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Do you agree with distance learning grading policies for secondary education?

If you have children in secondary education, you may have noticed that their grades this quarter may be atypically high. It seems as if public teachers were instructed to give passing grades to any student just for participation. That means if a student was logged as loading a web page or attended one online meeting that they could have just fallen asleep at, they would receive a passing grade for the marking period even if they didn't submit a single assignment or say anything. Although students may not have been aware of a policy like this while the course is running, they are surely aware of it now.

Are you aware of these these grading policies? Is this abhorrent enough to blow the whistle? If we do blow the whistle, what does that mean for public education - would students who were basically gifted a passing grade have to repeat the section of the course? Should we just say we had to do the best in a crappy situation and forget this happened?

Ouroboros42 3 June 18
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"Is this abhorrent enough to blow the whistle?"

"The Six Purposes of Schooling" - John Taylor Gatto
“How can you establish weather someone has successfully developed this automatic reaction, because people have a proclivity when they are given sensible orders to follow? That is not what they want to reach. The only way to measure this is to give stupid orders, and people automatically follow those. Now you have achieved function one.”

“The first function of schooling is adjustive. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. It is fixed habits of reaction. Notice that this precludes critical judgment completely. Notice too that requiring obedience to stupid orders is a much better test of function one than following sensible orders ever could be. You don’t know whether people are reflexibly obedient unless they will march right off the cliff.”

That is needed to get a generation to send their kids to the political brain washing centers. You don't need "communist" re-education camps when you have "communist" education camps.

As to "grades:"

  1. The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.

  2. The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.

  3. The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.

  4. The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.

  5. The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

  6. The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.

@Josf-Kelley Wow...this perhaps belongs on a different post under a different prompt of should public schools exist, etc. I did watch the video (I recommend setting it to 2x the speed) and there may be a hint of truth to the points Gatto refers to. What concerns me is the concept of the "predators" designing the public education system. Although there are systematic flaws such as the ones I like to discuss here about how schools responded to the pandemic, public schools are at least one opportunity for students to learn and grow within a community regardless if they may have been developed by evil people trying to subdue society (e.g. I still see VW Beatles being driven around...).

@Ouroboros42

History is full of lessons. People may or may not learn.

Conceived in Liberty, by Murray Rothbard

"Rhode Island remained one of the most libertarian of the colonies. The Quaker governor John Easton found it impossible, for example, to raise troops in 1691 to join in the war to conquer Canada. The basic cause was inability to impose enough taxation on the colony. The libertarian bent of the colony continued when the non-Quaker Samuel Cranston was elected governor in 1698. A nephew of the former Quaker governor Walter Clarke, Cranston essentially continued Quaker policy. Thus, tax laws were scarcely enforced, and laws in general almost totally ignored in the colony. In 1698 Edward Randolph ranted that “neither judges, juries, nor witnesses were under any obligation.” His explanation for this unusual breadth of liberty and minimization of government in the colony was that “the management of the government (such as it is) was in the hands of Quakers and Anabaptists” who, for one thing, would take no oath. This included a refusal of the Quaker governor, in 1698, to take the required oath to enforce the navigation laws. Neither did Rhode Island impose any government schooling on its citizens. The elected governors of Rhode Island assumed admiralty powers; hence the Quaker governor Walter Clarke refuse to permit the English admiralty judge to function in the province."
Page 468, 469

"As the war with France dragged on, however, Rhode Island began to drift from pacifist and libertarian principles and to tax its resources heavily by contributing men and material. As we shall see in a later volume, Rhode Island, following the lead of Massachusetts, financed the ruinous expeditions against the French by turning to a dangerous and mischievous instrument completely new to the Western world: the creation of paper money. And with the Quakers losing control of the provincial government, the non-Quaker Assembly decided to shift control of the militia to the central government from the towns, where Quaker influence was still strong."
Page 470, 471

"Winthrop moved quickly to enlarge the powers of the governor, only nominal during the liberal days of Fitch. The Assembly granted Winthrop more power to act between legislative sessions, to appoint government officials, and to manage military affairs. Furthermore, in 1699 Connecticut, like Rhode Island three years earlier, split its legislature into two chambers. This bicameral split was a maneuver to increase executive and oligarchic power, for now the governor had his upper House of Assistants were able to veto the popularly elected deputies. Furthermore, the judicial system was converted into an independent oligarchic power; whereas before 1689, judges were elected annually in each county, now county judges remained independently in office on good behavior. In this way, the judges were freed of the checks put on their power by popular elections, and were transformed into a quasi-permanent oligarchic bureaucracy. Or as the reactionary Samuel Willys put it, they were freed from “the arbitrary humors of the people.”
"Finally, to complete the litany of counterrevolutionary statism imposed by the Winthrop regime, a law in 1699 established the Puritan or Congregational church in each town. Every taxpayer was now forced to pay for its maintenance, and new churches could be formed only on permission of the General Court. New public schools were also forced upon the colony."

