Good intentions
Barry Smith of the Freedom Newspapers
writes in the Burlington Times-News todayabout the General Assembly's commission to study increasing the compulsory attendance age from 16 to 18. He makes the same points I do elsewhere -- that not only does the compulsion overrun individual freedom of families and students, it will keep the least interested and most disruptive students in the classroom an additional two years --, and he sums them up neatly:
There are a lot of good ideas in almost every aspect of life. Just because something is a good idea doesn’t mean we should make people do it.HT: Carolina Journal
In Conference
My wife and I will be
blogging and
speaking at the 23rd annual
North Carolinians for Home Education Conference in Winston-Salem the next few days. The "NCHE ConferBlog" is located
here.
This Week in the Education Committee
Looking over the calendar for Tuesday's committee meeting, I see an interesting litany of issues lining up for attention:
Raising the cap on charter schools (
HB30) -
Do it. Yesterday.UPDATE 12:55 5/22/07 -- The Locke Foundation's Becki Gray reports that Republican Tom Tillis and the committee respond: Not yesterday, and not 2007 either. As we used to say in the military, "Request denied; please resubmit in triplicate for final denial."
Amending the health ed curriculum to tell grades 9-12 how to legally abandon a baby (
H485) -
O tempora! O mores! If the alternative is infanticide, and if unwed teenaged mothers are those most likely to do this, it makes sense to be sure they know the rules that were meant to prevent babies dying in dumpsters. Prohibiting corporal punishment in schools. (
H853) -
If the practice is not producing results in the schools now, I wonder if its repeal will have any measurable effect. I can't foresee any improvement
in student discipline and performance, but I don't know if the lack of whatever corporal punishment now exists will Repealing free UNC tuition to graduates of the N.C. School of Science and Mathmatics (
H1269) -
It's a great perk for students who successfully complete a very challenging academic program. My wife, who graduated in the first class of NCSSM, started college with a full year of credit as an incoming student. On the other hand, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs are much, much more widespread than when we were in high school and NCSSM was Governor James Hunt's new brainchild. The University of North Carolina is already one of the most highly subsidized public universities in the nation. Why should the taxpayers continue paying even more, particularly since these students have already
received two years of free room and board in a college-like campus environment, for an illusory benefit -- as if North Carolina schools and businesses are unable to attract or keep talented young students or employees.Raise the compulsory attendance age to 17 and implement a "task force for 100 percent graduation by eighteen" (
H1790) -
Almost guaranteed passage in some form, I would say, yet a gesture and nothing more. If a student has given up on the educational process by the age of sixteen, will chaining him to his desk for another year make up for the failures of the previous decade? I doubt it, but it will cost state and local taxpayers another six thousand dollars or so per student and retain the least committed (or "most indifferent"?) students as a burden in the system. To me, it makes little economic or educational sense.As for 100% graduation, I have a hard time taking it very seriously so long as the state juggles the results of its own internally normalized testing program. If the internal markings of the yardstick are re-drawn every time the measurement is unsatisfactory, why keep the overall length the same, if a major complaint is that enough students don't reach the end? High school used to end at grade 11, and Governor Easley's "Learn and Earn" program which compressed the last year of high school and the first year of college demonstrates that Grade 12 could probably be eliminated once again. "More of the same" is not a radical improvement.Establishing a right of non-certified school employees to know why they're being disciplined (
H1827) -
At least, without having to ask for it. One wonders if standard practice is to "dismiss, demote, or suspend" uncertified employees without
giving a reason.
Romney Goes South of the Border
Anyone who drives along I-95 should realize I mean south of the line between the two Carolinas, not all the way to Mexico (where his father was born, incidentally). The thought of a presidential candidate visiting Pedro Land near Dillon, SC, is amusing, anyway.
While I was in South Carolina on a business trip, the Republican presidential hopefuls met in Columbia, SC, for a "debate" sponsored by Fox News. As it happened, I did not have time to stop and observe, but one thing was apparent -- Romney's campaign is already planting yard signs along the Interstate exits.
I have to wonder if this was simply in connection with his appearance at the debate, or if this presages another outreach to evangelicals, coming to this very conservative state from his recent visit to Regent University (formerly CBN University, founded by Pat Robertson, and home of the law school formerly hosted by Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma). Certainly this is the group Romney will have to convince if he's going to gain an edge over Giuliani and McCain -- or the undeclared Fred Thompson, for that matter.
What's next? A visit to Bob Jones University? Seems like McCain did that last time and got castigated for his pains. Maybe Romney should head to BJU's more mainstream neighbor, Furman, if that's his strategy -- but then, he couldn't get much more conservative than BJU, and he's got a lot of ground to make up already.
Labels: Election 2008
Lead Her Not Into Temptation
A few weeks ago House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, acting as a representative of the American government, donned the veil of Muslim women to visit the capitols of terrorism-sponsoring nations. This act of meekness and submission sent a clear message to Islamist leaders that America's new leadership, at least, was ready to roll over and cower.
The 82nd Airborne is not amused. Neither is the Constitution, which is a living document, not a mutating one.
Iran is now pulling on the leash that Pelosi handed them.
"In the absence of formal diplomatic relations, we seek to establish a parliamentary relationship with the U.S. Congress and fill the existing gap of contacts between the two nations," [Darioush]Ghanbari, a pro-reform lawmaker, told The Associated Press. ...According to another Iranian lawmaker,
"We are seeking to form this friendship committee to undermine anti-Iran policies of the Bush administration and show our good will and our peace-loving spirits." Correction -- they're not pulling her leash; they're giving her more rope. After all, this should fit right in with the agenda of Pelosi's party, undermining the policies of the Bush administration.
