy than their single sisters.
By design or by default, black women cultivate those skills that allow them to maintain themselves (or sometimes even to prosper) without a mate.
"If Jesus Christ bought me an engagement ring, I wouldn't take it," a separated thirty-something friend told me. "I'd tell Jesus we could date, but we couldn't marry."
And here's the new twist. African American women aren't the only ones deciding that they can make do alone. Often what happens in black America is a sign of what the rest of America can eventually expect. In his 2003 book, "Mismatch: The Growing Gulf between Women and Men," Andrew Hacker noted that the structure of white families is evolving in the direction of that of black families of the 1960s. In 1960, 67 percent of black families were headed by a husband and wife, compared to 90.9 percent for whites. By 2000, the figure for white families had dropped to 79.8 percent. Births to unwed white mothers were 22.5 percent in 2001, compared to 2.3 percent in 1960. So my student who thought marriage is for white people may have to rethink that in the future.
Still, does this mean that marriage is going the way of the phonograph and the typewriter ribbon?
"I hope it isn't," said one friend who's been married for seven years. "The divorce rate is 50 percent, but people remarry. People want to be married. I don't think it's going out of style."
A black male acquaintance had a different prediction. "I don't believe marriage is going to be extinct, but I think you'll see fewer people married," he said. "It's a bad thing. I believe it takes the traditional family -- a man and a woman -- to raise kids." He has worked with troubled adolescents, and has observed that "the girls who are in the most trouble and who are abused the most -- the father is absent. And the same is true for the boys, too." He believes that his presence and example in the home is why both his sons decided to marry when their girlfriends became pregnant.
But human nature being what it is, if marriage is to flourish -- in black or white America -- it will have to offer an individual woman something more than a business alliance, a panacea for what ails the community, or an incubator for rearing children. As one woman said, "If it weren't for the intangibles, the allure of the lovey-dovey stuff, I wouldn't have gotten married. The benefits of marriage are his character and his caring. If not for that, why bother?"
joythink@aol.com
Joy Jones, a Washington writer, is the author of "Between Black Women: Listening With the Third Ear" (African American Images).
By Joy JonesSunday, March 26, 2006; Page B01
I grew up in a time when two-parent families were still the norm, in both black and white America. Then, as an adult, I saw divorce become more commonplace, then almost a rite of passage. Today it would appear that many -- particularly in the black community -- have dispensed with marriage altogether.
But as a black woman, I have witnessed the outrage of girlfriends when the ex failed to show up for his weekend with the kids, and I've seen the disappointment of children who missed having a dad around. Having enjoyed a close relationship with my own father, I made a conscious decision that I wanted a husband, not a live-in boyfriend and not a "baby's daddy," when it came my time to mate and marry.
The loneliest number: Declining marriage rates among African Americans hit women the hardest. (By Sarah Blodgett -- Images.com/ipn) ' --->
The Post's opinion and commentary section runs every Sunday.• My time never came.
For years, I wondered why not. And then some 12-year-olds enlightened me.
"Marriage is for white people."
That's what one of my students told me some years back when I taught a career exploration class for sixth-graders at an elementary school in Southeast Washington. I was pleasantly surprised when the boys in the class stated that being a good father was a very important goal to them, more meaningful than making money or having a fancy title.
"That's wonderful!" I told my class. "I think I'll invite some couples in to talk about being married and rearing children."
"Oh, no," objected one student. "We're not interested in the part about marriage. Only about how to be good fathers."
And that's when the other boy chimed in, speaking as if the words left a nasty taste in his mouth: "Marriage is for white people."
He's right. At least statistically. The marriage rate for African Americans has been dropping since the 1960s, and today, we have the lowest marriage rate of any racial group in the United States. In 2001, according to the U.S. Census, 43.3 percent of black men and 41.9 percent of black women in America had never been married, in contrast to 27.4 percent and 20.7 percent respectively for whites. African American women are the least likely in our society to marry. In the period between 1970 and 2001, the overall marriage rate in the United States declined by 17 percent; but for blacks, it fell by 34 percent. Such statistics have caused Howard University relationship therapist Audrey Chapman to point out that African Americans are the most uncoupled people in the country.
