Teaching Shakespeare

April 29, 2015

Shakespeare can be taught.  Students don’t even have to know how to read to become familiar with the sound and cadence of Shakespeare’s language.  Watch this video of Brian Cox teaching a friend’s toddler to recite a portion of the “To be, or not to be…” soliloquy.

Meaning and understanding comes later, but familiarity almost certainly makes that easier.  And to grasp the meaning, it would help if only we had more teachers follow the example of Geoffrey Tennant in the great Canadian TV series, Slings and Arrows, and declare: “So, let’s get rid of the curriculum and I think we should just f*ck around with some texts.”  I’ve experienced many an English teacher drain  all of the joy and depth from Shakespeare by mechanically having the class take turns reading passages while ticking off what students need to know for the AP exam.

Watch Geoffrey motivate an accountant from the plastics firm to do a better reading of Macbeth’s “Tomorrow” soliloquy:

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Posted by Jay P. Greene

School Choice Myths in Perspective

April 28, 2015

The-Caterpillar-alice-in-wonderland-25961684-800-400

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Check out the trippy cover on this month’s OCPA Perspective – and, if you have any extra time when you’re done admiring it, spare a minute to read the cover story, too:

For thirteen years, I’ve been a researcher in the school choice movement, and from day one the most important part of the job has been mythbusting. Ask any other researcher in this field and he’ll say the same. There’s no other issue in American politics where one side has built its case so thoroughly upon untrue factual statements. It seems like no media story on this topic can get by without repeating these myths as facts. It never stops.

Here are a few of the more important myths, drawn from recent debates in Oklahoma…

It’s a shame we still have to spend so much time mythbusting:

There’s so much we still don’t know about education. I’d love it if we researchers could focus our energy on uncovering the facts we don’t yet have. What factors are most important in a high quality teacher? To what extent does a school’s institutional culture make a difference? What policy and social conditions are needed to support more robust creation of new schools? Why do we see some evidence that there may be a tradeoff between good academic outcomes and good moral character outcomes, when we would expect the two to be aligned?

What we still don’t know about education is a big deal. But our bigger problem is what we think we know that isn’t so.

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Posted by Greg Forster

Now I have a Machine Gun Ho Ho Ho

April 27, 2015

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Must read article in the Financial Times The US Shale Revolution (how it changed the world and why nothing will ever be the same again). The Saudi attempt to wring excess supply from the market is not working in America, in large part because it simply has provided a powerful incentive for efficiency.

Oil producers praying for relief from low prices might take heart from the lost jobs and idled rigs in the US. But the American strengths that made the boom — entrepreneurial culture, depth of knowledge in oil and gas, innovation and supportive capital markets — are now being deployed to keep it alive. Recent history suggests it would be rash to bet against them.

“Look how far we’ve come since 2006,” says Russell Rankin of Statoil. “It’s incredible. So for us to think that we’re through with the technology . . . to say that that’s over is kind of idiotic . . . We’ll always come up with a solution.”

Thus far the U.S. rig count is down but production continues to climb as good ole fashioned American ingenuity extracts more oil from fewer drilling sites.  American drillers have been reportedly putting in new supply but not tapping it yet, waiting for a rebound in prices. Oh and then there is this little problem for OPEC:

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Posted by matthewladner

Florida ESA expansion receives unanimous House support

April 26, 2015

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

A bill to expand Florida’s Personal Learning Scholarship Accounts eligibility to children with muscular dystrophy and a wider array of the autism spectrum, and to include 3 and 4-year-old children otherwise eligible for special education services passed the Florida House of Representatives without a dissenting vote last week. The bill’s Senate companion also passed without dissent, and a large increase in the appropriation for the program is in the works, although just how large remains to be agreed upon. That increased funding will be needed given that parents have already begun 10,000 applications for next year, which outnumbers current participants by more than 5 to 1.

So far ESA programs have doubled from 2 to 4, with Mississippi and Tennessee joining the family, and we are waiting on word from Montana. The lawmakers in the states with the pre-existing programs have expanded eligibility in both. Bills in a number of other states remain in play. Delightfully, our experiment in ordered K-12 liberty continues to gain momentum.

Let’s see what happens next.

 

 

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Posted by matthewladner

ASU and EdX take a Step in the Way of the Future

April 23, 2015

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

I may have been a bit more skeptical about ASU’s “New American University” rhetoric than the average bear back during the Goldwater days. I tried to resist poking fun at various foibles. Once. It didn’t suit me. Now however I am going to turn over a new leaf and give them props for doing something interesting. From the New York Times:

Arizona State University, one of the nation’s largest universities, is joining with edX, a nonprofit online venture founded by M.I.T. and Harvard, to offer an online freshman year that will be available worldwide with no admissions process and full university credit.

In the new Global Freshman Academy, each credit will cost $200, but students will not have to pay until they pass the courses, which will be offered on the edX platform as MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses.

“Leave your G.P.A., your SATs, your recommendations at home,” said Anant Agarwal, the chief executive of edX. “If you have the will to learn, just bring your Internet connection and yourself, and you can get a year of college credit.”

