Judge: Test Racially Discriminatory for Requiring Teachers to Know About Liberal Arts
A federal judge on Friday found that an exam for New York teaching candidates was racially discriminatory because it did not measure skills necessary to do the job, the latest step in a court battle over teacher qualifications that has spanned nearly 20 years.
. . . .
According to Friday’s decision, written by Judge Kimba M. Wood of Federal District Court in Manhattan, the pass rate for African-American and Latino candidates was between 54 percent and 75 percent of the pass rate for white candidates. Once it was established that minority applicants were failing at a disproportionately high rate, the burden shifted to education officials to prove that the skills being tested were necessary to do the job; otherwise, the test would be ruled discriminatory.
SIDE NOTE: Those with a long memory will recall that Bill Clinton tried to make Kimba Wood his Attorney General, until it was revealed that she (like Zoe Baird) had hired an illegal.
BACK TO THE MAIN POST: What was the exam’s offense? Requiring teachers to know about liberal arts:
“Instead of beginning with ascertaining the job tasks of New York teachers, the two LAST examinations began with the premise that all New York teachers should be required to demonstrate an understanding of the liberal arts,” Judge Wood wrote.
Joshua Sohn, a partner at the firm Mishcon de Reya, who represents the prospective teachers in the case, echoed the that sentiment.
“They started with the conclusion, without any support, that this is what you actually needed to know to be an effective teacher,” Mr. Sohn said.
Just be glad you don’t have any kids in the New York public schools.
What’s next…A Presidential candidate so stupid, he doesn’t know how many states make up the United States?
Perfectsense (18605b) — 6/6/2015 @ 11:16 pmas if the schools here in #Failifornia are any better…
so glad mine are home school/self-directed
redc1c4 (589173) — 6/6/2015 @ 11:21 pmThis decision hinges on the nature of the “job” that teachers in government schools are required to do. I do not find it remarkable that a “liberal” Judge would find that teaching “liberal arts” is no longer a core element of a unionized government teacher’s daily activities. One could also include arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus as subjects that are not required in government schools. And while you’re at it, throw in physical education based on performing simple tasks (pushups, situps, learning how to run as evidenced by one to three 6-minute miles, pullups, and so on,) and a factual knowledge of world and U. S. history (Greece, Rome, Charles Martel, the Magna Carta, Catholicism and Martin Luther, the Age of Reason, the discovery of the New World, the American Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the westward expansion of the U. S. and the friction between the slave and free states, the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam, spending our way to prosperity, the meaning of “is”, and “what difference, now, does it make?”) None of these things are required by those who aspire to the entitlements that we now bestow so lavishly on those who ask. It is refreshing that a Judge, who has successfully navigated the turgid waters of our Brave New World, has the honesty to tell it like it is.
One might ask what her qualifications are to hold such an important office, but she has pretty much provided all the information we need to answer that question on our own. This is what constitutes transparency in the Obola administration.
bobathome (f50725) — 6/7/2015 @ 12:47 amMy parents were both high school teachers and coaches-neither one could work in todays public school system. The nuns in Catholic school would all be in jail for child abuse. My knuckles still hurt from the brass edge of that ruler. I told my youngest sister she is nuts putting her kids in a public school. Stupid liberal.
mg (31009b) — 6/7/2015 @ 2:34 amHer first qualification, bobathome, is the first name “Kimba”. After that no further explanation is necessary nor needed.
Hoagie (f4eb27) — 6/7/2015 @ 3:05 amKimba Wood was appointed to this post by Ronald Reagan in 1987—and was also Bill Clinton’s second choice for Attorney General in 1993. Interesting character.
But this is apparently consistent with longstanding judicial rulings on the application of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. If there’s a disparate racial impact, the burden falls on the state to demonstrate that the criteria being used are essential to the job. And, while the ability to read a passage and do analysis (the test isn’t one of mere high school-level facts) strikes me as a perfectly reasonable requirement for a schoolteacher, the state simply assumed that this was worth testing without any prior analysis.
James Joyner (6f92ec) — 6/7/2015 @ 4:22 amBlah, blah, blah. That’s why people hate lawyers and nobody respects the judicial system any more. Well, nobody but blah, blah, blah leftists. I would assert that any skills a teacher brings to the table is a plus therefore any they lack a negative. But decisions like this are not to improve education they are to control who is in education, what is taught and the outcome (politically) of those teachings. I would say that if blacks compose 15% of the population there should be no more than 15% of teachers who are black since it would create a mega-desparte racial impact on the white, Hispanic and Asian community.
Wanna see desperate impact? Let’s compute the percentage of local, state and federal employees by race. Lets make a list of successful, solvent, low crime rate cities run by black democrats.
