TRUST AND THE RATIONAL ANIMAL: Rational animal's magical plan!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2018

Moral, intellectual limits:
"Bigotry," the columnist said, right in his opening sentence.

He never explained who the bigots were! That said, everyone knows who the bigots are:

The bigots are The Others, of course.

This very morning, atop the fold on page A1, that columnist's newspaper offered a startling news report—a report about a magical plan which has failed.

The craziness of the magical plan is occasionally matched by the oddness of the reporting. In light of this newspaper's endless bomb-throwing, the report betrays the moral and intellectual squalor of a "human" tribe which has failed.

The report concerns a magical plan concocted by Mayor de Blasio. It was one of his several magical plans concerning New York's public schools.

Within the past year, we've discussed the absurdity of the mayor's various "desegregation" plans. Like "bigotry" and its many first cousins, "desegregation" is a talismanic term the tribe which reads the New York Times very much likes to toss around.

The magical plan in today's news report wasn't a "desegregation" plan. In hard copy, these headlines sit atop Eliza Shapiro's front-page report:
New York Kept Children in Schools Likely to Fail
A $773 Million Rescue Program That Has Achieved Little
The top line in that headline makes no particular sense. People at this self-impressed newspaper care so little about low-income kids that, even after all these years, they remain unaware of such facts.

Judged by normal national standards, almost all of New York's public schools are in fact "likely to fail." That said, Mayor de Blasio conjured a plan, and Shapiro's report starts like this:
SHAPIRO (10/26/18): Mayor Bill de Blasio promised to “shake the foundations of New York City education” in 2014 with a new program called Renewal, a signature effort to improve the city’s 94 poorest-performing schools by showering them with millions of dollars in social services and teacher training.

A year later, aides raised a confidential alarm: About a third of those schools were likely to fail. The schools were not meeting goals that the city set for higher test scores, increased graduation rates and other academic measures—and probably never would, staff members in the Department of Education warned in an internal memo prepared for the mayor.

“In order for these schools to reach their targets for 2017, the interventions would need to produce truly exceptional improvements,” read the December 2015 memo, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. “Historically, it has been quite rare for schools to improve that much in two years.”

Mr. de Blasio kept most of the schools open. Now, after sending thousands of children into classrooms that staff members suspected were doomed from the start, the administration appears ready to give up on Renewal. Its cost: $773 million by the end of this school year.
We're sorry to be the ones to tell you. but so it typically goes with the "education plans" of our self-impressed, name-calling tribe.

No, really—good God! As of 2014, after five decades of such under-cooked efforts, who could possibly have thought that this alleged "plan" would "succeed" in the manner predicted? Who could have thought that New York City's "poorest-performing schools" would magically produce high test scores if you simply "shower[ed] them with millions of dollars in social services and teacher training?"

Who in the world could have thought that? Should we possibly drop our R- and B-bombs on de Blasio, who had apparently paid so little attention to the lives of low-income kids that he could have dreamed such a thing?

Should Kristof call him a bigot too? Should we call Kristof a bigot?

Full disclosure:

We were alerted to Shapiro's report by future anthropologists huddled in caves—the caves to which they were forced to repair in the aftermath of Mister Trump's War. (We've described this situation before.)

They came to us, as they sometimes do, in one of the startling nocturnal visits which may resemble traditional dreams or invasions by intensely skilled trick-or-treaters. They said today's ludicrous news report betrayed the moral and intellectual failure of the vastly self-impressed "liberal" tribe, the tribe which had always been so sure of its racial greatness in the years during which they helped elect and sustain Mister Trump.

"Be sure you're seated when you read this report," one mournful scholar advised us. And indeed, who could possibly be so daft as to devise a plan of this type, predicting it would “shake the foundations of New York City education?”

Who could be as dumb as that? Who could be so uncaring? Who could be so completely clueless about the actual lives and interests of low-income black and Hispanic kids in our nation's public schools?

Mayor de Blasio is one such critter! Shapiro continues like this:
SHAPIRO (continuing directly): Cheryl Watson-Harris, the top deputy to the schools chancellor, revealed at a meeting with principals last month that the city is poised to end Renewal, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The Times. Eric F. Phillips, a spokesman for Mr. de Blasio, said a final decision had not been made.

