Steeve is angry because IQcracy is in risk but but is exactly because selecting High IQ parrots and Jewish Paidean that we have irrational illibs making laws,

“Everybody’s not going to need algebra. Everybody’s not going to need historical dates,” Mr. McCutchen said. “But they will need to know how to problem solve and ask questions.”

You learn to problem solve and ask questions by first immersing yourself in facts, such as memorizing historical dates, working many algebra problems, memorizing spelling lists, memorizing poems or the preamble to the Constitution.
You want to be spontaneous and creative on game day? Practice your drills during the week.
You want to problem solve and have an original insight? Do a lot of rote homework.
People who have mastered an art or science, or at least studied one enough to appreciate the craft, know that practice, drills, and rote work are essential.
Modern educators are idiots.

Regents Exams May Become Optional for High School Graduation in New York

Huh? They were optional back in the 1970s. The Regents were meant for the college-bound. Everyone else got a plain-Jane diploma. Are they given to everybody now?

There was a neat rule: if you failed a particular course but managed to pass the state Regents exam for it, then you got credit for it. I took advantage of that once or twice.

Ducky?

Like Atlas Shrugged, except the producers are ordinary working people at every level.
And instead of running off to an invisible tech utopia, they die.

Because Ayn Rand heroes don’t really exist, but Ayn Rand villains do.

There is 2015-2019 Regents Exam results data available here. Results broken down by school, year,and test.
https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Education/2014-15-to-2017-19-NYC-Regents-Exam-Results-Public/bnea-fu3k

But that only goes through 2019 and only includes aggregate data.

Looking harder I found this terrific source.
https://infohub.nyced.org/reports/academics/test-results

It has an Excel file with 2015-2022 results. But even better it has breakdowns by sex and race. Also note the School Profile worksheet where you can enter the school DBN by hand and get a nice report.

Any thoughts on useful analyses to do with this data?

You learn to problem solve and ask questions by first immersing yourself in facts, such as memorizing historical dates, working many algebra problems, memorizing spelling lists, memorizing poems or the preamble to the Constitution

Uh…nah. If you’re smart, you’re just smart. Technical ability is what you’re describing; problem solving is innate and comes from high g, a biological fitness factor you can’t inculcate with rote learning. In other words, well made people don’t need school.

One of my oldest friends, who grew up on a farm in Upstate New York, told me that he hated school so much that all he did was goof off. Then he did so well on his Regents Exams that New York gave him a free ride to one of its state colleges.

Of course he blew that by goofing off his first year of free college and then dropping out.

After that he worked with me, a high school dropout, on a Forest Service crew in the Rockies.

Eventually, I earned my degree at the University of Colorado. As I was doing that, my friend decided he was smart enough to get into Cornell, and somehow he did. He got his degree there, but it wasn’t free.

The competency crisis seems to have spread to the Secret Service and shooting straight . Today in DC , agents fired at perps breaking into Bidens granddaughter car — but did not hit them
Bullets can ricochet and kill innocents … I expect SS bullets to lodge or be slowed down in the body of perps

True, but there will be opportunities all the same. Large/public organizations will be forced to dumb down hiring for diversity, but smaller private ones can resist if they want and/or create the appearance of diversity by getting XBE certification.

As big organizations really start to feel the bite of the competency crisis they will increasingly have to sub out work to companies that are not saddled with this handicap. Work for one of these businesses or start one yourself and things should go pretty well for you.

For those of us in their late 30s or older, for the rest of your life will be lived in a world that doesn’t match up to the standards you experienced when you were younger and it’s depressing to see. But younger people have no memory of that world, and the smarter and more more driven ones will recognize that in a world where competency is a luxury rather than the expectation they have the chance to really capitalize on that personally.

For those of us in their late 30s or older, for the rest of your life will be lived in a world that doesn’t match up to the standards you experienced when you were younger and it’s depressing to see

As a late 50s dude, I sometimes explain to the youngsters about a mythical time when you went out in public and everyone was thin, there were no tattoos, people were dressed appropriately, and there was a commonly accepted set of manners.

