Education – Page 38 – artdiamondblog.com

University of Nebraska Foundation Contributes to Racial Discrimination

Some of us believe that the government should not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, or religion. Unfortunately, governments in the past and present have sometimes mandated or practiced discrimination. Examples from the past would include the Jim Crow laws that mandated racial discrimination against Afro-Americans.
A present example would be the mis-named “affirmative action” laws that mandate racial discrimination against whites.
In the article quoted below, note who has taken a stand on which side of this issue.
Is it appropriate for the University of Nebraska Foundation to be donating $25,000 to support the continuation of racial discrimination?
Note also the opposing positions of two 2006 Republican candidates for Senate: David Kramer is leading the drive to continue racial discrimination, while Pete Ricketts is contributing to ending racial discrimination.

(p. 1A) LINCOLN — Leaders of the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative called their anti-affirmative-action push one of the most successful petition drives in recent state history. But it’s not yet known whether their proposed ban will go before voters in November.

“The citizens demand the opportunity to vote on the use of race and gender preferences and discrimination in state hiring, state contracts and state education,” said Marc Schniederjans, treasurer of the group that said it submitted more than 167,000 signatures Thursday.
. . .
David Kramer, spokesman for the opposition group Nebraskans United, said he wasn’t disheartened by the number of petition signatures or over the prospect that petition organizers said they planned to submit more signatures today.
. . .
(p. 2A) Connerly’s American Civil Rights Coalition provided $370,750 of the $467,250 raised by the Nebraska petition group as of June 25. According to state records, the next largest donors were Paul Singer, a New York businessman, $50,000; William Grewcock, a former executive with Peter Kiewit Sons Inc., $25,000; and failed GOP U.S. Senate candidate Pete Ricketts, $25,000.
For Nebraskans United, the largest donations toward that group’s $308,167 war chest have come from Omaha billionaire Warren Buffett, $50,000; philanthropist Richard Holland, $50,000; Dianne Lozier, Lozier corporate counsel, $50,000; Wallace Weitz, president of an Omaha-based mutual fund management company, $50,000; the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce, $36,250; the University of Nebraska Foundation, $25,000; and the Nebraska State Education Association, $25,000.

For the full story, see:

MARTHA STODDARD. “Petitions Turned In; Fight Far from Over.” Omaha World-Herald (Fri., July 4, 2008): 1A-2A.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online title of the article is “Anti-affirmative-action petitions turned in; verifying to begin.”)

Private Athenaeum Libraries Where Members Are “Proprietors”

“TRADITION; Redwood Library and Athenaeum, Newport, R.I., dates back to 1747.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. D1) A GROUP of first-time visitors to the Providence Athenaeum climbed the steep stones steps to the imposing front door. One pried open the door tentatively, peered inside and exclaimed, “Oh, this is what a library is supposed to look like!”
This scene was observed by Alison Maxell, executive director of the athenaeum, who said that time and again, she has seen this same reaction: curiosity followed by wonderment.
. . .
(p. D4) THE New England athenaeums I visited on a recent trip maintain not only active memberships, but also some peculiar terminology. Members are commonly called proprietors; some athenaeums distinguish share-holding proprietors from a second tier of members, called subscribers. At the Portsmouth Athenaeum, the director is called the keeper.
Many athenaeums maintain lists of rules that spell out consequences for offenses like writing in books. Some prohibit pens and provide pencils for notation, as well as cotton gloves for handling aged materials. Large or old books often must be rested on wedge-shaped foam cradles to protect brittle spines.
Surprisingly, the Boston Athenaeum permits dogs — those that behave, a staff member was quick to add.
These athenaeums also provide, in those areas where talking aloud is encouraged, lively opportunities for exchanging ideas with other devotees of literature, arts and sciences.
“In addition to having access to our book stock, members find intellectual stimulation in our exhibitions and by being part of discussion groups,” said Richard Wendorf, director and librarian of the Boston Athenaeum and the editor of “America’s Membership Libraries” (Oak Knoll Press, 2007), which details histories of 16 of the largest membership libraries.

For the full story, see:
ROGER MUMMERT. “Where Greek Ideals Meet New England Charm.” The New York Times (Fri., March 7, 2008): D1 & D4-D5.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

“While roaming through stacks of the Boston Athenaeum, one encounters books from completely different eras, making for random discoveries.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

Which Economic System Protects Us from ‘Natural’ Disasters?

