Dumbing down the Libertarian Party

Always a mongrel composition of odd-bods, the US Libertarian Party has now succumbed to strategists, spin doctors and the unprincipled wielders of spread sheets and white boards who have moved to dumb down the party's only remaining virtue: its slate of principled policies. Lew Rockwell, who is himself rather prone to odd moment of oddball-ism, has some very good things to say about this very bad development:

For those who haven't heard, the large, pedagogically useful, principled, and detailed Libertarian Platform — the best thing about the party — has been relegated to the wayback machine and is now replaced with a new one that is tiny, vague, rhetorically slippery, accommodating, friendlier to the state, and non-threatening to mainstream opinion.

Why? The small band that orchestrated this coup confesses: they want the LP to gain power.

They've admired the way the Republicans and Democrats have done it, and now they want to do it too. Gone is the posture of opposition, the radicalism, the edge, the braininess.

The debate has been framed as one between dogmatists and pragmatists. What's remarkable here is how the pragmatists are willing to concede just about every criticism made by the principled LPers of old. They admit that they have watered down the entire program. They admit to being pure pragmatists. They admit that they like certain aspects of the state, and were unhappy with the consistency and comprehensive radicalism of the old platform.

Carl Milsted — who seems to have played the major role in this — puts it this way. The LP has waffled between two separate functions. It tries to be "a radical protest organization (a PETA for liberty)" and also a "political party to get freedom lovers elected to office," so he thinks the former role ought to be abandoned in order to achieve the latter.

But you know what? The LP was not founded to get people elected to office. It was founded to oppose the regime and educate the public, and use elections as the vehicle to do so. [...]

Milsted is right that the idea of a principled political party is incongruous. So what conclusion does he come to? Let's get rid of principle and stick to politics. It's like saying there is a fly in my soup, so let's get rid of the soup and eat the fly!

As an example of the dumbing down, consider these two statements on property rights; the first is from the old platform:

We oppose all violations of the right to private property, liberty of contract, and freedom of trade, especially those done in the name of national security.

Sound, clear and principled. And now from the new platform:

The right to property and its physical resources, which is the fundamental cornerstone of a free and prosperous society, has been severely compromised by government at all levels.

Uugh! The former clear statement of principle has been dumbed-down to bland feel-ggod mush. The mush-merchants who've taken over say that much-peddling will lead to vote-getting which will lead to ... well, they're not sure what since the point now is only to get their feet under the political table. To what end? Blank out. No idea. The goal now is just and only to get their feet under the table. More likely however, by peddling such mush they will fail to achieve either goal: they'll neither educate nor achieve any tangible 'power,' and even if they did, what would gaining 'power' achieve if they've lost any ability to educate?

The equation of principle is quite beyond the 'pragmatic' peddlers of mush. (I'm pretty sure I've said this before somewhere. More than once.) In politics, pragmatism is not practical. Principle is.

Perhaps the US Libertarian Party activists should have looked to what happened to the Costa Rican libertarians in their last election (about which both I and Jacqueline Mackey Paisley Passey blogged, as did hardore Costa Rican libertarian Jorge). Here's Jorge and and Jackie summarising the results of the new softcore Movimento Libertario (ML):

"Does abandoning principle “work”?

"To answer this question lets look at how the “radical” hard core ML performed four years ago. In 2002 the ML received 1.7% of the vote for President and 9.34% of the vote for the Asamblea, electing six Diputados (congressmen). To do this they spend a bit more than US$ 200,000 in privately raised funds, explicitly rejecting government funds as immoral.

"This time around, they spent roughly US$ 1,900,000 and accepted state funds. For President, Guevara received 8.4% of the vote (86.9% counted). For Diputado, the ML has received 9.08%. It seems that they have elected six, but one has a razor thin margin, which may just disappear when all the votes are counted. So far 83.4% have been processed."

So let's see... after spending 10 times as much, with 4 more years of experience and organizing time, in the end the new "pragmatic" Movimiento Libertario achieved... exactly what the old "radical" Movimiento Libertario had achieved in the previous election. Except instead of electing 5 real libertarians to the legislature they've elected 5 or 6 "mostly" libertarians.

So much for pragmatism achieveing anything. From a principled party with 5 hardcore elected deputies giving them a well-used platform to educate and enlighten people about the ideas and roots of liberty, they've now lost all their principled members, and lost also any opportunity to educate anyone, even themselves -- they've become just another dumbed-down bunch of sharks in shiny suits with no reason for being in power other than just being in power.

I trust local Libertarianz will absorb Rockwell's lesson, one they've heard so often from me: "The LP was not founded to get people elected to office. It was founded to oppose the regime and educate the public, and use elections as the vehicle to do so." Exactly right.

LINKS: The Party of vacuous rhetoric - Lew Rockwell, Mises Institute
A spoonful of principle helps revolution fire - Peter Cresswell, 'Free Radical,' 1998
National Platform of the [US] Libertarian Party - May 2004, courtesy of the 'Wayback Machine' National Platform of the [US] Libertarian Party - June 2006, US Libertarian Party website Liberty lost her principles down in Costa Rica - 'Not PC' (Peter Cresswell)
Movimiento Libertaria loses principles, gets spanked - Jacqueline Mackey Paisley Passey
...and they didn't even get the votes - 'Sunni & the Conspirators'
Putting the 'P' word into politics - Peter Cresswell, speech to Tauranga Regional Libertarianz conference, 2002

RELATED: Politics-US, Politics-World, Libertarianism, Libz, Property Rights, Politics-ACT

My speech for Forde's Frontbench candidate's meeting

Good evening ladies & gentlemen. I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.

Believe that, and you probably still believe in Santa Claus. Government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem. More government; less freedom. More government; more problems. You’d think that lesson would by now have been well and truly learned.

No, I’m not from the government, I’m Peter Cresswell from the Libertarianz Party, and before I start properly I’d like you all to throw up your wallets please. I want your money because you can’t be trusted with it. Well, what do you know? Nobody seems to want to hand over their money! But you give your wallet to these people every day! They keep telling you that you can’t be trusted with it; they keep demanding more and more out of it, they keep getting fat off your efforts… and you keep voting for more of the same.

Who’s the idiot?

It’s not their money. You earned it. And you’re entitled to keep every darn cent. Isn’t it strange how we’re taught as kids, that it’s wrong to take what doesn’t belong to us … and yet as adults, you let these people here do just that! You don’t just let them. You beg for them to do it.