Keep fightin’ that civil war boys, it keeps your trained constituents on your plantation. Your pre 1964 view of black Americans is disgusting, degrading and saddening. The first 20 years of offering crap like desperate impact and affirmative action may have been a hand up. Now it’s just a hand out. But I guess if it keeps’em voting democrat (for the next 200 years predicted LBJ) I guess destroying them, their families, churches, institutions, individualism and culture is worth it.
Hoagie (f4eb27) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:34 amHow much “prior analysis” is, or should be, required for every element of the test? I (and probably the state of New York) assume teachers need to do basic math, but does the school district need to hire an expert to analyze and determine whether basic mathematics are required for teaching 2nd graders?
If the school had to hire experts to analyze every element of the test, I suspect it would get ridiculously expensive quickly.
egd (1ad898) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:41 amAh Hoagie–you might think that “Kimba” sounds like a child’s name bestowed by someone of the African American persuasion. Not so. She’s the daughter of an Army office and was named after a town in South Australia. Momma picked the name from a map. Go figure. She’s a bit of a blonde judicial hottie, having trained, briefly, as Playboy Bunny in London. Fresh out of Harvard law in 1968, she married a partner in a white show law firm in New York City. There’s more than one way to get ahead in a legal career, and if you’ve got the skills, flaunt them. That marriage ended in 1972. She then married a Time magazine reporter; that marriage lasted 15 years or so. Reagan put her on the bench in the mid 80’s. While still married (and a federal judge) she had an affair with another fabulously wealthy New York lawyer (who was also married). This was during the Clinton administration, and she got named as the “other woman” in a celebrity divorce suit. This girl swims upstream (or at least upscale). Divorces final, the two married each other.
But you know this “disparate impact” stuff is catnip to liberal lawyers. I got out of law school in 1968–a year before Ms. Wood. I went to work for one of Southern California’s then biggest law firms–and promptly got asked to do pro bono work on a disparate impact lawsuit brought by the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (“MALDEF”) challenging the use of standardized tests because of “disparate impact”. Forty five years later liberal lawyers are still grinding the same old sausage.
Comanche Voter (1d5c8b) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:50 amOops sorry there. Kimba Wood was “a” Playboy trainee in London; and graduated from Harvard Law in 1969–have to get the dates right.
Comanche Voter (1d5c8b) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:51 am@ James Joyner
“But this is apparently consistent with longstanding judicial rulings on the application of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. If there’s a disparate racial impact, the burden falls on the state to demonstrate that the criteria being used are essential to the job.”
Disparate racial impact … so what you seem to be saying is that a test can be designed so that certain races or ethnicities would do better than other races or ethnicities. For example, if they gave white people a test on popular rappers and their songs, almost every white person would fail that test. Conversely, if you gave a test on classical literature, art, or music, from the renaissance period through to the nineteenth century, most black people would fail that test.
I find it as difficult to believe that testers would ask who wrote Beowolf (joking) as I would to believe they’d ask who sang “Ain’t no Fun.”
These test aren’t asking prospective teachers to relate the esoteric trivia of bygone eras. They’re asking them to prove they’re literate. The test seek to prove that teachers have a substantive vocabulary, a basic understanding of grammar and punctuation, along with the ability to produce argument, dialogue, instruction, and other assorted literary constructions.
When they use the phrase “liberal arts,” they’re merely throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. They—lawyers judges and liars but I repeat myself—enjoy, nay thrill, to witness the collapse of our American educational system. If you’re unable to see the systemic fifth-column sabotage that the lawyers, teachers, and bureaucrats are speedily accomplishing, imagine a storied and majestic house standing for 240 years. A lot would have happened in and around that house. If it were built well—and this house was—it would be as strong and elegant today as it was at its creation. Nevertheless, if termites were introduced and allowed to work their destruction, that house no matter how well built would one day fall. Democrats aka the left, teachers, lawyers, bureaucrats, unions, they’re gnawing away at our house, and their work is almost complete.
Jack (ff1ca8) — 6/7/2015 @ 6:17 amHow else will college affirmative action students get jobs? hbc entrance is made with only 800-900 on SAT’s. These people need jobs too.
Jim (a9b7c7) — 6/7/2015 @ 6:18 amSigh. First of all, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the Republicans’ pride and joy, I thought. Second, this stuff about employers giving proficiency exams to applicants for employment or promotion has been known since the early ’70s. That’s why the paper chase and the college bubble. Colleges are allowed to “discriminate” on the basis of intelligence and competence and, in place of the exam, employers who want to stay out of court look at diplomas and transcripts. And third, this should be an easy matter for the state — the importance of teachers having a broad education in the stuff they’re supposed to teach — to prove. For K-12 teachers, anyway. Except maybe for gym teachers.