How have we gotten here? What has shifted in African American customs, in our community, in our consciousness, that has made marriage seem unnecessary or unattainable?
Although slavery was an atrocious social system, men and women back then nonetheless often succeeded in establishing working families. In his account of slave life and culture, "Roll, Jordan, Roll," historian Eugene D. Genovese wrote: "A slave in Georgia prevailed on his master to sell him to Jamaica so that he could find his wife, despite warnings that his chances of finding her on so large an island were remote. . . . Another slave in Virginia chopped his left hand off with a hatchet to prevent being sold away from his son." I was stunned to learn that a black child was more likely to grow up living with both parents during slavery days than he or she is today, according to sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin.
Page 2 of 2 <'Marriage Is for White People'
Traditional notions of family, especially the extended family network, endure. But working mothers, unmarried couples living together, out-of-wedlock births, birth control, divorce and remarriage have transformed the social landscape. And no one seems to feel this more than African American women. One told me that with today's changing mores, it's hard to know "what normal looks like" when it comes to courtship, marriage and parenthood. Sex, love and childbearing have become a la carte choices rather than a package deal that comes with marriage. Moreover, in an era of brothers on the "down low," the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and the decline of the stable blue-collar jobs that black men used to hold, linking one's fate to a man makes marriage a risky business for a black woman.
"A woman who takes that step is bold and brave," one young single mother told me. "Women don't want to marry because they don't want to lose their freedom."
Among African Americans, the desire for marriage seems to have a different trajectory for women and men. My observation is that black women in their twenties and early thirties want to marry and commit at a time when black men their age are more likely to enjoy playing the field. As the woman realizes that a good marriage may not be as possible or sustainable as she would like, her focus turns to having a baby, or possibly improving her job status, perhaps by returning to school or investing more energy in her career.
As men mature, and begin to recognize the benefits of having a roost and roots (and to feel the consequences of their risky bachelor behavior), they are more willing to marry and settle down. By this time, however, many of their female peers are satisfied with the lives they have constructed and are less likely to settle for marriage to a man who doesn't bring much to the table. Indeed, he may bring too much to the table: children and their mothers from previous relationships, limited earning power, and the fallout from years of drug use, poor health care, sexual promiscuity. In other words, for the circumspect black woman, marriage may not be a business deal that offers sufficient return on investment.
In the past, marriage was primarily just such a business deal. Among wealthy families, it solidified political alliances or expanded land holdings. For poorer people, it was a means of managing the farm or operating a household. Today, people have become economically self-sufficient as individuals, no longer requiring a spouse for survival. African American women have always had a high rate of labor-force participation. "Why should well-salaried women marry?" asked black feminist and author Alice Dunbar-Nelson as early as 1895. But now instead of access only to low-paying jobs, we can earn a breadwinner's wage, which has changed what we want in a husband. "Women's expectations have changed dramatically while men's have not changed much at all," said one well-paid working wife and mother. "Women now say, 'Providing is not enough. I need more partnership.' "
The turning point in my own thinking about marriage came when a longtime friend proposed about five years ago. He and I had attended college together, dated briefly, then kept in touch through the years. We built a solid friendship, which I believe is a good foundation for a successful marriage.
But -- if we had married, I would have had to relocate to the Midwest. Been there, done that, didn't like it. I would have had to become a stepmother and, although I felt an easy camaraderie with his son, stepmotherhood is usually a bumpy ride. I wanted a house and couldn't afford one alone. But I knew that if I was willing to make some changes, I eventually could.
As I reviewed the situation, I realized that all the things I expected marriage to confer -- male companionship, close family ties, a house -- I already had, or were within reach, and with exponentially less drama. I can do bad by myself, I used to say as I exited a relationship. But the truth is, I can do pretty good by myself, too.