Isn’t that disgraceful?! They keep offering you more theft, and they keep offering to fix things they shouldn’t even be involved in, and they keep taking your money and bossing you around with it… and then you keep voting for more of the same.

Who’s the stupid one?

Tell me, who do you think runs the country? That’s right, you do. Helen doesn’t. Winston doesn’t. Pansy, Judith and Don don’t. You run the country, each of you every day by planning, producing and taking those moral actions you need to so that you and your family can stay live and keep flourishing. You run your life, and your business, so what do you need these people to boss you around for? And why do you keep bending over and taking the bossiness from them like you’re taking medicine from Nanny? It’s got me beat.

“It’s for your own good!” says Nanny as she stuffs her medicine down your throat. And what grim medicine.

Nanny says, “You must surrender half your earnings to her, and she’ll decide what to do with them.”

She says you must pay no-hopers to breed.

She says you may not cut trees down on your own property.

She says you may not end your own life when you want to.

“You may not smoke in bars,” she says. “Not even in a cigar bar. It’s for your own good…But you can still smoke in jail.”

She says you may not smoke marijuana anywhere, and has police out on the beat wasting their time making sure you don’t, doing you over when they should be protecting you.

She says you must surrender your children to her indoctrination centres, or be arrested if you don’t.

She says you must keep surrendering your money to pay for her die-while-you-wait health service, even if you have made alternative arrangements to make sure you don’t have to.

She says you may not fire staff, whatever their employment contract says.

Nanny says you may not open your business on days Nanny specifies.

She says you may not advertise for young female employees… so I’m not sure how Hooters are going to manage in opening a bar here full of young, attractive women. They might have to have a quota of ugly women just to keep Nanny happy.

Now this is just wrong, isn’t it? This is ugly, isn’t it. If someone offered you such a deal… if someone offering you such a deal showed up on your door step and offered you such a deal you’d tell them to bugger off, wouldn’t you? It wouldn’t matter how nice the seller was, because you’d know that deal they were offering was poison. Half your earnings in return for taking control over your life, your children, your property, your business and your happiness: and you don’t tell them to bugger off, do you? You keep voting for more of the same!

You don’t need Nanny holding your hand telling you what you can and can’t do. So why do you keep voting for exactly that?

These people up here today are all nice, all nice--apart of course from Judith--but the deal they’re offering you is poison. Don‘t keep buying it. I urge you not to keep buying it. They’re not Santa Claus—although some of them think they are, don’t they Judith—they’re not Santa Claus, they’re the living embodiment of Nanny. And it’s time you told them to bugger off.

Now I’m not here representing Nanny. I’m from the Libertarianz Party, and we think Nanny stinks. We’ve been around for ten years now, and we think politicians should be out of your pockets, out of your face, and out of your life. Gone by lunchtime. Gone for good.

There are 20 parties this election. 19 of them think it’s OK to help themselves to your money and boss you around with it. We don’t. We say that’s wrong.

We say that at this election there are twenty parties but only two choices: Nanny State in nineteen different guises, or Freedom, and Libertarianz.

Our philosophy is very simple: we stand for more freedom and less govt. In other words: you mind your business and I’ll mind mine.

In a truly free society the only laws are those that rightly prohibit the use of force and fraud and respect contracts that have been made voluntarily. You may not act forcefully or fraudulently toward others. That requirement should include the state and its agents.

To that end we recognise that tax is theft. Because that money, YOUR money, is then used to blatantly vote-buy. An election is an advance auction of stolen goods. Your goods. It’s time you asked for them back. It’s high time you stopped allowing yourself to be bribed with your own damn money.

It doesn’t matter which of this lot is in power, it’s used to buy votes. It’s a wonder Michael Cullen hasn’t buggered his wrist lately, he’s been writing so many cheques. And finding more money behind the cushions as he writes them. And John Key just wants to buy your vote with borrowed money. Unlike sensiblke peoplewho understand that to cut taxes you must also cut spending, he doesn’t want to cut government spending, he wants to increase it. Which you will have to pay for later. Enter Muldoon, Version 2.0.

These bloody socialists, both the Labour Socialists and the National Socialists, will tell you that they need to steal from you so that they can provide you with certain services, which is their sole justification for stealing all that money in the first place. Bollocks! What do they provide?

• Die-while-you-wait hospitals.
• Dumbed-down schools. Precisely the kind of dumbing down guaranteed to churn out hordes of brainless, gum-chewing, hip-hop loving Labour voters indefinitely. That produces kids who can’t read, write or add… but who do know all the latest, state-mandated nonsense about the Treaty of Waitangi; who do know all about cultural relativism.
• Compulsory charity, so that 300,000 New Zealanders are now beneficiaries of your charity.

Judith and Stuart (Labour Party hacks, ed.) will boast that New Zealand has only 4% unemployment. Easy, when you’re throwing benefits at 300,000 people. Some of those people are in this room. Do you know the highest paid beneficiary here today? Judith, who just left after throwing a hissy fit at your disrespect.

Truth is, you don’t need these people and their theft any more than you need a Ministry for Education or a Ministry for Health… or a Ministry for Shoes or a Ministry of Women’s or Maori Affairs. Leave them be and let them organise their own bloody affairs.

In fact, leave all of us be. You don’t need the government organising your life. All you need it for is to protect me from you and you from me, and outside that just to leave us all the hell alone.

Just let people make up their own minds, and leave them free to run their own lives, and make their own mistakes, and let them learn from them. Give them all their money back, so they can spend it where they deem best, with people who do know how to run things! Not central or local planners who patently don’t.

I know what’s best for me. The state doesn’t. The Libertarianz understand the balance between freedom and responsibility – because the two go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. To paraphrase PJ O’Rourke: there is only one basic human right and that’s the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the one basic duty: to accept full responsibility for your actions!

So why am I here tonight doing this when I so clearly detest politics and politicians, as I do?

Because I own my life. As an adult, I don’t need the state to interfere in my workplace, my home, my bedroom, my body (in terms of what I choose to do with it), my business, my property, my family or my wallet. Conversely, these buggers all want to interfere in some way, shape or form. I’ve got news for them: people were not born to be bossed around by bureaucrats or by politicians! To paraphrase Voltaire, the world will be a better place when the last politician is strangled with the guts of the last bureaucrat. It is the job of we libertarians to bring that happy day about.