BTW, all the maths, biologies, chemistries, and physics were in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in the University I went to.
nk (dbc370) — 6/7/2015 @ 6:25 amPS. And you know this is going to be like the California (and others) gay marriage case, right? Neither Cuomo nor DiBlasio are going to go court and say “The blacks and latinos didn’t flunk because the test is bad; they flunked because they’re stupid and ignorant”. They’re going to throw the case, fart around, and sign a consent decree which satisfies the aggressive panhandler class.
Bottom line, I wouldn’t be too quick to jump on the judge, even if she does have a black person sounding name. I knew a judge with the given name Garland — he was a man.
nk (dbc370) — 6/7/2015 @ 6:35 amAdmittedly I jumped on Kimba’s black-sounding name because I was too lazy to even bother to look up who the idiot is. I didn’t look it up because after doing so 800 times and getting about the same result it seemed pointless. I guess the left throws in a Caucasian with a “cutsie” name every once in a while to keep idiots like me off guard. I still check hyphenated names though. However, I still stand by my complaint about how the left harms black Americans strictly for votes and power.
Well nk, I knew an athlete with the given name Bruce-he too was a man, once. Nowadays one needs look behind the curtain. And check Wiki for names. I’ve been in the hospital since 6/1 for my COPD and I had a nurse Tuesday named: Ladasha. Spelled: La-A. So you tell me how desperate impact is helping!
Hoagie (f4eb27) — 6/7/2015 @ 6:51 amIn the graduation cheering thread, I mentioned how nothing has changed since “The Blackboard Jungel” was written in 1n 1954. At least not as far as poor public students are concerned.
nk (dbc370) — 6/7/2015 @ 7:01 ampublic *school*
nk (dbc370) — 6/7/2015 @ 7:02 amMy ex-wife had a degree in elementary education from USC and, after our divorce, she went into banking and did well. However, in the early 90s she got laid off just as Pete Wilson was adding teachers in a drive form smaller classroom size.
She applied and was long term sub for about 6 months. Those teachers had to take a test called CBEST, which she told me was about 8th grade math and English.
The test is designed to provide information about basic proficiency in reading, mathematics, and writing. The test is divided into three sections; the reading and math sections each contain 50 multiple-choice questions, while the writing section consists of two essay questions. The test must be completed in four hours, but test-takers may use that time to work on any or all of the three sections. Also, there is no limit to the number of times someone may take the test in order to pass, and test-takers do not have to pass all three sections at one sitting, but a $41 registration fee for paper-based testing ($102 for computer-based testing) must be paid each time the test is taken.
There was a lawsuit alleging the test to be racist filed by guess who.
A class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of minority educators who wanted to prohibit the use of CBEST. Plaintiffs claimed that the test had a disproportionate adverse impact on racial minorities, and the State of California failed to properly validate the test.
They lost.
At least in California, teachers have to be able to read. She told me stories about her 6 months as a teacher, 25 years after she had last taught, but that is another story.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 6/7/2015 @ 7:16 am“That which is obvious needs no proof.” This is in line with those idiots on wikipedia who go “The sun rises in the east.{{cn}}” That it is not obvious to Judge Wood is a problem with her, not with the system or the precedents. Nobody makes the EPA prove that breathing smog is bad for you.
The trouble is that the city won’t appeal this ridiculous decision, in fact it probably invited it and colluded in it. De Blasio and Wood probably had a drink afterwards to congratulate themselves on how they managed to scr*w the system some more.
Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/7/2015 @ 7:18 amI am like the other commenters here who are approaching or passed the half century mark. In a sane world I could teach shop (you don’t “gasket match” when removing metal from the small block chevy head; that’s not the restriction) or home ec (how to make zabaglione or yam pla muk) or a history class dealing with dead white males or even dead non-white non-males (if they’re not dead, they’re not history).
Yeah, I’ve heard of Homer, Tacitus, Suetonius, Chaucer, Shakespeare. I’m even conversant in math short of calculus.
What I can’t do is teach your child white privilege or critical race theory. So I’m not qualified to be a teacher.
We should pour more money into this, why?
I look forward to Leviticus chiming in about how Marie Harf’s empty credentials showing she marked a lot of time in this system of asylums amounts to “academic achievement.”
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/7/2015 @ 7:34 amWell, clearly NY’s requirement of demonstrating minimal educational attainment as a necessary prerequisite for a teaching certificate places an undue burden on too many incompetent, ignorant, and congenitally stupid African-American and Latino candidates. Judge Kimba Wood’s ruling will go a long way toward eroding antique assumptions that teachers should know what they’re talking about.
ropelight (c5dbde) — 6/7/2015 @ 7:36 amGet to work chipping and painting. Rust never sleeps, especially in close proximity to salt water. If you’ve been properly educated you won’t have a problem with that. Later we can talk.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/7/2015 @ 7:38 ampublic schools lol
at best the union pig teachers are illiterate babysitters at worst exuberant child molesters
what’s to test
happyfeet (f0b0e8) — 6/7/2015 @ 7:43 amQui potes, fac; non qui docent.
