Education

Why does the politically correct environment do their best to stifle free speech when it's not their own?

Could it be that the ultra-left have a most difficult time defending their positions with logic? Therefore, before placing themselves in that awkward position of challenging well-thought-out points of view, they attempt to demonize or outright dismiss opposing points of view.

In a recent controversy that arose over the commencement speaker (Johns Hopkins Hospital Director of  Pediatric Neurosurgery, Dr. Ben Carson) at Emory University in Atlanta, biology professors attempted to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the choice of an individual who was a creationist and went so far as to accuse the individual of saying that evolutionists were unethical. They came to this conclusion because the speaker feels that is very easy to explain the source of morality if one believes in biblical principles.

Political leaders, both black and white, have not been content merely to eliminate the obstacles to black success. They have sought to engineer their future — and just below all of that engineering lies the assumption that black people cannot handle this future without the help of government. It is this condescending "compassion" and enervating assistance, much more than overt hostility, that has sucked the marrow of black communities in America.

Through the curriculum of self-esteem we have made a policy of pretending that any accomplishment, no matter how trivial, is worthy of praise. In doing so we have undermined the value of real success. That same curriculum pretends that failure does not exist except in the most extreme cases.

Like Ilsa and Rick in “Casablanca,” the English Department will always have Paris, even when the rest of the world has moved on. Said here, it is fairly astonishing that committees of businessmen like the committee for the Eisenhower memorial will go every time for the Frank Gehry design: images of things blowing up, sinking and falling down.

But for the rest of us, history turned on that blissful and heroic moment in “Casablanca” when Victor Laszio walked into Rick’s Café Americain — in center of the world in 1943 — faced the darkness head on and demanded that the band play the Marseillaise.

With the economy on a shaky road to recovery, it has become clear that the Great Recession triggered a fundamental change in the way Americans are forced to operate in the globalized economy. Everyone is feeling the strains. The archetype of the “company man” is fast going extinct, schools and other public services are facing record budget cuts, our infrastructure is antiquated and deteriorating every day, and access to global labor markets has created a flat line in wage increases for the poorest Americans.
 
But it’s not all gloom and doom. America has long been the global destination for the planet’s most daring and innovative minds, and globalization has only fueled our ability to tap into the global intellectual fountain. Think of the recent slump as growing pains. With the sheer amount of change in the last generation, it is inevitable that there will need to be an adjustment period where we as a nation reinvent how we operate our economy and start to implement long-term solutions that will ensure a 21st century of unimaginable progress for all Americans.

President Madison once opined that if you educate a man without teaching him morals, you create a menace to society.

With education you give people the tools to have tremendous effects on their environment. If that power is not tempered by morality, the changes that are wrought are not likely to be beneficial.

The Hill’s A.B. Stoddard sits down with John Feehery and Peter Fenn to discuss the fate of the payroll tax cut and the 2012 election.

Last week was a big week for people who care about education reform. National School Choice Week stormed the nation with more than 400 events across all 50 states. More than half the nation’s governors issued proclamations supporting the week. The week shone a light on school choice in all its forms and got people talking about educational options for our children.
 
The good news is that school choice continues to advance across the nation. Only if this progress continues to build will our nation’s future be secure.

Society benefits because a strong marriage produces children who generally become productive members of society. The advantages of a strong marriage and two-parent household are literally limitless, and sadly the disadvantages of divorce and single-parent households are just as limitless.
 
Single-parent households hurt the adults, children and society. The adults must work more hours to recoup lost income. One parent is expected to handle most, if not all, of the parenting. Each adult often feels alone, lost, depressed and confused after losing his or her spouse.

There has been ample debate lately about who is really committed to making our children healthier. The argument goes something like this: If food manufacturers were seriously concerned about children’s health, they would make parents’ jobs easier by getting rid of the cartoonish characters they’ve used since the 1950s to market their products. They would also stop running television advertisements on programs ranging from “Dora” to “American Idol,” stop sponsoring sporting events and children’s charities and neglect to advertise the market-driven nutritional improvements they’ve made to their products.

I'm a big fan of DonorsChoose.org, helping teachers get the job done. A teacher can post a project there, and anyone can help out by giving a few dollars until the project gets funded. A project could be as simple as getting enough pens and paper to last the school year, which is a real problem in many schools. There're a lot of underfunded school districts out there, and it's really unfair for teachers to fund stuff from their own (inadequate) salaries.