It’s not just academics and professional competence that’s taken a nose dive, it’s pretty full spectrum now.

In other words, everybody needs a high g factor of IQ.

Lotsa luck with that.

It’s gonna take a lotta luck
To change the way things are
It’s gonna take a lotta luck
Or we won’t get too far

In general, the demise of education reform looks like an early phase of the coming Competency Crisis as America starts to run out of whites.

In another thread, Twinkie asked me:

https://www.unz.com/isteve/confused-anti-semitic-muslim-terrorist-attacks-black-hebrew-israelite-facility/#comment-6259166 (#173)

Are you going to tell me that female franchise and lack of slavery are aberrations and the former conditions are going to make a comeback?

I made no prediction, but given how things are going, anything’s possible…

the smarter and more more driven ones will recognize that in a world where competency is a luxury rather than the expectation they have the chance to really capitalize on that personally.

Interesting take. Thanks.

I wonder how the arms race of the diversity enforcers and evaders will play out. I fear you may be overoptimistic there.

“High-IQ Parrots” is a vivid and useful coinage. Thanks.

You can still see the difference by simply going from a mostly white area to a mostly minority area. The standard of service one gets from pharmacy techs, waiters, repair people etc in more affluent/whiter areas is obviously different than what you get in lower class areas with a lot of blacks and Latinos. My experience is that first generation Latinos are generally reliable workers- they might not be bright, but they make up for it in motivation. But their kids are the ones who can’t pass the regents exam.

Possibly, but a lot of times they just want to be able to report stats that are favorable. It is common for large cities to have minority subcontractor hiring requirements on projects that receive some municipal financing but look the other way when the minority business subs out the subcontract to a white business to do the actual work (personal experience with this). They are OK with the supposed disadvantaged businessperson being a pass through that gets a skim because their primary goal is to be able to put out a press release touting that some building project had 40% minority participation or whatever.

Obviously a downside to this from the public interest standpoint is the contract is much larger than it really should be to make sure there is enough fluff in there for it to be worth everyone’s time, and repeat this process on say half a dozen large subcontracts on a project costing tens or hundreds of millions and there is a lot of fat in there.

but but

…..Your comment is a concrete example of the competency crisis ….less gibberish please.

Some research shows the Regents requirement in particular may have done little to improve outcomes. Instead, it may have led more low-income and Black students to drop out.

I think standardized testing is great.

Bias — I’ve done well on them my whole life.

Ideology — I think they are the key to tracking, making the most of people’s talents, and having an open meritocrat society with high social mobility and national cohesiveness.

But I’m not for a single pass/fail standard. And I do think it is desirable to have high school diplomas for dumb who dutifully “show up” and don’t cause trouble, do the work but are simply too stupid to pass NY Regents level exams in several core subjects.

Rather what American needs are competency tests. Where a kid–or adult–can demonstrate their competency in a range of subjects and skills and present those scores to an employer.

This can keep HS kids motivated–give them an active goal toward career and adult life, even if they generally think HS is b.s. And be a work around for smart kids to study on their own and skip college–time, indoctrination and expense.

We need more testing–with explicit, employer useable, granular scoring–not less.

And in St Paul, it’s just getting started.

St. Paul, Minnesota elects first all-female council in city’s history

First Order of Business : St Paula.
Take a look at this and tell me it’s going to go well.

https://www.axios.com/2023/11/11/st-paul-all-female-council-minnesota-election-results

In general, the demise of education reform looks like an early phase of the coming Competency Crisis as America starts to run out of whites.

Great summary of the problem.

This is already happening in Europe (due to fake “refugees” and free admittance to legacy colonials) and has already ruined government schools in Comrade run US cities and school districts.

Of course not all non Whites are useless or incapable of good work. Just the numbers aren’t great.