Peace, Prosperity, no forced "schooling."

War, Subsidized Slavery, forced "schooling."

And then there's paper money.

@Josf-Kelley I started reading Gatto's book "Dumbing Us Down". His idea of a network vs. community is an interesting one. However, doesn't this fall pray to the appeal to nature fallacy? Schools - being an artificial network, are bad b/c they pull kids away from their families and society. Communities - are good because they depend on where you were randomly born. So if a government runs a school it is bad but if a community decides to run a school it is good?

Why is it that the libertarian argument seems to always be "government bad"? Why can't libertarian thought be about why government may not be the best means to the end but we can agree upon the ends?

And yes, I know this is off topic, but this one intrigues me. Saying that robots will steal our jobs is just a cop out - @Chizoid - you may want to give Russell's "Human Compatible" a read.

@Ouroboros42

"So if a government runs a school it is bad but if a community decides to run a school it is good?"

I'm going to call that The Legal Fiction Fallacy.

If people (bound together into a group called government) run something, the something they run is determined by the bonds that bind them.

If people (bound together into a group called communities) run something, the something they run is determined by the bonds that bind them.

If the bond that binds people into the group called "government" is a lie that says that "government" is responsible, accountable, and therefore capable of thought and capable of actions itself, as if it were an individual human being, then "it" just so happens to afford "it's" members immunity from accountability.

"It" can decide to enslave everyone with lies.

"It" can establish indoctrination centers to accomplish the goal of enslavement that "it" decided to accomplish by deciding to establish indoctrination centers.

"It" does not have to re-educate the targets in re-education camps if "it" indoctrinates the targets at birth.

If the bond that binds people is into a group called "communities" is a need for cooperative competition in the work required to improve the general standards of living, while reducing the general costs of living, thereby gaining access to the economic leverage known as economy, with specific advantages known as specialization, division of labor, and economies of scale, then the best and brightest shine like stars as they show everyone else how to reach that shared goal.

In less wordy answering the question I can say that Involuntary Association compares favorably to Voluntary Association for psychopaths, sociopaths, and their ever-growing army of sycophants, when the lie that binds people works.

When the lie that binds people does not work, then Voluntary Association compares favorably.

"Why is it that the libertarian argument seems to always be "government bad"?"

You have to find Libertarians that don't do that, as I have, such as Lysander Spooner.

Here:

"It was a principle of the Common Law, as it is of the law of nature, and of common sense, that no man can be taxed without his personal consent. The Common Law knew nothing of that system, which now prevails in England, of assuming a man’s own consent to be taxed, because some pretended representative, whom he never authorized to act for him, has taken it upon himself to consent that he may be taxed. That is one of the many frauds on the Common Law, and the English constitution, which have been introduced since Magna Carta. Having finally established itself in England, it has been stupidly and servilely copied and submitted to in the United States.

"If the trial by jury were reëstablished, the Common Law principle of taxation would be reëstablished with it; for it is not to be supposed that juries would enforce a tax upon an individual which he had never agreed to pay. Taxation without consent is as plainly robbery, when enforced against one man, as when enforced against millions; and it is not to be imagined that juries could be blind to so self-evident a principle. Taking a man’s money without his consent, is also as much robbery, when it is done by millions of men, acting in concert, and calling themselves a government, as when it is done by a single individual, acting on his own responsibility, and calling himself a highwayman. Neither the numbers engaged in the act, nor the different characters they assume as a cover for the act, alter the nature of the act itself.

"If the government can take a man’s money without his consent, there is no limit to the additional tyranny it may practise upon him; for, with his money, it can hire soldiers to stand over him, keep him in subjection, plunder him at discretion, and kill him if he resists. And governments always will do this, as they everywhere and always have done it, except where the Common Law principle has been established. It is therefore a first principle, a very sine qua non of political freedom, that a man can be taxed only by his personal consent. And the establishment of this principle, with trial by jury, insures freedom of course; because:

"1. No man would pay his money unless he had first contracted for such a government as he was willing to support; and,

"2. Unless the government then kept itself within the terms of its contract, juries would not enforce the payment of the tax. Besides, the agreement to be taxed would probably be entered into but for a year at a time. If, in that year, the government proved itself either inefficient or tyrannical, to any serious degree, the contract would not be renewed.

