Bill Gates "Cancels" Immigrant Princeton Math Prof? Baltimore Student with a 0.13 GPA Top 50%, AZ Education Dept. Says You're Making Your 3 Month Old Racist (The Five for 03/05/21)
Hey,
Welcome to The Five.
I’m playing with the format a bit. Last week, I dropped one regular issue and one topic-focused issue. I don’t know if I’ll keep this up, but for this issue I’m focusing on all education-related stories.
Before we begin.
Twitter now offers a Substack-like service called Revue, which allows users to charge for premium content. If you trust Twitter at this point, might I humbly suggest you’re out of your dang mind. The network makes up the rules as it goes, and there’s no telling what might be deemed a “bannable” offense in the future.(More Twitter news, concerning music streaming, in #5).
According to Bloomberg, the increased savings rate during the COVID lockdowns could drive the economy to new heights as states open back up.
California gave 4,300 people the wrong COVID vaccine dosage. In the most California move ever, the state’s Orangoutangs at the San Diego Zoo were given the correct doses. The land of fruits and nuts apparently thinks some primates are more valuable than people.
I’m not even going to touch how China is testing people who fly into their country for COVID. I mean, Chinese officials will touch you (good and hard), but but I won’t touch the topic. Google at your own peril.
Speaking of China, they seem to be all about assaulting both ends of the human without permission, as the Communist government is rolling out facial recognition software to “read human emotions” to help in “fighting crime.” (Translated: if you seem sad about living in a dictatorship, they’ll probably just off you).
Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin forced the entire 628 page stimulus bill to be read aloud before it could be voted on. Good. This should happen for every bill. Most legislation is not fully read our elected representatives who vote on legislation. They should at least have to listen to it, if we have to live with the outcome of their votes.
On to the news.
[one]
Former NY Times reporter Bari Weiss, one of the strongest thinkers and writers on the political left, featured an essay from Sergui Klainerman, a Math Prof at Princeton to escaped poverty in Communist Romania through his incredible math skills.
In light of the 2+2=5 “woke math” trend (which kicked off on Woke Twitter last August), Klainerman worries that The Equitable Math Program, which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is doing harm to the hard sciences, hurting poor children’s chances to escape poverty, and will soon try to cancel Profs like him.
Froim Klainerman’s Essay There’s No Such Thing As White Math:
This phenomenon is part of what has been dubbed “The Great Awokening.” As others have explained powerfully, the ideology incubated in academia, where it indoctrinated plenty of bright minds. It then migrated, through those true believers, into our important cultural, religious and political institutions. Now it is affecting some of the country’s most prominent businesses.
Unlike the traditional totalitarianism practiced by former communist countries, like the Romania I grew up in, this version is soft. It enforces its ideology not by jailing dissenters or physically eliminating them, but by social shaming, mob punishment, guilt by association, and coerced speech.
When it comes to education, I believe the woke ideology is even more harmful than old-fashioned communism.
Communism had a strong sense of objective reality anchored in the belief that humans are capable of discovering universal truths. It forcefully asserted, in fact, the absolute truth of dialectic materialism, as revealed by its founders Marx, Engels and Lenin. Communist ideology held science and mathematics in the highest regard, even though it often distorted the former for doctrinal reasons.
Mathematics was largely immune to ideological pressure, and thus thrived in most communist countries. Being skilled in math was a source of great societal prestige for school children. And it was a great equalizer: those from socioeconomically disadvantaged families had a chance to compete on equal footing with those from privileged ones.
Klainerman rightly points out that being good at math means you can earn a lot of money. By definition, that’s how a person who grew up in poverty escapes it…by becoming a high earner. But “equitable math,” like all woke-inspired disciplines, values feelings over logic, which will produce less math savants.
Which means more poor kids will become adults who live their lives in poverty.
And the professors who speak out against this, like Klainerman, are in real danger of being cancelled for “racism” because they want to teach math as math. The Equitable Math Project has declared it racist to require students to show their work on problems.
One way or another, this insanity will be stopped or will lead to a very grim place.
[two]
In a related story to slacking off on math standards from #1, a Baltimore public school is in hot water after Project Baltimore uncovered a student who’s grade point average starts with a decimal, but is still in the top 50% of his class.
On Monday, Project Baltimore reported on Tiffany France’s son. In his four years at Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Design, he passed three classes and earned a grade point average of 0.13. Yet, his transcripts show his class rank is 62 of 120, meaning 58 students, just in his grade, have a 0.13 GPA or lower.
