Labor Day Fun Days
by tdaxp ~ September 4th, 2007
For a Labor Day weekend where we hadn’t planned on anything (or even remembered to plan), our days were pretty full…
tdaxp, Ph.D.
High-minded, fanatically malthusian perspectives
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- Being Lovingly Kind by Letting the House Burn (18)
- > Larry Dunbar: “I’ve always wanted to see someone write a book on Jesus as an analytical genius” After my,...
- Educational Equality: The Civil Rights Struggle of Our Day (2)
- > tdaxp: Negative, unfortunately. The American Civil Rights Era was a lot of storm and thunder that took some political...
- > FredR: Any books you’d recommend about the Civil Rights era?
- Review of “Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China” by Ezra F. Vogel (14)
- > tdaxp: Larry, This is an interesting discussion! Agreed that the Tea Party wanted less democracy. Vogel implies the...
- > Larry Dunbar: “Vogel criticizes the notion that the protestors were primarily interested in democracy as a form of...
- > tdaxp: Hey Larry, A number of good points. Let me quick address them: “As all war is about economic considerations,...
- > Larry Dunbar: “Party and government workers, state enterprise employees, and others with fixed salaries were furious...
- > Larry Dunbar: And of course they were all armed, by organizations such as the NRA that lobbied to keep the forces armed,...
- > Larry Dunbar: “Sun Yatsen was the first President of China and the founder of the KMT.” So, doctor, lawyer;...
- > tdaxp: What’s interesting is that what CKS said he was doing, CCK actually did. Sun Yatsen was the first President...
- > Larry Dunbar: I am thinking Reagan was like me, more of an engineer than a tactician. He understood structure, not...
- > Larry Dunbar: Reagan was a King, not a statesman. He was simply not a tyrant, which people of the USA don’t...
- > Larry Dunbar: A “Cheap Trick” doesn’t work if you’re brain-dead.
- > Larry Dunbar: “Moreover, by early 1981 China had already established working relationships with Y.K. Pao and other Hong...
- > Larry Dunbar: “Two years later, in 1987, Chiang Ching-kuo, on his deathbed, abolished the long-standing martial law...
- > Larry Dunbar: “Deng, who for more than a year had behaved like a stern, truculent soldier lecturing American officials,...
- > Larry Dunbar: “When he was informed of Deng’s proposal, however, Chiang Ching-kuo was defiant: he repeated his...
- How Science Works (31)
- > tdaxp: Richard, You have a good & reasonable concern re: privacy. Certainly there’s a balance to be bad between...
- > Richard: Biggest issue would be privacy. I could have got some bad reports on such a system because in some classes I was...
- > tdaxp: Very true, Michael. Teachers are facing a fork between being professionals [1] and being drones [2]. Both cases...
- > Michael: About half-way through that essay I mentioned in my last comment on the testing thread. Had this quote from an...
- The Low Quality of the US Education System Destroys Jobs (2)
- > tdaxp: The question of evolution v. revolution is an important one — as I understand the problem, there are three...
- > Bruno Behrend: Parents and Employers only think they are stakeholders, but they aren’t. The system is designed to...
- Where Did All the Jobs Go? (3)
- > tdaxp: Bruno, Excellent comment! Thanks for sharing! I agree that the cost of transforming teachers into professionals is...
- > Bruno Behrend: What if we don’t need anywhere near the amount of brick and mortar schools, administrators, or...
- Why Are Teachers So Rich? (7)
- > tdaxp: Hey Cosmic Tinker, Thanks so much for your comment. I agree that it seems unlikely many teachers are making...
- > Cosmic Tinker: The NYT article clearly states, “School teachers don’t earn enough to make the top 1 percent on...
- > tdaxp: Yeah, the legend is a bit confusing.
The New York Times uses top 1% of income, not wealth. From the legend:... - > Tyler: Okay, so I just read the figure caption more closely. It explains that teachers become the 1% primarily through...
- > Tyler: I think one of us may be misinterpreting this figure-chart-table. The way I understand it is that very few (0.9%;...
- > tdaxp: Hey Tyler, Thanks for the awesome comment. There’s far fewer retail sales clerks than teachers in the top 1%,...
- > Tyler: More than 99% of teachers are not rich. In fact, in terms of percentage in the 1%, retail sales clerks are better...
- What Good Tests Look Like, and Why We Don’t Have Them (8)
- > tdaxp: Michael, Interesting article! The benefit of the national exam system is that you can objective measure everyone in...
- > Michael: The anecdote at the beginning of this essay suggests a rough-and-read test for secondary and tertiary schools:...
- > Michael: I would imagine it depends on the skill of the teacher and the concern of the parents. Teachers who don’t...
- > tdaxp: Interest link, thanks! This actually does a good job of showing the difficulty of the discussion — the...
- > Michael: Not directly related to the subject, but with links to other articles on the site that are....
- How Professional Teachers Should Be Evaluated (8)
- > tdaxp: Kim, Thanks for sharing your essay with me! I look forward to reading it. Here’s the paragraph where tdaxp is...
- > Kim Krostue: OK, education primer: US public schools – the crisis that never ends available via my blog. may be...
- > tdaxp: Kim, Awesome! Glad for the press, of course. What will be the publication outlet for your paper. I can’t...
- > Kim Krostue: will attempt to read in the next few days. you are now a reference in my paper: US public schools: the crisis...
- > Kim Krostue: I will attempt to read over the next few days. You are now added as a reference in my 9000 word paper. thanks...
- > tdaxp: Hey Kim, Thanks for linking to the op-ed! I look forward to reading more of what you have to say! I think I broadly...
- > Kim Krostue: Have spent the last 6 months studying us public schools. here is letter to editor published last week....
- What is the best biography of Deng Xiaoping? (8)
- > tdaxp: Spehro, Great minds think a like! I am reading Vogel’s work now!
- > Spehro Pefhany: There is a definitive biography now (C) 2011:- Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra F....
- The Encirclement of a United Front (8)
- > tdaxp: Kim, thanks. I can’t wait to read your thoughts!
- > Kim Krostue: Many of the points you make show up in my paper.
- The Political Economy of Education Reform (6)
- > tdaxp: Kim, You’re absolutely correct that parents should be on the list. I think we’re on the same...
- > Kim Krostue: I would add to parents as stakeholders taxpayers. Not all taxpayers are parents but taxpayers have a vested...
- They Want Money (9)
- > tdaxp: Hey Stephen, Excellent comment! I agree with your first point — my verbiage was ambiguous and inartful. I...
- > Stephen Pampinella: Two main critiques. “middle and high class parents fear that it will be their child who does not...
- Global Guerrillaism or Idiocy? (17)
- Review of “The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger,” by Marc Levinson (4)
- > tdaxp: Interesting! No, I hadn’t heard of Aerotropolis – thanks for the rec! Right now I’m working my...
- > Michael: Have you read Aerotropolis yet? It covers similar conceptual territory only the agent of change studied is the...
- > tdaxp: Fascinating! All I know about the A&P is from Jim Collins [1,2], so it’s great that it’s getting...
- > Eddie: A great review! Levinson’s most recent contribution is also well-worth readers’ time. Its flawed only...
- The Lobotomy of Low Wages (6)
- > tdaxp: Jack, Great comment! I would imagine you are right. In my experience pre-service high-school teachers tend to be...
- > Jack Brown: How much of the lower pay for teachers is due to the number of people getting education degrees? I have a...
- Steve Jobs: Teachers Unions Cripple American Education (15)