It would be a disappointing end to a program that Mr. de Blasio had hoped would be a national model for fixing broken schools and a political rebuke to former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who closed more than 100 schools, sometimes with punitive rhetoric that angered the city’s teachers’ union and parents.
A national model for fixing schools! Who could possibly be that clueless, that uncaring? With a rebuke to Bloomberg to boot!

We won't reproduce this whole report, remarkable though it is. We do want to address one obvious question:

Even if this plan was clueless, why do we call it uncaring? Isn't it fair to assume that de Blasio acted in good faith? Isn't it fair to assume that he had good intentions?

On balance, we're forced to say no. This takes us back to that "bigotry."

Plans of this type have been tried, and have failed, since the mid-1960s. At this late date, a man this clueless must be seen as a man who doesn't much care—a man who hasn't cared enough to have the first freaking clue about the needs and interests of low-income children.

We've urged you to view Gotham's "desegregation" plans in much the same light. These plans makes no apparent sense, except to the extent that they let our tribe deploy our favorite bombs.

Last evening, the future scholars implored us to understand human limitations.

We simply aren't the "rational animals" we enjoy pretending to be, these scholars thoughtfully told us. When we describe ourselves that way, we may be "seeing ourselves from afar," they said. But that doesn't make us evil.

In the end, we strongly agree. But you must understand the way our conduct makes us look to Others.

The Others see us as perpetually posturing moral frauds. We'd say they have a strong point.

We like to call The Others names. We like to pretend that We're engaged in high moral activities in the area of race, such as the "desegregation" of a sprawling school system which is 15% percent white.

This posturing is silly and stupid and morally empty. That said, the New York Times has been throwing black kids under the bus for a large number of years.

(They do so from parties in the Hamptons. This is one way our tribe works.)

Eliza Shapiro is very young and very new to the Times. She seems to be six years out of college (Columbia 2012). We very much hope that she will improve the Times.

Much of the history which prefigured this nonsense happened before Shapiro was born. Over the summer, she joined a newspaper which likes to posture about matters of race, while producing god-awful education reporting every step of the way.

Today, Shapiro writes respectfully about a remarkable gong show. This gong show helps us liberals see who and what we actually are.

For ourselves, we first encountered magical planning like this in the early 1970s. We were told about the failure of a magical plan by two Baltimore public school teachers who were older and more experienced than we were.

These teachers worked in an elementary school which was part of the federal "Model Cities" program. As part of this well-intentioned experimental program, their school had unusually small class sizes; teaching assistants in every class; and a wealth of classroom supplies. (There may have been other federal infusions.)

Apparently, these infusions weren't working well enough. A representative from the federal program came to the school for a faculty meeting. At this meeting, he told the teachers what they had to do to get their test scores up.

Otherwise, federal funding would be stopped. Or so we were told he said.

These teacher described the comical cheating which followed the bureaucrat's visit. This comical cheating produced comically impossible test scores, whose comical impossibility we eventually described in the Baltimore Sun.

Roughly forty years later, the "mainstream press corps" finally noticed the existence of widespread cheating on standardized testing programs. Needless to say, it wasn't the Times which figured this out. It was USA Today and the Atlanta newspaper.

That early program was well-intentioned, then resorted to fraud. More than forty years later, a gong-show like this could still occur:
SHAPIRO: Mr. de Blasio announced the Renewal plan at an East Harlem school less than a year after he took office. Its goals were ambitious and its methods, by the mayor’s own admission, untested.

“We’re going to do something that, bluntly, has rarely been tried,” the mayor said. He explained how the city would consider closing schools only “as a last resort.”

New York City has never found a universal solution to transform its most troubled schools, but Mr. Bloomberg’s plan to replace large failing high schools with small schools was showing results when it was halted in favor of Renewal...

In interviews, about a dozen researchers who study failing schools—some of whom have publicly criticized Renewal in the past—said the theory behind the program was not based on evidence...
For some reason, we always flash on Wilfred Owen when we read such gruesome accounts. ("Bent double, like old beggars under sacks/Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge...")

Meanwhile, "New York City has never found a universal solution to transform its most troubled schools!" It's hard to say that's wrong!

The Others are bigots, the columnist said. But how odd! All through the columnist's newspaper, the people who posture and preen about race routinely turn out to be Us!