Our schools are trying to literalize that maxim.
kishnevi (adea75) — 6/7/2015 @ 8:03 amI suppose it may be appropriate to observe that no woman passed the initial phase of Army Ranger training. I don’t believe any woman will be going up with the new class on the 21st. No woman has completed or even successfully started the Marine Corps’ Infantry Officer’s Course.
Starting with the standard disclaimers, and the truth, there is no shame in this. I couldn’t have successfully completed this course. I tried when I was younger. I passed the physical screening test for Navy diver but I initially intended to go EOD. When I found out that I was in the wrong designator I got a bit angry and said, screw it, I’ll go SEAL. Then I blew out my shoulders because I just couldn’t improve my swim times. And I was told (I can’t prove this) that if you’re going to be a leader of men you have to out in front. So you have to not just meet the minimums.
Soes I decided that flat feet and bad shoulders and slow swim times wasn’t what America was looking for in a SEAL. And I got on with the rest of my life. As will these young ladies.
Imagine how insulted they will be when the Army drops its standards to pass women who do worse than they did.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/7/2015 @ 8:12 amUltimately, people with sanity have no choice but to vote not so much on election day but with their feet and moving van. I just wish that people like Kimba Wood were required to move to, say, the city of Detroit or Ferguson, Missouri, so they could experience the idiocy of liberalism run amok in Surroundsound and full Technicolor. Or, better yet, they could be picked up by their butts and relocated to Venezuela or a shantytown in Mexico. They deserve no less, they deserve to have the wonderful ideology they coddle and embrace tested on a daily basis.
(BTW, the way the presumably right-leaning forces in the Congress are blowing kisses to Obama over his secretive Asian trade deal makes me wish that various conservative/Republicans were required to move to a sweat factory in China, etc, or to a ailing town in the US hollowed out by decades of “free trade.”)
Mark (a11af2) — 6/7/2015 @ 8:44 amhttp://www.navy.com/careers/special-operations/diver.html#ft-key-responsibilities
I recall having to run in boots and BDU pants. But this was, now, approximately a quarter century ago. Also not all rules were/are written down. I can’t find it written anywhere that while pass/fail may be good enough for EOD/salvage diver, to get into BUD/S as an O you have to be competitive.
Which is why I regularly scared the coatamundis on my daily runs at Rodham and swam miles in the pool until one morning I woke up and my shoulders sounded like a bowl of rice crispies. And I said, “Screw it. It’s Saturday.” And went back to sleep. I was finally cool with it. Here’s what I’m not cool with.
The stink is the Army will change its standards to qualify as a Ranger. And worse, the push to changing the standards is being anonymously sourced to Rangers themselves. As in, the standards are set impossibly high to facilitate “chest puffing” among Rangers. In other words, the LHMFM would want you to believe the standards are unnecessary because it’s just macho bulls***.
No Ranger I ever met would say this. Certainly no SEAL. On the other hand I’ve met reporters who who would say this, after telling me they weren’t above making up anonymous sources and and anonymous quote, to get their way on things. But no Rangers. So I call bulls***,
The training is hard because you just never know. In fact, the one thing you can know is you didn’t train for the situation you now have to deal with. But your training taught you to deal with surprises.
No judge can decide these things. But I fear that’s the pattern. Now, like the women who had the good sense and the honor and the dignity to conclude, nope, I too will be able to be special forces. Once the standards are lowered.
Better, now?
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/7/2015 @ 8:45 amExpecting teachers to have a minimum of eighth grade proficiency in math and reading is too much?
JD (344077) — 6/7/2015 @ 9:00 amMinimum PST SEAL SWCC EOD Diver
Push-ups [in 2 minutes] 50 50 50 50
Sit-ups [in 2 minutes] 50 50 50 50
This I can still do. As long as we’re talking about conventional push-ups.
Then things get harder.
Minimum PST SEAL SWCC EOD Diver
Pull-ups [in 2 minutes] 10 6 6 6
I can do, three. My excuse is I have tennis elbow. It’s not from playing tennis, that’s just what the inflammation of the tendon is called. Also, I’m 52. But I could improve that with a little work and some pain killers.
Now, just lower your standards for running and swimming and I, too, could be a SEAL.
How is this sane?
