Tag Archives: Critical thinking

Let’s Educate Our Own Children

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On Monday, Breitbart posted an article about one aspect of President Biden’s immigration policies that is often overlooked–the education of foreign students to take jobs from Americans.

The article reports:

American college graduates are losing jobs and opportunities in President Joe Biden’s high-migration economy, admits the Washington Post.

“Despite strong labor market, new college graduates struggle to find employment,” says the June 16 article, which continues:

Hiring in professional and business services — which includes jobs in tech, consulting, finance and media that are popular among new grads — has fallen 12 percent, according to federal data … Today’s recent graduates ages 22 to 27 have a higher unemployment rate — 4.7 percent, as of March — than the overall population, according to an analysis by the New York Fed.

The Post article — which was posted a few days before Biden is expected to amnesty another 1 million migrants — offers sympathetic profiles of two young American graduates who remain unemployed — and a profile of an Indian graduate who landed a U.S. job at a banking-related firm in Texas.

The winning foreign graduate is just one of the hundreds of thousands of foreigners who are being imported by Biden and his deputies to take white-collar jobs via little-known work permit programs. In this case, the Indian enrolled in a U.S. university to get up to four years of work permits via the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program:

…Since 2019, roughly 75 percent of all additional jobs have gone to Biden’s flood of roughly 10 million new migrants, including inexperienced OPT contract workers, blue-collar illegal aliens, and legal immigrants. The inflow delivers roughly one migrant for each American birth. The inflated supply of workers ensures lower salaries, less corporate investment in productivity-raising, high-tech workplaces, higher housing costs — and higher stock values on Wall Street.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. We have totally abused today’s students–we have not taught them critical thinking, we have created an attitude of entitlement in them, and we have not taught them the skills they need to achieve the American dream. If students are saying the American dream is dead, it is because our government education system has not given them what they need to access that dream. Putting America first is necessary and must include teaching our children critical thinking and other necessary skills.

This Might Backfire

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On Thursday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about President Biden’s new plan to forgive student loan debt.

This is the headline from the article:

American workers – are YOU happy to pay $1,800 EACH to wipe the student debt of the privileged elite who’ll earn $52,000 a year? Because BRAD POLUMBO reveals that’s your bill for desperate Joe’s naked bribe for votes

The article reports:

‘Congratulations! I erased your student loans. Now will you vote for me?’

That’s what President Biden should have said in an email to more than 800,000 student loan borrowers – because his latest scheme to ‘forgive’ some of their $1.78 trillion in outstanding debts is nothing more than a bribe.

‘Your student loan has been forgiven because of actions my Administration took to make sure you receive the relief you earned and deserve,’ read the White House message sent to in-boxes on Tuesday.

Gee – Democrats are so generous with other people’s money.

What had these lucky few done to ‘earn’ and ‘deserve’ this multi-billion dollar ‘relief?’

Very little.

In a bit of bureaucratic sleight of hand, Biden and his dutiful ministerial assistants transformed an obscure Education Department repayment program into a brand new entitlement program.

The monthly payments of hundreds of thousands of borrowers will be capped at five percent of discretionary income, and if they pay these tiny installments for 10 to 20 years their entire remaining loan will be wiped away.

This move is aimed at college students and graduates ages 18-34. This is a demographic that is not generally supporting President Biden.

However, according to the Census Bureau, only 35 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 29 vote, and 48 percent of people between the ages of 30 and 44 vote. Almost 60 percent of people between the ages of 45 and 64 vote, and 66 percent of people over 65 vote. It is quite possible that those over the ages of 45 learned critical thinking in school–something that is rarely taught now. If the people over 45 realize that they are paying for this student loan forgiveness program, it is very possible that they will turn out to cancel the votes of the younger people benefitting from the program. It is also possible that those in the age group that will benefit will include enough people who didn’t go to college that are angry about paying for someone else’s education that they could not afford for themselves.

At any rate, please follow the link to read the entire article. It will be interesting to see if this actually works or backfires. Meanwhile, we should mention that it is entirely unconstitutional.

One of Many Reasons The Democrats May Be Worried

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The Daily Signal posted an article today titled, “19 Black Americans Explain Why They’re Conservative.” Please follow the link to the article to read the details, I am simply posting the list:

  1. W.B. Allen: Good Sense Needs No Explanation
  2. Brian Bledsoe: Most Fair for All
  3. The Rev. Arnold M. Culbreath: Not Sellouts, but Solutions
  4. Michael E. Kerridge: Reasonable Human Imperative
  5. Liz Matory: From Liberal to Liberated
  6. Lenny McAllister: Advancing Freedom for All
  7. Emery McClendon: Working for Everyone
  8. Charlotte D. McGuire: Against All Odds
  9. The Rev. Dean Nelson: Best for All People
  10. Sophia A. Nelson: Sustained Opportunity
  11. Autry J. Pruitt: Maximum Protection
  12. C.J. Sailor: Essential to Thriving Communities
  13. Carol M. Swain: Hope and Encouragement
  14. A.J. Swinson: Self-Sufficient, Entrepreneurial, Morally Strong
  15. Jimmy Tillman: Christian Values and Critical Thinking
  16. Terris E. Todd: Way of Life
  17. Deana Bass Williams: 3 True North Principles
  18. Dee Dee Bass Wilbon: Founding Principles
  19. Daren Williams: Origins of Conservatism

Please follow the link to read their explanations. They are well thought out and provide a lot of insight as to how all of them came to the conclusions they have come to.

 

 

We Have Lost Critical Thinking (And Civility) In America

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I did an experiment on Facebook yesterday. I posted the following observation:

To all of my liberal California friends who are constantly bashing President Trump. Has it occurred to you that if President Trump had not restricted air travel from Chine at the end of January (despite being called a racist by the Democrats for doing it) if you live near an airport that is a point of entry from China, he might have saved your life.

That is a statement based on comments by the medical experts on the coronavirus task force–it is not an original thought. The response the statement got was unbelievable–there were close to fifty comments, many of which (on both sides) used language that caused me to eventually delete the post.

There really are not two sides of that argument–the statement is based on scientific evidence about the virus and how it spreads. There should be nothing controversial about the statement.

So what did I learn? Critical thinking and civil debate are not doing well in America. By the time the comments thread was half way over, the word racist was used, President Trump was accused of acting like a king, the people who supported President Trump in his handling of the coronavirus were simply ignoring facts, and the people who opposed President Trump were simply stupid and uninformed. The basic fact of the statement was totally ignored in the discussion.  I mention this because it is dangerous for America. I wasn’t around for Pearl Harbor, so I don’t know if America came together at that point. I was around for 9/11, and I remember the leaked Democrat memo that suggested a strategy to undermine President Bush by supporting the war in Iraq and then pulling the rug out from under him. That is not the way to unite America, and may have been the beginning of the political games we see now. Just for the record, The New York Times ran an article in 2014 stating that our soldiers found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but somehow the rest of the media didn’t pick up the story.

My point is very simple. We are facing a crisis in America. Because a country without freedom chose to lie to the world about a new virus, we are challenged by a pandemic. Everyone has been told to stay at home for at least the past week, and some of us are going stir crazy. Insulting each other and bashing the President does not help the situation. Some of the statements made by our political leaders would be considered treasonous in a different time. It’s time to work together and ignore those who are using this crisis for political gain. We need to bring back critical thinking and civility.

Don’t Hold Your Breath Waiting For Consequences

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On October 9, One America News reported the following:

The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has ruled that the FBI previously violated Americans’ privacy rights by conducting unreasonable searches. The FISA Court opinion disclosed Tuesday revealed that the FBI violated constitutional rights and federal law through their warrant-less internet surveillance program.

A 2018 review revealed the bureau used their raw intelligence database in 2017 and 2018 to administer tens of thousands of searches on private U.S. citizens. The searches were conducted on some occasions to screen FBI personnel and sources, involving emails and phone numbers. In one instance, the court stated that an FBI contractor searched his family, staff members and himself on the database.

Federal law requires the database only be used to gather evidence of a crime or foreign intelligence information. According to the ruling, the FBI violated the law authorizing the program as well as the Fourth Amendment, which bars the government from conducting unreasonable searches.

Following the court’s decision, the FBI said it would apply new procedures as to how the database is used in order to better protect personal privacy.

The Foreign Intelligence Service Act has been under scrutiny for some time. Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page has argued the Obama-era FBI may have used its FISA authority unlawfully against him.

Years ago I took a critical thinking course taught by a former NSA employee. At the beginning of the course, he assured us that guidelines that protected Americans from illegal surveillance were being followed. He stated that in his experience anyone who violated those guidelines was escorted out immediately. About a year later, I talked to him and he apologized for misleading the class. He commented that upon further research he found violations tolerated and sometimes encouraged. Unfortunately there were a lot of things that went on during the Obama administration regarding the politicization of government agencies that we are just now beginning to uncover. It is my hope that the people who chose to violate the civil rights of American citizens will be held accountable. If they are not, the abuses of power will continue.

What Really Happened In Raleigh On Friday

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As I have stated in previous articles, I attended the final meeting of the Academic Standards Review Commission (ASRC) in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday. The ASRC was formed to make changes in North Carolina academic standards to improve the education of children in the state. Test scores have gone down under Common Core, and it is becoming obvious that some on the material included in Common Core is not age-appropriate or helpful to students.