I repeat: It’s a simple philosophy ladies & gentlemen: you mind your business, and I’ll mind mine. I don’t want your money and I don’t want to run your life.

But there are 19 other parties full of politicians who do. What’s the best thing you can say about politicians? Let me tell you a brief story to close.

Five surgeons are discussing who makes the best patient to operate on. The first surgeon says: I like accountants because when I open them up, everything is numbered, and I never lose track of where I am. [laughter] The second one says: I like electricians a lot better because when I open them up, everything is color-coded, and that makes it really simple. The third one says: I prefer a librarian, because everything is alphabetical. I don’t have any trouble with that at all. The fourth one says: I would pick construction workers; construction workers are really good. If there are a few parts left over and it took a lot longer than you thought, they don’t care, they understand that. [laughter] And the last one says: you guys aren’t even close. I like politicians. They have no guts, no heart, no spine, and the head and the butt are interchangeable!

At this election, I urge you to free yourself from the politicians. Cast a vote for your life, and for your liberty. Cast it for Libertarianz. We may not be in parliament this election, but you can be damn sure our ideas will be. Your vote will help that happen. Any other vote is just a vote for more of the same.

Thank you.

From farce to tragedy

Attendees at New Zealand's factory schools have been so dumbed down they're now barely able to read, let alone digest Shakespeare.  Callum McPetrie, one of the few youngsters still able to read and to understand what he's reading argues that the answer to the problem is not to abandon the teaching of Shakespeare, along with basic content in maths, history and business studies, but to stop the dumbing down.

He's right, you know.  And his piece is definitely worth a read -- particularly by whichever minister is about to take on the ministry and the teachers' unions: The Last Tragedy Of Shakespeare.

Highly recommended.

UPDATE:   The brilliant Bernard Levin takes the brief for Shakespeare, opposing in one sentence the MEd's sentence of oblivion for better learning:

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me", you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger; if your wish is farther to the thought; if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradise - why, be that as it may, the more fool you , for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then - to give the devil his due - if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then - by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness' sake! What the dickens! But me no buts! - it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.

DOWN TO THE DOCTOR’S: Gore’s gaffe, guns and government battery-schools

In which Libertarianz  leader Dr Richard McGrath takes his regularly irreverent look at some of the past week’s headlines.

1. “Schools set sights too low” – Even the government has had to admit that its holding pens are dumbing down the children held captive within. The government-created ERO, another bureaucratic black hole for taxpayer money, is biting the state hand by admitting that some schools are setting the bar at ground level. Some principals are hiding the abysmal results of testing done on students from the boards of trustees to whom they are supposed to be responsible. The only shock in this story is that Miseducation Minister Anne Tolley is shocked to learn about it. Others had been observing and predicting this state of affairs for years.

The report noted that many (one in three!) teachers have no idea of the importance of literacy (numeracy doesn’t warrant a mention). Could this have anything to do with the teachers’ training factories that churn out graduates who themselves went through the same intellectually crippling school system before entering university?

One sentence in the ERO report sums up the situation nicely: “In these classrooms, learning opportunities to motivate, engage or extend children were limited.” This is the legacy of nine years of teacher-friendly Labour Party rule, and good reason to end state interference in the education industry.

2. “Gore’s ice-cap claims disputed “– The man who says he invented the internet told the world yesterday that the Arctic polar ice could be gone in five years. Clearly, this useful idiot is becoming an embarrassment to the warmist movement as he tries to outdo everyone else’s doomsday predictions. Even scientists who back the AGW hypothesis are calling his pronouncement an exaggeration, and admit that the Goracle’s dire prediction has no basis in reality. Of course, when the polar ice doesn’t melt, as seems likely, Goracle will no doubt hail this as victory for the Copenhagen climate warriors. Sheesh.

3. “Gun lobby shoots holes in US laws” – Anything that strengthens the Second Amendment’s constitutional protection of individual rights has got to be good. Unfortunately, the NRA persists in cuddling up to the state by accepting the concept of government-issued permits to law-abiding people. The anti-self-defence lobby protests in its usual hysterical manner, its representatives shutting their minds to the evidence presented years ago by John Lott that gun law liberalization leads to less violent crime. Pity the media always look to the NRA as the defenders of gun ownership rights, when the JPFO and GOA do it so much better.

See y’all in two weeks! I’m taking leave next week.
Doc McGrath

Whig to Tory

I've heard from a few people recently suggesting I join the National Party. Phil Sage for instance suggests I "would achieve far more politically advancing [my] ideas from within the National tent."

I answered that when Phil first suggested it by decrying the party of conservatism and compromise, the party of the DPB and the RMA and Contaminated Blood and the Waitangi Gravy Train-- the party that gave a home to Douglas Montrose Graham and Robert Muldoon and Simon Upton, and which currently still offers a home to the likes of the repellent Brat Pack. No thanks. I said too that for all the possible good that might ever be achieved under that particular tent (about which I'm more than dubious) I can be much more effective staying outside pissing in than I could ever be inside the tent pissing out:

No, in my estimation the decision-makers' ears [of National] are more open to me as an outsider than they could ever possibly be as someone working through party channels as you advocate I should, or as someone muzzled by the party hierarchy [as I surely would be].

There's much, much more discussion on that in the comments here and here. And there is also perhaps a lesson in the sad story of one young man who claims to value freedom and liberty -- 'Live Free or Die' is his blog's credo -- who recently resigned his position helping Rodney Hide hold Epsom order to devote his political hopes and dreams to getting Lockwood Smith re-elected in Rodney, and getting the National Socialist's various spokescretins elected as Ministers.

"National is a better vehicle for my principles and my beliefs," says the young man this month, who with his careful choice of electorate in which to join National is eschewing Rodney's re-election, who at least makes noises in the direction of freedom and property rights even if his party's policies don't fully reflect those noises, to working deliberately (and one can only assume excitedly) for Lockwood Smith -- Lockwood Smith! -- the man who when Minister of Education capitulated so completely, so utterly, so spinelessly to Teacher Unions and Ministry flunkies in dumbing down the state's education system that both NCEA and hundreds of thousands of dumbed-down morons across the country still stand as tribute to that man's legacy to New Zealand.

So complete was the victory of pragmatism over the few principles that Minister Smith claimed to stand for that his tenure in the position still stands as perhaps the most abjectly craven surrender to the forces for dumbness than any other Education Minister in recent years -- and there's been quite some competition for that accolade. Now, in the name of that same sort of 'pragmatism' as Blockwood displayed, our young man has now coldly, calculatingly and consciously chosen to place his 'principles' at Blockwood's disposal, and turn from Whig to Tory.