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/7/2015 @ 9:12 amThere is no room on the right for protectionism. If you think it’s a bad thing that US consumers are not forcibly prevented from buying cheaper goods from those who are willing and able to make them cheaper, or if you think that public policy ought to look after the interests of producers rather than consumers, then go to the Democrat party where you belong. Free trade is the original cause of political liberalism (now known as “conservatism”).
Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/7/2015 @ 9:14 amI not only have a long memory, but I worked with Kimba Wood on one very large case, in which we represented two of many dozen codefendants, before Clinton nominated her. I thought she was a perfectly conventional NYC big firm litigation partner.
(You would mistake my views about conventional NYC big firm litigation departments and their partners if you thought this was an enthusiastic endorsement.)
She’s been on the S.D.N.Y. district court bench a very long time now, though — not bumped to the Second Circuit by her Democratic benefactors. I have no idea how her record has been or how she’s tended in the relatively small number of cases with obvious political & social implications, but I suspect she may be too mild in her liberal politics to have satisfied Team Obama.
Beldar (fa637a) — 6/7/2015 @ 9:19 amChild of the sixties that I am, I have the mental image of a white lion.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/7/2015 @ 9:22 amhttp://www.niceamazingpictures.com/data/media/23/kimba_white_lion.jpg
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/7/2015 @ 9:23 amI’m sure Kimba Wood has never heard any of this.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/7/2015 @ 9:26 amhttp://www.niceamazingpictures.com/data/media/23/kimba_white_lion.jpg
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/7/2015 @ 9:29 amThis accusation that tests are “culturally biased” because whites and Asians score better on them than blacks has been around since the 1970’s. Yet, in forty-some years, no one has yet developed an “unbiased” test where people of all races and sexes perform with equal success rates.
Interesting, that.
Gregory of Yardale (2d66d1) — 6/7/2015 @ 9:37 amDisparate impact laws were reaffirmed by Congress in 1991.
Michael Ejercito (d9a893) — 6/7/2015 @ 9:39 amKimba is a good tranny name
happyfeet (831175) — 6/7/2015 @ 9:47 amBecause the lefties stole our name, just as they steal everything else that isn’t nailed down.
Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/7/2015 @ 9:53 amProving two things: in 27 years they either didn’t work or the Congress could not move forward and were stuck in 1964. And how many times were these idiotic , leftist, condescending laws “reaffirmed” in the 24 years since 1991? Are we still caught in the 1964 time warp of leftist patronage? Why do liberals/leftists believe so strongly that blacks cannot compete? How many decades or perhaps centuries will blacks need to be “protected”? And from exactly who?
Hoagie (f4eb27) — 6/7/2015 @ 10:05 amBingo! happyfeets. Kimba Jenner! It’s the new normal dontcha know?
Hoagie (f4eb27) — 6/7/2015 @ 10:07 amIs the complaint here about the law or about the ruling? Has anyone here seen the test – maybe there is a legitimate reason the State couldn’t prevail.
Anyone else here remember the episode of ‘Good Times’ when the smart kid refused to take an aptitude test? I don’t know that the cultural bias of this test was to the level of the example given on the show, but it is possible.
seeRpea (b2f97d) — 6/7/2015 @ 10:15 amTrue. Too True.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=23&v=NL88V-_QQrQ
It’s your own fault, you know. Letting a silly @$$ (bland) like me handle national defense. What were you thinking?
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/7/2015 @ 10:16 amThere is no room on the right for protectionism.
So, Milhouse, you’re tying yourself into a pretzel in order to rationalize away the secretive, seemingly underhanded way that Obama and his flunkies (including some in the Republican Party) are dealing with a trade pact involving Asian nations? Moreover, after a series of trade deals stretching back a few decades, yep, we really do need more trade agreements. We can never have too many pacts pertaining to international trade. More, more, more! More, more, more! More, more, more!
Meanwhile, such wonderful global trade arrangements don’t even necessarily pertain to the particulars of glorious outcomes like this one:
^ Should I at least be relieved that the trends described above won’t necessarily make the US more and more like Mexico North but instead an India East, etc?
Good times!
Mark (a11af2) — 6/7/2015 @ 10:25 amFormer employees said many immigrants who arrived were younger technicians with limited data skills who did not speak English fluently and had to be instructed in the basics of the work.
Well, at least they made it over here instead of taking my calls for tech support. I often ask these people where they are and some admit that they are in India.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 6/7/2015 @ 10:33 amblank. Not bland. I have what amounts to what I conclude to be be a pretty honest opinion of myself. And I’m a blankety blank. But I don’t consider myself bland.
Although the vanilla milkshakes that are my legs might argue otherwise. They’re the reason I almost didn’t get through AOCS. The Marine DIs told me later why they were laughing at me. Normally when guys fail the obstacle course, it’s because of the obstacles. My problem was the sand. I always look like I’m running slow mo in sand. Add actual sand, I slow down even more. Then I get to the obstacle and zip over it. Back to slow mo.
