Education is one of the United States’ current serious problems

July 25, 2023

Among the nation’s many current problems is the decline in public education’s success in teaching students the basic subjects they must have to be successful, or even to survive at a suitable level.

Education Week provided a disturbing look at this situation last September. “The results, released today from the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ Long-Term Trend test, paint a stark picture of 9-year-olds’ achievement in 2022. Over the past two years, math scores dropped by seven points — the first ever decline in the long-term trend assessment’s 50-year history. Reading scores also fell by five points, the biggest drop since 1990.”

In explaining this disturbing information, Peggy G. Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers the National Assessment of Educational Progress, said “These results are sobering,” adding that part of the problem is “that COVID-19 shocked American education and stunted the academic growth of this age group of children.”

Indeed, COVID-19, and the way many in authority over us reacted to it, had a very damaging effect on education. But these problems were not new with the pandemic, as other studies have shown.

Add to that the “progressive” and “woke” elements that have been sneaked into many state and local education systems, some actions by the federal and local governments, and the problem becomes much worse.

The education system — and the public education system in particular, due to the large proportion of our children that parents send to public schools expecting them to be properly educated — is failing in much of America. It is failing the parents and other citizens whose taxes support public education. But, worst of all, it is failing those students who attend those schools. That trust is no longer appropriate for far too many school systems.

Marc Tucker is the president emeritus and a distinguished senior fellow of the National Center on Education and the Economy. He has some interesting comments about education. “In my last blog, I described how high school textbooks that used to be written at the 12th-grade level for 12th graders are now written at the 7th- or 8th-grade level. I cited a report that said that many community college teachers do not assign much writing at all to their first-year students because they cannot write. 

“I revealed that the community college course called College Math is not college math at all, but is in reality just a course in Algebra I — a course that is supposed to be passed in middle school in most states — with a few other topics thrown in, and many community college students cannot do the work. 

“I pointed to data that says that the students who go to the typical four-year college are no better prepared than those attending community colleges. I then pointed to another study that says that for close to 40 percent of our college students, the first two years of college add virtually no value at all, and ‘not much’ value for the rest. 

“I ended by pointing out that, if this is all true, then colleges are typically teaching most students what we used to teach in the high school college-bound track and are not doing it very well.”

Tucker’s revelation was written in 2015.

It was reported by TV station NBC Boston last September that a school district in Massachusetts has been slowly phasing Algebra 1 out of its middle-school curriculum because the advanced math classes were not attended by equal numbers of students of the four racial categories.

This “transition” began in 2017, and was designed to create better equity among math students.

“Equity” is more important in many school systems than merit. It is no longer important that students gain the highest level of knowledge of subjects of which they are capable. It is more important that an equal number of students in each of the races get the same level of knowledge, regardless of how low that level may be.

In higher education, too, it is becoming more important to have the “correct,” or roughly equal numbers of students from various groups than to have the most capable students from whichever groups fill each class level.

But when they are finished with school, how do those students, who really haven’t earned some of the rewards they have received, feel about that? Do they not care? Or, does it negatively affect their self-esteem, self-confidence? Are they really better off having something they did not earn? 

And, when they get into the work-a-day world, will they be able to perform as expected, or will their job performance match their less-than-excellent school performance?

It might feel good or please folks to have the “right” number of each race and gender in every organized group. But what we need, and must have in every critical position is the person most qualified, or at the very least, highly qualified, who has proven their qualification, regardless of their race or gender.

But the critical question is, as this affliction of demanding equal numbers grows, and the level of performance correspondingly falls, will the United States be able to successfully compete on the world stage, or protect itself from its adversaries? 

Could the region possibly see a return of the good old days?

July 18, 2023

Those of us fortunate enough to be around this area in the 40s, 50s and 60s probably remember what Bluefield was like, back then. One of my vivid memories is in the years after WHIS-TV went on the air in 1955. The TV station and its radio siblings, WHIS-AM and FM were located on the third floor of what was then the Municipal Building on Bland Street, and is now the Arts Center.

I liked the TV and radio stations and hung around there a good bit. I remember standing at the windows overlooking Bland Street at 5:00 p.m. watching two lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic slowly crawling out of the downtown area. 

At that time the downtown was filled and thriving: clothing stores, furniture stores, pharmacies, office buildings, banks, a music store, hotels, restaurants, a newspaper, railroad buildings, and more. Bluefield was the shopping center and banking center for the southern West Virginia and southwest Virginia coal fields, where tens of thousands of regional residents lived and worked.

The rail yard was filled with hundreds of train cars, both those dozens filled with coal getting ready to head out, and those empty cars ready to be filled up again. Empty tracks were not visible until you were out of the downtown area of both Bluefields.

The coal industry isn’t what it once was, due to natural and manmade events. Coal became naturally replaced for some uses by other fuels. But it also was targeted by governments, which caused great distress well before the job and business losses should have occurred, and over a much shorter time period than was either necessary or judicious.