So much for 'pragmatism.' And so much, it seems, for principles. Live free or die? Well, maybe not this weekend, eh?

But, protests the young man ever-so breathlessly, "I am interested in putting my principles into practice IN GOVERNMENT." Well, if Blockwood is the man he's chosen to support to put those principles into practice then all the more revealing for those principles, I say. As Tim Selwyn offered so simply when this was announced. "My condolences to you."

(Or does the young man and his friends have more immediate plans for Lockwood? Should we take being "IN GOVERNMENT" more literally? Was it intended more personally? More directly? I think perhaps we should be told.)

LINKS: ACT, The Whig, Loudon, Falloon, Bhatnagar, Not PC & infighting among Libertarian fellow travellers - Phil Sage (Jan, 2006)
On infighting and 'fellow travellers' - Peter Cresswell
Nats should have given Frat Pack an unlisted number - Peter Cresswell
Running the rule over the Nats - Peter Cresswell
The Whig is now a mainstream New Zealander - The Whig
It's official - The Whig
Whig - Wikipedia

TAGS: Politics-National, Politics-ACT, Politics-NZ, Blog

Are schools killing creativity? Or killing knowledge?

Check out the website for the Monterey Technology, Entertainment and Design Conference, the TED Conference, as it's called. This is a conference bristling with creativity, and the website itself fairly bristles with fascinating presentations from this year's conference that highlight especially the exciting new world opened up to us by creative technology.

One presentation looks at the issue of educating for creativity itself, specifically with how public education deals with creativity. Keith Robinson argues that public education deals with it bloody poorly (although he seems to think it deals better with literacy and numeracy, something most figures dispute), and he's right that what Lisa Van Damme calls "classical education" does deal with it poorly. [See it here: Ken Robinson - Do Schools Kill Creativity?]

Robinson's talk is humorous, insightful and well worth watching (it goes for a very enjoyable nineteen minutes), but at the end he's left saying very little beyond the truism that "education should value creativity." Well, so it should. But is that all it should do?

Writing at The Objective Standard, Lisa Van Damme argues there's a problem if creativity is stressed without the tools or the knowledge to be creative with.

In Dumbing Down Our Kids, Charles Sykes tells a chilling story about a straight-A student in the eighth grade named Andrea, who was very eager to learn science. Unfortunately for Andrea, her school, like most today, stressed the importance of “creativity” over “dreary” facts, and of “hands-on,” “active” learning over “dull,” didactic instruction. This bright young girl with a thirst for scientific knowledge spent her time in science class picking up cereal with a tongue depressor (to simulate the way birds feed), hunting for paper moths on a wall, and drawing pictures of scientists. When Andrea wrote a letter complaining that she had gotten nothing out of the class, she was expelled for being rude and disrespectful.3

You have probably read stories like these and been horrified both by how shamefully ignorant, inarticulate, and illiterate many American students are, and, even worse, by what schools do to students like Andrea. I wish I could dismiss such stories as rare incidents circulated among cynical critics of American schools to give poignancy to their arguments. Unfortunately, my experience interviewing and teaching students at my school has shown me otherwise.

Both Van Damme and Robinson are talking about the same schools. But they're seeing something different.

Van Damme it seems to me is exploding the dichotomy embraced by both classical educators (those wedded to the Three 'R's), and by those who argue as Robinson seems to that creativity is everything, and that if education supports creativity then all will be fine and dandy. For Van Damme, something far more fundamental is necessary in education, and also for the "take-off" of creativity.

Neither empty heads nor heads full of empty facts should be the aim of education: what's needed she argues is "reform more radical than harking back to a more traditional approach that mouths respect for facts, logic, and abstract thought," and too reform more radical than simply calling for more creativity.

The proper goal of education [she argues] is to foster the conceptual development of the child—to instill in him the knowledge and cognitive powers needed for mature life. It involves taking the whole of human knowledge, selecting that which is essential to the child’s conceptual development, presenting it in a way that allows the student to clearly grasp both the material itself and its value to his life, and thereby supplying him with both crucial knowledge and the rational thinking skills that will enable him to acquire real knowledge ever after. This is a truly progressive education—and parents and students should settle for nothing less

To see her full argument, see Lisa van Damme: The False Promise of Classical Education.

Just to reiterate, her argument is not that creativity should be shunned in the classroom; instead she maintains that creativity may only be expressed once one has the tools and the knowledge with which to be creative.

Don't send stupidity to college

Very pleased to hear that Auckland University is taking what's been reported to be the unusual step of applying entrance standards to the people wishing to enter their hallowed portals to study arts, education, science, theology and first-year law. It's not exactly applying a standard of excellence to run the rule over entrants before they rock up and start filling your lecture halls, but it might at least be the beginning of a move towards one.

I'm sure many people were surprised to hear that few practical standards have been applied up to now in selecting entrants for these courses -- that "open entry" is considered the norm. I'm sure however that many people won't have been surprised to hear the bleating that has accompanied this announcement.

"We are shutting the door on the potential students and achievers of the future," said Auckland University Student Association education vice-president David Do, for example, demonstrating in a stroke why entrance criteria need to be raised to exclude those like Mr Do without even the brains they were born with: It is obviously beyond the wit of Mr Do to realise that those who fail to achieve the bare minimum necessary to enter a university are unlikely to be sort of material from which potential students and achievers of the future are made -- not at least in an academic environment -- or to notice that graduates with theology degrees are hardly likely to be setting the world on fire in any case (this is perhaps one course where entrance standards could be set so high as to exclude all entrants. But I digress.)

And John Minto illustrates PJ O'Rourke's point that earnestness is just stupidity sent to college, demonstrating in one short self-contradictory press statement that entrance standards excluding the stupid should have been applied more rigorously in Minto's day: the whole country and Minto himself would surely have been better off if the man had become a panel beater.

Libertarianz Education Spokesman Phil Howison summarises the position perfectly:

"The sad fact is that with lower standards and a general 'dumbing down' of academia, degrees are worth much less than they used to. Higher entrance standards will benefit all Auckland University students, by improving the reputation of the institution," Mr. Howison pointed out. "The role of the NCEA should also be mentioned. It is this assessment system which often leaves tertiary institutions and employers befuddled when attempting to assess a candidate's ability."

