Daily Archives: January 19, 2021

Most conservatives have settled on school choice as the solution to most, if not all, of todays education problems. It makes sense. In most of the country, public schools have a monopoly on K-12 education and therefore have little incentive to deliver quality instruction to students. They will receive funding whether or not students actually learn anything. In states with teachers unions, schools are even less accountableto the point that teachers can refuse to work for all kinds of flimsy pretexts.

While school choice would definitely help break up the public school monopoly and power of teachers unionswhich is why unions absolutely revile school choice advocates like Betsy DeVosthis alone would not immediately reform education. As fellow public school teacher Ryan Hooper notes in a recent column, content-based instruction and building character are also pressing issues, if not more pressing: if the Right wants to keep winning and improving education in the future, it must need to shift its focus from school choice exclusively to other areas primarily content and character.

On one level, Hooper is right. What most upsets parents about public school right now is mediocre teaching based on bad pedagogy along with leftist indoctrination that results in young adults who are unprepared for life after school and lack any capacity to think for themselves. Instituting school vouchers and allowing money to follow students will not mean much if charter and private schools end up offering more of the same thing.

Moreover, if choice alone is the one thing pushed by conservatives, and if by some miracle it happens, it is entirely possible to have charter and private schools that do little besides functioning as glorified test prep centers where uncertified teachers do drill-and-kill from 8 to 4 every day. Without any care for how instruction works or cultivating well-rounded adults, this is what school can become, as seen in many lower performing charter schools.

On a deeper level though, Hoopers argument doesnt go far enough, nor does it acknowledge the barriers that exist. To begin, changing to an emphasis on content would require a complete reversal of the reigning pedagogical theory (best represented by Common Core) that stresses skills over content. This means taking on nearly every entity involved in creating curriculum and instructional materials.

It also means explaining what is meant by content-centered learning. As Hooper suggests, it has to do with materials that will provide students with strongbackground knowledge. As opposed to curriculum that isolates skills and often bypasses lower-order thinking (memorization and literal comprehension) in favor of higher-order thinking (evaluation and analysis), content-centered curriculum works on building up a base of knowledge and puts more emphasis on lower-order thinking.

Wherever it has been tried, content-centered curriculum has proven more effective since, as I explain in another essay, higher-order thinking requires lower-order thinking. Evaluation and analysis become possible when the mind sufficiently grasps the basic details of a classic text that lends itself to deeper probing. Hence, even on tests designed to assess skills, students with a deeper background knowledge that comes from a content-centered curriculum will usually do better.

Even so, no one should discount the pushback of entrenched educrats and specialists who resist any change. Additionally, one must know that merely discussing content could threaten the leftist narratives that have emerged with more engaging, diverse, skills-based curricula. Facts would start mattering much more in subjects like science and history, English teachers would have to consider readopting the rejected Western canon, and math teachers would have to start asking students to do math without a calculator.

Concerning character training, Hooper and others need to clarify what they mean by this. Is this instituting a culture of excellence and charity that fosters virtue in students? Or is it just implementing therapy sessions on emotional wellness and building relationships?

If its the latterand his link to the Positivity Project suggest that it ismany public schools already include such things, and it doesnt improve matters much. In the wake of recent school shootings, many districts now include periodic advisory sessions meant to promote watchfulness and inclusivity while offering strategies to curb depression and suicidal and homicidal behavior. Students will usually watch videos, have discussions, and fill out surveys to prove they have participated in the lesson.

Despite the good intentions, these character lessons do little to build character (which means much more than positive thinking), nor does anyone really take them seriously. Teaching character and kindness in isolation is like teaching most subjects in isolationit is rarely applied in real situations and is quickly forgotten.

It would be better to define character building in terms of actual virtue, not self-esteem. This is effected by rigor (academic, moral, and physical) and personal discipline. When so many schools adopt policies that water down instruction and enable cheating, they also produce thin-skinned, dishonest students who never develop a work ethic. (This has been made all the worse with virtual learning.)

By contrast, full accountability and challenging work forces students to develop study habits, deal with failure, and take real ownership of their learning. In her book The Smartest Kids in the World, Amanda Ripley notes how the rigor in Finnish classrooms is worlds apart from that of most American classrooms and how this difference accounts for the Finnish system being the best in the world despite receiving far less funding.