And while there may not be the same Constitutional problems with personal contact between legislative bodies -- in some circumstances -- Pelosi has already shown a willingness to obliterate the line between acceptable and illegal when dealing with countries on the international rogues list.
Democrats as well as Republicans should call for a civil but firm rebuff to this gesture of "friendship", the same as a friend doesn't let a friend drive drunk.
Hmm, another five-point man
I haven't taken a position on the coming race for chairman of the state Republican Party. I've known the current chairman, Linda Daves, since she was vice-chairman to Ferrell Blount and I was an alternate to the Republican National Convention in 2004. Linda, her husband Carson, and I refinished a park bench in Harlem as part of the service project that week; politics do bring people together in unexpected ways.
So last week if someone had asked who I was supporting, the pleasant Mrs. Daves or the forbidding Mr. Kindsley from Greensboro, I probably would have said Linda.
But maybe that could change. This week's meeting of the Johnston County Republican Party included a short presentation from Marcus Kindsley, the chairman of the Guilford County GOP. I found he wasn't nearly as overpowering a presence as his campaign photographs suggest. If anything, he was pretty soft-spoken and genial.
What made me open the ballot again was his proposal to take the party's local and elected officials to a hotel retreat and hammer out a five point statement "that an eighth grader could understand", outlining the party's "Contract with North Carolina".
"When 42% of the voters in North Carolina think Jim Black is a Republican, as one survey said, we've got a serious problem getting our message out," Kindsley said. Indeed.
Besides the obvious fact that I like a succinct program statement, Kindsley's on to something. The need to agree on a focused conservative message was
one of the themes at the North Carolina Conservative Leadership Conference last month, and getting it out to the voters was paramount. I think most of the "movement" conservatives are saying that Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" that was ratified by the 1994 House elections was the last principled victory of conservative politics. With Gingrich's name simmering on a back burner of the 2008 presidential campaign, the memories are being refreshed, and with similar recurring comments and exhortations at the most recent conservative gathering in the state, Kindsley may be catching an early wave.
Participatory Democracy
Not many purple fingers in Smithfield today. Tuesday saw the authorization of over $100 million in bond issues with the approval of less than 4% of Johnston County voters. It just happens that was 80% or so of those who showed up with an opinion.
County commissioners said this can be funded without increasing property taxes. We'll see, but either way only 4650 voters earned the right to complain later if it doesn't work out.
The other 95% of the electorate ought to reflect that they just allowed the county to borrow $1338 apiece in their name.
Also posted at The Locker Room
More on S.C.'s Governor
I've added a few paragraphs to
the original post on remarks by S.C. Governor Mark Sanford this weekend. Just so you'll know.
Labels: CLC
Walter Jones on Election
The headline is not a typo.
Occasionally you hear a speaker who is passionate, articulate, principled, and unfortunately, wrong. I had to conclude this listening to Congressman Walter Jones, the representative who drew headlines for, of all things, the name "
Freedom Fries" suggested as a protest against French intransigence against our efforts to curb Mesopotamian terrorists, then "surprised friend and foe alike" by his strong swing to the left in opposition to the Iraq war.
Give him full credit -- I do -- for standing on principle even against his own party and president. It is no small thing for a Republican who has generally been an old fashioned social conservative, at least in my hearing, to take a position with the Murthas and Pelosis of the House, and against the Marines and airmen who live in and deploy from his
3rd Congressional District.
Jesus said to the church at Laodicea, "
I could wish that you were cold or hot"; maybe more to the point, Martin Luther wrote that Christians may "Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly".[1] I think this is where Jones is standing.
One of the most striking comments he made was his answer to an advisor who cautioned him to consider the consequences of an unpopular stand. Jones said, "
I told him there is only one election that I care about, and that is my election into Heaven, that I see my Lord and Savior on the throne, and He tell me, 'Welcome into My Kingdom, because you wanted my people to know the truth ...' "[2]
Jones received polite applause but his position on the war was not popular with the audience, even though he steered clear of it in his remarks. After dinner that evening, a conference participant who saw my media badge came up and asked, "Did you see the people who walked out on Walter Jones this afternoon?" I told him no, from my position on the far side of the room I hadn't seen them. "About eight of us walked out on him. When he left the room afterwards we turned our backs on him." He said that several of them were former military and some had sons still deployed in the war, and challenged Jones to take a break from visiting wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital and go see the rescue and cleanup workers dying from exposure to toxic dust and materials at the site of Ground Zero.
Jones may be in for some serious trouble in the earthly election next year. A Republican leader who attended the 3rd District convention recently told me that while Jones was their headline speaker at the meeting, he received only the same light applause that greated him in Raleigh last week. His declared challenger, on the other hand, had the room in his hands and drew an enthusiastic response from the delegates there. Whether the voters will respond the same way remains to be seen, but the activists were clearly with the challenger that day.
-------
[1]
I realize this is a controversial statement of Luther's, as well. For a fuller discussion of the context and meaning of it, see James Swan's defense of the Reformer's purpose for saying it. Swan says, "Luther was prone to strong hyperbole," and continues,
[The] comparison Luther makes between “sinning boldly” and believing and rejoicing in Christ “even more boldly” comes clear. When assaulted by the fear and doubt of Christ’s love because of previous sins or the remnants of sin in one’s life, one is thrust back into the arms of Christ “on whose shoulders, and not on mine, lie all my sins…”. Rather than promoting a license to sin by saying “sin boldly,” Luther’s point is to simply compare the sinner to the perfect savior. Left in our sins we will face nothing but death and damnation. By Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the world, we stand clothed in His righteousness, the recipients of His grace, no matter what we have done.
[2]
Jones is a former Southern Baptist who converted to Roman Catholicism. For a minute there I thought he might be a fellow Calvinist.