The Others frequently see Us this way. As our society starts to expire, can we say that they're wrong?

Next week: Many loose ends remain, including Rachel's fourth accuser and the New York Times' latest attack on Candidate Hillary Clinton

Tomorrow: The data you never get shown

76 comments:

  1. "In light of this newspaper's endless bomb-throwing, the report betrays the moral and intellectual squalor of a "human" tribe which has failed"

    Somerby continues his attempt to link bombastic language with actual bomb throwing, continues the false equivalence between language and attempted murder.

    Who does this? Not liberals. Conservatives are busy pretending that Cher's criticisms are as lethal as Donald Trump's incitements to his fever-swamp base.

    They've arrested a suspect now and he doesn't appear to be any kind of Democrat. In the meantime we are hearing that Trump now believes the conspiracy theories that this is a false flag operation.

    And Somerby keeps pumping that good old conservative line, while claiming to be liberal.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The suspect has Trump stickers on his trailer and was a known nut.

      Delete
    2. Who could have predicted that?

      Delete
    3. Since the bombs were fake, perhaps this should be considered performance art. Like Banksy shredding that painting.

      Delete
    4. Like Mao Cheng Ji's shitty performance art at The Daily Howler.

      Delete
    5. Thanks for your participation, dembot.

      Delete
    6. Any time shitbag.

      Delete
    7. The best part is the media reaction to the Native American who mailed plastic toys to Democrats will help Republicans on election day.

      Delete
    8. Steve Scalise was shot and almost killed with real Democrat bullets.

      Delete
    9. There is no such thing as "Democrat bullets." Bullets are apolitical inanimate objects with no afiliation. Advocacy of use of bullets is a Republican thing, cosponsored by Russia via the NRA. No Democrat stood on a podium and urged violence against Republicans in general or Scalise in particular, as our President has done.

      Delete
    10. A bullet brushed up against Scalise, and of course he flops around the ground like Vlade Divac.
      Faker. The bullets didn't even kill him.

      Delete
    11. "as our President has done"

      Hallucinate much, dembot?

      Delete
    12. 1:22,
      No kidding. Trump, being a typical lazy white man, hasn't done shit.

      Delete
    13. Technically, Scalise's shooter was a Bernie supporter.

      Delete
    14. DinC is a lying sack of shit. Period.
      False flag? Lying sacks of shit.
      Mao? You are so stupid it hurts.
      Eat shit, you lying sacks of shit.
      You fervently wish is for America to become like North Korea, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Kill Trumps' enemies.
      You lying, racist cocksuckers.
      Eat shit and die.

      Delete
    15. As per usual the Trump supporters lack the nuts to say what they really believe.
      Chicken shit cocksuckers.

      Delete
    16. In regards to Somerby. He has so much invested in his hatred of liberals that attempts to desegregate NYC schools is much, much more important than Trump supporters trying to kill liberals.
      Bob, quit.
      You have become a joke.

      Delete
    17. What would Aristotle (dead for thousands of years) think?

      Delete
    18. Māo “What?” Chéng “What?” 猫城记:: "Since the bombs were fake..."

      Not according to the FBI.

      Delete
    19. Ah, the eff-bee-ay. And have they already indicted a Russian accountant for this one? Lay out the whole narrative, dembot.

      Delete
    20. Did you borrow David's "Osama bin Laden" was framed" T-shirt, Mao?

      Delete
    21. I certainly appreciate the effort, dear dembot, but could you ask your dembot manager for a new script? We've already seen this one a whole bunch of times...

      Delete
    22. The Russians aren't behind Trump's massive giveaways to Establishment Elites. That would be Republicans.

      Delete
    23. Dear butthurt dembot. I certainly understand the terrible pain inflicted on you by a "Conservative" calling you "traitor" 15 (or so) years ago.

      Nevertheless, could you please try to copy/paste your valuable contribution more along the lines of the topic being discussed? Thanks.

      Delete
    24. A Conservative admitting to me that they hate the United States of America doesn't cause me pain.
      But assholes voting for Conservatives does.