As with attempting to change the focus of curriculum, pushing rigor would meet the same resistance from the same people. They would counter that pushing a culture of excellence and achievement would hurt student self-esteem, make classes less engaging, and strain teachers, who would endure much pushback from parents whose children have never earned any grade but A. True, what currently prevails disenfranchises students and may actually contribute to student depression, but the alternative is frankly unfathomable to most educators.

So, to amend what Hoopers argument somewhat, true reform will require an enactment of all three issues in the proper sequence: first, allow school choice, then use this opportunity to introduce a different educational model that employs content-based curriculum and builds character through rigor. As it stands, there are aspects of this in the top prep schools, but systematic change at the state and district levels could make such campuses mainstream.

Without school choice, conversations about content and character tend to go nowhere. Decades of mediocrity demonstrate that without the freedom and incentive to reform, there will be no reform. That said, Americans (of all political backgrounds) who have an interest in improving education through school choice should follow Hoopers lead and start considering exactly how to define improvement. Its not just about taking down education cartels, but about lifting up todays youth and making their dreams possible.

Read the rest here:

Why School Choice Isn't Enough To Really Improve American Education - The Federalist

Joe Bidens inauguration is a sad day for those of us on the right, and its not just because either through actual votes or through deliberate election confusion we lost the Senate and presidency. Its because so many of us are deeply aware of what Democrat reign means.

It means the acceleration of mass murder and forcing taxpayers to pay for it. It means, as my boss Ben Domenech puts it, nuns are back on the menu. It means, as Ive pointed out, the increase of public schools destroying childrens innocence and facilitating minors access to drugs that enable HIV-positive sex. It means an entrenchment of the institutional racism of critical race theory in every institution possible, also pushed by taxpayer funds.

It means Democrats rig more structures of American life against those who disagree with them, possibly preventing us from ever having a meaningful voice in our own governance again. It means the proliferation of government spending that accelerates our nations likelihood of devastating economic collapse. It means frighteningly labeling half the country domestic terrorists, a label that prepares for stripping more of our rights. All this, in turn, makes us increasingly vulnerable to foreign enemies, propagandists, and demagogues.

This is a weight that is difficult for the perceptive to bear. Those of us who deeply treasure what makes America itself are again staring into the abyss of the genuine possibility that what we love about our country may be truly lost forever, as not just lambasted authors of Flight 93 essays but also highly studied, more tonally measured observers such as Charles Murray think is quite clear from the data.

While these losses do mean the increase of genuine moral evils and therefore deserve to be mourned, all is not lost. Yes, were forced to retreat, but let it be a strategic, orderly, cunning retreat, not a chaotic retreat that breaks into a rout.

There are now numerous strategic advantages and strategies available to the people who love America, if we choose to employ and enlarge them. With them we may begin, if not to save America, at least to enlarge some space for living more closely to Americas founding principles than we inhabit now and to mitigate the evils that are to come.

Those of us who have been paying attention are now highly aware that corporate media and corporate tech are a bicephalic propaganda monster. Weve learned through a 2020 of constant lies, information control, and gaslighting from COVID to Hunter Biden that the quickest way to guess the truth is, as in communist countries, to read what state media are saying and then assume the opposite.

While its frightful that corrupt, pedophile-enabling corporate media control our lives right down to the air we are allowed to breathe and whether we are allowed to honestly support our families, and that the majority of Americans either believe their outright lies or are heavily influenced by them, this knowledge is also highly useful. For it means that Americans are not necessarily supportive of socialism and baby murder and all the other things that Democrats do when in power. It means that our country still includes a lot of well-meaning people who love America but have been deeply deceived enough to turn it over to its worst enemies.

This means Democrats do not have, in any way, shape, or form, a mandate to perpetrate the policies upon which they are about to embark. Their empire is built on a throne of lies. And empires like that are weak and unstable, as Democrats fortification of the capitol and crazy accusations that U.S. soldiers who voted for Trump are traitors also projects.

This weakness means danger, but also opportunity. We must be ready to bind up the wounds and welcome to our ranks those the lefts culture war has devastated. We must do our utmost to dispel the lies that give the left power. Information warfare in education and media contexts, primarily should be a top priority.