“Jiang Guohua, the Communist Party boss of Mianzhu, knelt Sunday to ask parents of earthquake victims to abandon their protest.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A10) One man shouted, “Was this a natural disaster or a man-made disaster?” In unison, the parents shouted back: “Man-made!”

For the full story, see:
JAMES T. AREDDY. “Reporter’s Notebook; Tears and Anger Flow as Parents Cast Blame in Children’s Deaths.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., May 20, 2008): A10.

(p. A1) DUJIANGYAN, China — Bereaved parents whose children were crushed to death in their classrooms during the earthquake in Sichuan Province have turned mourning ceremonies into protests in recent days, forcing officials to address growing political repercussions over shoddy construction of public schools.
Parents of the estimated 10,000 children who lost their lives in the quake have grown so enraged about collapsed schools that they have overcome their usual caution about confronting Communist Party officials. Many say they are especially upset that some schools for poor students crumbled into rubble even though government offices and more elite schools not far away survived the May 12 quake largely intact.
On Tuesday, an informal gathering of parents at Juyuan Middle School in Dujiangyan to commemorate their children gave way to unbridled fury. One of the fathers in attendance, a quarry worker named Liu Lifu, grabbed the microphone and began calling for justice. His 15-year-old daughter, Liu Li, was killed along with her entire class during a biology lesson.
“We demand that the government severely punish the killers who caused the collapse of the school building,” he shouted. “Please, everyone sign the petition so we can find out the truth.”
The crowd grew more agitated. Some parents said local officials had known for years that the school was unsafe but refused to take action. Others recalled that two hours passed before rescue workers showed up; even then, they stopped working at 10 p.m. on the night of the earthquake and did not resume the search until 9 a.m. the next day.
Although there is no official casualty count, only 13 of the school’s 900 students came out alive, parents said. “The people responsible for this should be brought here and have a bullet put in their head,” said Luo Guanmin, a farmer who was cradling a photo of his 16-year-old daughter, Luo Dan.
Sharp confrontations between protesters and officials began over the weekend in several towns in northern Sichuan. Hundreds of parents whose children died at the Fuxin No. 2 Primary School in the city of Mianzhu staged an impromptu rally on Saturday. They surrounded an official who tried to assure them that their complaints were being taken seriously, screaming and yelling in her face until she fainted.
The next day, the Communist (p. A10) Party’s top official in Mianzhu came out to talk with the parents and to try to stop them from marching to Chengdu, the provincial capital, where they sought to prevail on higher-level authorities to investigate. The local party boss, Jiang Guohua, dropped to his knees and pleaded with them to abandon the protest, but the parents shouted in his face and continued their march.
Later, as the crowd surged into the hundreds, some parents clashed with the police, leaving several bleeding and trembling with emotion.
The protests threaten to undermine the government’s attempts to promote its response to the quake as effective and to highlight heroic rescue efforts by the People’s Liberation Army, which has dispatched 150,000 soldiers to the region. Censors have blocked detailed reporting of the schools controversy by the state-run media, but a photo of Mr. Jiang kneeling before protesters has become a sensation on some Web forums, bringing national attention to the incident.
. . .
. . . all at once the women doubled over in agony, a chorus of 100 mothers wailing over the loss of sons and daughters who, because of China’s population control policy, were their only children. The husbands wept in silence, paralyzed by the storm of emotion.

For the full story, see:
ANDREW JACOBS. “Parents’ Grief Turns to Rage at Chinese Officials.” The New York Times (Weds., May 28, 2008): A1 & A10.
(Note: ellipses added.)

“A memorial service for hundreds of students of Juyuan Middle School in Dujiangyan, where a mother held a picture of her son, turned into an angry protest.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

Prices of Education and Medical Care Increase Dramatically Over Decade

Source of the graphic: online version of the NYT article cited below.

The most interesting part of a recent David Leonhardt column, was not what he wrote, but the graphs that were included with the article, especially the one at the top of this entry. Notice that the price of education and medical care have increased much more dramatically than other categories of consumer spending. (And remember how heavily government is involved in those two sectors, both directly through government run institutions, and indirectly through regulations and subsidies.)

For the full commentary, see:
DAVID LEONHARDT. “ECONOMIC SCENE; Seeing Inflation Only in the Prices That Go Up.” The New York Times (Weds., May 7, 2008): C1 and C11.