Lower IQ people need greater outside discipline to maintain standards and to avoid racial/ethnic tribalism in workplaces.

Post Boomer Americans will reap the rewards of what used to be seen as “liberalism” now run amok as Woke.

Only in areas of society and economics where objective standards are maintained can competency be maintained. Technical areas of the military (mostly) have done this and other technical areas of the economy continue to reward good work.

“Soft areas” of society run mainly by women and barely mediocre males will get worse. Robots will put a fol of these out to pasture.

There are some signs that the long anticipated recession is near. This may also have a cleansing effect as unproductive gabbers and lazies are pushed out. The “lifeboat” effect of discarding the useless eaters will force changes whether or not the Comrades like it.

Over hyped and hazy concepts (hello WeWork!, etc.) will fold and the cost of investment capital, no longer being zero, will continue to eliminate the unsustainable tech and Green religion sectors.

Taxation is parasitical to productive endeavors so Bidenomics and “soft socialism” will have to diminish. Since people and capital are mobile, you can’t maintain California Dreamin’ schemes indefinitely. Like in former Communist nations, people leave Comrade run cities as fast as they can.

The spate of closures by leftist ideological propaganda organs and outlets is a good sign. Places like Arizona, Texas and Florida will continue to drain the swamp as they attract the productive.

For many here, being in the Boomer cohort looks better than ever…

We’re not running out of whites. What we’re running out of is sense. The purpose of ‘educational reform’ should not be ‘racial equality’, but to improve the acquisition of knowledge and skills given the chronological time available and given the time allocation to school attendance. If blacks improve proportionately more than others, that’s gravy given their baseline skills vis a vis others. A secondary purpose should be to provide parents with a greater menu of options at the primary, secondary, and tertiary level (recognize that schools themselves are meant to help parents, not supplant them). Both of these are anathema to those who see the schools as a source of a salary and to those who see schools as a conduit to social engineering projects. The ideal number of such people employed in schools is 0.
==
Note also the folie a deux between black chauvinists and white progtrash. The former fancy it’s ‘disrespectful’ to tell poorly performing black youth that their performance is poor. The latter have a complex of emotions which balk at fixed standards for those they fancy are their clientele.

“Everybody’s not going to need algebra.”

If paying taxes, calculating the price of something when it’s on sale, or doubling a recipe is beyond your mental capacity, we have a problem. What exactly are we supposed to do with this large mass of adults who aren’t even as intelligent as an average white 8th grader?

“The older I get the more I admire and crave competence, just simple competence, in any field from adultery to zoology.” — H. L. Mencken

I was mostly a B student in high school. Mostly because I didn’t then and never believed in homework. Even back in the older days before affirmative action for women, my grades wouldn’t have gotten me into one of the top 5 colleges in the USA.

But my SATs did.

Our kids went to Montessori school from preschool up through 6th grade. We picked the preschool b cause we needed daycare. But what was wonderful was Montessori even the ones that go up to 8th grade doesn’t believe in homework.

Wonderful for our family specially because the boys were born late august. Twins and birthday late in the school year they fell asleep at 7 pm till they were 8 and 7/30 till they were 11 no matter where they were or why was going on. So how are parents who get home at 6/pm going to fit in the homework burden.?

Massive amounts of homework became the norm for a while because the massive increase in average IQ of 87 Hispanic Indians dragged the achievement achites down so badly. So what was the solution? Hours and hours of homework. Aka put the burden on the parents. Including immigrants with IQs in the 80s who didn’t know Spanish let alone English.

The days of high test scores for hiring or admission to college ended in 1968. When White men president and vice president lobbied intensively to pass the 1968 affirmative action act. And the 100 White men senate voted for it. So did the Congress. Which had only about 12 minority or women critters in 1968.

The college administrators and admissions people, being mostly commie Jew liberals rejoiced.

