NY school district: “We’re sorry for teaching Jews are evil”

School has certainly changed since my day:

An upstate New York school district is reportedly apologizing — and mulling possible disciplinary action — for a high school writing assignment that asked students to “argue Jews are evil” while making a persuasive argument blaming them for the problems of Nazi Germany.

The Albany Times Union reports that some students at Albany High School were asked to research Nazi propaganda before assuming their English teacher was a Nazi government official who had to be convinced of their loyalty. In five paragraphs, they were required to prove that Jews were the source of Germany’s problems, the newspaper reports.

“You must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich,” the assignment reportedly read. A third of the students refused.

Wow. I’ll be charitable and assume a stunning lack of sensitivity and plain good sense on the instructor’s part. There are, after all, good uses for exercises that ask the student to explore and defend the other side or other points of view. But when you’re talking about one of the most monstrous atrocities in the history of humanity –the Holocaust– the only point of discussing the attitudes that lead to it is to criticize them and show their utter evil, not to learn how to be an apologist for them.

Yeah, I’d say this teacher deserves at least a suspension, if not termination, but someone should pointedly ask that school district why they don’t supervise their employees’ lesson plans more closely.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Genius: Maryland legislator proposes “Toaster Pastry Gun Freedom Act”

Protecting the right to keep and bear Pop-tarts

Proof once again that mockery is a wonderful weapon. In the wake of little Josh Welch getting in trouble with school officials for the horrible crime of biting his Pop-tart into the shape of a gun and playing with it, a Maryland lawmaker has introduced a bill to… Well, to tell school officials to stop being a bunch of idiots:

A Maryland state senator has crafted a bill to curb the zeal of public school officials who are tempted to suspend students as young as kindergarten for having things — or talking about things, or eating things — that represent guns, but aren’t actually anything like real guns.

Sen. J. B. Jennings, a Republican who represents Baltimore Harford Counties, introduced “The Reasonable School Discipline Act of 2013? on Thursday, reports The Star Democrat.

Presumably the provisions of this bill would also protect the infamous toddler-terrorist in Pennsylvania who gave delicate school officials the vapors with her dreaded pink bubble-gun. Perhaps she should consider asking for asylum, if this bill goes through.

My favorite part of the legislation, however, is this:

The bill also includes a section mandating counseling for school officials who fail to distinguish between guns and things that resemble guns. School officials who fail to make such a distinction more than once would face discipline themselves.

Now I call that a useful law!  It’s a shame our education professionals seem to need it.

RELATED: More insane anti-gun hysteria from Dan Mitchell and Eric Owens.

via Sissy Willis and Iowahawk

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Forget cupcakes. Don’t you even *mention* guns in school, young man!

The headline says it all:

Pasco School District overturns 6-year-old’s suspension for discussing toy gun

The Pasco School District has overturned the suspension of a 6-year-old boy who talked about his toy guns at school.

Mike Aguirre’s son Noah, a first-grader at James McGee Elementary School, was sent home Feb. 28 after another student told their teacher that Noah had a gun with him.

Noah had no gun, toy or otherwise, but Aguirre said his son still was punished for talking with other students about the Nerf guns the family recently bought during a trip to Lincoln City, Ore.

Apparently a girl student who heard the little boy felt her “health and safety” were threatened… by someone talking about a nerf gun. What do you want to bet the school district is making that up or at least “massaging the truth” heavily?

The district later removed the suspension and said this wouldn’t go on the child’s record. Very big of them, but not a word of apology for making the boy think he was in trouble, worrying the parents, and making themselves look like jackasses.

Where did these “educators” get their certifications — George Orwell University?

via Liberty Unyielding

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

School confiscates cupcakes decorated with plastic “Army men”

“Quick, children! Cover your eyes!”

Because, you know, someone might be scarred for life at the sight of a tiny plastic rifle.

Or, even worse, they might want to –*gulp!*– “play Army.”