France, a single mother of three working three jobs, says the school never told her that her son was failing until last month, when the 17-year-old was put back in ninth grade.
City Schools will not interview with Project Baltimore about France’s son or Augusta Fells. Instead, Project Baltimore received a two-page statement. In it, City Schools states they mailed France a letter and conducted a home visit. The statement said France went to the school and met with leadership. France says none of that happened. North Avenue also said in the statement, it’s “reviewing actions that impacted student outcomes” at the school prior to this year.
So, unless a single mom who works three jobs so her son can have a better future is lying (which is possible, but seems unlikely), Baltimore City Schools did not inform Tiffany France that her son was falling behind for three full years, at which point they put him back in 9th grade. Allegedly, the school then lied about meeting with her.
What are the odds this kid stays in high school until age 21 to get his diploma? Anything is possible, but what’s probable is that Ms. France’s son drops out, never completes any advanced job training and turns to a life of crime, dies young, goes to prison or lives off of manipulating government programs and/or family and friends for the rest of his life. What else is he set up to do? What else will he have the skills for?
Since the school flat refused to openly address the issue and this hasn’t received the national attention the story merits…I doubt anything will change. Which means Baltimore Public Schools can crank out graduates (and dropouts) who are not functionally literate to the modern world and will continue to be fully funded by taxpayer dollars.
[three]
This is a strange one, but a seemingly minor fight over The University of Texas school spirit song reveals a lot about how facts are valued (or ignored) in higher ed, and just how much control today’s college students have over the university system.
Before we dive into the controversy, this reminds me a lot of the “OK” gesture sign. The symbol (pictured below) came about as a scuba diving gesture, both as a question (“are you OK”) and an answer (“I’m OK”).
That all changed in 2017 when trolls on the message board 4Chan thought it would be funny to flood Twitter with the message that the the ring-and-thumb in a circle and remaining fingers up made a “W” (3 fingers raised) and a “P”(index, thumb, wrist) for “white power.” Mass hysteria was set off. The actor playing a Disney mascot was fired for using OK symbol in a picture. A Chicago Cubs fan was banned from Wrigley Field for life for using the gesture. The Coast Guard suspended a sailer for it.
The problem is that, unless you were very social media savvy, you may have seen the gesture as “the circle game.” It’s a moronic game played by teen boys where one makes the OK symbol, and if another sees it, the boy who made the symbol gets to punch the other boy in the arm. And, of course, the gesture has a century of use similar to a thumbs up, showing all is well. So, it’s entirely possible that some (most?) of those who were punished had no idea what they were doing had been deemed no longer politically correct. Even AOC, who has called the gesture racist has used it on Instagram live videos on more than one occasion.
Now that we’ve covered all that backstory, the controversy around the University of Texas’ fight song “The Eyes of Texas” which is sung by the crowd after every UT sporting event, and has been for nearly a century. This year, a group of UT football players started to walk off the field (breaking both tradition and team rules) as a protest that the song was racist, based on two claims:
A). The Phrase “The Eyes of Texas are upon you” is a play on “The Eyes of the South are upon you” uttered by Robert E. Lee.
and
B). The song is set to the tune of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” which some have deemed racist.
Let’s take those one at a time.
A. (Response): I did a bit of digging, and found no evidence that the “eyes are upon you” line was a play on Robert E. Lee. The Bible uses the phrase “The Eyes of the Lord are upon” in Psalm 34:15 and 1 Peter 3:12 in the King James Version, which are the kind of verses kids tend to learn in church growing up. I would assume there are other variations of “the eyes of ______ are upon you” in music and literature.
B. (Response): “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” first came about in the 1840’s. Like many folk songs, the exact author or date is pretty difficult to pin down. In 1894, one song book did print the song with an abhorrently racist verse, which you can read here if you like. I’m not easily offended, and I found it disgusting. However, at the same time, other songbooks inserted additional (non-controversial) additional verses. So it’s safe to say that most people never saw the racist verse, which wasn’t part of the original song. “Railroad” was popularized in the 20th century by Bing Crosby, and I think it’s safe to assume that a black singer in the pre-Civil-rights era would not have wanted to record a racist anthem.
So, was “The Eyes of Texas” written as a secretly racist overture? Considering the University of Texas didn’t integrate the football team until the 1970’s, I have my doubts. UT had no reason to write a song in coded language in 1903, when song was penned. At that point, the school was an openly racist institution.
Which is a tale worth the telling, an issue worth unpacking. Except it won’t happen, because everybody is talking about stupidness.