Look on your state public school curriculum and see how little time is spent on academics. 1 through third grade 20 minutes of 4 subjects. One hour and 20 minutes of academics. 4through 6 30 minutes of 4 subjects. Exactly 2 hours 7 and 8th grades 35 or 40 minutes of 4 subjects exactly 2 hours 20 minutes.

It’s not just about competence. Our nation’s woke public schools offer four things that are bad:

1) Distortion (like the 1619 Project) presented as fact
2) Fewer practical skills
3) Indoctrination into leftist beliefs, including the idea that they are now morally required to be “agents of change” rather than evil United States citizens
4) Emotional abuse

I think #4 might be the worst one. Our public schools have been emotionally abusing black children for a long time, telling them that there is an invisible force everywhere that will prevent them from achieving anything.

But for the past generation, they’ve been doing it to white children as well, especially the boys, telling them that they are guilty of horrific acts that extend into the present, telling boys that their moral duty is to step aside and let everyone else go first.

This emotional abuse causes incredible inner damage, far beyond the other three items mentioned. It weakens and corrupts the person.

…”a controversial set of English and math standards”

We’re done for.

For the Vanguard/BlackRock/Etc. Masters of the Universe, the “real competency” crisis is a feature, not a bug. For them, the fewer cantankerous, independent-minded whites the better.

The “real competency” crisis will, however, be accompanied by a “fake competency” bonanza for talisman phenotypes (Blacks!, sex weirdos, etc.) and children of privilege. Masters of the Universe need fake competency bullsh*t jobs for their kids (e.g., Executive Assistant to the Associate Director of the Campus DIE Advisory Committee, $230,000/yr). Our masters also need propaganda overseers and pinup social-media influencers for “look, a squirrel” issues to distract the unwashed.

Any STEM professional work that can be off-shored will be, e.g., to places like India, Vietnam, and Eastern Europe. Possible exceptions are civil-service and contractor USG jobs requiring U.S. citizenship.

Any new STEM graduate whose career path is in the above category (non-USG and can be off-shored) will need an advanced (graduate) degree and/or personal connections for even an entry-level career-related position in the U.S.

AI is going to accelerate the globalization-driven decline in career opportunities for both the non-STEM and STEM intelligentsia in western countries. If you care about your children’s future, please advise them accordingly.

She is the first Latina woman to serve in the position.

https://www.nysed.gov/commissioner-bio

Doctor Betty A. Rosa = Broody taco taster

“Will be forced to dumb down for diversity”?

That started by executive order 10925 in 1961 for the federal government federal contractors and state and local governments that received federal money for various projects. From school budding to roads highways and seers.

Was accelerated in 1971 Griggs vs Duke Power and Kaiser vs Weber 1978.

You’re not an American are you? Because affirmative action for dumb minorities has been the law of the land since 1961. Even if you live in Ogallala Nebraska you couldn’t have missed affirmative action.

This is anecdotal but I notice a difference between the McDonald’s in a mostly White area in my town versus the higher minority area of town. The White kids are more likely to be personable and say have a nice day, where the black servers tend to not talk and just hand you the food, the overall quality is suspect too. I’m guessing this is happening all over the country in varying degrees, in all different industries. Like you said, the younger generation doesn’t even understand how bad it is, probably like my generation doesn’t understand either. I wonder, how much further down to we have to go?

No sir. We are running out of whites.

There was 120 million American whites under 40 in 1990.

There are only 87 million whites under 40 in America now.

Whites haven’t had an above replacement birthrate in America since 1972. White America is slowly dying off, and it’s generations are getting smaller. All the miscegenation (white women marrying non-white men and having non-white offspring) isn’t even being factored in. Translation: there are probably at best 80 million American whites under 40 now.

“Everybody’s not going to need algebra…”

I think algebra is great — after all, I made my living for several years teaching it.

But aside from giving people a glimmering of an understanding of how engineers can design bridges and shit, it also allows students of even modest intelligence to realize they can come to understand and master an abstract system. It’s not all witchcraft; it can be fathomed.