Thank God our courageous educators were there to prevent a crisis:

A Michigan elementary school is defending its decision to confiscate a third-graders batch of homemade cupcakes because the birthday treats were decorated with plastic green Army soldiers.

Casey Fountain told Fox News that the principal of his son’s elementary school called the cupcakes “insensitive” — in light of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

“It disgusted me,” he said. “It’s vile they lump true American heroes with psychopathic killers.”

Fountain’s wife made a batch of 30 chocolate cupcakes for their son Hunter’s classmates at Schall Elementary School in the town of Caro. The 9-year-old helped decorate the treats with plastic figurines representing World War Two soldiers.

The following morning Fountain said his wife delivered the cupcakes to the front office. The secretary complimented her on the decorations and then took the cakes to Hunter’s class.

“About 15 minutes later the school called my wife and told her the couldn’t serve the cupcakes because the soldiers had guns,” Fountain told Fox News. “My wife told them to remove the soldiers and serve the cupcakes anyway — and I believe she may have used more colorful language.”

The school complied and confiscated the soldiers — sending them home with Hunter in a bag.

Because representations of American soldiers, who’ve been fighting and dying for human liberty since 1775, and especially little figurines of U.S. WWII soldiers, who only liberated half the danged planet, are no different than gunmen who shoot up schools and movie theaters; they’re just too horrifying to behold.

If you’re a Michigan school official.

I swear I’m getting more and more sympathetic toward home-schooling with each passing day.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Anti-gun hysteria: from the ridiculous to… Maryland

“Watch out! He’s got a Pop-tart!!”

And here I thought my beloved California was insane. Well, it looks like Maryland is trying to give us a run for the title.

You may have heard about 7-year old Josh Welch, a potentially dangerous proto-terrorist who was suspended from school in Anne Arundel County for the shocking crime of… breaking his pastry into something vaguely resembling a gun and, allegedly, saying “bang-bang.”

The horror.

But wait, it gets better!

Fearful that students may have been traumatized by a little boy acting like, well, a little boy, Park Elementary school is offering counseling to those who may be just too upset to go on after being threatened with junk food:

“I am writing to let you know about an incident that occurred this morning in one of our classrooms and encourage you to discuss this matter with your child in a manner you deem most appropriate.

(…)

If your children express that they are troubled by today’s incident, please talk with them and help them share their feelings. Our school counselor is available to meet with any students who have the need to do so next week. In general, please remind them of the importance of making good choices.”

This is how Rome fell, isn’t it? Far from being “troubled,” I’m willing to bet Josh’s friends were about to make their own “improvised food guns” and join in the fun.

Maybe they should offer them self-defense classes, instead:

This is the natural, ridiculous, and pathetic outcome of the anti-gun hysteria that the Democrats, the Left, and their allies in the media (but I repeat myself) have tried to generate nationwide in a shameless exploitation of the mass shootings at Aurora, Newtown, and elsewhere, in order to push their gun-control people-control agenda. Far from contributing to a rational discussion of the facts about gun violence in general and the likely causes of mass shootings, in particular, they instead use fear to try to rush through useless legislation — unless the intended use is the gutting of our natural right to keep and bear arms.

And in the course of using fear and misinformation press their agenda, they also create a climate in which children get suspended for carrying a loaded Pop-tart, packing a pink bubble-gun, and saving a busload of their classmates.

The only good I can see coming out of this is that these and other incidents will make the anti-gun left look so ridiculous that their anti-2nd amendment initiatives lose steam.

I hope.

via Legal Insurrection

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Michigan Teachers Union to members: “Pay up or we’ll sue!”

“Your MEA shop steward”

And if they don’t, is the next step leg-breaking? Faced with members oddly deciding to keep their money after Michigan passed a right-to-work law, the leadership of the Michigan Education Association sent a memo to locals telling them to monitor incoming dues and, if it declines, be prepared to take their own members to court:

Steven Cook, president of the Michigan Education Association, circulated an email to local unions officials and staff instructing them to monitor revenue streams in light of the right-to-work laws, which are set to go into effect on March 27, 2013. The law allows workers to opt out of union membership unless they have an existing contract with their employer.