I could be wrong but I think later, at some poing, my DIs tried to prove it was mathematically impossible for me to be that slow. I eventually powered through and took enough fractions of seconds off the obstacles so I could pass the course. But I could never do anything to improve my ability to run in sand. Or swim. I can swim far, fast, or forever. Pick any two.
Which is why I’m not a SEAL. Which is why I respect the ladies (and men) who aren’t Rangers.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/7/2015 @ 10:37 amI’d appreciate it if everyone blames that on my optical mouse. Because I have no explanation other the the fact I didn’t clue in on he highlight/delete thingy.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/7/2015 @ 10:41 am#43: “Protectionism” …
Pavlov’s dogs. And it’s for the children. Who could possibly care what is in the agreement? The title says it all.
The EU is about to collapse due to the absurdities that they have built into their “trade” agreements. Tourism in Greece is now a refugee resettlement project as muslims fleeing sharia realities storm across sandy white beaches that once hosted foreign vacationers who paid for experience. Ditto Italy and France. And I’ve heard that measures justified by global warming hysteria are important elements in the new “trade agreement”.
The Devil is in the details. All we need now is for the orange man to tell us that we need to pass it to find out what’s in it.
My contempt for Obola is about to expand to include “Republican Leadership”. Hastert may not be the anomaly we might have hoped. Ten years from now look for the expose on Boehner.
bobathome (f50725) — 6/7/2015 @ 11:29 amTen yeaqrs from now? You’re one of those effin’ optimists.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/7/2015 @ 11:34 amI feel so sorry for the black kids who are going to be taught by the wretched impostors-of-teachers that cases like this encourage.
Would Thomas Sowell, or Allen West, or Dr. Ben Carson, have turned out to be they successful men they are, if taught by some dear little Shani’qua who herself had been browbeaten that “education = ‘acting white’ = betrayal of the tribe” ????
How can we break the stranglehold of the Black Grievance Industry, and persuade those poor citizens they pretend to speak for that education isn’t a matter of “acting white”, it’s a matter of “getting the tools to SUCCEED” ???
A_Nonny_Mouse (376d5b) — 6/7/2015 @ 11:47 amKimba Wood was appointed to this post by Ronald Reagan in 1987
I didn’t know John Sununu was advising Reagan.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 6/7/2015 @ 11:47 amShe’s a bit of a blonde judicial hottie, having trained, briefly, as Playboy Bunny in London —and was also Bill Clinton’s second choice for Attorney General in 1993.
FIFY. I guess Hillary chose Janet Reno.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 6/7/2015 @ 11:49 amWell, then, nothing to see here. Asking teachers to know about liberal arts is racially discriminatory, and let’s just all shrug our shoulders and say, hey, seems consistent with the precedents, so what’s the problem?
Take a step back, James, and realize how crazy this is. Your complacency about this outcome seems to reveal too great a comfort with the ridiculous Leviathan that commands this result.
Patterico (3cc0c1) — 6/7/2015 @ 12:37 pmPatterico, then complain about the law not that a judge ruled according to the law.
seeRpea (b2f97d) — 6/7/2015 @ 12:48 pmHow about we complain about both. How about we point out and complain about stupid, wasteful, idiotic laws being written my morons as well as the idiots who “rule” on them instead of pointing out how stupid they are? The monsters who sit on courts of despots and decide verdicts are ruling on “the law”. And each ruling gives the despot more power, more authority and the people less. Idiotic laws carried out by idiotic judges are the same as evil laws carried out by evil judges just not as lethal. They both make the people hate the law.
Hoagie (f4eb27) — 6/7/2015 @ 1:03 pmyou have to remember that the failmerican academy has already rendered “liberal arts” into a haze of crap where you explore diversity and heavy up on writers with luscious luscious boobies as opposed to menfolk unless they’s african-american and or chicano and or homosexual or tranny
happyfeet (831175) — 6/7/2015 @ 1:08 pmas a young pikachu i went to a wee small liberal arts college
when i went there one of its selling points was a mandatory three-semester course in “the heritage of western culture”
it was wonderful just effing wonderful
they got rid of it – i dunno 7 years ago?
they get no monies from me no more, but i’m always polite to the jerk-offs that call me, and sometimes i even tell them why
one of them applauded me for standing up for my beliefs
i had to go get a bottle of wine after that
it’s not the same college no mores, you see
happyfeet (831175) — 6/7/2015 @ 1:22 pmExpecting teachers to have a minimum of eighth grade proficiency in math and reading is too much?
What’s even better, is California’s high school exit exam is also written at an 8th grade level…so all California is asking is that the teachers know at least as much as we expect the kids to know when they graduate high school.