Additionally, this means (metaphorical) war against corporate and tech media dominance is highly needed and will be effective. It has plenty of room and need for growth. It also means that citizens need to do more to combat media lies and provide the basic information Americans need and which big media takeovers have entirely hollowed out. Their lies need to not only be exposed, but replaced with truth.

Id start with forming local blogs focused on local information-sharing about basic entities like the school board, city council, election laws and procedures, and district attorney. Its not that hard to go to a meeting and write a 800-word summary of what happened. Get a dozen friends and divide up the job.

Ask DA and county sheriffs candidates their positions on the crazy things Democrats are doing like springing rioters and enabling opioid spread, and publish what they do or dont say. Stop railing on Facebook and start attending public meetings and writing about them on your own local group blog.

As a part of Democrats lack of awareness they lack a mandate other than dont be Trump, they are going to overshoot, big time. They are going to enact many extremist ideas. Even the propaganda media wont be able to entirely hide this from Americans. And there will be backlash.

This will heighten the contradictions between Democrat leadership and many current Democrat base voters who are staying with the party even though its priorities hurt them and the nation. The lack of Trump as an all-purpose leftist scapegoat will assist with this.

As has been widely noted, Trump was able to break through some of the racial stereotypes about what it means to be a Republican or Democrat and earn more nonwhite support. With him in retirement, those of us on the right have the opportunity to continue making his case without being saddled with his baggage.

This is a huge opportunity. Without Trump to use as an excuse for everything, Democrats are going to provide clarity to many more voters that they are actually the totalitarians they project onto the right. They are going to harass nuns, foster parents and agencies, Christian camps, and minorities who disagree with them. They are going to be more obviously the party of the rich and corrupt.

Its a bad look. And it will turn voters away. Again, we need to be ready to welcome these voters even if they are not ideologically pure. Id rather have a wasteful social welfare state that murders fewer babies, supports free speech, and doesnt harass nuns than a corporate welfare state that harasses the poor and religious. If that is the tradeoff we get, Ill take it.

In the wake of the capitol riots that werent perpetrated by Black Lives Matter, big corporations and chambers of commerce have pulled their high-dollar donations from many Republicans and Republican political funds. Good.

For years, elected Republicans offered lip service and placebos to their base voters and did what big corporate donors actually wanted, which hurt their voters and structurally undermined their long-term support, such as through mass illegal immigration. This has rightly fueled the public perception that Republicans care only about money and rich people, rather than an equal playing field for all and the common good. Now without those donations, they have no reason to offend and harm large numbers of voters to suck up to a small number of donors. This will make them more competitive and less corrupt.

Behavior like the below, for example, will erase the financial incentive for Republican officeholders to provide special breaks and bailouts for businesses that pay politicians big money to slant the legal playing field in their favor. Trump has made for a GOP that is far more competitive in the small-dollar online donor space. This will further help low-information voters see that Democrats are the party of the corrupt at the expense of the people, and make the GOP less so.

COVID shutdowns with no end in sight are a violation of our natural, constitutional, and human rights. However, as with a Biden administration coming to power, this evil also will cause damage to those who attempt to wield it against their enemies.

It will mean a quicker downfall of many corrupted institutions, from churches that dont proclaim orthodox theology losing parishioners who will never come back from virtual church to the death of higher education institutions that have been colluding with corrupt politicians to scam gullible young people out of their futures.

Our country is populated by people who fail to the top. But the more of them there are, the more enemies they make and the weaker their rigged systems become. And the more aware their opponents and the people caught in the middle become of their decay.

This will mean more cultural, theological, and philosophical refugees. Ready the lifeboats for them now.

The Trump era has revealed the complete corruption of Americas ruling class to many more people. This stress test gives us an excellent template for what to target for fixing or elimination.

Let every locale where it is possible create the most secure voting systems in the world. Let every locale where it is possible elect and support sheriffs who will not allow a Biden administration to crush Americans Second Amendment rights. Let every Republican governor and member of Congress who has lost corporate support now make a ruthless plan to eliminate corporate favors from the entire legal code over which they have jurisdiction.