      Delete
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      Delete
  2. As someone who worked in business, I am depressed by the stupidity or magical thinking of educational leaders. In business, when a competitor finds an approach that works well, we seek to copy it. We don't care about being pioneers. We just want to sell widgets and make a profit.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. David, you don't know anything at all about education. You need to be depressed about the lack of statistical training of today's actuaries, or something you might know something about.

      The problem with education is that you cannot ethically experiment on children and you cannot control for the complexities of life outside school, so it is very hard to determine what works (and for whom) in a reliable way. Schools are beset by charlatans advocating expensive programs, materials, miracle cures for dyslexia and other problems, new curricula -- people selling widgets that cannot be proven to be useful or not. This is disruptive to education, not helpful. You have no clue whether educational leaders are being stupid or magical or anything else, David, because you have no training or experience worth talking about.

      Please do not respond with some stupid anecdote about yourself or your kids education and how great they are now doing despite changing schools or reading Thomas Sowell.

      Delete
    2. @12:24 I agree with most of your comments. But, what a school CAN do is look at other schools in similar situations and copy an approach that's working well. That's infinitely better than choosing some new approach.

      Delete
    3. I, too, support teachers unions, 12:37.

      Delete
    4. In California, when schools started rating teachers based on student performance, teachers went from being excellent to being substandard, simply by changing jobs and schools. So how do you know when it is the approach that is doing well and not the high SES of students' parents that is responsible.

      Delete
    5. David. What the fuck do you think went wrong with President Chickenshit's schooling?

      How did he turn into such a despicable lying sack of shit depraved fraud? Any recommendations?

      Delete
    6. Bummer that Republicans have to wait 35 years to elect mm's dookie as President.

      Delete
    7. "Trump attended the Kew-Forest School, a private school in Kew Gardens where his father was a board member, through seventh grade. Like many young students, including some who are very bright, he appears to have bridled at the idea of spending time in school.

      “Who could forget him? He was headstrong and determined,” Ann Trees, one of Trump’s teachers at Kew Forest, told the Washington Post. ‘He would sit with his arms folded with this look on his face — I use the word surly — almost daring you to say one thing or another that wouldn’t settle with him.”

      From libn.com, The Education of Donald Trump, by Claude Solnik.

      Then he went to New York Military Academy until graduation [no doubt majoring in bullying]. He was accepted by Fordham then transferred to Wharton. He was not "first in his class" as he has repeatedly claimed.

      This article also says that as a child and young man, Trump repeatedly told people he was of Swedish heritage, not German, as did his father. So he grew up lying.

      Delete
    8. Mao, when someone calls you shit-for-brains, it doesn't mean they have shit on their own brains. Sad that one must explain things like this to you.

      Delete
    9. It sure does, dembot.

      Delete
    10. ‘He would sit with his arms folded with this look on his face — I use the word surly —

      Bwahahaha!!!! He still does that stupid pose with his arms folded. Confirms my suspicions that President Chickenshit the stinking coward tax cheat and fraud hasn't developed emotionally or matured since elementary school. Your hero, Mao and David.

      Delete
    11. Poor dembot. Still not permanently in Canada?

      Delete
    12. "As someone who worked in business,.."

      Were you the crook or the mark?

      Delete
  3. I am having a lot of trouble understanding what is going on in the NY battle over school reform, and Somerby isn't helping.

    It appears the teachers and school administrators are upset with de Blasio because he closed a bunch of schools and was critical of school performance. Now they are happy that his own attempts to reform poor performing schools is not meeting its targets. Somerby seems to be saying that those targets were unrealistic. But he also seems to be critical of de Blasio and others for trying to do something to improve schools. Why would anyone be against that?

    In his years as a teacher, Somerby appears to have acquired the view that ability is innate (or determined by early childhood experiences) and that there is little teachers can do to help kids in elementary school or thereafter, if they come from disadvantaged home environments. But he doesn't want to explicitly state that, so he talks all around the issue, mostly pointing out how NAEP gaps are intransigent and attacking the cheating he considers inevitable whenever good news is reported about schools.

    If someone came right out and stated what Somerby regularly implies, they would be called racist. Perhaps that is why Somerby doesn't like such labels. He may feel queasy about where his own conclusions lead him and want to avoid the label that goes with saying beautiful black kids are hopeless and cannot learn (because they couldn't learn when Somerby taught them).