Source of the graphic: online version of the NYT article cited above.

The Inefficiency of Zoning Laws

“It may not look like much, but the opening of this casino, for one day only, let its owner keep a crucial zoning designation.” Source of the caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A11) For eight hours on Tuesday, Station Casinos opened a nondescript 40-by-10-foot trailer on a vacant 26-acre plot about six miles east of the Strip with just 16 slot machines. The sole purpose was to comply with a state law that requires public gambling to occur on a property for at least one shift every two years in order for the landowner to retain the valuable zoning designation needed to conduct wagering.
. . .
As of midday, nobody but reporters had turned out for the event, which had been publicized by only a few bloggers on the Internet. The biggest payout on the bank of video poker and blackjack machines was $2.50.
. . .
The opening of the nameless temporary casino, which the local newspaper dubbed Trailer Station, was rich in red tape, including seven permits, approvals from the City Council and the Nevada Gaming Control Board, and a certificate of occupancy.
As required by the city code, the trailer, brought onto the land just for the day, came complete with a portable toilet outside and, to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act, a wheelchair-accessible entrance. A casino floor manager sat at one end of the narrow room ready to pay out winnings should there be any, a security guard patrolled outside, and two city zoning officers visited for 20 minutes to inspect and fill out paperwork.

For the full story, see:
STEVE FRIESS. “If This Happens in Vegas, It Can Sure Stay in Vegas.” The New York Times (Weds., January 9, 2008): A11.
(Note: ellipses added.)
“A floor manager watched over 16 slot machines Tuesday, but there was hardly a rush on them.” Source of the caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

“Frustration Opens the Door to Religiosity”

“Ahmed Muhammad Sayyid, center, praying at a Cairo mosque, has drawn religion closer after many disappointments.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. 1) Here in Egypt and across the Middle East, many young people are being forced to put off marriage, the gateway to independence, sexual activity and societal respect. Stymied by the government’s failure to provide adequate schooling and thwarted by an economy without jobs to match their abilities or aspirations, they are stuck in limbo between youth and adulthood.
“I can’t get a job, I have no money, I can’t get married, what can I say?” Mr. Sayyid said one day after becoming so overwhelmed that he refused to go to work, or to go home, and spent the day hiding at a friend’s apartment.
In their frustration, the young are turning to religion for solace and purpose, pulling their parents and their governments along with them.
. . .
The wave of religious identification has forced governments that are increasingly seen as corrupt or inept to seek their own public redemption through religion.
. . .
(p. 11) Depression and despair tormented dozens of men and women in their 20s interviewed across Egypt, from urban men like Mr. Sayyid to frustrated village residents like Walid Faragallah, who once hoped education would guarantee him social mobility. Their stifled dreams stoke anger toward the government.
“Nobody cares about the people,” Mr. Sayyid said, slapping his hands against the air, echoing sentiment repeated in many interviews with young people across Egypt. “Nobody cares. What is holding me back is the system. Find a general with children and he will have an apartment for each of them. My government is only close to those close to the government.”
. . .
Mr. Sayyid’s path to stalemate began years ago, in school.
Like most Egyptians educated in public schools, his course of study was determined entirely by grades on standardized tests. He was not a serious student, often skipping school, but scored well enough to go on to an academy, something between high school and a university. He was put in a five-year program to study tourism and hotel operations.
His diploma qualified him for little but unemployment. Education experts say that while Egypt has lifted many citizens out of il-(p. 12)literacy, its education system does not prepare young people for work in the modern world. Nor, according to a recent Population Council report issued in Cairo, does its economy provide enough well-paying jobs to allow many young people to afford marriage.
Egypt’s education system was originally devised to produce government workers under a compact with society forged in the heady early days of President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s administration in the late 1950s and ’60s.
Every graduate was guaranteed a government job, and peasant families for the first time were offered the prospect of social mobility through education. Now children of illiterate peasant farmers have degrees in engineering, law or business. The dream of mobility survives, but there are not enough government jobs for the floods of graduates. And many are not qualified for the private sector jobs that do exist, government and business officials said, because of their poor schooling. Business students often never touch a computer, for example.
On average, it takes several years for graduates to find their first job, in part because they would rather remain unemployed than work in a blue-collar factory position. It is considered a blow to family honor for a college graduate to take a blue-collar job, leaving large numbers of young people with nothing to do.
“O.K., he’s a college graduate,” said Muhammad el-Seweedy, who runs a government council that has tried with television commercials to persuade college graduates to take factory jobs and has provided training to help improve their skills. “It’s done. Now forget it. This is a reality.”
But more widespread access to education has raised expectations. “Life was much more bearable for the poor when they did accept their social status,” said Galal Amin, an economist and the author of “Whatever Happened to the Egyptians?” “But it is unimaginable when you have an education, to have this thought accepted. Frustration opens the door to religiosity.”