Most single black women over the age of 30 whom I know would not mind getting married, but acknowledge that the kind of man and the quality of marriage they would like to have may not be likely, and they are not desperate enough to simply accept any situation just to have a man. A number of my married friends complain that taking care of their husbands feels like having an additional child to raise. Then there's the fact that marriage apparently can be hazardous to the health of black women. A recent study by the Institute for American Values, a nonpartisan think tank in New York City, indicates that married African American women are less healthy than their single sisters.
By design or by default, black women cultivate those skills that allow them to maintain themselves (or sometimes even to prosper) without a mate.
"If Jesus Christ bought me an engagement ring, I wouldn't take it," a separated thirty-something friend told me. "I'd tell Jesus we could date, but we couldn't marry."
And here's the new twist. African American women aren't the only ones deciding that they can make do alone. Often what happens in black America is a sign of what the rest of America can eventually expect. In his 2003 book, "Mismatch: The Growing Gulf between Women and Men," Andrew Hacker noted that the structure of white families is evolving in the direction of that of black families of the 1960s. In 1960, 67 percent of black families were headed by a husband and wife, compared to 90.9 percent for whites. By 2000, the figure for white families had dropped to 79.8 percent. Births to unwed white mothers were 22.5 percent in 2001, compared to 2.3 percent in 1960. So my student who thought marriage is for white people may have to rethink that in the future.
Still, does this mean that marriage is going the way of the phonograph and the typewriter ribbon?
"I hope it isn't," said one friend who's been married for seven years. "The divorce rate is 50 percent, but people remarry. People want to be married. I don't think it's going out of style."
A black male acquaintance had a different prediction. "I don't believe marriage is going to be extinct, but I think you'll see fewer people married," he said. "It's a bad thing. I believe it takes the traditional family -- a man and a woman -- to raise kids." He has worked with troubled adolescents, and has observed that "the girls who are in the most trouble and who are abused the most -- the father is absent. And the same is true for the boys, too." He believes that his presence and example in the home is why both his sons decided to marry when their girlfriends became pregnant.
But human nature being what it is, if marriage is to flourish -- in black or white America -- it will have to offer an individual woman something more than a business alliance, a panacea for what ails the community, or an incubator for rearing children. As one woman said, "If it weren't for the intangibles, the allure of the lovey-dovey stuff, I wouldn't have gotten married. The benefits of marriage are his character and his caring. If not for that, why bother?"
joythink@aol.com
Joy Jones, a Washington writer, is the author of "Between Black Women: Listening With the Third Ear" (African American Images).
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Columns
Moms make lousy dads
Mar 7, 2006by Burt Prelutsky ( bio archive contact )
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One of the more fatuous beliefs that has been foisted off by self-proclaimed feminists and other politically correct lamebrains is that children don’t really need fathers. I used to say that American women, thanks to increased salaries and well- stocked sperm banks, had reached a point where they only needed men to open ketchup bottles and get stuff down from high shelves. Ladies, I was joking!
I had no idea that so many women took the line to heart. Thanks to my good joke and Gloria Steinem’s bad one – that crack about fish needing bicycles – women have become increasingly wacky. What is really surprising, considering that thirty years of feminist propaganda has promoted the natural superiority of females, is how masculine, in the worst sense of the word, women have become.
Surely I am not the only person who has noticed that these days young women are just as likely as men to smoke, to get bombed on booze and cuss in public, and perhaps even likelier to drive like maniacs and to flip you off for daring to share the road with them.
In the business world, far too many women salivate at the thought of being regarded as cold and ruthless. They are every bit as likely to torment and humiliate their employees, and to promote an atmosphere of fear and anger, especially among their female underlings. Call these women cut-throat and they think you’re trying to sweet talk them.
Perhaps it’s simply a case of Stockholm syndrome gone amuck. As you probably know, that’s a situation in which hostages come to identify, not with their rescuers, but with their captors. Women, in their own defense, might possibly claim that they’d been powerless for so long that it was inevitable that they’d take on the very characteristics they’ve despised. But that’s a load of hooey. I say, if you’re going to behave like an idiot and a bully, don’t make excuses for your boorishness. God knows men don’t!