    I see no harm in De Blasio or anyone else attempting to improve schools, throwing money and resources at "the problem" or doing whatever they can to help kids learn. Surely that is better than doing nothing. Some kids will benefit, others not. I see no benefit to de Blasio fighting with teachers over this. Children lose when the adults in their lives are busy fighting each other. I don't know what role the NY Times is playing at stoking division but it seems unlikely to be helpful to children, who should not be pawns in political games, whether Somerby's or anyone else's.

    If Somerby wants people to know things, and he clearly does or he wouldn't write a blog day in and day out, he needs to state more clearly and explicitly what his point is. I am tired of guessing what he means and very tired of hearing complaints without know what Somerby's vision for kids and liberals is. No more talk about neanderthals and Aristotle. Say what you mean, Somerby.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. 12:19

      “In his years as a teacher, Somerby appears to have acquired the view that ability is innate (or determined by early childhood experiences)…

      Duh. That debate is over, and Somerby would rub your face in it if it would make a difference. It’s a combination of both. Some can overcome their “early childhood experiences,” like living in extreme poverty, but they are not the norm.

      For example, Benjamin Banneker , who kicked Thomas Jeffesron’s ass in terms of human understanding. I learned about him for the first time here.

      Success in a capitalist society is determined by both, but the game is skewed, with idiots like Trump making the ultimate grade.

      In fact, I think it is you that needs to be more explicit about your views on education, and how it might be best to achieve a universal vision for our educational system. Rather than implying that Somerby is racist, you might contribute some actual constructive criticism, and lead the way in this debate.

      Leroy

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    3. Umm, Leroy, the commenter is ... a commenter, not the blogger. The blogger is being asked to lead the debate, rather than lodge his usual brainless complaints and engage in his half-baked reasoning and vitriol. A reasonable request by the commenter, I would say. The blogger has a certain responsibility by virtue of his position and his desire to take on this topic to actually discuss something rather than blame blame blame. He is derelict in his duty.

      Delete
    4. Somerby is a fellow traveler with Trump and the Republicans as far as I am concerned. No one in his right mind can see it any other way.

      Delete
    5. "He is derelict in his duty."

      I disagree on that point. Somerby has a long career of criticizing our educational system, and he makes valid points. In a venue such as this, where most comments seem to be of the back-biting nature, I would nevertheless expect a commenter to add some valid points of their own.

      Leroy

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    6. Most of the comments seem to me have made valid criticisms of Somerby's post. He rejects De Blasio's plan without saying why. He accuses liberals of not caring about education. That is grade school level thinking. Blaming liberals is not a discussion of anything. Saying there should be a discussion of achievement gaps is not having a discussion of achievement gaps. Saying desegregation won't work does not explain why it won't work. You need to realize that Somerby offers no constructive ideas about how to improve schools because he has no ideas. He does not know what he is talking about, and chooses simply to lash out and blame others for trying things that may not work.

      Delete
    7. 813

      The blogger has no responsibilities whatsoever. You're projecting.

      8:53. The plan failed completely and cost a billion dollars. What's not to reject?

      Everyone else: Go fuck yourselves and have a bad weekend. You all suck cocks and are weak.

      Delete
  4. "Like "bigotry" and its many first cousins, "desegregation" is a talismanic term the tribe which reads the New York Times very much likes to toss around."

    Well said, Bob. You know, sometimes you give the impression of almost a real, living&breathing human being...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Today's post wasn't about desegregation, Mao. Please read the article before commenting on it.

      Delete
    2. Nah, Bob is an arrogant scumbag, we were told yesterday by a commenter named "Mao Chang Ji."

      Delete
    3. Dialectics, dembot. The unity of opposites.

      Eh, never mind...

      Delete
    4. Yes it is, dembot. It most certainly is.

      Delete
    5. Hear's a dialectic:

      Thesis, Soviet Union.
      Antithesis, Russian Federation.
      Synthesis, Mao Cheng Ji's brainless trolling.