There are very real racism issues in the U.S., and a very real history of racism at UT. But as with the “OK” controversy, this appears to be a trick play where everyone is chasing the running back who doesn’t have the ball, to borrow a football analogy.
I have no doubt the players “feel triggered” over the song…but those feelings are the result of rumor and misinformation, not accurate history (unless some new information is uncovered). If the UT players get their way and the song is “canceled,” the education system is further weakened, as it is with the “white math” story in #1, because facts and provable data matter less and less.
[four]
I’m approaching the word limit here, and rather than pull quotes from another complicated story, I’m just going to bullet point, drop a link and let you read the whole thing if you like.
From The Daily Wire: Arizona Education Department Tells Parents To Talk About Racism with Three Month Olds, the following is true:
If you don’t speak to your three month old about racism (before the child can roll over), the child will likely grow up to be racist.
A white person with a black spouse and half-black children can be racist.
Children as young as 30 months can start to show racism.
Huh. I guess I have no idea how my half Jewish daughter’s best friend in our neighborhood is a half black kid. How did that happen? I didn’t read Ibram X. Kendy to her in the crib (I was one of those ignorant parents who read books about shapes and animals).
And how do the other kids play with her at day care? The kids there are up to five years old. Why are they not prejudiced against Jews yet?
Maybe somebody snuck them into the Coca-Cola training?
[five]
Well, that was heavy. Let’s get into the weekend with a pop culture roundup:
I’m absolutely obsessed with the new single from Robert Finley, a 63 year old blues singer from Louisiana from the forthcoming album Sharecroppers Son, produced by The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach. Finley labored in obscurity for most of his life, playing music on the side as he earned a living as an Army helicopter mechanic and later a civilian carpenter. Just shy of collecting social security, he’s finally poised to break into the mainstream.
Michael B. Jordan (Creed, Black Panther) stars in Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse, which was originally set to release in theaters, but will head straight to Amazon Prime Video on 04/30.
Speaking of MBJ, he’s also allegedly in the running for a Superman reboot, as Warner Brothers attempts to tank the Snyder cut (see next bullet). Superman will now be in the hands of JJ Abrams (Lost, The Force Awakens, Cloverfield) and memoirist Tanahisi Coates of Between the World and Me fame. Coates is a gifted writer, but I completely disagree with his nihilistic worldview. Coates wrote about watching police and firefighters die during 9/11: “They were not human to me. Black, white, or whatever, they were menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could — with no justification — shatter my body.” I have no problem watching a popcorn flick penned by someone with a different worldview than mine, but I’m guessing Superman will get really preach-y this time around. As YouTuber Tim Pool put it recently “I can only stomach one teaspoon of propaganda per cup of entertainment.”
Despite Warner Brothers using a Superman reboot leak to dampen enthusiasm for the Snyder Cut, an HBO Max Exclusive reworking of the 2017 box office bomb Justice League to fulfill director Zach Snyder’s original vision. Snyder was fired from the project mid-production, and the theatrical release was a completely different movie. Thanks to years of fan pressure, the original will finally release on the newly minted HBO Max streaming service. I’m a huge fan of Snyder’s attention to tiny details in his movies, which is why this Twitter thread, which shows the likely classic painting inspirations behind a 2 minute preview of the movie is worth a quick skim. The four hour movie (you read that right) hits HBO Max on 3/18.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has purchased majority ownership of also-ran music streamer Tidal. (Hat Tip: Bonnie)
I’m not sure what the rest of the MLB is doing, but the St. Louis Cardinals will open to 32% capacity for home games, with fans sitting in pods of 4. Of course, it would have been just as safe to that least season, but everything in the COVID era is stupid.
UFC light heavyweight (205 lbs) champ Jon Jones is moving to heavyweight (265 lbs) and looks to be making the case he may be the greatest combat sports heavyweight fighter of all time. When Jones retires, I can’t imagine he won’t be mentioned in the same breath at the four greatest heavyweight boxers of all time: Tyson, Ali, Marciano and Joe Louis.
The newly formed Overtime League will pay 16-18 year old basketball prospects $100K+ salaries, trying to compete with top colleges for young talent, turning high school kids into pro athletes ready for the NBA. Games will be available to watch online, although the details are still sketchy. The league plans to profit from jersey sales, video games IP, NFT’s (non-fungible tokens, which I covered in story #3 of this issue).
[epilogue]
This guy and I are in agreement that he shouldn’t have children.
Until the next one,
-sth