Inasmuch as more and more women are eager to hand off their offspring to a nanny, a granny or a nursery school, you have to wonder why most of them even bother giving birth. All they seem to have to show for the experience are stretch marks.
In a society that is determined to accept the nutty notion that two gay men or a pair of lesbians are just as likely – they really mean likelier – to raise a normal, healthy child as a married man and woman, how could anybody dare suggest that a single woman isn’t equally capable? Well, she isn’t. This is especially true when the child is a boy. No matter how hard she tries, no matter how much she cares, no matter how many broken nails she’s willing to sacrifice in order to play catch with the kid, the bottom line is she’s a woman. And just because so many of the morons in Hollywood have turned single motherhood into just another fad, sort of like collagen lips and plastic bosoms, doesn’t make it a good idea.
It simply makes sense that a boy needs a man in his life to act as a role model, to show him not only how to curb his temper and to temper his testosterone, but also how to avoid being feminized into something resembling a well-dressed eunuch.
The point I am looking to make I saw made perfectly in a segment of a TV magazine show some years ago. It seems that in Africa, on a game preserve, the rangers were discovering the mutilated carcasses of several rhinos. They couldn’t determine who was responsible for the carnage, and they couldn’t imagine a motive.
After conducting an investigation, they found to their amazement that a band of teenage elephants were killing the rhinos for no other reason than that they felt like it. It was their version of drive-by shootings. Like our own urban gangs, the young rogues even had a leader.
The rangers thought long and hard about the problem. The first thing they realized was that the teenagers were free to make up their own evil rules of behavior because, like the blood-thirsty kids in “Lord of the Flies,” there were no adults in their world. All the bull elephants had been slaughtered by poachers for their ivory.
Then, because they didn’t have to answer to politicians or social workers, the rangers did two essential things. First, having determined he was incorrigible, they killed the leader of the pack. Next, they flew in several bull elephants. In no time at all, order was restored. The big guys let it be known that if there was any more rhino-stomping, there would be hell to pay. Their message was short and sweet; namely that elephants don’t behave that way.
So, for all their professional advances, there are still a few things that women simply can’t do as well as men. Some of those things, such as throwing a football forty yards in a perfect spiral or crushing a beer can on their forehead, aren’t all that essential. Important, I’ll grant you, but not absolutely essential to society at large.
However, when it comes to rearing male children, we’d all probably be better off if the ladies simply dropped the kids off in the woods for wolves to raise.
Burt Prelutsky has been a humor columnist for the L.A. Times and a movie critic for Los Angeles magazine. He is the author of Conservatives are from Mars (Liberals are from San Francisco).
Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com
Moms make lousy dads
Mar 7, 2006by Burt Prelutsky ( bio archive contact )
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One of the more fatuous beliefs that has been foisted off by self-proclaimed feminists and other politically correct lamebrains is that children don’t really need fathers. I used to say that American women, thanks to increased salaries and well- stocked sperm banks, had reached a point where they only needed men to open ketchup bottles and get stuff down from high shelves. Ladies, I was joking!
I had no idea that so many women took the line to heart. Thanks to my good joke and Gloria Steinem’s bad one – that crack about fish needing bicycles – women have become increasingly wacky. What is really surprising, considering that thirty years of feminist propaganda has promoted the natural superiority of females, is how masculine, in the worst sense of the word, women have become.
Surely I am not the only person who has noticed that these days young women are just as likely as men to smoke, to get bombed on booze and cuss in public, and perhaps even likelier to drive like maniacs and to flip you off for daring to share the road with them.
In the business world, far too many women salivate at the thought of being regarded as cold and ruthless. They are every bit as likely to torment and humiliate their employees, and to promote an atmosphere of fear and anger, especially among their female underlings. Call these women cut-throat and they think you’re trying to sweet talk them.
