“The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It’s almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.

Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn."

- Pastor Dave Barnhart at Saint Junia United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Alabama

Definition of sanctimonious
1: hypocritically pious or devout

other considerations;
https://www.vasectomy.com/article/vasectomy/procedure/no-needle-vasectomy or even https://www.parsemus.org/humanhealth/vasalgel/

https://youtu.be/25JyC5Whhvc

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/ben-franklin-american-instructor-textbook-abortion-recipe.html

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-americans-really-think-about-abortion/

remember the cute "my body my choice" covid 19 zinger?

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7047e1.htm#:~:text=Pregnant%20women%20are%20at%20increased,1%E2%80%933)

folks like yourself weren't against late, late term abortions. i.e. grandma/pa

also a DYK https://dirtysexyhistory.com/2016/07/28/ancient-birth-control-silphium-and-the-origin-of-the-heart-shape/

Florida officials continued their war on education this week after rejecting more than 50 proposed math textbooks that allegedly “included references to Critical Race Theory.”

The Florida Department of Education announced Friday it would not include 54 of the 132 ― or 41% ― of math textbooks on the state’s adopted list, citing “CRT” as one of the main reasons.

“Reasons for rejecting textbooks included references to Critical Race Theory (CRT), inclusions of Common Core, and the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in mathematics,” the statement said. “The highest number of books rejected were for grade levels K-5, where an alarming 71 percent were not appropriately aligned with Florida standards or included prohibited topics and unsolicited strategies.”

The state’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said without evidence that the math textbooks “included indoctrinating concepts like race essentialism, especially, bizarrely, for elementary school students.”

DeSantis has been an outspoken critic of CRT, which has become a catchall term ― stripped of its original academic meaning ― for having discussions about racism in the classroom. Since last July, there have been more than 200 instances of public school districts in Florida banning books, the third highest number of incidents of any state in the U.S.

Democratic state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith said in a tweet that the governor “has turned our classrooms into political battlefields and this is just the beginning.” - https://www.huffpost.com/

This man has absolutely no self-awareness whatsoever. He has zero powers of observation, and has no idea how to see through other people's eyes. I don't think he functions more than a foot outside his own circle. Everything he thinks about is himself, and his personal thoughts - even if he's wrong. Because as long as he believes it, everyone else should too.
Honestly, to me he's a textbook narcissist., though I have no authority to make that statement.

Textbook B.L.E.V.E.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_liquid_expanding_vapor_explosion

@Mordhaus I agree with you, and I didn't mean to say that was the ONLY pinpoint that was worth noting. But as someone who graduated in 2002, I've seen a steady gradation of change over the past 16 years that can in a large part be traced back to those policy changes.

I'm also not blaming the textbook companies for being for-profit companies. But, much like healthcare in this country, education is something people NEED. It's not a luxury, it's a necessity. I'm of the opinion that it should be treated like the social service that it is and the blame rests with lawmakers that force schools into patronage of testing producers with little or no oversight written into the law.

On your 1-5 list:

1) That can be a difficult subject, you're oftentimes doubling the cost of wardrobes for poor families, and it's the kid who can only afford 1 uniform that's full of tatters that gets bullied anyway.

2) I'm not anti-standards, but the way that those standards are assessed are not reflected in the tests the students take. Moreover, VERY FEW jobs (if any) require a person to answer A B C D over and over as a way to make a living. In other words, answering multiple choice questions is not a skill most people need.

3) Yes. My average classroom size is 28. 50 minutes with 28 kids in a room, you do the math on the individualized attention they get.

4) I've seen some counties near my locale that have instituted a no cell phone ordinance, banning them from the campus. It's possible, but one needs the support of the community.

5) Send your kid where you want, but I don't think my tax dollars should go to pay for Johnny to go to religious institutions. It feels, in that circumstance, that the government is endorsing a particular religious viewpoint to do so.

But can you blame 'all' of the problem on Bush/Obama?

I can recall many changes in the 80's from Reagan, huge cuts to school lunch programs, and many attempts to either reduce or totally eliminate the Department of Education.

In 89, Bush Sr. and the Governors of 'every' state held a summit, where they developed some of the first goals for future changes to education. These included some of the first recommended changes to standards-based education.

During both of Clinton's terms they steamed ahead at full speed on these goals, leading to massive changes forcing standards-based education. They implemented ESEA, which was succeeded by the two later programs you mentioned.