I look forward to this more rational admissions policy taking hold in other groves of academe throughout the country.

UPDATE: Oops. Looks like the mandarins at Auckland University are already running scared at being tarred as, gulp, "elitists"! Deputy Vice-Chancellor for the Braindead Professor Dalziel this morning rejected the suggestion that the proposal could "risk a slide to elitism" -- an unfortunate metaphor, really, since it would be the only slide in Christendom with a trajectory pointing upwards. In any case, the Braindead Vice-Chancellor confirmed that "special entry schemes" for the braindead, the retarded and those with IQs approaching those of Mr Minto's and Mr Do's already run in courses with restricted entry and "it was envisaged similar arrangements would be used."

So there you go. Standards schmandards, says Uni. If you really want standards, then perhaps panel beating school would be better.

Is that it?

I don’t understand Hekia Parata.

If you’re going to pick a fight with teachers, teachers unions and parents—and there’s nothing wrong with that at all—then why do it for change as nugatory as “class size” or as frankly foolish as saying there will be no new teachers on your watch.

Galt knows the government’s factory schools are like the Augean Stables: overripe for a clean out. But if you’re going to have a fight, then why not do something radical to education like, oh I don’t know, throw out whole language and bring back phonics; or thoroughly overhaul the socialist studies curriculum without all the social engineering; or abandon the dumbing-down of the NCEA experiment, abolish the NZQA, and introduce a curriculum properly recognising the integration and hierarchy of knowledge; or remove the presumption against home schooling; or encourage, rather than discourage, alternative educational philosophies to flourish; or abandon zoning  and introduce scholarships, or even vouchers, so even the poorest geniuses can attend good schools; or bring in tax credits for education so folk who do pay for private don’t have to pay twice?

It’s not like there’s a shortage of things that could be done if you did want to pick a fight about something really worth doing.

But if you do insist on picking a fight, you really need a real issue and far more ammunition than she can muster here or here.

Mind you, the same criticism stands for her National Party. If this is the only thing they plan to do anywhere this term to make a change and buy a fight—which is how it looks—then what the hell are they there for anyway?

Friday Morning Ramble: The ‘Demeaning Power of PISA’ edition [updated]

UPDATE:  “When it comes to national leadership at a time of fragility and transition, so much seems to depend on the luck of the draw. Will a country find itself with a Milošević or a Mugabe; an Atatürk or an Arafat; a Rabin who can see and seize the moment, and change course, or someone who never will?
    “South Africa was lucky – almost miraculously so – to have had Nelson Mandela. His memory will be cherished for as long as history continues to be written…”
 Mandela for the Ages – former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, PROJECT SYNDICATE

This week’s 2012 PISA results should, and did, send shockwaves around the country.
New Zealand’s PISA shock – Rose Patterson, NZ INITIATIVE

“But Pisa is not really about raising the standards of education; it is about raising the standards of training… To question the role of Pisa [however] is not to call for complacency about the challenges facing schools in Anglo-American societies. There are some very important problems facing educationalists.”
Pisa: Top of the Class for Dumbing Down – SPIKED
Cue Card Libertarianism: Education – NOT PC

Nick Smith hands over a further $31 million simply to “bring 500 houses to the market earlier.” That’s $62,000 taxpayers’ money per house to make them “affordable” for buyers. Call it the “Holden solution.”  Because that worked so well for affordable cars.
Housing Minister announces further $31 mln to allow faster progress on 3000-house Auckland development – INTEREST.CO.NZ
"The Shape of Affordability in the Modern City" – NOT PC
Holden reveals billions in subsidies – ABC, April 2013
Holden delivers subsidy ultimatum – BUSINESS SPECTATOR

“The Constitutional Review Panel has delivered its final report to the Government and its main recommendation is that the "conversation" about New Zealand's constitutional arrangements continue.”
Support for republic weak: report – Audrey Young, NZ HERALD
Constitutional Recommendations – David Farrar, KIWIBLOG

Yah, boo, sucks, says commentator. In your face, say respondents.
Constitution, reviewed – Steven Price, MEDIA LAW JOURNAL
Greater privileges for Maori still on the agenda – Tom Johnson, YAHOO NEWS

“The report of the government’s Constitutional Advisory Panel, released yesterday, merely replaces instant execution with death by a thousand cuts…”
Constitution report death by a thousand cuts – David Round, SCOOP

ACT is in search of a new leader. The “liberal right” may also be in search of a new party. Eric Crampton has a theory.
Party time – Eric Crampton, OFFSETTING BEHAVIOUR

So, good news then.
Kiwi women drinking more heavily, more often – NEWSTALK ZB

Really? So where’s Quiet Earth then?
The best New Zealand movies ever made – NZ On Screen, STUFF

You really want government managing your stuff? Not even with PPPs. “People often lament the waste, corruption, and downright absurdities of government enterprises, wondering why they can’t be ‘run like a business.’ Yet economic theory shows that this is no mere accident.” Take the roads, for example…
Why Government Doesn't—and Can't—Manage Resources Like a Private Business – Robert Murphy, ECON LOG

“We have the best government that money can buy.”
– Mark Twain

Amazon Drone. Possible or not?
A Drone Delivery Expert Answers the Big Questions About Amazon's Plans – ATLANTIC
Amazon Promises Package Delivery By Drone: Is It for Real? -  IEEE SPECTRUM

So there’s growth in one part of America, anyway.
Washington’s Battle of the Skyline – Ethan Epstein, CITY JOURNAL

“Ukraine has every reason to turn its back on a Russia that still celebrates, rather than confronts its Soviet past.” – Liberty Scott 
The Political Famine of 1932-1933" – GNOSTIC LIBERATION FRONT

This is what Cronyism looks like, Example #345,6768,956.
General Electric’s Crony Capitalism – Hunter Lewis, MISES DAILY

“One of the men that won the Nobel Prize for economics this year says that "bubbles look like this" … But you don't have to be a Nobel Prize winner to see what is happening.  It should be glaringly apparent to anyone with half a brain.”
15 Signs That We Are Near The Peak Of An Absolutely Massive Stock Market Bubble – Michael Snyder, ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

It is ruinously difficult to start new industrial projects because of anti-industrial, “green” policies. So why do so few industrialists, and those who industry keeps alive, bother to speak up for themselves?
The Industrial Manifesto  - Alex Epstein, CENTER FOR INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS

“Within a recent discussion of the superior ability of capitalism to improve the general welfare, John Stossel describes an amusing encounter…”
Altruism vs. Philanthropy – GUS VAN HORN

“A lot of people don’t think about the connection from liberty to experimentation to thriving, and default to expecting ‘the government’ to solve collective problems. In general, people pay too much attention to politics.”
“That—that—is what we are for: voluntary associations, in all their richness and bewildering complexity” – Lynne Kiesling, KNOWLEDGE PROBLEM

Reason #117 for the disappearance of genius under dictatorship: “Ruling a herd of mediocrities is much easier than ruling independent individuals.”
The genius cog in the system – STEPHEN HICKS 

“Want to see: a Christmas episode where someone learns
the true meaning of Christmas episodes.”
- Jaime J. Weinman

Hayek on Keynes: “brilliant and creative, but ignorant of economics literature.”
Hayek on Keynes’s ignorance of economics – Steve Kates, CATALLAXY FILES

What’s the key function of banks? Money creation.
Fractional Reserve Banking: How to Create and Destroy Money – Matthew Kerkhoff, FINANCIAL SENSE

The Welfare State couldn’t live without it. But the Welfare State is a "new road to serfdom" from which escape will be increasingly difficult if we do not do all that we can to stop it.
The Menace and Immorality of the Welfare State – Richard Ebeling, EPIC TIMES

If wealth is being destroyed, how come we’re not seeing it?
Today’s wealth destruction is hidden by government debt – Philip Bagus, COBDEN CENTRE

You say you want a revolution? You first, says Simon Cowell.
Simon Cowell tells Russell Brand to give up his pay – NEWSTALK ZB

Challenge yourself this weekend…
Topics in Intellectual Property: The Computer and Biotech Revolutions (MP3 download) – Adam Mossoff, ARI E-STORE
Why Should Business Leaders Care about Intellectual Property?—Ayn Rand’s Radical Argument – Adam Mossoff,

From the creative minds of those who produced the Hayek v Keynes rap. Are you ready to Deck the Halls With Macro Follies? (“To help appreciate the video, here are a few bits of background to catch the full flavour of just how beautifully done it is.”

Great news. “The CDM is one of the only truly global carbon markets.” Bad news. “Each CDM was worth 20 euros in 2008. Now they are selling for 50c.” Tell Nick Smith.
UN $315 billion CDM carbon market comatose after Warsaw. It may last years – JO NOVA

You say we should embrace the theory of global warming because of scientific “consensus”?  Then this could be awkward.
Scientists increasingly moving to global cooling consensus – Jack Minor, U.S. FINANCE POST

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is about to destroy 6 tons of confiscated ivory. Upping the price for ivory, and  incentivising ivory hunters to hunt for more. [I just said “incentivising.” Ouch!]
 Does destroying ivory really save elephants?  - Michael ‘t Sas-Rolfes, PERC

“Dear NASA, President Kennedy just wasn't that into you.”
JFK space race myth – AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

Great buildings made some great movies, now commemorated in great poster art… [a point to the first reader to identify this house. No cheating now]

“Researchers say the average woman speaks 20,000 words a day, and the average man speaks 7,000.” I just pass on the news without comment.
The talkative sex – STEPHEN HICKS

Meanwhile, “the American English speech variant known as uptalk, or ‘Valley Girl speak’ – marked by a rise in pitch at the ends of sentences – is typically associated with young southern Californian females.” Until now. Thank you Frank Zappa.
'Valley girl speak' extending to males – SCIENCE DAILY

I’m starting to wonder now how mine looked when I was a kid. ( I did ask for a trumpet once, I recall.)
My Kid's Insane Christmas Wish List, Annotated – Drew Magary, DEADSPIN

If you’re anything like me, this will just the job for your Xmas stocking.
Introducing The Organic Architecture + Design Archives – PRAIRIE MOD

Don’t run. Life’s worth it. (Remember what happened to the world’s first marathon runner!)
Why You Should Think Twice About Running That Marathon: A Cardiologist Explains – Dr Joel Kahn, MIND BODY GREEN

What tattoos might look like if they were honest
If Tattoos Actually Told the Truth – CRACKED

How technology helps everybody.  Example #1,657, 356.
Sign-Language Ring, Bracelet Translates Hand Movements Into Spoken Language – ECOUTERRE

No-one does snark like a music reviewer reviewing the book he was denied the invitation to write.
Cape Reinha with ice axes – William Dart, LANDFALL REVIEW

Like Irish yachting commentary…

There’s too much liking going on at Facebook. Let’s remedy that.
How To Find Out If Your Facebook Friends Hate You

More from the FFS Files.
NYC Health Commissioner Says E-Cigarettes Must Be Banned Because They Look Like the Real Thing – Jacob Sullum, HIT & RUN

Your cat recognises your voice. It just doesn’t give a shit.
Cats recognise their owners' voices but never evolved to care, says study – INDEPENDENT

Just in time for Christmas.
10 Always Entertaining Party Games – APARTMENT THERAPY

The law every student should learn.
Benford's Law And The Art of Succeeding in Multiple Choice Tests – M.I.T. TECHNOLOGY REVIEW

Nagging, insistent, and now stuck in my head. Thank you Messrs Shelley & Devoto.

Robert Fripp and Barry Andrews do disco.

Lanza drinks.

Perlman meditates.

[Hat tips Geek Press, Catotheyounger, NZ On Screen, Libertyscott UK, Eduardo Stordeur, Taylor Davidson]

Thanks for reading,
And have a great weekend!
See you tonight at One Man Bannister (and watch out for live blogging on Sunday of two bold new beers from a brash new craft brewery…)
PC

Sorry, Campbell who?

May I interrupt the almost wall-to-wall social media handwringing about the demise of the John Campbell show to say that I don’t give a flying fuck?

Thank you.

I am one of the 96% who don’t watch him (the four percent of NZers who do not being sufficient, it’s reliably suggested, to justify shareholders subsidising his show). Truth be told, I don’t watch the other mob at 7 either – or any mob at all for that matter. Too much insulting viewers’ intelligence on all channels for my money, and that’s all channels both here and overseas bother to do. So my TV stays hooked up to my computer, and my interest in who’s dumbing down what and who gets sacked where is confined mainly to the small viewing portions of news-on-demand that I’m either sent or recommended – which generally only confirms my view that the longer the TV stays disconnected from the aerial the better (leaving me to enjoy Netflix, my monthly internet subscription to live AFL, and bludging off friends’ Sky subscriptions when cricketers and Counties are playing well).