Perhaps it’s simply a case of Stockholm syndrome gone amuck. As you probably know, that’s a situation in which hostages come to identify, not with their rescuers, but with their captors. Women, in their own defense, might possibly claim that they’d been powerless for so long that it was inevitable that they’d take on the very characteristics they’ve despised. But that’s a load of hooey. I say, if you’re going to behave like an idiot and a bully, don’t make excuses for your boorishness. God knows men don’t!
Inasmuch as more and more women are eager to hand off their offspring to a nanny, a granny or a nursery school, you have to wonder why most of them even bother giving birth. All they seem to have to show for the experience are stretch marks.
In a society that is determined to accept the nutty notion that two gay men or a pair of lesbians are just as likely – they really mean likelier – to raise a normal, healthy child as a married man and woman, how could anybody dare suggest that a single woman isn’t equally capable? Well, she isn’t. This is especially true when the child is a boy. No matter how hard she tries, no matter how much she cares, no matter how many broken nails she’s willing to sacrifice in order to play catch with the kid, the bottom line is she’s a woman. And just because so many of the morons in Hollywood have turned single motherhood into just another fad, sort of like collagen lips and plastic bosoms, doesn’t make it a good idea.
It simply makes sense that a boy needs a man in his life to act as a role model, to show him not only how to curb his temper and to temper his testosterone, but also how to avoid being feminized into something resembling a well-dressed eunuch.
The point I am looking to make I saw made perfectly in a segment of a TV magazine show some years ago. It seems that in Africa, on a game preserve, the rangers were discovering the mutilated carcasses of several rhinos. They couldn’t determine who was responsible for the carnage, and they couldn’t imagine a motive.
After conducting an investigation, they found to their amazement that a band of teenage elephants were killing the rhinos for no other reason than that they felt like it. It was their version of drive-by shootings. Like our own urban gangs, the young rogues even had a leader.
The rangers thought long and hard about the problem. The first thing they realized was that the teenagers were free to make up their own evil rules of behavior because, like the blood-thirsty kids in “Lord of the Flies,” there were no adults in their world. All the bull elephants had been slaughtered by poachers for their ivory.
Then, because they didn’t have to answer to politicians or social workers, the rangers did two essential things. First, having determined he was incorrigible, they killed the leader of the pack. Next, they flew in several bull elephants. In no time at all, order was restored. The big guys let it be known that if there was any more rhino-stomping, there would be hell to pay. Their message was short and sweet; namely that elephants don’t behave that way.
So, for all their professional advances, there are still a few things that women simply can’t do as well as men. Some of those things, such as throwing a football forty yards in a perfect spiral or crushing a beer can on their forehead, aren’t all that essential. Important, I’ll grant you, but not absolutely essential to society at large.
However, when it comes to rearing male children, we’d all probably be better off if the ladies simply dropped the kids off in the woods for wolves to raise.
Burt Prelutsky has been a humor columnist for the L.A. Times and a movie critic for Los Angeles magazine. He is the author of Conservatives are from Mars (Liberals are from San Francisco).
Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com
Monday, February 20, 2006
Let's Teach to the Test
By Jay MathewsMonday, February 20, 2006; Page A21
All signs point to 2006 being a crucial year for testing in America, with the first national results from the new SAT due, as well as significant changes underway in how states use the tests that rate schools under the No Child Left Behind law. If only, then, we could figure out a way to speak clearly to each other about what we think of the many tests our children are taking. Let's start by trying to clarify what I consider the most deceptive phrase in education today: "teaching to the test."
Teaching to the test, you may have heard, is bad, very bad. I got 59.2 million hits when I did a Google search for the phrase, and most of what I read was unfriendly. Teaching to the test made children sick, one article said. Others said it rendered test scores meaningless or had a dumbing effect on instruction. All of that confused me, since in 23 years of visiting classrooms I have yet to see any teacher preparing kids for exams in ways that were not careful, sensible and likely to produce more learning.