Today, a large faction wants coal and other fossil fuels to be abandoned in favor of cleaner, “green” energy sources. But fortunately, there is still a need for these fuels, not only in America, but across the globe.

“Coal is an abundant natural resource that can be used as a source of energy, as a chemical source from which numerous synthetic compounds (e.g., dyes, oils, waxes, pharmaceuticals, and pesticides) can be derived,” Britannica.com explains, “and in the production of coke for metallurgical processes,” such as making steel.

Although burning coal for heat and energy are heavily opposed, coal is still a major source of energy for electricity, particularly in other countries like China and India. Also, the gasification and liquefaction of coal produce gaseous and liquid fuels that can be easily transported by pipeline and stored in tanks.

Britannica.com adds, “After the tremendous rise in coal use in the early 2000s, which was primarily driven by the growth of China’s economy, coal use worldwide peaked in 2012. Since then coal use has experienced a steady decline, offset largely by increases in natural gas use.”

For coal reserves, only China has more than the U.S., but the U.S. has nearly twice as much recoverable coal as China. And the industry is working to make burning coal a cleaner process.

“Meanwhile, more than a quarter trillion tons of coal lie underfoot, from the Appalachians through the Illinois Basin to the Rocky Mountains—enough to last 250 years at today's consumption rate,” according to National Geographic. “You hear it again and again: The U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of coal. About 40 coal-burning power plants are now being designed or built in the U.S., [and] China, also rich in coal, could build several hundred by 2025.”

Clearly, there is and will be for a long time the need for coal produced in the two Virginias, and elsewhere.

Chris Hamilton, President & CEO West Virginia Coal Association, sent out an email thorough Friends of Coal recently, saying, “Throughout our state’s 160-year history, the coal industry has been a major driver behind West Virginia’s economy and billions of dollars of new investment will ensure that similar benefits are generated for the next 160 years.

“Despite all the hype you hear about a zero-carbon economy and transitioning to renewable, or intermittent energy forms, West Virginia’s metallurgical and thermal coals will continue to drive our economy while remaining a stable component of our state and nation’s energy mix,” he wrote.

The email contained some other relevant information:

* World coal use is growing with over 8 billion tons consumed in 2022.

* Coal accounts for over 50 percent of West Virginia’s total export product.

* West Virginia-produced coal accounts for over 40 percent of our nation’s total coal exports.

* Forty countries and 30 states rely on West Virginia coal to power their energy needs.

* West Virginia produces the highest quality metallurgical coal found anywhere in the world and 69 percent of the base fuel for domestic steel making.

The coal industry may not again become the powerful local economic engine it was back in the day, but it is still responsible for over $14 billion in annual economic activity for the state, provides 50,000-plus West Virginia jobs, and provides substantial severance tax collections for the state.

The coal reserves in our region constitute an opportunity to provide a product that the nation and the world will need for quite a while in the future, and an economic boost for the region.

Climate alarmism’s failures have seriously damaged our country

July 11, 2023

News headlines in the days following the July 4th holiday said the following things:
* The planet saw its hottest day on record this week. - CNN
* Heat Records Broken Across Earth - The New York Times
* How we know the Earth is now the hottest in thousands of years - The Washington Post
* World's hottest day? Earth set another heat record Thursday - USA Today

These headlines fit comfortably with predictions of climate catastrophe that we have been treated to over a period of many years, such as these, published by The Western Journal in 2018:
* 1970: “Most species on the Earth will perish by 1995” 
* 1970s: “Global cooling is the real problem”
* 1989: “If global warming isn’t reversed by the year 2000, it will be too late to avert catastrophe”
* 2000: “Great Britain will be almost snow-less thanks to global warming”
* 2001: “Snow is going to be a thing of the past in other places, too”
* 2008: “We’ll be living in Antarctica pretty soon”
* 2008: “Prince Charles says we only have 96 months to save the world”
* 2009: “We only have 50 days to save the world from global warming”
* 2016: “Pretty much everything in ‘An Inconvenient Truth’”

And, there was one more, but the end date of this predicted catastrophe has not yet arrived: 1988: “The Earth will warm by 3 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit by 2025-2050.”

These were serious predictions made by, or based upon theories promoted by, scientists and/or organizations focused on climate issues. 

The reference to “An Inconvenient Truth” addresses the documentary produced by former Vice President Al Gore, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for it.

In the 2006 global warming documentary, Gore predicted that the global sea level could rise as much as 20 feet "in the near future."

It didn’t happen.

Two years later during a speech at the Copenhagen Climate Conference he said that there was "a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during some of the summer months, could be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years."

It didn’t happen.

Dire predictions like those of Gore and the preceding list that did not come true tend to create doubt about other similar predictions. Even those that someday may come true, if any of them ever will.