Lady Liberty 1885 also attended the meeting. She interviewed Jeannie Metcalf, a member of the Commission, who walked out during the final part of the meeting and did not return.

When Lady Liberty asked Mrs. Metcalf if her leaving was due to what happened to Dr. Scheik during the math recommendations portion of the meeting, she replied:

Yes that is right.
First if all I was embarrassed and ashamed for the way Dr. Scheik was being treated. That group had 6 months to “vet” his recommendations.

Secondly my fears that I’d had from the beginning, that we were set up to fail, were quickly being realized. I was furious and wasn’t going to participate any longer in that sham. And McCroy, Tillis and Berger are entirely to blame. NO ONE on this committee should have had any ties to DPI. (June Atkinson signs the paycheck for 5 of the members and she’s the president of the group that gave us common core.)

Andre was the plant for the chamber and the business community who loves common core, plus his wife works for SAS which handles all the testing in NC.

The committee should have been filled with retired educators, parents, public officials who vocally and publicly opposed common core so that from the getgo we’d have been looking for replacements instead of renaming.

The failing fall on those mentioned above. I would have liked to have replaced the ELA standards with Sandra Stoskys and the math standards with James Milgrams. Quick, easy and we’d have had the highest best standards of any state. What a squandered opportunity. And again, this was the intended result FROM THE BEGINNING.

The children of North Carolina will pay the price for the political gamesmanship involved in selecting this committee. This is not the end of the fight for the education of North Carolina’s children; however, parents and teachers need to speak up to defend our children and grandchildren. We are in danger of raising a group of children who are stressed out by overtesting, mathematics made more confusing than necessary, and English reading assignments that are not only inappropriate for their age group, but contradict the values they are being taught at home.

There Is A Good Alternative To Common Core

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Common Core has come under fire for many reasons. It is an untested academic standards program the involves data mining activities that make the NSA look like amateurs. The program claims it is not curricula, but a close examinations shows that it controls curricula by controlling a test program that has put undue stress on our schoolchildren. There are also a number of child development specialists who have stated that much of the material included in Common Core is inappropriate for the age groups receiving the instruction.

There is a better way to educate our children than Common Core. The North Carolina Education Plan has been developed in North Carolina as an alternative to Common Core. The developers of the North Carolina Education Plan (NCEP) recently met with Classroom Teachers Association of North Carolina President, Judy Kidd and Steve Oreskovic in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The goal of the meeting was to form an alliance to move the NCEP forward in North Carolina. One of the major items on the agenda in moving NCEP forward is to end the Kindergarten Entry Assessment (KEA). This aspect of Common Core forces schools to collect information on children, including photographs and biometric data. It is the first link in the K through work force chain that is envisioned for this and future generations.

These are some of the problems with the KEA: 1) Teachers must evaluate, profile students and being an electronic portfolio on each five year old entering the system. This profile contains clinical areas such as Emotional & Social Development. These areas are not only clinical in nature, but are very subjective. 2) Data collection cannot be secured. Using a “unique identifier” (UID) does not guarantee the child’s name cannot be hacked. If pictures and videos are used to determine performance level, identification of any child is easily obtainable. The data collection goes outside of the schoolhouse and follows the child for five years into the workforce. 3) Where is the data going to be stored? What data will be part of the Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) and Common Education Data Analysis & Reporting System (CEDARS)? Where does the data go? Raleigh, Washington? It is national in scope. 4) Do parents know this data is being collected for the child until adulthood?

There are other issues with Common Core, such as unfunded mandates in the form of Microsoft computer update and software licensing requirements [understandable when you consider that Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft) is one of the major financial backers of Common Core]. Common Core is expensive compared to the NCEP.  Despite its claims, Common Core does not embrace the concept of Critical Thinking in its curricula. It is also untested.

The North Carolina Education Plan has been presented to the North Carolina Academic Standards Review Commission. They are in the process of studying the NCEP and other options as they prepare to make their recommendations to the state. Hopefully North Carolina will be the first state to adopt its own home-grown program for providing a quality education for the students in the state.

Making Sure History Is Not Rewritten

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On Monday, The Blaze reported on a California school district classroom assignment in critical thinking that involved denial of the Holocaust. This is not an exercise in critical thinking–this is brainwashing. The assignment was in line with Common Core standards. Please follow the link above to get the whole story.

I am sure there is an incredible coincidence involved here, but the article at The Blaze reports:

In a statement issued Monday, the school district said Interim Superintendent Mohammad Z. Islam would meet with administrators to make sure references to the Holocaust “not occurring” are taken out of current assignments and not included in future assignments.

Now, for the truth. Yad Vashem is the Holocaust website. It is a website with stories from the survivors of the concentration camps, historical information, a database, and links to other information sites. I strongly suggest browsing there to learn the truth about the Holocaust.

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