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There are, of course, ways to teach to the test that are bad for kids and that occur now and then in schools. Principals afraid that their scores would look bad have forced teachers to go over the same questions from old tests day after day, to prepare for some state assessment. But there is no evidence that this happens often. Strong teachers usually raise a ruckus, administrators back down and everybody goes back to the traditional lesson reviews that all good teachers use.
When we say "teaching to the test," we should acknowledge that we are usually not talking about those drill fests. Rather, we often use the phrase to refer to any course that prepares students for one of the annual state assessment exams required under the No Child Left Behind Act. For reasons that escape me, we never say a teacher is "teaching to the test" if she's using a test she wrote herself. We share the teacher's view that what she is doing is helping her students learn the material, not ace the test. But if she is preparing the class for an exam written by some outsider, the thinking goes, then she must be forced to adhere to someone else's views on teaching and thus is likely to present the material too quickly, too thinly, too prescriptively, too joylessly -- add your own favorite unattractive adverb.
Yet if you asked the thousands of educators who have written the questions for the state tests that allegedly produce all these terrible classroom practices, they would tell you their objective is the same as the classroom teacher's: to help kids learn. And if you watched the best teachers at work, as I have many times, you would see them treating the state test as nothing more than another useful guide and motivator, with no significant change in the way they present their lessons.
Those who complain are not really talking about teaching to the state test. Unless teachers sneak into the counseling office and steal a copy, which can get them fired, they don't know what's on the test. They are teaching not to the test but to the state standards -- a long list of things students are supposed to learn in each subject area, as approved by the state school board.
Hardly anybody complains about teaching to a standard. Teacher-turned-author Susan Ohanian is trying to change this, and she refers to all advocates of learning standards as "Standardistos." But she has not made much headway, mostly because standards make sense to parents like me. We are not usually included in discussions of testing policy, but we tend to vote in large numbers, and everybody knows that any governor or president who came out against standards for schools and learning would soon be looking for work in the private sector.
So why do we still talk about how terrible it is to teach to the test? I think it comes from our fear of the unknown. Those of us who are not teachers don't know what is going on in our children's classrooms. And teachers don't know what harm might come to them from the test results, as interpreted by often-wrongheaded people such as principals, superintendents, politicians and, particularly, parents.
Conversations about this would go more smoothly if we didn't have such distorted views of what teaching to the test means. We might instead turn the discussion to what methods of instruction work best or how much time our children should spend studying.
In some classes, such as the Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and Cambridge courses that have become popular in Washington area high schools, the need to prepare for a challenging exam outside of the teacher's control has often produced a remarkable new form of teamwork. Teacher and students work together to beat an exam that requires thought and analysis, not just memorization. If that is teaching to the test, let's have more of it.
By Jay MathewsMonday, February 20, 2006; Page A21
All signs point to 2006 being a crucial year for testing in America, with the first national results from the new SAT due, as well as significant changes underway in how states use the tests that rate schools under the No Child Left Behind law. If only, then, we could figure out a way to speak clearly to each other about what we think of the many tests our children are taking. Let's start by trying to clarify what I consider the most deceptive phrase in education today: "teaching to the test."
Teaching to the test, you may have heard, is bad, very bad. I got 59.2 million hits when I did a Google search for the phrase, and most of what I read was unfriendly. Teaching to the test made children sick, one article said. Others said it rendered test scores meaningless or had a dumbing effect on instruction. All of that confused me, since in 23 years of visiting classrooms I have yet to see any teacher preparing kids for exams in ways that were not careful, sensible and likely to produce more learning.
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Matt Schuh Online
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There are, of course, ways to teach to the test that are bad for kids and that occur now and then in schools. Principals afraid that their scores would look bad have forced teachers to go over the same questions from old tests day after day, to prepare for some state assessment. But there is no evidence that this happens often. Strong teachers usually raise a ruckus, administrators back down and everybody goes back to the traditional lesson reviews that all good teachers use.