“We will use any legal means at our disposal to collect the dues owed under signed membership forms from any members who withhold dues prior to terminating their membership in August,” Cook wrote.

The tone of the message shocked labor reform activists.

“The level to which the MEA appears to be willing to go after its own members—the same ones whose interest they claim to represent—is amazing,” said Mike Van Beek, director of education policy at the Mackinac Center. “When it comes to their revenue, we know where their priorities stand.”

Yeah, and I bet they play this old BTO song before hitting up reluctant members:

Except, unlike the guy in the alley, the union doesn’t say “please.”

Sadly, these suits seem to have a solid legal footing in Michigan; the MEA has sued before and won. But, given the recent report on declining union membership even in public unions, it looks like a short-lived victory, at best:

The union membership rate fell from 11.8 percent to 11.3 percent of all workers, the lowest level since the 1930s.

Total membership fell by about 400,000 workers to 14.4 million. More than half the loss – about 234,000 – came from government workers including teachers, firefighters and public administrators.

The losses add another blow to a labor movement already stretched thin by fighting efforts in states like Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan to curb bargaining rights and weaken union clout.

(…)

Losses in the public sector are hitting unions particularly hard since that has been one of the few areas where membership was growing over the past two decades. About 51 percent of union members work in government, where until recently, there had been little resistance to union organizing.

That began to change when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a law in 2011 eliminating most union rights for government workers. The state lost about 46,000 union members last year, mostly in the public sector.

Union officials blame losses on the lingering effects of the recession, as well as GOP governors and state lawmakers who have sought to weaken union rights.

Much to the benefit of their states overall, if the results in Wisconsin and Indiana are to be believed.

Meanwhile, like dinosaurs raging at the asteroid about to rock their world, the unions are denying the inevitable: they’re out of date, obsolete. The proof lies in their own “clients’” actions: when given a choice, they prefer to keep their money. They don’t want what the unions are offering. And the more unions resort (revert) to thuggery to keep members and their dues, the more people will make the same choice, when given the power to decide that they should have by right.

(clip art courtesy of Clipart Mojo)

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Obamacare guts the pay of yet more of its strongest supporters

“But at least we won the election! Obama!!”

We’ve seen this before: state and community colleges cutting the hours of its part-time faculty to avoid the increased financial burdens of Obamacare. Well, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, here we go again:

In Ohio, instructor Robert Balla faces a new cap on the number of hours he can teach at Stark State College. In a Dec. 6 letter, the North Canton school told him that “in order to avoid penalties under the Affordable Care Act… employees with part-time or adjunct status will not be assigned more than an average of 29 hours per week.”

Mr. Balla, a 41-year-old father of two, had taught seven English composition classes last semester, split between Stark State and two other area schools. This semester, his course load at Stark State is down to one instead of two as a result of the school’s new limit on hours, cutting his salary by about a total of $2,000.

Stark State’s move came as a blow to Mr. Balla, who said he earns about $40,000 a year and cannot afford health insurance.

“I think it goes against the spirit of the [health-care] law,” Mr. Balla said. “In education, we’re working for the public good, we are public employees at a public institution; we should be the first ones to uphold the law, to set the example.”

Cry me a river, Robert. Stark State is upholding the law — to the letter. Obamacare, which you evidently support, redefined full-time as as average of 30 or more hours per week and, with the expansion in required coverage, greatly increased the college’s financial burden. It’s not their fault that progressive, statist Democrats, in their rush to ram an unpopular, unwanted bill down the throats of Americans, created perverse incentives that your employers found irresistible. You had your chance to reverse this last November, but, I’m willing to bet, you chose Hope and Change, instead.

You got what you voted for, dude.