I’ve known people who have taken the CBEST half a dozen times and have still not passed all three parts of the test.
gahrie (12cc0f) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:05 pmthis i do not understand. high school exit exam doesn’t check to see if anything was learned by the student in high school??
seeRpea (b2f97d) — 6/7/2015 @ 7:50 pm#58: It’s an attendance award, and a suitable credential for a career as a barista or tattoo artist.
bobathome (5b5810) — 6/8/2015 @ 2:47 amHuh? How on earth did you derive that from what I wrote? That’s as illogical as DRJ last week imagining that I wrote or implied that “any opposition to gay rights is the same as the Nuremberg laws”. What part of my comment in any way rationalized—or even referred to—the secrecy that seems to surround the fast track bill before Congress? You didn’t attack it for being secretive, you attacked free trade in general, and even Reagan’s “big tent” is not big enough to include protectionism.
Yes, we need to get as close to abolutely free global trade as we can possibly get. For ourselves we shouldn’t need all these pacts, we should just unilaterally repeal all restrictions on trade because it’s the right thing to do; but the more we can get other countries to open themselves up to trade as well it makes the world a better place.
And there’s your protectionist rhetoric right there. You complain about what happened to producers who couldn’t give their customers the best prices, so the customers went elsewhere, and you think public policy should care about them, and force the customers to come back to them. You don’t give a **** about the consumers, and the benefit they get from being able to buy things they couldn’t previously afford, or from having more left over with which to buy more things. But the purpose of an economy is consumption, not production, and there’s no point in producing things more expensive than they need to be. If a producer can’t offer consumers the best deal they can find, then he shouldn’t be in business. That is what The Wealth of Nations and the Anti Corn Law League were about, and that is the core point of the political movement they spawned, which we know today in this country (for stupid historical reasons) as “conservatism”.
Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/8/2015 @ 6:53 amThey were not forced to do anything. They were offered a bonus to do this, and they agreed of their own free will to take it. If they’d offered to match the competition’s price for their labor, they could have kept their jobs as well. But they didn’t want to do that, presumably because they thought they could get a better price elsewhere, so good luck to them with that. You would like to have Disney legally forced to buy its labor from more expensive producers instead of from cheaper ones, again favoring producers over consumers. You don’t care about Disney as a consumer, or about the consumers of its products, who would have to pay higher prices if you had your way, and thus would have a poorer quality of life, just so your favored producers could charge more for their labor. Those policies belong on the far left of the Democratic Party, in Bernie Sanders land, not on the right.
Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/8/2015 @ 7:01 amNo law prevented Wood from recognising that the relevance of these tests to the job’s requirements is obvious, and requires no formal proof.
Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/8/2015 @ 7:34 amYes, there is such a law. The standard is not the court’s discretion but manifest weight of the evidence, and if the burden had shifted it was then incumbent on New York to put that evidence in the record. The judge should not be blamed if, through incompetence or inclination (as I suggested above), the state threw the case.
nk (dbc370) — 6/8/2015 @ 7:46 amSure it does. High school gets them to 8th-grade level. Surely you don’t expect primary school to do that!
Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/8/2015 @ 7:48 am“Manifest weight” can include its sheer obviousness. There is no need to conduct an expensive study and produce an expert report for the court to take judicial notice that the sun rises in the east, or anything else that is similarly widely known and obvious to anyone qualified to be a judge.
Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/8/2015 @ 7:51 amJudicial notice is not unlimited. For “generally known”, the sun rises in the East is pretty solid, but Miller Genuine Draft is a beer is likely the outer limit. The test is not “obvious”, it’s “everybody knows”. No, not everybody knows what it takes to be a teacher.
nk (dbc370) — 6/8/2015 @ 7:55 amYou didn’t attack it for being secretive, you attacked free trade in general, and even Reagan’s “big tent” is not big enough to include protectionism.
Milhouse, I posted the following above. Which part of it to you does not refer to the pending trade bill?
I’ve seen your heart bleed just a bit when it comes to certain socio-cultural issues or controversies, so I find it interesting that, by contrast, when it comes to, for example, Disney employees put into a Hobson’s-Choice bind, you haul out the sentiments of, say, Simon Legree.
Mark (a11af2) — 6/8/2015 @ 7:55 amAnd there’s your protectionist rhetoric right there.
I can judge fully what is behind your comment (ie, how much it’s in sync with the reality you’re comfortable with) if I know your take on the concept of open borders or overly permissive immigration policies.
Mark (a11af2) — 6/8/2015 @ 7:59 amIt’s the 29th Amendment to the Constitution, Mark. The right of the people to destroy their country’s manufacturing base and finance China’s military in order to make Goldman Sachs richer shall not be infringed.
nk (dbc370) — 6/8/2015 @ 8:18 amThe Disney replacement of somewhat overpaid, long-term employees is distressing on a number of levels, but “free trade” isn’t one of them.