When we say "teaching to the test," we should acknowledge that we are usually not talking about those drill fests. Rather, we often use the phrase to refer to any course that prepares students for one of the annual state assessment exams required under the No Child Left Behind Act. For reasons that escape me, we never say a teacher is "teaching to the test" if she's using a test she wrote herself. We share the teacher's view that what she is doing is helping her students learn the material, not ace the test. But if she is preparing the class for an exam written by some outsider, the thinking goes, then she must be forced to adhere to someone else's views on teaching and thus is likely to present the material too quickly, too thinly, too prescriptively, too joylessly -- add your own favorite unattractive adverb.
Yet if you asked the thousands of educators who have written the questions for the state tests that allegedly produce all these terrible classroom practices, they would tell you their objective is the same as the classroom teacher's: to help kids learn. And if you watched the best teachers at work, as I have many times, you would see them treating the state test as nothing more than another useful guide and motivator, with no significant change in the way they present their lessons.
Those who complain are not really talking about teaching to the state test. Unless teachers sneak into the counseling office and steal a copy, which can get them fired, they don't know what's on the test. They are teaching not to the test but to the state standards -- a long list of things students are supposed to learn in each subject area, as approved by the state school board.
Hardly anybody complains about teaching to a standard. Teacher-turned-author Susan Ohanian is trying to change this, and she refers to all advocates of learning standards as "Standardistos." But she has not made much headway, mostly because standards make sense to parents like me. We are not usually included in discussions of testing policy, but we tend to vote in large numbers, and everybody knows that any governor or president who came out against standards for schools and learning would soon be looking for work in the private sector.
So why do we still talk about how terrible it is to teach to the test? I think it comes from our fear of the unknown. Those of us who are not teachers don't know what is going on in our children's classrooms. And teachers don't know what harm might come to them from the test results, as interpreted by often-wrongheaded people such as principals, superintendents, politicians and, particularly, parents.
Conversations about this would go more smoothly if we didn't have such distorted views of what teaching to the test means. We might instead turn the discussion to what methods of instruction work best or how much time our children should spend studying.
In some classes, such as the Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and Cambridge courses that have become popular in Washington area high schools, the need to prepare for a challenging exam outside of the teacher's control has often produced a remarkable new form of teamwork. Teacher and students work together to beat an exam that requires thought and analysis, not just memorization. If that is teaching to the test, let's have more of it.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Thomas Sowell:
Green lies
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com Not often do Rush Limbaugh and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman agree on anything but recently both of them pointed out the same pattern in the prices of housing – and both were correct.
The pattern is this: Despite hysteria over high home prices, in most parts of the United States housing is quite affordable. But in some places housing prices are astronomical – three times the national average in much of California, for example.
Despite the old rule of thumb that housing should cost no more than one fourth of your income, there are parts of California where tenants and new home buyers pay at least half their incomes for housing.
This can be a serious problem in such places because it means that only the other half of people's income is available to pay for such frills as food and clothing.
These dire situations are more likely to be featured in the media, partly because bad news sells newspapers and gets higher television ratings. Moreover, media elites are more likely to be living in the places where housing prices are out of sight – places like Manhattan, coastal California, and the posh suburbs around Washington or various other cities.
It is a very different story in most of the rest of the country. A scholarly study published in the October 2005 issue of the Journal of Law and Economics concluded: "In the sprawling cities of the American heartland, land remains cheap, real construction costs are falling, and expanding supply keeps housing costs low."
In some cities, housing prices have actually declined as the housing supply has expanded. None of this is rocket science. It is supply and demand.
Why then are there particular places where housing costs have skyrocketed?
In those places, much of the land is prevented by law from being used to build housing. These land use restrictions are seldom called land use restrictions.
They are called by much prettier names, like "open space" laws, laws to "preserve farmland" or prevent "sprawl," "greenbelt" laws – or whatever else will sell politically.
People who already own their own homes don't worry about whether such laws will drive housing prices sky high. Somebody else will have to pay those prices while existing homeowners see the value of their property rise by leaps and bounds.
Meanwhile, land that might otherwise provide homes for others becomes in effect free park land for themselves, while such upscale communities use "open space" laws to keep out the masses. The crowning touch is that such self-interest is depicted as idealism.