Now, fair’s fair, for all I know NZ’s half-hour of Jon-Stewart-Without-the-Jokes may well have become the last bastion of intelligent journalism on the telly, just as its noisy advocates say it is. But I doubt it. So Socialism at Seven will have to die without my signing a petition to save it.

There it is.

PS: To be perfectly, absolutely, one-hundred percent fair, I have said good things about the Campbell show on occasions. Some of those occasions are in my archives here.

Lindsay Perigo on "The Dunce-ification of Everythink"

Guest post by Lindsay Perigo

A shock-horror headline emblazoned on the front page of The Dominion Post's June 23-24 weekend edition asked, “Are we raising a nation of dunces?”

“Some kids are starting school unable to name a colour or even string a sentence together,” the article began, as though this were news. It isn't.

It's also not news that some kids still can't string a sentence together when they leave school.
An article in the Sunday Star-Times of June 25 then reported, “Hopes of an economic boom driven by a highly-skilled Kiwi workforce could be dashed by the number of illiterate and innumerate adults. One in five students is leaving school without qualifications. Some struggle so badly they cannot fill out the unemployment benefit form.”

Plus ça change .


In 1996, the Adult Literacy in New Zealand survey of adults aged 16-65 found 66% of Maori and 41% of non-Maori were below the minimum level of literacy required to “meet the complex demands of everyday life and work.”

A 2006 survey's results were no better: it found 43 per cent of adults with some sort of literacy issue, and half the population with numeracy difficulties.

Here's the Dominion Post of February 15, 2011:

“Some teachers are so lacking in literacy and numeracy skills that they cannot write adequate reports or do primary-level maths, secondary principals say. … Anecdotal evidence from principals included teachers being unable to write reports, having poor reading comprehension, making basic punctuation, spelling and grammar errors, and being unable to help pupils’ reading.”

The country is now caught up in a vicious circle arising from decades of state-mandated dumbing down in the education system. This process has been faithfully replicated on state (and now private) television—as I've written in my article, The Rice for the Putts, linguistic cretins are being hired for on-air jobs not just in spite of being unable to speak but because they're unable to speak.

Masterton Primary School principal Sue Walters says, "We get a lot of kids who come to school who just can't form proper sentences. They have very limited vocabulary and some are operating at a 3-year-old's level. You can't teach kids to read and write if they can't speak." Well, TV reporters in their 20s are speaking like 5-year-olds—with the active connivance of their bosses!

Massey University senior lecturer in speech and language therapy Elizabeth Doell says at the age of 5, a child should be able to construct a reasonably complex sentence, and have a certain level of vocabulary. But this is often not the case, she observes, and an urgent inquiry is needed to get to the bottom of the problem. "I don't think we truly know the extent of it."

Here's the bottom of the problem: the deliberate inculcation of mediocrity by the state over generations, manifest in the Look-Say method of the teaching of reading and an egalitarian hostility to speech standards rooted in the belief that polished, clear speech is unacceptably “posh.” The resultant oral and written ineptitude have fed upon and reinforced each other.

Given this part of a letter I received last year from then-Education Minister Anne Tolley, I'm not hopeful of an imminent reversal of the current collapse into cretinism:

Although there may be variation from school to school in the approaches they take to the teaching of reading, the majority of New Zealand schools follow the Ministry of Education guidance outlined in the key reference texts Effective Literacy Practice in Years 1 to 4 and Effective Literacy Practice in Years 5 to 8. In these publications teachers are urged to use a range of instructional strategies as they help students engage with meaningful texts. Such a balanced programme would include some phonics work, some use of known words and many other ways for readers to unlock and make sense of texts. [Translation: Look-Say and politically correct BS rule.]

I am interested in your observations about the speech of some of our young people. As you will know, language use, including oral language is not static. Our parents may well have mourned the decline they perceived in our speech patterns and pronunciation. In this age of technology, young people now hear a wide range of spoken language. Sometimes they may even deliberately use patterns different from those of their parents as a mark of their identity and individuality. Such is the nature of fluid and flexible language use as we all strive to make ourselves understood in the global world of today. [Translation: kids indeed speak as though they were morons. That's the way we want it: everyone sounding equally uneducated. For good Orwellian measure we'll call it “identity” and “individuality” precisely because it's the opposite of those things.]

Normally I'd advocate simply retrieving the thing from the clutches of the state and letting market forces generate a drive for remedial excellence. But all of society is now so steeped in barbarism that the private sector too is zombified. The state must act urgently to stop and reverse the rot it started and sponsored to such devastating effect. Hand in hand with the overdue revival of grammar, spelling and punctuation that is already supposed to be happening, the state must restore to phonics its former hegemony, and it must introduce speech-training into the curriculum, both for pupils and teachers.

What stake do I as a libertarian have in this matter? To quote Ms Walters again, “You can't teach kids to read and write if they can't speak.” And in a nation of inarticulate illiterates, liberty doesn't stand a chance. In the domain of dunces, demagogues dictate.

Lindsay Perigo is a former television newsreader and interviewer, blogging at SOLO (Sense of Life Objectivists).

Recipe for indoctrination

The new one-size-fits-all education curriculum to be enforced on New Zealand children has been released. It's a dog. Literacy, numeracy and the inculcation of knowledge are given low priority. Socialisation and "biculturalism" are given higher priority. Kerry Williamson at The Dom summarises:

The Treaty of Waitangi - dumped from a draft curriculum just months ago then reinstated after protest - is to become a guiding principle in the way New Zealand children are taught. It will join reading and writing as core subjects, along with issues such as ecological sustainability and climate change... "This curriculum represents a shift away from focusing on knowing facts and figures to knowing also how to use knowledge effectively and apply it outside the classroom," said Prime Minister Helen Clark...

This is not a curriculum for education, it's a prescription for indoctrination -- the teaching of "issues" before students are even aware of the facts which underpin them (if they're ever allowed to become aware of them) -- with the full power of the state put at the service of its enforcement in all schools across the country either private or public. A teacher friend of mine (whom I'm sure won't mind me posting this) provided his own summary, which I've edited only slightly:

The new school curriculum that arrived on my desk today, The idea that the Treaty of Waitangi is this country's founding document is now official [and wrong].

The treaty did not feature heavily in the original draft of the curriculum -- under pressure from the Maori Party and the Greens however, it is now full of it.