Let every single town board and town council put Comcast, Verizon, and all other ISPs and broadband providers on notice that if they do not adhere to First Amendment protections for all customers, these local governments will be finding another business to profit from the public infrastructure in their towns. Let every single legislature controlled by Republicans ban the institutional racism of critical race theory in every single public workplace in their state, including universities and public schools. If every elected Republican will not support this, they should be put on record explaining why not, by citizens and their local news blogs.

If the United States is to live under neo-feudalism, in which our rights are subject to the whim of whoever is in power and shift with every election instead of being protected forever equally for all under the Constitution, then let these neo-feudal lords begin to stake their territorial claims and protect their citizens as best they can, severing the levers the abusers of our rights deploy against us (such as federal funding).

Let sanctuary cities and states no longer be only for California. It will be a good thing for the federal government to have more difficulty forcing its schemes on states and local governments.

All this will only accelerate the migration from blue to red states that is already underway.

The sheer extent of the degradation of Americas founding principles and the citizenry who once had the character to live under them clarifies what is at stake. No longer can we pretend that identity group antidiscrimination rules are compatible with equal protection or the First Amendment. No longer can we pretend that a government that can dole out unfathomable amounts of money can do so without corrupting both those who give and those who receive this false charity.

We now live among the real-world results of implementing leftist ideology, and its not pretty. And no one can really deny it. This is why Democrats take refuge in the culture war, the cult at the core of their secular religion they have nothing left to offer the masses but bread and circuses.

This is pushing people to make significant life changes towards a more meaningful and integrity-filled way of life, and to seek other people to join this journey. It is also pushing the truly awake people and a few of our lawmakers to reach down into the well of first principles to find water in a parched land.This well is an abundant source of life and renewal that many people would not seek if life stayed comfortable.

This is precisely the time for we anti-wokesters to coalesce around principles on which we can all agree. This may be our only hope of survival, in fact. As in the Cold War era, to defeat our common foe we need a broader coalition that is necessarily going to include a lot of people who disagree on a lot of particulars.

To work out our strategies and points of agreement to fight not against each other but against our common foe in the ideology of the totalitarian left, we need to encourage more speech, not less. We need to engage more points of view and be willing to let more people speak, not fewer. We need to not be primarily attacking and tone-policing people of good will who love our country, but primarily facing outward at the barbarians who control the gates and want to destroy our country.

This doesnt mean there are no morals, that people should be relieved of the burden of proving their assertions, or that we should elevate the voices of people who believe things that have been soundly proven to be wrong (such as Holocaust deniers). It means, however, that instead of banning them from the Internet or refusing to allow them to air their ideas, we should listen with empathy and try to understand their points of view. Our primary orientation should be persuasion, conversion, discussion, and openness, not eradication.

Instead of shutting people up because we disagree with their conclusions, we should ask them to prove their assertions and explain what led them to their stances, as James Lindsay and Peter Boghossian recommend in their excellent book.If it works with Ku Klux Klan members and people in divorce counseling, it can help our country too.

As regarding the capitol rioters, the propaganda narrative depicts us and Trump making a cacophonous, beaten-puppy exit. But in fact, as this weeks impeachment vote and more prove, we are highly unified. The outliers are given outsized voices by corporate media to deceive and demoralize us.

We are not like these rioters in any way, including in making an ignominious exit. Yes, were headed for the wilderness circuit that befalls a party out of power, but the truth is, weve been out of power this whole time. Trump was undermined and lied to continuously by every branch of the government he was elected to command. The past four years have made this and many other truths much plainer to see. Seeing clearly makes it possible and necessary for us to act prudently.

Being in the wilderness also has its advantages. They include loyalty not sycophancy, but loyalty of the kind that only arises amid brothers and sisters in arms under constant attack. It teaches us to sacrifice, to become tougher, leaner, smarter, more agile. These are all great assets that may or may not give us a political advantage here in this temporal life, but absolutely make us better fit for eternal life. And the left can never truly command people whose souls are free, no matter how strong they appear to be.

See the original post:

8 Strategies For Exiting The Biden Years Stronger Than The Right Went In - The Federalist

With Old Hollywood sensibilities and contemporary writing, Mank is truly the best of both worlds. David Finchers new Netflix film, following Herman Mank Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) as he writes the screenplay of Citizen Kane is a stunning piece of cinema and a must-watch for anyone who loves old movies.