Be sure to read the rest of WR Mead’s article for a good discussion of the exploitation of part-time academics in higher education. I’ve done the grad school gig myself, and what he describes is all too common. For being towers of liberal sanctimony, universities and colleges are some of the worst exploiters of labor.

via Bryan Preston, whom I quote: “Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.”

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

More death wishes against the NRA

I wonder if it occurs to fans of gun-control or gun elimination that some of the things their “mainstream” people say are for more violent and incendiary than almost anything coming from even fringe 2nd amendment defenders?

Nah. That would require a sense of irony, shame, and self-awareness. Or even basic sentience.

Anyway, the latest (1)  in a growing line of liberal “thought leaders” fantasizing about violence against gun-rights advocates is Assistant Professor Erik Loomis of the University of Rhode Island, who retweeted  a death wish against those who advocated arming some school personnel: (Language warning, and so below the fold)

And these are the people who are teaching our children, shaping our future.

My blog-buddy ST featured this in her Hot Headlines section yesterday, but I thought it deserved front-page treatment. This video, narrated by wealthy Leftist actor Ed Asner, teaches nothing but class warfare and shows the rich urinating on the poor:

(Note: Since it first came to public notice yesterday, the video has been made private. I guess the California Teachers Union didn’t want us to know what they really think of those who disagree with them.)

EAG News, which first reported the video, describes it this way:

A new video produced by the California Federation of Teachers – which could be playing in your child’s classroom as we speak – drums up the typical class warfare images we’ve come to expect from Big Labor.

“Tax the Rich: An Animated Fairy Tale,” written by CFT staffer Fred Glass (2011 compensation: $139,800) and narrated by proud leftist actor (and 1 percenter) Ed Asner, advocates for higher taxes on the “rich” as the cure for government’s insatiable thirst for spending.

The video claims the rich got rich through tax cuts and tax loopholes and even tax evasion.

But when the 99 percent fought back, the “rich” apparently urinated on the “poor,” at least according to the video. What a classy way to frame your argument for children, Big Labor.

EAG News chronicles the factual errors in the video, but PJM’s Bryan Preston cuts to the heart of the matter:

The video never deals with the fact that the top one percent of wage earners in the United States pay about 33% of all the income taxes, and the top five percent pay more than half of all the taxes. The poor reasoning and dishonesty in the video are made worse by the fact that it was created, evidently, by teachers. By the people who are educating your children and mine.

And California voters, via Prop 32, just voted to give these yahoos more money, in the form of dues take from teachers’ salaries, which are paid for by our taxes. Too bad this didn’t come out before the election.

Meanwhile, this shows how hard the battle to reform the culture will be, when our teacher training programs are turning out “educators” who could have worked as propagandists for the Comintern.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Yikes! Student loan bubble bursts.

“The next subprime crisis.” This is bad.

Dear California voters: you were played for suckers

And it worked:

Cal State to consider new student fees

California State University is seeking to impose a series of new fees next fall designed to encourage students to graduate faster and free up thousands of more classroom seats.

The proposals were unveiled Thursday, only two days after the passage of Proposition 30, a tax measure that allowed the university to rescind a $249 per semester tuition increase that took effect in the fall. Voter approval of the tax measure means the university will avoid an additional $250-million mid-year funding cut.

But officials said the new fees are designed not primarily to generate revenue but to change student behaviors that have clogged the pathway to degrees and delayed new admissions, problems that have only been exacerbated by budget cuts.

Horse manure.

Proposition 30 was sold to the voters as the only way to save our schools and university from crippling budget cuts (1), and so the already over-taxed California voters agreed to “temporary” income and sales tax increases to fend them off. But –and, O! What a shock it is!– Cal State says that won’t be enough and they need to raise fees on students. Just as they threatened to do without a tax increase!

Like I said, the given reasons for the new fees are horse manure. If they have so-called super-seniors hanging around taking way more units than they need to graduate, then enforce the limits on units and automatically graduate them. Congratulations, here’s your diploma, now go away.  Problem solved.