So we clearly can't pin it to just one group, as both led the charge at one point or another. This is what I meant by my statement. Neither Liberals nor Conservatives can point a finger and say, "Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?" They both grasped it and wielded it.

So, now as you mention, we have a climate which puts incredible importance on standardized testing. Because of this, and how the schools are funded, students are basically learning how to pass a test based on minimum standards as set by the government. Students aren't taught what they 'can' learn, but what the government thinks they 'should' learn.

I graduated in 1992, so I missed the true first wave of standardized tests. But if I had not been, I know I would have been *incredibly* frustrated at being forced to learn at a slower pace because all students needed to pass. I can almost guarantee I would have acted out, become more of a clown and troublemaker than I actually was in school, because I would have been bored to tears.

As you mention also, we have a highly media based group of children today. I agree cell phones should be not be allowed.

As far as the publishers, perhaps it is less than noble to prey upon the environment that we have currently. I can't blame them, however, because it would be akin to blaming cell phone makers for making products that children want for connectivity to social media. Like any company, they are in it for a profit. It just happens to be that currently the profit is more in tests than innovative learning tools/textbooks. They are simply doing what they have to do, like any corporation. I'm sure a lot of that includes lobbying to keep standards based education in place.

We can blame a lot of different groups, even parents. But that isn't solving the issue. I have my ideas of how to begin fixing it, which may differ from yours because I am not in the 'business' nor do I have children. I would say the following would be some baseline changes I would implement or suggest:

1. School Uniforms - It makes it harder to differentiate between children and helps against the forming of cliques.

2. A complete 180 from standards based education.

3. We have to invest more money into hiring more teachers. Smaller classes means less stress, more personal interaction, and more time for the teacher to be aware of 'problems' before they blow up.

4. Students should only be allowed to access devices owned by the school, ones that are for education and not instagram. What they have available before and after school is on their parents, but they shouldn't have it in class.

5. I will probably take some flack, but I do believe that vouchers should be allowed versus forced public school attendance. Forcing people who cannot afford private schooling to send their children to public education means you remove choice of the quality of learning. Once public schools start to even out in quality due to the aforementioned changes, then we can remove vouchers.

I disagree. Pinpointing the problem isn't very hard if you have some idea of where to look.

As someone who was 'coming of age' in my profession when No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and its successor the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), I can provide some insight into how these policies have been enacted and how both have been detrimental to the public education system as a whole. The former is a GWBush policy, and the latter is an Obama policy meant to mend the original law, so both liberals and conservatives are to blame to some degree, but both are based on the same philosophy of education and teacher-accountability.

There are some other mitigating factors and outside influences at work that should be noted: gun violence, the rise & ubiquity of the internet, and universal cell phone availability, all mostly concentrated in the past 10 years that play a large role. Cell phones, for example, are probably the worst thing to happen to education ever. They distract, they assist in cheating, they perpetuate arguments which can lead to physical altercations, and parents themselves advocate for their use "what if there's an emergency?!?!"

The idea of "teacher accountability" is the biggest culprit though.

Anecdotally, I've caught people cheating on papers. A girl in my honors English class basically plagiarised her entire final paper that we worked on for close to a month. The zero tanked her grade, which was already floundering, and the parent wanted to meet. I'd rather not go into detail to protect both the girl and my own anonymity, but suffice to say, all of the blame for this was aimed directly at me. How? Well I (apparently) "should have caught this sooner and intervened." Now, the final in that class is 8 pages long, I have ~125 students all working on it at the same time. but my ability to check something like that and my workload are beside the point. I'M NOT THE ONE WHO COPY PASTED A WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE AND DOCTORED IT UP SO IT COULD SQUEAK BY THE PLAGIARISM DETECTOR (shows she knew what she was doing, IMHO). Yet, I'm still the one being told that I was responsible for what happened.

Teacher-accountability SOUNDS like the right thing to do, but consider the following analogies

--Students are earning poor grades, therefore teachers should be demoted; put on probationary programs; lose some of their salaries; and if they do not improve their test scores, grades, and attendance; be terminated from their positions.

as to

--Impoverished people have poor oral hygiene/health, therefore their dentists should be forced to take pay cuts from insurance companies. If the patients continue to develop cavities and the like, the dentist should be forced to go for further training, and possibly lose his practice.

I have no control over attendance.
I have no control over their home life.
I have no control over children coming to school with holes in their shoes, having not eaten breakfast.