A famous economist named Joseph Schumpeter once said that the first thing someone will do for his ideals is lie. Some people distinguish little white lies from black lies but the biggest lies of all are green lies.
To hear environmental zealots tell it, they are just trying to save the last few patches of greenery from being paved over. But in fact the land area of the United States covered by forests is more than three times as large as the land area covered by all the cities and towns across the nation.
Only about 5 percent of the land is urban. In other words, you could double the size of every city and town in America and still nine-tenths of the land would be undeveloped.
Some of the biggest hysteria about "saving" land is found in places where most of the land is already off-limits to building. Some of the biggest crocodile tears about a need to "preserve farmland" come from people who are not farmers, and who know little and care less about farming.
Chronic agricultural surpluses that cost the taxpayers billions show that there is too much farmland producing more than the market can absorb, while the growing of these surplus crops puts all sorts of chemicals into the ground, water, and air. But the green liars don't mention that.
Their real agenda is keeping out other people. Home builders who would enable other people to move into their community are called selfish and greedy. Green liars consider themselves morally far superior to "developers."
Green lies
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com Not often do Rush Limbaugh and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman agree on anything but recently both of them pointed out the same pattern in the prices of housing – and both were correct.
The pattern is this: Despite hysteria over high home prices, in most parts of the United States housing is quite affordable. But in some places housing prices are astronomical – three times the national average in much of California, for example.
Despite the old rule of thumb that housing should cost no more than one fourth of your income, there are parts of California where tenants and new home buyers pay at least half their incomes for housing.
This can be a serious problem in such places because it means that only the other half of people's income is available to pay for such frills as food and clothing.
These dire situations are more likely to be featured in the media, partly because bad news sells newspapers and gets higher television ratings. Moreover, media elites are more likely to be living in the places where housing prices are out of sight – places like Manhattan, coastal California, and the posh suburbs around Washington or various other cities.
It is a very different story in most of the rest of the country. A scholarly study published in the October 2005 issue of the Journal of Law and Economics concluded: "In the sprawling cities of the American heartland, land remains cheap, real construction costs are falling, and expanding supply keeps housing costs low."
In some cities, housing prices have actually declined as the housing supply has expanded. None of this is rocket science. It is supply and demand.
Why then are there particular places where housing costs have skyrocketed?
In those places, much of the land is prevented by law from being used to build housing. These land use restrictions are seldom called land use restrictions.
They are called by much prettier names, like "open space" laws, laws to "preserve farmland" or prevent "sprawl," "greenbelt" laws – or whatever else will sell politically.
People who already own their own homes don't worry about whether such laws will drive housing prices sky high. Somebody else will have to pay those prices while existing homeowners see the value of their property rise by leaps and bounds.
Meanwhile, land that might otherwise provide homes for others becomes in effect free park land for themselves, while such upscale communities use "open space" laws to keep out the masses. The crowning touch is that such self-interest is depicted as idealism.
A famous economist named Joseph Schumpeter once said that the first thing someone will do for his ideals is lie. Some people distinguish little white lies from black lies but the biggest lies of all are green lies.
To hear environmental zealots tell it, they are just trying to save the last few patches of greenery from being paved over. But in fact the land area of the United States covered by forests is more than three times as large as the land area covered by all the cities and towns across the nation.
Only about 5 percent of the land is urban. In other words, you could double the size of every city and town in America and still nine-tenths of the land would be undeveloped.
Some of the biggest hysteria about "saving" land is found in places where most of the land is already off-limits to building. Some of the biggest crocodile tears about a need to "preserve farmland" come from people who are not farmers, and who know little and care less about farming.
Chronic agricultural surpluses that cost the taxpayers billions show that there is too much farmland producing more than the market can absorb, while the growing of these surplus crops puts all sorts of chemicals into the ground, water, and air. But the green liars don't mention that.
Their real agenda is keeping out other people. Home builders who would enable other people to move into their community are called selfish and greedy. Green liars consider themselves morally far superior to "developers."
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
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