For the full story, see:
MICHAEL SLACKMAN. “Generation Faithful; Dreams Stifled, Egypt’s Young Turn to Islamic Fervor.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., February 17, 2008): 1 & 11-12.
(Note: ellipses added.)
Source of graphic: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

Blindly Imitating a False Vision of Ancient Sculpture

“Trojan Archer from the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

Ayn Rand’s Howard Roark in The Fountainhead railed against the mindless imitation of the classics, as embodied for instance in the Parthenon. In sculpture there has also been blind imitation of white classical figures, such as one that has recently been installed next to the Arts and Sciences Building on my campus at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
One imagines that Rand and Roark would have been amused by the article quoted below, that shows that the classical sculptures were actually rich in color.

(p. D8) The Venus de Milo: white. The Apollo Belvedere: white. The Barberini Faun: white. The passing centuries may have cast their pall of grime, yet ever since the Renaissance rediscovered antiquity, our Platonic ideal of classical statuary has been bare marble: bleached, bone white.
The Greeks and Romans did not see it that way. The current show “Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity” — through Jan. 20 at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum on Harvard University’s campus — makes a bold attempt to set the record straight. On view are replicas painted in the same mineral and organic pigments used by the ancients: pulverized malachite (green), azurite (blue), arsenic compounds (yellow, orange), cinnabar or “dragon’s blood” (red), as well as charred bone and vine (black). At first glance and quite a while after, the unaccustomed palette strikes most viewers as way over the top. But few would deny that these novelties — archers, goddesses, mythic beasts — look you straight in the eye.
. . .
By the 18th century, practitioners of the then-new science of archaeology were aware that the ancients had used color. But Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the German prefect of antiquities at the Vatican, preferred white. His personal taste was enshrined by fiat as the “classical” standard. And so it remained, unchallenged except by the occasional eccentric until the late 20th century.

For the full story, see:
MATTHEW GUREWITSCH. “CULTURAL CONVERSATION With Vinzenz Brinkman; Setting the Record Straight About Classical Statues’ Hues.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., December 4, 2007): D8.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

For-Profit Schools Teach Math Better than Non-Profit or Government Schools

(p. A23) When for-profit management of public schools was first proposed in Philadelphia six years ago, many in that city were extremely skeptical, if not aggressively hostile. So the Philadelphia School Reform Commission, the entity responsible for the innovation, gave only the 30 lowest performing schools to for-profit companies, while another 16 were given to nonprofit organizations, including two of the city’s major universities (Temple and the University of Pennsylvania). Others were reorganized by the school district itself.
In effect, a competition was run among the three types of management — for-profit, nonprofit, and government-run. Four years into the race, here are the results: Students at schools managed by for-profit firms were roughly six months ahead in math than would be expected had the schools remained in the hands of the school district. In reading, students in schools managed by for-profit firms were two months further along than they would have been if the schools had been under district control, though that difference was not large enough to give us statistical certainty. Meanwhile the nonprofits — and the school district’s own reorganized schools — did no better than expected.
. . .
Though we believe our methodology to be state of the art, our findings will nonetheless be controversial, because they contradict a prior study by the RAND Corp. in February, which found no impact of private management on student performance. The RAND study, however, failed to separate out the schools managed by the for-profit firms from those managed by the nonprofit organizations. In our study, too, management effects are nil when the two are mixed together, as the positive impacts of for-profit firms are canceled out by the negative impacts of nonprofit organizations.

For the full commentary, see:
Paul E. Peterson and Matthew M. Chingos. “Educational Rewards.” Wall Street Journal (Weds., Nov. 7, 2007): A23.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

“I Intend to Be Visible, But Only in Ways I Wish to Be Seen”

The passages below are from a WSJ summary of an October 12, 2007 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education:

(p. A7) After feeling increasingly alienated by college celebrations of black heritage, English Prof. Jerald Walker opted to redefine his role on campus.
. . .
Prof. Walker decided he had had enough during a commencement ceremony for black students. He had misgivings over the concept itself: “After so recently celebrating our country’s staunchest promoter of integration, I was being asked to celebrate segregation.”
Afterward, he made the decision that he would no longer participate in events simply because of the color of his skin. “I intend to be visible,” he says, “but only in ways I wish to be seen.”