Too many people retaking classes? Ban the practice, or maybe let them do it once if they received a D or lower, and that’s all. In other words, you have rules to control the problem, enforce them. You don’t have the rules? Make them.

But don’t say you’re going to raise fees two days after getting the tax increase you asked for to avoid raising fees.

This is about more than the idiotic, scandal-plagued  administration of California’s Plan B university system. Proposition 30 was the latest in a long line of measures in which the state pretends to be Lucy with the football and asks us to kick it. Only this time we fell for it. More money will be taken from the “evil rich” (those who create jobs), more of whom will now leave the state, and the rest of us will pay higher sales taxes, all to support bloated university administrations (Don’t think University of California isn’t dreaming of something similar) and way-too-generous teacher pension systems.

And education won’t get a penny’s-worth better.

But, hey! The taxes are only temporary! And would you like to buy some beachfront property in the Mojave desert, too? Real cheap!

I guarantee it: When the expiration of these tax increases approaches, the legislature and the universities and the teachers union will go hat in hand to the public to beg for an extension, because any cuts in spending (or decreases in the rate of increase in spending) would be cruel, unbearable, and crippling to California’s future. And commercials will be full of children asking you vote “yes” and playing the “Absolute Moral Authority of Children” card. You don’t hate the children, do you? Besides, they promise this will be only a temporary extension…

Suckers.

Footnote:
(1) Truth is, the “threat” was engineered by the governor and the legislature to blackmail the voter. It’s a trick they pull again and again.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

(Video) A walk through a liberal time capsule

Bill Whittle recently spoke at Oberlin College, one of the most liberal of liberal arts schools, where he says he had a great time. His hosts couldn’t been any nicer.

But he was struck by something else, too: he was in a progressive time capsule. At various moments in his visit to Oberlin, he saw shocking examples of the intolerance of the supposedly tolerant campus Left, especially for anything that disagreed with their false dogmas, which haven’t changed in 60 years.

Gotta love that open-mindedness that lets you say and think whatever you want, just so long as you say and think the right things.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Chile's Amazing School Choice Revolution

Reblogged from International Liberty:

I wrote back in July about the remarkable transformation of Chile into a prosperous market economy.

In that post, I noted that Chile was a pioneer in the shift from unsustainable tax-and-transfer entitlement schemes to savings-based personal retirement accounts. And with good reason. That system, which has been in place for more than three decades, is hugely successful.

We should…

Read more… 259 more words

Chile is a good model for what we should do; the problem is to get the Left to listen to facts, rather than their ideological fantasies.

(Video) In which Bill Whittle tries to depress me. And succeeds

I’ve mentioned before that I consider myself  a child of the space program, following the heroics of our astronauts from Mercury to Apollo and even getting to stay home from school on launch days. When the government program declined, I took heart in private efforts to put Mankind into space, and I was happy that California, my home state, the state that had achieved so much in aerospace and technology, was taking the lead in private space efforts, hosting two of the budding industry’s leading companies.

And then I watched this:

But at least we get a high-speed train to nowhere! 

Confiscatory taxes, insane regulation, and a state government controlled by a party dedicated to looting the taxpayer to pay for a spoils system that rewards its clients, instead of governing for the good of all. California’s only success these days is in driving its most productive people elsewhere.

Will the last business to leave California please turn out the lights? 

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Kindergarten graduation in Gaza

June is a happy time for students, when school lets out and summer vacation begins. For some students and their parents, it’s a special moment: graduation time, when the children get to show their proud parents all the neat things they’ve learned, such as reading, writing, and hating Jews:

“I want to be a suicide bomber when I grow up!”

And what kindergarten graduation is complete without the kids putting on a play?

Next year we learn “Two Minutes Hate!”

These and other photos come from Saraya, the web site of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in an article called “Culture of resistance implanted in the hearts of the children of Gaza.” One of the children quoted showed the journalist he learned his lessons well:

One child, Hamza, wearing the uniform of the Al Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad and carrying a wooden weapon, said “I love the resistance and the martyrs and Palestine, and I want to blow up he most Zionists in a process of martyrdom and kill them.”

“Process of martyrdom” means “suicide bombing,” for those without a program.

It’s often said the children are our future. If that’s the case in Gaza, it’s a future as imagined by George Orwell.

Translation and photos courtesy of Elder of Ziyon, where you can see many more.

via Power Line

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

The blazing constitutional ignorance of Markos Moulitsas, aka “Kos”

Last night I was following the Super Tuesday election returns on Twitter, kind of bored, when something amazing happened: Markos Moulitsas, the “Kos” of the progressive Daily Kos web site, decided to lecture conservatives on the Constitution and the derivation of our rights.

As you can imagine, the results were hilarious in their historical illiteracy. The man truly has no concept of the origin of rights under Natural Law, or the differences and relation between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. In other words, he was the quintessential progressive.

Do yourself a favor and go read my friend Jimmie’s post deconstructing and lampooning Moulitsas in a way that should have Kos crawling under a rock in embarrassment… if he had any shame at all. He does it far better than I could and, rather than repeat what he wrote, I’ll just point you to it.

Enjoy.

PS: Oh, and Markos? If you want, I can recommend some basic US History and Government texts for you. You seem to be in a bit of need, pal…

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Maybe all voters should take this test

Yeah, I know. Requiring tests in order to vote is an old trick from Jim Crow days to deny people their right to vote. The idea, having been thus spoiled, will never fly again, even if applied without discrimination to all.

Still, I have some sympathy for saying one can’t vote until getting at least a 75% score on this Civic Literacy Exam. Here’s a sample question:

“What are the three branches of government?”

• executive, legislative, judicial
• executive, legislative, military
• bureaucratic, military, industry
• federal, state, local

What scares me is how many voters would fail.

My results? 31 out of 33. I missed the Lincoln-Douglas question and one of the economics questions. I hang my head in shame.

How about you?

via Moe Lane

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

California: Governor Brown thinks we’re stupid

Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed budget was released yesterday (1) and it’s… Well, this is a family show, so let’s just say it’s “interesting.”

Governor Jerry Brown proposed $92.6 billion in spending for the year starting in July, an increase of about 7 percent, which will count on voters approving $7 billion of higher taxes in November.

The spending plan foresees a deficit of $9.2 billion through the next 18 months. Almost half of that is in the current fiscal year, he said. He called for $4.2 billion in cuts, mostly to welfare and programs for the poor. If the tax increase isn’t passed, Brown’s plan would cut another $4.8 billion in support for public schools and community colleges.

In other words, the government of a state that’s already suffering from too much government spending and suicidally high levels of taxation wants to increase spending and ask the voters to tax themselves more. Makes sense? It does if you’re a California liberal Democrat. I mean, we just couldn’t cut some of the myriad of needless and redundant state boards we maintain (and whose members draw six-figure salaries). We couldn’t cut the subsidized car leases and hefty per diems our elected representatives oligarchs get (2). We couldn’t find ways to increase revenue by intelligently exploiting our vast natural resources and making California once again an attractive place to do business, now could we?

Heaven forfend! Are you mad?

No, the only way to feed Sacramento’s crack habit spending needs is to raise revenue by increasing sales and income taxes, the latter especially on those filthy, evil, rich people. (That is, small business owners who create the few jobs that still are created here.) That means We The People have to agree to those taxes.

And that means Jerry has to lie to us:

The proposed 2012 budget would slash $5.2 billion in public school funding if voters reject the tax increases Brown is trying to put on the November ballot. This would include about $200 million in cuts each to the University of California and the Cal State University systems and $4.8 billion to K-12 education and community colleges. (3)

In other words, “if you don’t agree to tax yourselves more, you must hate children! My God, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!” It’s the typical prediction of apocalyptic doom they hit us with every single time they ask for higher taxes. And it is absolute baloney.

A little background: under Proposition 98, passed in 1988, funds for K-12 education in California must increase every year (4); it’s required by the state constitution. As you’ll see in the summary charts for the budget (PDF, via Moe Lane), Brown’s budget includes a $4.8 billion increase in K-12 funding. Look familiar? It should; that’s the same amount cited as a “slash” in funding in the above quote. In other words, the “cut in education funding” is really the elimination of a proposed increase, not a genuine cut at all.

And that’s the lie: the “cut” the Democrats are shrieking about would really be just holding education spending at it’s already-generous level. That’s why I say they think we’re stupid. They think we’ll fall for it. But they forget they’ve tried this trick before, and it hasn’t worked. Ballot proposals for tax increases have a history here of going down to defeat. I predict this one will, too.

Because we’re not as stupid as our masters think.

via The Flash Report

UPDATE: At Cal Watchdog, Katy Grimes says the Governor is holding schoolchildren hostage.

Footnotes:
(1) Not released by Jerry, though. That was supposed to be next week. Some staffer screwed up. Ooops.
(2) In fact, all three branches of government get an increase. How… nice.
(3) With an annoyed comment from me at the bottom.
(4) The law can be suspended for a year by a 2/3rds vote of the legislature. I suspect this is what will have to happen if the voters reject the tax increase.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Relax! You’re not illiterate, you’re a victim with rights!!

Just because you failed to get your high school diploma or go back for a GED, don’t worry. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said that employers who require a high-school diploma of applicants may be violating the Americans with Disabilities Act:

Employers are facing more uncertainty in the wake of a letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission warning them that requiring a high school diploma from a job applicant might violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The development also has some wondering whether the agency’s advice will result in an educational backlash by creating less of an incentive for some high school students to graduate.

The “informal discussion letter” from the EEOC said an employer’s requirement of a high school diploma, long a standard criterion for screening potential employees, must be “job-related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity.” The letter was posted on the commission’s website on Dec. 2.

Employers could run afoul of the ADA if their requirement of a high school diploma “‘screens out’ an individual who is unable to graduate because of a learning disability that meets the ADA’s definition of ‘disability,’” the EEOC explained.

The commission’s advice, which does not carry the force of law, is raising alarms among employment-law professionals, who say it could carry far-reaching implications for businesses.

The EEOC of course disputes that this will have any far reaching affect in hiring  practices or discouraging people from  finishing high school. But… we know better. When a government regulatory agency rumbles, the first thing businesses do is try to figure out how to comply so they can avoid being sued. In this case, it would mean reevaluating each position to see if it really, really required a high school diploma to perform. And that costs money that could otherwise be required to expand a business and hire more people.

And I can already imagine the late-night commercials from plaintiff’s lawyers lining up for the inevitable discrimination lawsuits (and settlement fees).

“No job? No diploma? No problem! Call our attorneys at Dewey, Fleesem, and Howe, where we’re fighting for your rights!”

Now some may say I’m being unfair, because the EEOC’s discussion letter is aimed at discrimination against people whose disabilities prevent them from finishing high school. Yeah, well, I think I have a reason to be skeptical of the definition of “disability” when that same EEOC can define alcoholism as a protected disability and sue employers to prevent them from firing drunk truck drivers.

While a high school diploma isn’t worth what it used to be, having become so common, it does still demonstrate a basic level of achievement and education; it doesn’t seem at all unreasonable to require one for most jobs. We’re not talking about discrimination based on gender, ethnicity, or religion, but an assumed minimum set of skills and learning ability.

What does seem unreasonable is the further expansion of government bureaucracy into the everyday workings of the economy, a place where it causes more problems than it ever fixes.

via The Jawa Report

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Dolphins blowing bubbles

Politics and the news can be so aggravating at times, I thought it would be fun to share this neat video of dolphins at play. What makes it special is that the behavior apparently is something one of the dolphins “discovered” and then passed on to the others, a form of teaching and learning.

Oh, and the females are faster learners than the males. Make of that what you will. 

Enjoy!

via The Jawa Report

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)