Even if they never go further than successfully completing Algebra I, they’ll know that they could, or somebody could, and that it all really does have an underlying, rational core.

You could say ‘everybody’s not going to need algebra’ — but you could as reasonably say they don’t need to master basic arithmetic, or even know the name of the country they live in.

In general, the demise of education reform looks like an early phase of the coming Competency Crisis as America starts to run out of whites.

Do the utilities usually work in Brazil? Do they have indoor plumbing in all of those favelas? Or do they use chamber pots? if the former, can you flush the toilet paper down the toilet? Or do you put it in the trash receptacle next to the toilet?

It seems to me we’re looking at Brazil do Norte circa 2050.

the smarter and more more driven ones will recognize that in a world where competency is a luxury rather than the expectation they have the chance to really capitalize on that personally.

If this were a good thing, South Africa should be a golden paradise for competent white people today.

“the coming Competency Crisis as America starts to run out of whites.”

Sports Illustrated: Cameras Caught Steelers’ Mike Tomlin Cursing Out Refs While Asking Them a Simple Question

View post on imgur.com

Tomlin baffled by call and accosts vibrant lady official about what the heck they are doing out there.

the results of making NFL officials full time employees. a process started in 2013 and into effect by 2017. very quickly, those jobs became like government jobs, and are being steadily filled by government job type people. but here, ‘good enough for government work’ does not cut it. it took only 5 years before half of the game crews were looking like the DMV employees. except NFL pays 6 figures.

imagine being paid over $100,000 a year to be terrible at your job, far worse than the people you replaced, and if anybody complains, your employer fines THEM, not you.

Americans never were an intellectual rigorous people. American cars have always been junk.

America is a ponzi scheme, it is just that now is the time it is collapsing.

White males have created amd funded all these zombie corporations that employ lying hacks for six figure salaries. Jack Welch at GE is an illustrative case.

The White male leadership at Boeing that decided to screw over themselves and switch production to South Carolina. Why didn’t the older generations pass on knowledge about plane making to new generations? Because they are selfish short sighted boomers.

The fruits of boomerocracy are in full view of everyone.

Apple makes overpriced crap for tech illiterate.
Google search is crap.
Microsoft sucks even more now.
Boeing planes crash.
US Naval ships collide and catch fire.
Politics is a gerontocracy sideshow.

This is the fault of White males seeking profits.

The Steve Wozniak to Steve Jobs ratio has shifted heavily in favor of Steve Jobs.

White men want to be like Steve Jobs. This is the for it the problem with America. Everyone of all races want to be Steve Jobs, because nowadays Steve Wozniak would be a social and financial loser.

Yes, yes, I know Steve Jobs biological father is a Syrian.

In general, the demise of education reform looks like an early phase of the coming Competency Crisis as America starts to run out of whites.

Yup. Especially White Men. We don’t depend on these students for service, decent products, or support, YET, because they are still in school. In the workaday word, this has hit us a few years back, with an acceleration over the last couple of years, the Covid PanicFest economic displacement being a significant part of it in the short-term.

See Demographics to DIE for from along with a series of 5 posts Harvesting the fruits of a half-century of Affirmative Action: Part 1 – – Part 2 – – Part 3 – – Part 4 – – Part 5. It’s a combination of AA 2.0 – part of Wokeness – along with demographic changes.

The white population has collapsed since 1990 when we had 130 million Whites under the age of 46 and today we have 85 million whites under the age of 46. This is a decline of 33% over the past 33 years.

we have lost 45 million young whites since 1990. So we are running out of young whites, which is a big reason standards are being lowered and our military is not able to maintain our troop levels, thus they are also lowering the standards for enlisting in the military.

I went to high school in the 1990s. The Regents diploma was for the college-bound kids and everyone else had the local diploma. The big difference was that the kids that took the Regents diploma passed the state Regents exam which ensured they met higher standards.