      Delete
  5. Far be it from me to defend any corporate propaganda organ like the rag that I'm happy to see sometimes referred to as the NYSLIMES. But talking about "failing schools" and "standardized tests" is exactly worthy of that rag. No school can ever be anything but failing as long as students and teachers are subject to standardized testing. They are not in any way standardized interchangeable parts. Education is individual or it is nothing. Robert Hutchins (who still was presiding over a then-still-great university when I began my undergraduate education there) definbed the 'Platonic Ideal" of a university as "Mark Hopkins at one end of a log and a student at the other." If Kennedy and Bush had any respect for the truth when they inflicted "No Child Left Behind" they would have called it "Every Child Left Behind."

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    Replies
    1. Welcome, Shane. I entered U of Chicago in 1960.

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    2. Nothing's wrong with standardized testing per se. Some standards certainly need to be maintained.

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    3. The standards used to decide whether a school is failing or not, whether in NCLB or NY City, are arbitrary. Many children can succeed in a so-called failing school.

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    4. David and Shane, then you will know all about John Dewey who founded The Laboratory school at the University of Chicago and revolutionized American education.

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  6. It's hard to take Somerby seriously on school matters when he makes fatuous statements like this back in August:

    "Since it's obvious that "desegregation" won't be the answer, what will the answer be?

    "In some ways, the answer lies within the home. In some ways, the answer lies within the community.

    In some ways, the answer lies within the schools, and also within the preschools. In some ways, the answer lies within various public agencies. "

    (http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2018/08/los-angeles-story-scolded-for-too-many.html?m=1)

    With insights like that, how could schools fail to improve?

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  7. Perhaps Somerby could do the schoolkids in New York a favor, and his readers while he's at it, by pointing out an urban area where certain ideas have led to an improvement in the school system. Perhaps he could research that instead of wasting his and our time by posting the Noteworthy Facts from page A3.

    It has always been obvious and particularly frustrating to me that Somerby is more interested in the assignment of blame and the documentation of so-called failures than contributing anything constructive to the dialogue about education.

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  8. "we first encountered magical planning like this in the early 1970s. We were told about the failure of a magical plan by two Baltimore public school teachers who were older and more experienced than we were."

    Yeah, and you couldn't wait to get the hell out of there to pursue a comedy career. I'm sure that worked out well for the kids.

    So, by all appearances, Somerby is a liberal who abandoned schoolchildren, and now to atone for that, he blames all liberals for his own abject failures as an educator and his abandonment of the schools.

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    Replies
    1. Somerby complains about teachers cheating, but every teacher knows that if you place impossible demands on a child, with intolerable consequences, they are going to cheat. You are setting them up to do it.

      Delete
  9. I see they arrested a bombing suspect and his van is covered in pro-Trump bumper stickers.
    I hope DavidinCal's "Osama bin Laden was framed!" T-shirt isn't in the dirty laundry.

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  10. I suspect that if De Blasio's plan had worked well, there would have been deafening silence from Somerby.

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  11. De Blasio's plan is described mostly as a failure in the Times article. Somerby seems to agree with that assessment. The idea behind "Renewal" was apparently to avoid closing "poor-performing" schools, and instead try to improve them, which on the face of it seems like a decent idea. Does Somerby believe this is an inherently bad goal? Does he think "poor performing" schools (whatever standard is used to determine that) should be closed rather than given a chance to improve? Is he specifically criticizing some aspects of the Renewal plan, but not its overall intent? And why do the proponents of such a plan merit the charge of "magical thinking" or "bad faith" that Somerby lodges?

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  12. The article specifically says that much of de Blasio's Renewal plan was "untested". Therefore, it presumably isn't identical to other things that have been tried in the past. But, Somerby calls this plan an example of "magical thinking", apparently lumping it in with every other plan that has (ostensibly) failed. By this line of thinking, any plan that didn't "work" is to be labeled a "magical plan", regardless of what specific approach it may take to address the problems. Do these sound like horrible self-serving ideas:

    "Renewal was built on the theory that academic performance would improve if children were given a wide array of social services and teachers were better trained. The city paid for an extension of the school day, professional coaches for teachers and a suite of social supports such as mental health clinics, dentists and food pantries on site."

    If these seem like decent ideas, then perhaps the "failure" needs more analysis, st least from Somerby, who is quick to jump on the gloating blame train.

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  13. "a signature effort to improve the city’s 94 poorest-performing schools by showering them with millions of dollars in social services and teacher training."

    Somerby, the media critic, fails to point out the leading word "showering" here. Why shouldn't the writer just say "providing?"

