Jim of Jim's Journal did a piece that I featured here, about the glory of the American Melting Pot. Today, however, he emailed about a less happy American circumstance:
Brian,
Here's a situation you might be interested in mentioning in your Education Blog:
A 15 year-old girl in New York City has successfully completed 71 credits at two public community colleges in New York City. A full-time college student would normally complete between sixty and seventy credits during two years of study. (Community colleges in the U.S. typically offer Associate of Arts or Associate of Science degrees after that amount of study; for some students that is the ompletion of their college career but many then go on to complete a B.A. or B.S. degree at a full college or niversity. I'm not sure if there is a British equivalent or not.) She earned a 3.84 cumulative average while doing this; that is pretty close to being a straight A average.
Recently the girl and her parents sued in an attempt for her to receive a degree. In the U.S. and Canada there is something called a G.E.D. (General Equivalency Diploma). It was intended for people who dropped out of high school but then later in life needed a high school diploma, either because of employment requirements or in order to enroll in higher education. Apparently the community colleges allowed anyone to take courses, but high school graduation (or a GED) was a requirement for official admission to a degree program. New York State said she had to be at least 17 years old to take the tests leading to a GED. Thus, a suit to force New York to let her get a GED so she could get her associate's degree and enroll in a bachelor's degree program.
The judge ruled against them and was harshly critical of her father for allowing her to take college courses instead of attending high school. He also noted that it would have been legal for him to have her be a Home Schooled student, but allowing her to attend college was illegal.
Not only that, but now New York City's child protective services division has launched an investigation and is threatening her father with prosecution for "educational neglect" for allowing her to skip high school. This from a city with a notoriously poor public school system. Pregnant 15-year-old drug addicts are normal but allowing bright children to attend college is a horror that must be stamped out at once. The idiocy of the education bureaucracy and the Big Nanny social enforcement bureaucracy is truly beyond belief.
More in the Daily News and the New York Post.
Regards,
Jim
Yep! This is Nuevo York, the land of vast cash slush funds but somehow no edu ever happens that makes any difference.
Remember the Pope kissing the earth in Poland all those years back? Political singularities like the fall of the soviets happen folks, even when you just kiss the dirt. Though it might matter who kissed the dirt. Watch this space here in New York.
Cases like this one, over bright kids being attacked by the godillas of Edu at Livingstone Street here in NYC, have a very wide impact creating steam for change.
You may notice nothing on the surface, but look into the pool, things are moving.
1. Our property taxes went up 18% or did they? The piggy wigs actually put up the property valuations too, so it is something like 26% and Joe public is taking note.
2. As one of the Joes I’m really ticked off!
3. Nothing will change in “Big Edu” with or without this money until after the big-bang or tectonic shift in politics.
4. Our mayor hates smoking so he banned it. He’s a Republican isn’t he? Well, maybe, but wasn’t he in the Democratic Donkey party just a year earlier?
5. People aren’t stupid they notice this Cee aRe Aye Pee.
6. I suspect we have passed the zenith of the Laffer curve for tax receipts so any more tax rises and there won’t be any more boodle to spend on edu or any other u.
We are about to enter the most fascinating period of New York State politics. The old order is dead, all but for the interment. Democrats and socialists have run this town for years, so insults to the intelligence, like the child who was too bright (Imagine an H M Bateman cartoon on that one) will be paid back.
The Democratic club, here in Kings Highway, supported our last Republican Mayor has thrown its lot in with Pataki and above all hates “Hilary”. This illustrates how far things have shifted. This little girl, being denied her degree by the likes of the Livingstone street mafia, really helps the shift along, and then some. To me it is great news when the idiots act true to form and in public too.
So one must conclude that the idiocy of the ed-u-gators is not going to last. The hunters will clear the reptiles from the swamps. Quite simply, there will be a price for this one. All the inverted racism, anti Semitism and the like is just fuel for the fire of change. Even Liberal Jews are wobbling in their voting patterns, believe me it takes a lot to do that, and this event will convince many to think again.
It is simply a question of when, not if.
Enjoy the spectacle.