This is even more likely when people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the former bartender and current member of the House of Representatives, warn of impending doom.

“The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change,” she reportedly said, “and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?”

This comment found the support of two-thirds of Democrats in a Rasmussen poll, and a total of 48 percent of all those polled. Later, Ocasio-Cortez labeled her comment as “dry humor” and “sarcasm.”

One of the many great things about this country is the ability of everyone to say pretty much anything they want to say, with a few exceptions for dangerous material. This is still largely true, despite some recent efforts to control some opinions. These previous faulty predictions were allowed, and even encouraged.

We don’t really know what prompted the “predictors” to say what they said. Perhaps they truly believed what they were saying. Or, perhaps they had some nefarious purpose behind their predictions.

What we do know is that the predictions were grossly wrong, since the time for them to have occurred has passed, and Earth is still here and hardly the worse for wear.

And yet there are still those that predict climate catastrophe, and a broad range of folks who believe them.

In a video on Facebook, a guy was interviewing another guy and asked him what to do about climate change. The interviewee said, “Farming has to stop. That’s the single biggest driver of climate change.” An interesting perspective.

The interviewer then said, “Alright. Without farming you would be hungry, naked and sober.” Perhaps the interviewee had not thought beyond his initial idea.

Even some of those who reject the cataclysmic predictions agree that people and their habits are having an effect on Earth’s climate. But they understand that anything that the United States does will have minimal effect on the global atmosphere. 

Yet, the U.S. under the Biden administration’s edicts, tries to kill fossil fuels, push “green energy” on us, despite its inability to meet the demand, force electric vehicles on the populace, and do away with gas ovens and other things. All this as China, India and other nations continue to increase their reliance on coal-burning energy and other uses of fossil fuels.

We need to think smartly about this situation and not try to force on people things that will occur naturally as the clean forms of energy that they think will save the world evolve.

The situation simply does not require the U.S. and other nations inclined to fight climate change to force expensive and often painful situations on their people, while other nations happily ignore the situation, counteracting whatever smidgen of good these harsh methods accomplish with their selfish tendencies.

Our Founders would be proud of the Court’s recent decisions

July 4, 2023

The U.S Supreme Court did its job quite well last week. In three notable cases, the Court did exactly what it was designed to do: it ruled according to the language and the principles of the U.S. Constitution.

In the case ending affirmative action in higher education, it ruled that affirmative action, the measure which for decades was used to end discrimination, was itself discriminatory, and therefore unconstitutional.

In the 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis a graphic designer refused to design a wedding website for a same-sex couple, due to her religious beliefs. However, her refusal was in breach of Colorado’s discrimination law. But the Court upheld the designer’s free speech rights and religious beliefs as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

And in the case where President Joe Biden tried to make the taxpayers bailout people with outstanding student loan debt through an Executive Order, thereby bypassing Congress, the Court again properly ruled that the president of the United States does not have the Constitutional authority to do that. 

Interestingly, some years ago, before he was President, Biden publicly said that the action he later took was not Constitutional. That sentiment was also expressed by Nancy Pelosi, when she was the Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2021.

And, predictably, the liberal’s reaction to these rulings is both strong and off the mark. Some of them probably do understand why the Court, doing the right thing, ruled as it did. Others are going to complain, despite that reality.

Contrary to the idea that many people have, the Supreme Court’s job is not to make Biden or Trump, Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives, or any group happy with its rulings. 

Its job is not to make decisions that are politically based, or to reinterpret the Constitution or laws to make a ruling that is more likeable or pleasing to anyone. Its job is to correctly interpret the Constitution and the laws of the country.

And that is what the justices who are judicial conservatives did. And the liberal justices opposed them with their votes, which also opposed the meaning of the Constitution.

While Biden’s attempt on the student loan bailout would have made thousands of people very happy, allowing that to happen would be allowing the President to exercise powers that are reserved for the Congress. Fortunately, the proper understanding of the Constitution’s tripartite federal government held by the judicial conservatives on the Court, led to the correct ruling in the case.

A very timely and effective look at the difference between judicial conservatism and judicial liberalism occurred in the opposing positions on the affirmative action ruling. And the two sides are represented by black/African-American Justices Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Jackson is the newest member of the Court, taking her seat this year. When asked during her confirmation hearing by Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-TN, to define the word "woman," she replied, “I can’t.” Shortly after that, she added, “not in this context. I’m not a biologist.”

And her dissent on the affirmative action ruling said this: “With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces ‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat,” she wrote. “But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life. And having so detached itself from this country’s actual past and present experiences, the Court has now been lured into interfering with the crucial work that [the University of North Carolina] and other institutions of higher learning are doing to solve America’s real-world problems.

“No one benefits from ignorance. Although formal race linked legal barriers are gone, race still matters to the lived experiences of all Americans in innumerable ways, and today's ruling makes things worse, not better,” she continued.