In particular the "vision" for young people includes:

Our vision is for young people who will work to create an Aotearoa New Zealand in which Maori and Pakeha recognise each other as full treaty partners, and in which all cultures are valued for the contributions they bring.

Under "Principles" there is this:

Treaty of Waitangi. The curriculum acknowledges the Principles of the Treaty of
Waitangi [sic] and the bicultural foundations of Aotearoa New Zealand. All students have the opportunity to acquire knowledge of te reo maori me ona tikanga.

Under the old curriculum, I taught about the Treaty of Waitangi as a historical event and encouraged debate on the relevance of the treaty and its aftermath today. This curriculum however enforces a set vision that must be taught to students in which treaty partnership is the ideal for today. What is simply an opinion is instead to be taught as fact...

Overall - and this is the worst part -- there is a distinct lack of emphasis on reading, writing and numeracy in the new curriculum and far too much emphasis on expressing opinions before
you have developed them.

Fun times ahead. [Emphasis mine.]

Literacy and numeracy rates are already at an all time low. Any honest educator would be horrified at at that, and scrambling to reverse the situation. Instead, the government's ministry of educators instead intend to continue the process that delivered that across the board failure.

If you were ever unsure about the motivations of the government's 'educators,'
that tells you almost all you need to know.

UPDATE 1: It's argued that the object of this curriculum "is to pull back on the spoon feeding of information and focus more on creating students who can think for themselves." A laudable aim, if true, but I think there's a misunderstanding here: in order to think for oneself, you must have the tools to think with -- the facts and knowledge necessary to think about.

George Reisman points out in 'A Root Cause of the Failure of Contemporary Education' that a moderately educated student should emerge from their schooling with working knowledge of up to a hundred or so books, "and do so in a form that is well organized and integrated, so that he can apply this internalized body of knowledge to his perception of everything in the world around him. He should be in a position to enlarge his knowledge of any subject and to express his thoughts on any subject clearly and logically, both verbally and in writing." Modern educators however spurn that notion as "spoon feeding." They want students to be creative without content, producing simple, uneducated and (above all) compliant men and women, who emerge with very little ability to understand the world in which they live, and easy fodder for whichever authority figure is able to push their Pavlovian buttons.

The revolt against knowledge is worldwide. University of Kent sociology professor Frank Furedi writes about its capture of Britain and America in his book, Where Have all the Intellectuals Gone? Confronting 21st Century Philistinism. He recalls the reaction of a colleague to an article in which Furedi had bemoaned the fact that students didn’t (and couldn’t) read whole books any more:

He had no problem with the estrangement of undergraduates from the world of books; rather, he was angry about my arrogant assumption that books should have a privileged status in higher education. The tone of the article was to suggest you can dismiss as undemanding any programme in which students do not read whole books, he complained. As far as he was concerned, the book has become an optional extra resource for the present-day undergraduate.

A public which is continuously spoon-fed platitudes and soundbites is likely to become estranged from the world of political debate. This development is particularly striking on university campuses, where students continually insist that ‘politics is boring.’ The language used on campuses reflects an intense sense of cynicism towards causes and ideas, and a distinct lack of interest in holding strong views of any sort. New York Times journalist Michiko Kakutani’s reflection on the language used by American college students captures this mood of disengagement. That familiar interjection ‘whatever’ says a lot about the state of mind of college students today, notes Kakutani. … With such little importance attached to ideas, intellectual argument has acquired negative connotations. [Emphasis mine.]

American educator Lisa van Damme continues the point in her article 'The False Promise of Classical Education':

In Dumbing Down Our Kids, Charles Sykes tells a chilling story about a straight-A student in the eighth grade named Andrea, who was very eager to learn science. Unfortunately for Andrea, her school, like most today, stressed the importance of “creativity” over “dreary” facts, and of “hands-on,” “active” learning over “dull,” didactic instruction. This bright young girl with a thirst for scientific knowledge spent her time in science class picking up cereal with a tongue depressor (to simulate the way birds feed), hunting for paper moths on a wall, and drawing pictures of scientists. When Andrea wrote a letter complaining that she had gotten nothing out of the class, she was expelled for being rude and disrespectful.

You have probably read stories like these and been horrified both by how shamefully ignorant, inarticulate, and illiterate many ... students are, and, even worse, by what schools do to students like Andrea. I wish I could dismiss such stories as rare incidents circulated among cynical critics of [modern] schools to give poignancy to their arguments. Unfortunately, my experience interviewing and teaching students at my school has shown me otherwise.

Neither empty heads nor heads full of empty facts should be the aim of education: what's needed she argues is "reform more radical than harking back to a more traditional approach that mouths respect for facts, logic, and abstract thought," and too reform more radical than simply calling for more creativity, or a return to "classical education."

The proper goal of education [she argues] is to foster the conceptual development of the child—to instill in him the knowledge and cognitive powers needed for mature life. It involves taking the whole of human knowledge, selecting that which is essential to the child’s conceptual development, presenting it in a way that allows the student to clearly grasp both the material itself and its value to his life, and thereby supplying him with both crucial knowledge and the rational thinking skills that will enable him to acquire real knowledge ever after. This is a truly progressive education—and parents and students should settle for nothing less.

Just to summarise then, children have an enormous capacity to learn, but most modern educationalists steadfastly refuse to use that capacity; they fail to fill that enormous capacity for knowledge and and for learning, leaving these young students (even as they reach adulthood) adrift in a world they can barely understand and with brains that have never automatised the skill of actually thinking, but are masters at regurgitating what they think authority figures wish to hear.

UPDATE 2: Trevor Loudon posts "an excellent article by Australian Mark Lopez. It is," says Trevor, "very timely considering the extreme left bias of New Zealand's newly announced school curriculum." See 'How The Left Changes Society Through Education.'

From The Australian 30.10.07
PC Warriors Serve up a Slanted Education
In her address to her union's conference in 2005 the Australian Education Union president Pat Byrne openly acknowledged the ideological bias that dominates the school system. As she put it: "We have succeeded in influencing curriculum development in schools, education departments and universities. The conservatives have a lot of work to do to undo the progressive curriculum."

Apart from seriously disagreeing that "conservative" or classical education is the answer to the progressive mid-grab (on that particular false dichotomy Lisa van Damme's article 'The False Promise of Classical Education' says it best) it's worth reminding yourself again that for the progressive the primary purpose of the state education system is not education, it is the inculcation of the state's chosen values. Always has been.