Man it is going to kill me to admit this but:

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Posted by matthewladner

1921 application form for the knuckle-dragging racists who helped bring you Blaine Amendments

April 22, 2015

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

HT: Slate

Gosh if the ends didn’t justify the means, K-12 reactionaries of today might feel uncomfortable making use of discriminatory state constitutional provisions drafted by overtly racist and intolerant groups during a shameful wave of half-witted xenophobia.

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Posted by matthewladner

Tennessee lawmakers pass special needs ESA, East now leads West 3-2.

April 22, 2015

ESA maps

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Despite striking first in passing an account based choice program in Arizona and being joined by legislators in Montana, the East took the lead over the West 3 programs to 2 today as Tennessee lawmakers passed an new special needs ESA. Assuming an expected signature in Tennessee, East will lead West either 3-1 or 3-2 depending upon the decision of the Montana governor. Arizona was seen arguing bitterly with the referee that expanding the same program several times should count, but to no avail. Disgruntled West partisans have pinned their hopes for a 4th quarter comeback on Nevada and Missouri.

Congratulations to Tennessee’s sponsors and legislators and especially to the Beacon Center and a great collaborative effort of state based and national allies. This BOOOOOOOOOOOM is for you!

Who’s brave enough to guess the next state to pass an ESA measure?

Also I’ve lost count on the annual Greg vs. Mathews slaughter-fest on private choice enactments, but two enactments from AZ, one from Nevada thus far, one from Mississippi, one from Arkansas and now one from Tennessee. What am I forgetting? If that is all of them Greg is sitting pretty at six.

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Posted by matthewladner

PBS News Hour on Ohio 3rd Grade Reading Guarantee

April 22, 2015

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Balanced piece on Ohio’s reading policies. Interesting that opponents make complaints about retention happening at all and then about the bar being set too low. The firm but incremental approach advocated by Senator Lehner demonstrates both wisdom and resolve in my view.

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Posted by matthewladner

ESA Update

April 20, 2015

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Arizona lawmakers included children living on reservations. The Florida Senate unanimously passed an expansion of their Personal Learning Scholarship Accounts and the measure has bipartisan support in the Florida House. Also in Florida 10,000 applications for the program have been opened by parents, showing strong demand.

Mississippi lawmakers created the third ESA program, and lo and behold Montana lawmakers passed an ESA bill over the weekend.

Other proposals continue to move through legislative chambers. Our favorite primate may be developing a taste for food other than bananas.

UPDATE: Tennessee Senate passes special needs ESA 27-3, racing towards the finish in the TN House.

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Posted by matthewladner

And the Higgy Goes to… Jonathan Gruber

April 16, 2015

I know that the winner of the William Higinbotham Inhumanitarian Award is supposed to be announced on April 15, but I needed more time to decide among our three excellent (horrible) nominees and filed for an extension.

I thought my nominee, Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis, was a strong candidate because he illustrates how our liberty faces the greater threat of gradual erosion from Petty Little Dictators than from Big Scary Dictators.  Ardis may only be the mayor of a small city, but he still has the power to find some legal pretext to send the police to raid the house of people who mocked him on Twitter.  We can all recognize how a Putin or Khomeini might want to oppress us and so we all (or should be all) make efforts to counter those threats.  But the mayor of a small city in cahoots with the local police and judge can exploit the fact that our extensive legal code makes each one of us a possible criminal to selectively use the force of the government to punish enemies.

Ardis, however, falls short of earning a Higgy because his actions were too transparently self-interested.  The ideal Higgy candidate believes he is shaping the world for the better, but is foiled by hubris, self-delusion, and the extent to which the complexity of the world exceeds the ability of people to impose centralized plans on it.  No one believes Ardis was trying to make the world better.  He was just trying to settle a score.  It’s oppressive but it isn’t Higgy-worthy.

Greg’s nominee, John Maynard Keynes, is also a strong candidate.  Yes, Keynes’ ideas provide justification for reckless state intervention in the economy.  But my previous objection to awarding Keynes with the Higgy still holds.  I don’t think the state needs much justification to intervene.  In fact, the historical norm is heavy state distortion of economic activity.  This was true for centuries (probably millenia) before Keynes came along and is still true today when few even bother to reference Keynes for support.  Keynes may have bad ideas but so does the guy who stands on the corner of the Fayetteville Farmers’ Market who shouts about how Jesus smoked pot and 9/11 was an inside job.  You don’t get the Higgy just for having bad ideas.

Matt’s nominee, Jonathan Gruber, didn’t just have bad ideas, but he helped develop a plan to foist those bad ideas on the country through deception and manipulation.  And he engaged in this central planning because he believed he was doing something good for us.  Let me be clear — I don’t believe Jonathan Gruber is a bad guy.  I know a number of economists who are his friends and they swear that he is a decent, capable economist who was just caught on camera expressing the type of hyperbolic commentary that is fairly common at academic conferences.  That may be true, but there is a kernel of truth even in that hyperbole.  And that truth is not very flattering to Gruber or ObamaCare.  It reveals the type of hubris and delusion of control over events that is a near-perfect model of a Higgy winner.  And Gruber does not have to be a a bad guy to do something that worsens the human condition enough to warrant a Higgy.

I therefore bestow the William Higinbotham Inhumanitarian Award to Jonathan Gruber with all of the dishonors, responsibilities, and lack of privileges that accompany it.

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Posted by Jay P. Greene

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