The politics of many aspects of American life are more or less 'owned' by their associated interest groups, often just one, the interest group making money from that aspect of U.S. life. But education is not one of those, and that might be a blessing, except that actual learning for our young people is not 'the prize' for either of the two interest groups -- 'anti teachers union' and 'pro teachers union' -- that do dominate. And we do have problems making sustained progress and resisting regress if we follow either of those interest groups all the way down their road. (A sidenote that these days the anti-teachers-union crowd is much more media/politically powerful and therefore potentially dangerous than its opponent.)
However, progress sometimes really happens when, somehow, an actually good idea from one side is implemented. For example, by the teachers union side, introducing free day care and kindgergarten, and reducing class size in primary grades. And, from the anti-teachers union side, using (in theory fair, predictive and reliable) tests to put some accountability pressure on teachers. While none of the preceding has worked miracles (maybe it's not helpful or 'real' to promote expectations of rapid improvement), the numbers (here's another take on them) indicate the U.S. has made solid progress in elementary school education. The chart below, on writing, reading, and mathematics test scores from the 'testing gold standard' NAEP in the 2000s, shows half-grade (10 points is roughly one grade level) or better improvements in 26 of the 38 comparisons, in the short span of 5 or 6 years between 2003 and 2009 or 2002 and 2007 (less than half-grade progess blocks are in grey):
Never mind the minefield of her daughter's pregnancy with all the pitfalls of false accusations of sexism that are sure to follow.
Give up the tempting but ultimately fruitless idea of ramming a prosecution of Palin through Alaska's throughly corrupt and GOP-dominated court system.
Why not go for the lowest hanging fruit, the fruit that cannot be dismissed as "sexist", the truth that cannot be disproven?
In a diary Friday, Matt asked for help in understanding something significant:
I've become fascinated by the effects of honesty/dishonesty in a culture. I live in DC, and I'm beginning to think that there are characteristics of those in power that are more reflective of a mass psychological disorder or strange cultural affinity for self-deception than 'money in politics', bribery, or corruption can explain.
This got me thinking, and revisiting some ideas I've been kicking around for a while. Here are three of them that I think are closely connected:
Truth and lies have switched places: Lies continually repeated function like the truth, while truths that go unuttered function as if they were lies. A prime example of this in the 2000 election was the conventional wisdom that Gore was a serial liar, while Bush was a man of great integrity-a straight-talker.
Taken to the extreme, things that cannot possibly be so have taken the place of fundamental truths. A prime example of this is the so-called "war on terror"-something that makes absolutely no sense, if you stop and think about it.
Verbal formulations are used that are inherently nonsensical and cannot be used rationally-at least in the existing total environment. "Supporting the troops" is a prime example of this.
I'm going to discuss all three in diaries today, beginning with the first point on the flip.
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