Thomas, on the other hand, took a vastly different view in his concurring opinion. “The solution to our Nation’s racial problems thus cannot come from policies grounded in affirmative action or some other conception of equity,” he wrote. “Racialism simply cannot be undone by different or more racialism. Instead, the solution announced in the second founding is incorporated in our Constitution: that we are all equal, and should be treated equally before the law without regard to our race. Only that promise can allow us to look past our differing skin colors.”

Jackson’s argument focuses not on the constitutionality of the discrimination favoring one race over others, which was the question before the Court. Her argument focuses on her concept of racism and whether or not it is important.

This is a common mis-focus of the liberal justices: social justice, not justice by law. They argue for social justice, even if in doing so the principles of the Constitution are ignored or trampled on.

Our founders created a brilliant Constitution, and made a special point of guaranteeing certain rights, without which rights a free nation cannot exist. We must always honor those guarantees, even if doing that is inconvenient for some of us.

As we celebrate our founding, is America heading off track?

June 27, 2023

As the 4th of July, or “Independence Day,” approaches, here is a little bit of the history of that wonderful day, courtesy of Britannica online.

“It commemorates the passage of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. The Congress had voted in favour of independence from Great Britain on July 2 but did not actually complete the process of revising the Declaration of Independence, originally drafted by Thomas Jefferson in consultation with fellow committee members John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and William Livingston, until two days later. 

“The celebration was initially modeled on that of the king’s birthday, which had been marked annually by bell ringing, bonfires, solemn processions, and oratory. Such festivals had long played a significant role in the Anglo-American political tradition. Especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, when dynastic and religious controversies racked the British Empire (and much of the rest of Europe), the choice of which anniversaries of historic events were celebrated and which were lamented had clear political meanings. 

“The ritual of toasting the king and other patriot-heroes — or of criticizing them — became an informal kind of political speech, further formalized in mid-18th century when the toasts given at taverns and banquets began to be reprinted in newspapers.”

Today, we often celebrate this historic occasion with fireworks displays at baseball games, parades, and other such events. However, we are, and have been for some time, moving away from the structure of our nation as our founders established it.

Alas, many Americans and others who live in the U.S. do not regard July 4th as a day to celebrate. And many of them, especially some younger ones, who haven’t been properly taught about their country, or for other reasons do not value it. Not only is July 4th not seen as something to celebrate, but America itself is not valued by many.

There is a famous story about this situation arising. James McHenry, a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention, had recorded in his journal a brief conversation between a lady and Benjamin Franklin one day during the Convention. “A lady asked Dr. Franklin, ‘Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?’ Franklin replied, ‘A republic, if you can keep it.’”

The most notable democratic establishment, although not the first, was ancient Greece in the 4th and 5th centuries BC. Ancient Greece lasted about 200 years before falling apart.

The United States of America is approaching 250 years of existence, a bit longer than Greece, but showing signs of its dissolution, as well.

It is the tendency of some of those in our government these days, elected representatives and hired bureaucrats, to strive for greater and greater levels of control over the citizens, the people who pay their salaries, and entrust them with their freedoms. Only the comparatively few actual small-d “democrats,” who are determined to maintain the high level of personal freedom of the people and the low level of government control provided by our Constitution, avoid striving to increase control.

If we were to be visited by some of the founders and first presidents today, they would be aghast at what has been done to their marvelous creation. Their brilliant work does not appeal to many of those inside and outside of government, who either are not capable of understanding the greatness of our Constitution, or whose desires for power cause them to move away from our democratic republic and toward a monarchy or dictatorship. Away from capitalism and toward socialism.

How many of the founders ever considered having a Department of Education that would attempt to control what our children are presented in government schools that is outside of accepted curricula; or an Environmental Protection Agency that would tell property owners what they may do with mud puddles on their property.

Would they have imagined a Department of Homeland Security that would not secure our borders, or a Department of Justice that would label parents who attend school board meetings to complain about what is happening in their children’s schools — which are supported with the parents’ taxes — as domestic terrorists?

Of course, the founders could not imagine the way technology would evolve, and the tools we would have at our disposal. Which is why their policies are broadly designed to apply to whatever the future delivers, without the need to apply specifically to each and every new thing.

We have freedom of speech and expression — whether in public, online, or anywhere else — so long as that speech is not obviously dangerous. We don’t need self-important platform media tycoons imposing their political beliefs on us.

Former President Barack Obama must at least be given kudos for one thing: his honesty when he said, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

This transformation is continuing under President Joe Biden, whose party is determined to “progress” America from the most free and successful governmental form in history.

Forbes magazine asks: “Why have socialist ideas become so attractive again, despite the fact that, without exception, every socialist experiment over the past 100 years has ended in dismal failure?”

Good question.