"The dissatisfied parties, if sufficiently numerous for a new organization, would form themselves into a separate association for mutual protection. If not sufficiently numerous for that purpose, those who were conscientious would forego all governmental protection, rather than contribute to the support of a government which they deemed unjust.

"All legitimate government is a mutual insurance company, voluntarily agreed upon by the parties to it, for the protection of their rights against wrong-doers. In its voluntary character it is precisely similar to an association for mutual protection against fire or shipwreck. Before a man will join an association for these latter purposes, and pay the premium for being insured, he will, if he be a man of sense, look at the articles of the association; see what the company promises to do; what it is likely to do; and what are the rates of insurance. If he be satisfied on all these points, he will become a member, pay his premium for a year, and then hold the company to its contract. If the conduct of the company prove unsatisfactory, he will let his policy expire at the end of the year for which he has paid; will decline to pay any further premiums, and either seek insurance elsewhere, or take his own risk without any insurance. And as men act in the insurance of their ships and dwellings, they would act in the insurance of their properties, liberties and lives, in the political association, or government.

"The political insurance company, or government, have no more right, in nature or reason, to assume a man’s consent to be protected by them, and to be taxed for that protection, when he has given no actual consent, than a fire or marine insurance company have to assume a man’s consent to be protected by them, and to pay the premium, when his actual consent has never been given. To take a man’s property without his consent is robbery; and to assume his consent, where no actual consent is given, makes the taking none the less robbery. If it did, the highwayman has the same right to assume a man’s consent to part with his purse, that any other man, or body of men, can have. And his assumption would afford as much moral justification for his robbery as does a like assumption, on the part of the government, for taking a man’s property without his consent. The government’s pretence of protecting him, as an equivalent for the taxation, affords no justification. It is for himself to decide whether he desires such protection as the government offers him. If he do not desire it, or do not bargain for it, the government has no more right than any other insurance company to impose it upon him, or make him pay for it.

"Trial by the country, and no taxation without consent, were the two pillars of English liberty, (when England had any liberty,) and the first principles of the Common Law. They mutually sustain each other; and neither can stand without the other. Without both, no people have any guaranty for their freedom; with both, no people can be otherwise than free."
Lysander Spooner, Essay on The Trial by Jury

Government (voluntary association for mutual defense) = as good as people want it.

How about this:

Reclaiming the American Revolution: The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and Their Legacy
by William Watkins

"Second, federalism permits the states to operate as laboratories of democracy-to experiment with various policies and Programs. For example, if Tennessee wanted to provide a state-run health system for its citizens, the other 49 states could observe the effects of this venture on Tennessee's economy, the quality of care provided, and the overall cost of health care. If the plan proved to be efficacious other states might choose to emulate it, or adopt a plan taking into account any problems surfacing in Tennessee. If the plan proved to be a disastrous intervention, the other 49 could decide to leave the provision of medical care to the private sector. With national plans and programs, the national officials simply roll the dice for all 284 million people of the United States and hope they get things right.

"Experimentation in policymaking also encourages a healthy competition among units of government and allows the people to vote with their feet should they find a law of policy detrimental to their interests. Using again the state-run health system as an example, if a citizen of Tennessee was unhappy with Tennessee's meddling with the provisions of health care, the citizen could move to a neighboring state. Reallocation to a state like North Carolina, with a similar culture and climate, would not be a dramatic shift and would be a viable option. Moreover, if enough citizens exercised this option, Tennessee would be pressured to abandon its foray into socialized medicine, or else lose much of its tax base. To escape a national health system, a citizen would have to emigrate to a foreign country, an option far less appealing and less likely to be exercised than moving to a neighboring state. Without competition from other units of government, the national government would have much less incentive than Tennessee would to modify the objectionable policy. Clearly, the absence of experimentation and competition hampers the creation of effective programs and makes the modification of failed national programs less likely."

Voluntary Mutual Defense Assocaition (government) = Good

Are they "Liberarians"?

I am. I ran for Congress in 1996 as a Libertarian.

"Why can't libertarian thought be about why government may not be the best means to the end but we can agree upon the ends?"

I can. What do you propose to be as an end?

[slideshare.net]

I am currently reading 5 books, working to write my second book. Start a topic on that book, is that a worthy end? To learn what can be learned from that book?

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