1. Employees are delusional if they assume that they can do the same thing for 20 years and continue to receive raises. They are even more delusional if they think that their employer is going to eagerly endow them with a very expensive and speculative pension at some point after that 20 year milestone. The military services go through this exercise, but they handle the problem in a way that is a little more transparent. You either are promoted on a regular basis and are in the top half of your cohort, or you know that the chances of you making it thru 20 years are pretty slim. And they also move everyone around a lot, so the idea of making an extreme change in your life, and your family’s life isn’t so unusual. Unions fill the gap for the delusional private sector employees. The unionized workers get their “security”, but the enterprise that is supposed to endow this rainbow of gold is almost guaranteed to collapse under the burden (e.g., Detroit automobile makers.) And, of course, the military pensioners are paid in both inflated dollars and a debased script that is called the Veterans Administration and its associated “health care” system, so that isn’t an answer either.
2. Given that it is natural for any employer to want to replace expensive “tools” with cheaper ones, one would assume that the replacements would come from the ranks of those looking for work in the employer’s community or our country generally. That this isn’t the case is extremely distressing, and it says a lot about our country and our “educational” system. The problem could be that young workers have unrealistic expectations about the “long term security” offered by their prospective employer, or they have unrealistic expectations about the pay they will receive as journeymen employees, or they are unprepared for the daily regimen that accompanies employment, or they are simply unprepared by their education to be productive in the job they are applying for, or all these issues are at play.
3. The reality that it is cheaper and more reliable to import foreign workers who are marginally functional in English on some kind of visa program is not the problem. It is a symptom.
So milhouse is right that the rest of us benefit from the lower costs of production and (presumably) the lower costs to consumers. But these benefits will be short lived whereas the underlying rot that makes this a desirable activity will be with us for generations. And all those delusional young- and mid-term (prospective) workers will form the legions of the progressive voter base who will continue to have delusional expectations that demagogues will exploit to acquire power. And, as we have seen with Obola, these demagogues will use this power to further amplify expectations and thus grievances which will give them even more ammunition with which to increase their power.
bobathome (5b5810) — 6/8/2015 @ 9:52 amThe concept of open borders and free immigration between countries was taken for granted by our founders, and in the mid-19th century the USA acknowledged it as a fundamental human right. Then we started in with racist crap that it didn’t apply to Chinese, and it’s been downhill from there.
As of 10-Sep-2001 I was an open borders guy, and if you’d told me on that day that Ron Paul would one day make a serious presidential bid and I wouldn’t be supporting him I’d have called you crazy. The events of the next day forced me to modify that opinion, and when Paul did run I didn’t support him. It seems obvious to me that the USA needs to control its borders to prevent bad people from coming in to attack us. But I don’t think it’s legitimate to use that control for any other purpose, and especially not for the purpose of artificially propping up the price of USA labor, and thus of everything made with that labor. There should be no artificial limit on the num ber of visas available to people who can show that they are not criminals, are not carrying any easily communicable diseases, and are not likely to be a burden on the community*; if they prove to be one of the above, they should be deported. But so long as they keep their heads down and support themselves, it’s un-American to exclude them, and violates the promise we made the world when we put up that statue in NY harbor. It also repeats the sin of Sedom, for which it was destroyed.
* I’d have no problem with requiring them to post a bond for a ticket back to where they came from, to be used if they apply for welfare or commit a crime. Refund it when they’ve lived ten years without any problems.
Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/8/2015 @ 11:13 amTest Racially Discriminatory for Requiring Teachers to Know About Liberal Arts WTF?
Liberal arts is a soft science
there are not right or wrong answers
Its all about fairness and how you feel
How can you flunk a test with no wrong answers? and how can that be discrimnatory?
joe (debac0) — 6/8/2015 @ 2:41 pmJust let the NAM’s produce the test and see the NAM’s flunk it too. Much entertainment in watching whom the lefty lawyers are going to sue….
dee (1fcf56) — 6/8/2015 @ 4:29 pmUm, no. There are definitely right and wrong answers. Napoleon was not a) a baker, b) an explosives engineer, or c) a communist pig, but d) an emperor of France. And I think it’s obvious that someone who doesn’t know this isn’t fit to teach children.
Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/8/2015 @ 10:55 pmThough I would also expect a teacher to recognize the origins of options a and c.
Milhouse (a0cc5c) — 6/8/2015 @ 10:56 pmR.I.P. Vincent Bugliosi, the L.A. Deputy District Attorney who prosecuted Charles Manson
Icy (e1288f) — 6/8/2015 @ 11:01 pm