Along with the sequences of Mank struggling to write the script while combatting his alcoholism, the film contains many flashbacks to his time as a successful writer, his friendships with William Randolph Hearst (the ultimate inspiration for Kane) and Hearsts mistress Marion Davies, and their subsequent fallout surrounding Upton Sinclairs bid for governor of California.

If youre searching for a wholly factual depiction of Mankiewiczs life or the making of Citizen Kane, then you should look elsewhere, and stop believing that biopics will ever be historically accurate. However, what it lacks in accuracy is more than made up for by the films capturing of the feel of classic movies.

Fincher is one of the most talented and engaging directors working today. His meticulous shots and enthralling storytelling draw you in, making what could have been an isolating tale of 1930s political power brokers and their Hollywood connections into a character study of fascinating and relatable individuals.

Every technical aspect of the film is exemplary, with the cinematography, lighting, costume, hair, editing, and score all contributing to the potent atmosphere. I regret not having been able to see the film in a theater, to fully enjoy the visuals. They were gorgeously detailed without becoming overly busy or distracting.

An especially exciting Easter egg was the presence of cue marks, the black dots that briefly appear twice in the top right corner of the screen, to indicate a film reel would soon require switching (now unnecessary due to the switch to digital).

Those who grew up when digital had already replaced film myself included were first introduced to the existence of these cigarette burns in the cult classic that launched a thousand dorm room posters, Fight Club, also directed by Fincher, adding to the meta excitement as well as the period accuracy.

To clarify the timelines, due to the nonlinear narrative structure employing many flashbacks, the year is given at each era transition, in the form of a screenplay. While announcements such as time and location can be frustrating and lazy, the framing as part of the script allows the narrative cheat to add to the film.

Yet none of this style is empty spectacle. It serves to augment a compelling story led by interesting characters. The cast is exceptional, with nearly no weak links. They play off each other exceptionally, with the lived-in chemistry of longtime associates. One scene midway through the film sees most of the main characters at a dinner party, laughing, drinking too much, and talking politics, all scored live by a pianist using his instrument to punctuate the conversation.

Watching the scene transported audiences directly into the party, watching jokes, subtextual tensions, and complications in relationships ebb and flow through fabulously witty dialogue and well-realized characters. I could have watched an entire film set just at that party.

The only misstep in the cast was Bill Nye as Upton Sinclair, an uninspired bit of stunt casting gone awry. The childrens entertainer and scientist does not have the acting chops to make anything of the mercifully small role. Sinclairs failed gubernatorial race is a notable subplot, due to Hearst and Louis B. Mayers fears of his socialist past contrasted with Manks sympathies.

Gary Oldman is predictably brilliant as the eponymous writer. He is fun and charming, but the cruelty of his alcoholism always lurks beneath the surface (except when it explodes in a powerful and climactic scene). Charles Dance is likewise charismatic yet dangerous as communications magnate Hearst, upon whom Charles Foster Kane is based.

However, by far the high point in a cast filled with highs was Amanda Seyfried as Hearsts lover, actress Marion Davies, giving the performance of both the film and her career. Seyfried brings depth to the seemingly vapid woman, subtly indicating a complicated woman underneath the flighty, fun surface.When award season eventually arrives, Seyfried ought to be a major contender for the supporting actress statue.

She likewise effortlessly handles the period slang naturally strewn throughout the dialogue, earnestly exclaiming words like Jeepers as if they were staples of her vocabulary. Often in period pieces, actors stumble over an antiquated lexicon, calling undue attention to the outdated words. The entire cast, but Seyfried in particular, breezes through the dialogue with grace.

Far too many movies about making movies become either self-indulgent odes to the importance of Hollywood, such as La La Land and Netflixs miniseries Hollywood. Mank, in contrast, is clearly a love letter to the films, not the industry. Every frame is imbued with a passion for cinema, which is infectious to the audience. In exploring the creation of an exceptional film, Fincher has created one himself.

Paulina Enck is an intern at the Federalist and current student at Georgetown University in the School of Foreign Service. Follow her on Twitter at @itspaulinaenck

Continue reading here:

In Modern Storytelling, 'Mank' Is A Beautiful Blast From The Past - The Federalist