@Mordhaus the part about money grubbing could not be further from the truth.

I'll be brief b/c I know this is already too long for this forum, but Houton Mifflin, McGraw Hill, Etc. Book Company is facing a shortfall of sales in light of the digital age. It may be difficult to blame one entity, but that's a good place to start. They don't sell as many books, but guess who produces and distributes the standardized tests and practice materials? Those same companies who used to sell textbooks by the boatload.

When a student does poorly, they have to retest in order to recieve a diploma. $$$ if they fail again, they retest again and again there is a charge for taking the test and accompanying pretest materials. Each of which has its own fees that go straight to the former textbook companies. See: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/schools/testing/companies.html

In short, there is an incentive for these companies to lobby for an environment where tests are taken and retaken as much as possible. Each time a student has to retest that's more $ in their pocket.

How can they create an enviorment that faccilitates more testing? Put all the blame on the educators rather than the students.

That sounds a little tin-foil-hat conspiracy theory-ish, but the lobbying they do is very real: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/03/30/report-big-education-firms-spend-millions-lobbying-for-pro-testing-policies/?utm_term=.
9af18f0d2064

That, combined with exceptions for charter/private schools where students have the option to opt-out of said testing is skewing the numbers in favor of all of these for-profit companies: http://sanchezcharter.org/state-testing-parent-opt-out/ << one example (you can't opt-out in a public school, at least in my state)

@bobknight33 idk if i'd call business-minded for-profit policies "liberal"

God, I love this video...
The two officers obviously handled the situation grade-A-textbook-style, and hearing, that she resigned last week, just adds the icing on the cake.

Shame on them? Shame on her!

Good to know that one less power-abusing person is off the back of those, trying to do their job, on a close to minimum wage.

Textbook example of pussyfooting.

It's the Malazan book of the Fallen, a series of books actually.

It's a fantasy series with magic and gods, but it gives a more accurate and unflinching look at human history than any history textbook ever has. It gives a very personal look at soldiers on all sides of wars being waged and the brutal choices forced upon them in very cruel world. Another quote from the series summarizes what sticks with me the most:
"The harder the world, the fiercer the honour."

It's the difference between heroic acts demonstrating actual sacrifices, versus hero's 'risking' dangers that we know will never harm them.

Trump IS doing a great job....for other Trumps and our enemies, but not America.

Instead of (proudly)fake/(repeatedly convicted and admitted) fraud/fuming/cheating/thieving/lying/ racist/misogynist/ repeatedly bankrupting/whining/textbook narcissist/ idiot/ignorant/incestuous/infantile/ indignant/ school yard bully/sociopathic/ sexual assaulting/ philandering/ pedophilic/ slandering/ bribing/ porn star paying/ trust fund baby Trump?....in a heartbeat, and I thoroughly hate her.

Why doesn't he just call a lawyer?

Over four minutes long, and the answer is easy peasy.

And I agree with Dag. He is a human being.

He is also a human being with zero self-reflection skills. He feels empowered and powerful when he can scare others, but is terrified when the guns might be trained on him.

Zero self reflection. Zero understanding of cause and effect.

And a textbook example of Toxic Masculinity.

There are other ways of engaging the world. Get some therapy, dude.

I like Keanu more the more i come to understand about him, but i always come away from videos like this wondering if there was enough mouthwash in the world to help this man get rid of the taste of Keanu's arse from his tongue.

Keanu's a very interesting and seemingly nice man. He's a good action actor who puts the hours in to put in a convincing performance. The embellishment about 'textbook' judo techniques and 'veteran' driving skills are marketing embellishments about the most basic of techniques you'd learn if you attended any entry level training course in either driving or judo.

In the EU university is free in most countries..... It's great

The problem isn't the textbooks, but rather the extreme end of capitalism running rampant.

I remember having to buy new edition Calculus book ($100+) because they switched the texts between calc 2 and calc 3. Wasn't this shit invented 400 years ago? Did I really need a new book with slightly different questions? apparently so.
Meanwhile the author (Stewart) lives in a multi-million dollar ocean-front mansion on the west coast.

Fun fact: the Indian government regulates textbook costs, and even though the editions sold there are paperback only and lower-quality print, they are <1/10th the cost of western-published books with identical content. (It's illegal to export them out of India though.) Isn't it nice when a democracy works for the people rather than for corporations?