For the full summary, see:
“The Informed Reader; Universities; Black Professor Rebels Against Expected Campus Role.” Wall Street Journal (Oct. 13, 2007): A7.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

“The Chronically Apalled Must Not Have the Last Word”

(p. A20) Unfortunately, the deniers of differences between the sexes are on the march with powerful allies. In the fall of 2006, the National Academy of Sciences released a recklessly one-sided study, now widely referred to as authoritative, titled “Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering.” According to the report, differences in cognition between the sexes have no bearing on the dearth of women in academic math, physics and engineering. It is all due to bias. Case closed. The report calls on Congress to hold hearings on gender bias in the sciences and on federal agencies to “move immediately” (emphasis in original) to apply anti-discrimination laws such as Title IX to academic science (but not English) departments. “The time for action is now.”
No it is not. Now is the time for scholars in our universities and in the National Academy of Sciences to defend and support principles of free and objective inquiry. The chronically appalled must not have the last word.

For the full commentary, see:
Christina Hoff Sommers. “Academic Inquisitors.” Wall Street Journal (Tues., Oct. 16, 2007): A.20.

Private Money Supports Quest for Dinosaur DNA

Source of graphic: the online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A1) JORDAN, Mont. — Prospecting in Montana’s badlands, rock ax in hand, paleontologist Jack Horner picks up a piece of the jawbone of a dinosaur. He examines the splinter, then puts it back and moves on. It isn’t the kind of bone he is looking for.

Prof. Horner is searching for something that many scientists believe no longer exists: dinosaur bones that harbor blood cells, protein and, perhaps, even DNA.

"Most people looking for dinosaurs are looking for beautiful skeletons," he says. "We are looking for information."

. . .

Prof. Horner, a curator at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, is among the world’s most influential and offbeat paleontologists. He pioneered studies of dinosaur parent-(p. A12)ing behavior, species variation and bone cells. He is dyslexic, a former Special Forces operative of the Vietnam War era, a MacArthur Foundation "genius" fellow, and a chaired professor of Montana State University who never finished a formal college degree.

"The lenses that people normally use to look at stuff are broken in Jack," says Mary Schweitzer, an assistant professor of paleontology at North Carolina State University, who has worked with him for years. "That’s what makes Jack such a good scientist. Every now and then, every field should get a renegade weirdo in it who challenges assumptions."

. . .

"The chances of finding any [dinosaur] DNA are pretty low," Prof. Horner acknowledges. "I am still hopeful."

In a field mostly outside the mainstream of federal research funding, Prof. Horner has a knack for attracting private grants. Star Wars producer George Lucas, Qualcomm co-founder Klein Gilhousen and Wade Dokken, a developer of Montana real estate, have contributed toward his research, the university says. Nathan Myhrvold, formerly chief technology officer at Microsoft Corp. and co-founder of Intellectual Ventures LLC, is helping to underwrite this season’s fieldwork.

This summer, in Montana’s Hell Creek Formation, Prof. Horner is searching the last landscape inhabited by dinosaurs. More than 65 million years ago, this plain was a wetland where herds of horned Triceratops watered. Today, it is an arid outwash of boulders, cactus and sage. The red and gray soil is littered with white shards of petrified wood that ring like bone china when tapped together and countless crumbs of dinosaur bone.

. . .

"As long as you are not bound by preconceived ideas of what you can find," Prof. Horner says, "there are an awful lot of things you can discover."

For the full story, see:

ROBERT LEE HOTZ. "Dinosaur Hunter Seeks More Than Just Bare Bones; Prof. Horner Searches For Traces of Blood, DNA; Lucky Break From T. Rex." The Wall Street Journal (Fri., August 24, 2007): A1 & A12.

(Note: ellipses added.)

At top, Prof. Horner; at bottom: "Sarah Keenan, 21, an undergraduate at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland who is working this summer for Prof. Horner, covers the fossilized triceratops frill in a protective jacket of plaster." Source of caption and photos: the online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited above.