    It's telling that Somerby used to object to this kind of journalistic word usage, but does not do so when he tends to agree with the conclusion of the author, who here is criticizing a plan designed by a liberal, a hated figure in Somerby's worldview.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I was going to link to a Mozart piano concerto today, but I've decided to honor our friend Mao with Chaikovsky's Serenade for Strings.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2ZU-1EyVOw

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'll do you one better. There's no accounting for taste, after all.

      Dogs

      Leroy

      Delete
  15. President Donald Trump stood in the White House today and said that he hoped for a future black, republican president one day.

    I don’t see a single media headline.


    If you portray The Other as bigots, it's important that comments like this one be ignored.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "The Others" aren't bigots. Republicans* are bigots.
      Try to keep up.

      *Any Republican who isn't a bigot left the party by 1990.

      Delete
    2. It's another of the lies Trump tells. The media shouldn't report lies.

      Delete
  16. Hello Every One Out Here
    I'm from United States North Bergen(US). I read some testimony about Dr. Iyaryi on how he has helped people in bringing back there ex within 48 hours i was just thinking if that was real,And decided to call a lady who made a testimony and also dropped her number,So i called her and ask her about Dr. Iyaryi she said Dr. Iyaryi is a trustworthy man and he his ready to bring back my lover for me,i was just so happy and a little bit relief that my lover will be back to me soon,Then i decided in contacting Dr. Iyaryi which i did,And before i could share him my problem he has already told me what i came for,And he said everything will be okay within 48 hours that my lover will be back to my arms,So he said he would be casting the spell and that within 48 hours my lover would call me,So i hoped so truly before the 48 hours i got a call from a man who has left me for the past 6 years saying he is sorry and he wants me back,i was happy and i said i also want him back,Then i traveled to Canada to meet him up,And he apologized for what he has done to me now he proposed to marry me and we are both preparing for our wedding soon, All thanks to the great and World best spell caster, Dr. Iyaryi His private mail driayaryi2012@hotmail.com Or (driayaryi2012@gmail.com) And also Reach him on WhatsApp Number: +2349057915709 Thanks Dr. IyaryI

    ReplyDelete
  17. Thank you Thank You Very much Doctor Otonokpo for making my ex boyfriend come back to me. I am Cordelia Sandra from Brazil and i am putting this testimony here too because i want to share my testimony of how i was helped by Doctor Otonokpo within 48 hours of contacting him. Yes, it was last week my ex boyfriend returned to me after i contacted Doctor Otonokpo. My boyfriend was always going back to meet his ex girlfriend because he never really left her. Her name was Sophie. I didn't know how it happened one day after breakfast that i saw him looking at his ex girlfriend's picture on Facebook and I flared at him that he doesn't care about him and he was with me and still thinking about his ex although we have been dating for 6 months. He stormed at me and left the house and never returned. I was heartbroken and wanted him to come back. I was in a nightclub with friend one evening that I saw him with Sophie there, I was humiliated that night and I regretted going there only to see him there. I went online after some days and found Doctor Otonokpo and read about him and I contacted him to help me get him back. I must say that within 48 hours, my boyfriend came back to me and pleaded for leaving me. Is this how spell works so fast? Please, if you want help, contact Doctor Otonokpo too to help you at otonokpotemple@gmail.com
    Call/WhatsApp +2348114129781

    ReplyDelete
  18. LOTTO, lottery,jackpot.
    Hello all my viewers, I am very happy for sharing this great testimonies,The best thing that has ever happened in my life is how I win the lottery euro million mega jackpot. I am a Woman who believe that one day I will win the lottery. finally my dreams came through when I email @DrPepokotemple. and tell him I need the lottery numbers. I have spend so much money on ticket just to make sure I win. But I never know that winning was so easy until the day I meant the spell caster online which so many people has talked about that he is very great in casting lottery spell, . so I decide to give it a try.I contacted this great Dr PEPOKO and he did a spell and he gave me the winning lottery numbers. But believe me when the draws were out I was among winners. I win 30,000 million Dollar. @DrPepokotemple truly you are the best,with these great Dr you can win millions of money through lottery.I am so very happy to meet these great man now, I will be forever be grateful to you dr.



    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete