TheAgitator.com
Lunch Links
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010- My colleague Katherine Mangu-Ward has a provocative piece in the Washington Post about moving some public education online.
- This is . . . . disturbing.
- Next time some politician talks about the evils of private enterprise, you might remind him that if corporate executives tried to use the sorts of accounting tricks government officials use, they’d be in prison.
- Gallery of Pritzker Prize-winning buildings.
- Today’s vocabulary word of the day.
On-line education, as it currently exists, is worthless. Both of my kids have taken on-line courses in high school because the school system couldn’t afford to offer certain courses otherwise. My wife has taken on-line college courses. The experience was consistently bad. Very little learning occurred, feedback from the instructor was minimal and worthless.
What is needed in traditional classrooms is discipline, and a holding area for disruptive students that gets them out of the classroom.
A bigger change that would help more is to eliminate free schools altogether. Few people value that which costs them nothing (or appears to cost nothing). If parents had to pay directly for their kids education, they would do more to ensure their kids didn’t act in such a way to waste their money.
RE: The Scarface Vid
Anybody else immediately reminded of Arrested Development?
“Anything can happen when two people share a cell, cuz.”
Um, it was the big corporate banks that gave Greece, and the many US states, the means to hide their debts. . .So, when it comes to government accounting tricks, aren’t they usually the work of corporations? Speaking of which, for the last year or so banks have been borrowing at zero percent, then lending that money back to the FED at 4-5%. No wonder they won’t lend to us with sweetheart deals like that in place.
Really Randy, I love your work, but sometimes I wonder if you will ever realize that the big corporations and the government are just the left and right arm of the same corrupt system. Officials freely flow from one to the other, they further their corporate goals while in office and extend the power of government when they are out of it. Our legislature invites insurance execs to outright write the health care bill, and Dowd gravely intones that he doesn’t want to see any bankers jailed for their massive globe crashing fraud and no one bats an eye!
You mean those tricky government officials would join the former execs of Lehman who are in prison for their accounting tricks? Oh, wait… none of them will ever be prosecuted for that.
When we actually start holding anyone accountable for anything, talk to me about the superiority of the market over government. You might say, well, Lehman is gone, the market works. To which I’d say, they guys who ran it into the ground are still wealthy beyond any of our wildest dreams, and sleep untroubled by any thought of being held accountable, ever.
“This is . . . . disturbing.”
Yeah, there oughtta be a law.
WTF??? Disturbing? How about hilarious, motherfudger!?
So, when it comes to government accounting tricks, aren’t they usually the work of corporations?
Ummm, governments carry coercive power. Corporations do not. Providing a service that the government uses as a mechanism through which to hide its illegal activity does not imply complicity.
Really Randy, I love your work
Haha. Yeah keep up the good work Randy-Bo-Bandy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Trailer_Park_Boys_characters#Randy
(His name is Radley, Li.)
“if corporate executives tried to use the sorts of accounting tricks government officials use, they’d be in prison.”
Do you mean all those “corporate executives” who took full advantage (and then some) of government bailouts? Wasn’t it their collusion with big government that got us where we are today?
You’re right, they SHOULD be in prison!
Huh. It took me a while to figure out what the fudging pile of popcorn represented. (I haven’t actually seen the film yet… perhaps I’ll set some time aside today. )
Fudging disturbing and fudging hilarious at the same time.
On breakdown, what appeared as ‘disturbing’ was the adult role reversal being acted out (swearing, using violence as an end, treating people as chattel..) But let’s face the facts. Kids are exposed to all this and worse on a sometimes daily basis. By constructing a ‘make believe’ outlet using decidedly watered down content, this is probably building coping skills.
I remember when I was a kid, (8 or 9, not certain) and I was at my cousin’s house when his parents were having a huge screaming match. I was deeply disturbed, as I had none of this at home. Not that what I had at home was much better, another child would probably be equally disturbed by the emotionless tomb that was my home at the time.
Humans are not clairvoyant in even the tiniest degree, and as such can only understand and learn about experiences that they do not directly have contact with through acting and role play.
As such, having watered down adult content for kids to enact just seems like a good idea.
My word of the day: syzygy. In researching tides, it came up. Interesting.
toddler scarface play: yet high school aged kids can’t bring a Midol or Tylenol to school cause they aren’t old enough yet (or something).
samsam: if schools are free than I guess I’m entitled to a huge tax refund.
If my comment with the link shows up, a mild NSFW warning: printed language.
They need to purchase a Penis Mightier from Alex Trebek.
Speaking of government accounting tricks, I wonder what the Fed is up to today.
Radley might be pointing out the hypocricy of one side pointing to its other half.
It is a mistake to confuse “corporation” with “capitalism” and “free market”. One is simply a way to escape liability.
I didn’t read anything in the online education story that made me believe online education is inherently any better. Most of the benefits could be realized in class by simply letting parents choose the school for their kids instead of the gubmint. I also saw nothing about online education that our gubmint, once it takes control of online education (you know, to protect the kids) couldn’t screw up and make as poor as the in class education is now. Choice is the only answer, whether online or in class. Despite Katherine’s comment that we’ve tried everything else, universal choice hasn’t been tried yet, except at the college level where it seems to work wonderfully.
I’m sure that Radley understand that corporatism and the government are very much intertwined. Free Enterprise is the opposite of corporatism. Michael Moore and his ilk do not understand this.
About the accounting tricks.. well Lehman brothers and more were able to get away with some ridiculous accounting tricks and no one went to jail…
RE: Today’s vocabulary word of the day.
It isn’t going to be easy working “koro” (“a condition characterized by fear that one’s penis is going to contract and retract.”) into a conversation.
I think online courses are the answer to achieving competitive choice in education. It’s also a great equalizer. It’ll bring down the cost since there isn’t a large campus to upkeep. This will enable poorer people to move up the ladder, becoming more competitive with the rich kids. As always, technology saves the day.
Keep in mind only kids who actually give a shit will do this. Some kids will never care about their education no matter how much money is wasted on them.
So
This has the system exactly backwards. The federal system is supposed to be the refuge of the citizens of well-managed states against having to bail out badly managed ones.
in this country, first you get the money, then you get the power, and then you get the popcorn.
@Li and others: It’s not that the private sector can’t and don’t have accounting problems and malfeasance, it’s that the way the government is doing their accounting is bad, especially in the sectors where direct comparison can be made, i.e where public and private sectors perform the same task. Saying that the government should get a pass because the other asshole is doing it too is the same logical fallacy 3 year old kids on the playground use: He did it first. It’s not good accounting practice, end statement.
Lol, OK lets try this :)
FUDGE THE POLICE!
#19
Most police officers in the United States suffer from koro. This is why they carry a substitute in a leather holster on their belts.
How’d I do?
Frank
+10
In my online college courses, the instructors have been better ( and experienced- usually doctorate level with 2-3 decades of actual work experience outside academia), and more teaching/learning has occurred. Granted, my experience is at “real” universities that offer distance learning and not “online schools.”
In general the school system has nothing to do with learning, at least not the ways that children learn naturally. If anything it punishes curiosity and pretty much sucks the goodness out of kids. I think that kids tend to “give a shit” unless their parents and/or school/government teach them not to.
If you gave Fox News, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity 3 weeks they could have >20% of the population in a panic about koro.
Regarding Scarface…you should have Snoped it!
http://www.snopes.com/photos/arts/scarface.asp
Koro??? Pfui. I learned about THAT in highschool after reading Naked Lunch. Now defining syzygy—*there’s* a challenge!
Katherine’s is a good piece, and it hits on some important themes. However, Florida Virtual School is a joke (as is “CROP,” the online “credit recovery” alternative to traditional summer school, which has to be one of the biggest scams in educational history).
http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2010/03/30/kids_scarface
An article about the hoax that is the scarface video. I’m always amazed at commenters who take at face value whatever link is put up by a blogger they agree with.