In the 1990s the state decided that it’s racist or classist to only permit some kids to get a Regents diploma. Everyone should go to college so everyone has to take the Regents exam and get a regents diploma. Predictably this meant a lot of kids became dropouts because they couldn’t pass the Regents exam.

It’s good the state is going back to the old rules.

Famous and high-earning YouTuber Mr Beast has used some of his earnings to construct simple, serviceable wells bringing fresh water to hundreds of thousands of people in Africa

But he is now accused of racism, embarrassing Africa’s black governments by the implicit suggestion they are unconcerned and incompetent, and using Africans as a prop to promote himself

‘MrBeast faces new criticism, admits his humanitarian efforts might get him ‘canceled’’
https://www.deseret.com/entertainment/2023/11/6/23949077/mrbeast-canceled-backlash-wells-africa-criticism

Having the Regents Exam hasn’t done much for New York, the Bart Simpson underachiever of states (How’s that Second Avenue Subway going? Maybe another 100 years will do the trick.). Eliminating it isn’t going to have much effect either way.

The the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tounged wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to belive it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more…

We have this yenta to thank. For the past three years, she’s been a huge driver for homeschooling.

https://twitchy.com/amy-curtis/2023/11/13/randi-weingarten-homeschooling-n2389721

I’m curious about how the billionaire class is discussing this among themselves, now that it’s becoming clear that they can’t just spend their way out of many of these problems.

Have they resigned themselves to just living in Global Brazil? Or are they thinking more of the “Elysium” model, where they will try to establish enclaves (on earth to begin with, possibly in space at some future date) to preserve civilization for themselves while the rest of the planet turns into a giant favela?

Elon Musk is clearly in the “Elysium” camp, though I doubt he’d put it so bluntly — at least in public. I wonder if there are others.

I’ve been watching this since the 90s with distaste. Actually, hedge fund parasites viewed education as a lucrative market, not as an ameliorative project. Underneath the “quality” bullshit, they always planned to Taylorize it. Which requires variety-reducing organizations and not variety-increasing ones like real schools. So, lowest common denominator; rote or process over habits of mind; minimize the inputs, particularly staff. The only economical way to deal with differential learning capacity is dumb it down, so naturally that’s what they did.

In short, the motive was not ideology but profit. The best education comes from tutors, “class” size of 1-3, and that prevents economies of scale.

You can have High Standards or you can have Equality – the two are mutually exclusive.

In the meantime – the first rate man hires first rate men. The second rate man hires third rate men. Pretty obvious what is going on in our society.

…my friend decided he was smart enough to get into Cornell, and somehow he did. He got his degree there, but it wasn’t free.

Regular Cornell, not the state ag school there? My step-uncle went to the latter, and ended up VP at a major condiment maker. He was pulling down a half-million when he retired, back in the 20th century. Still enjoying it at 90 or so.

Lore is that (regular) Cornell is the easiest Ivy to get into, but the hardest to get out of– with a degree, that is. They make you work for it.

Scott Adams turned down Cornell to attend nearby, much humbler Hartwick. Why, you ask? He didn’t want to leave school a virgin four years later! Hartwick had a nursing program. Cornell, while co-ed almost since its inception, was still 3-1 male in the mid-’70s:

Next-door Ithaca College, with a major music program, may have helped a little. But nothing like Russell Sage and SUNY Potsdam’s balancing of very male RPI and Clarkson, respectively.

Some self-congratulations are in order for all of us alt-light Thought Leaders and Content Creators. We’ve now radicalized the world’s richest man! Took a few years, one of his kids being brainwashed by trannies, etc.

!!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2023

Europe appears to be headed for civil war

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2023

His personal spat with Trump will probably keep him on the sidelines in 2024, but I see him as a DeSantis mega donor in 2028.

It all makes sense to me, but is there any number we can point to that can give us a quantitative sense of how fast the competency crisis is actually proceeding? Subjectively it certainly does seem clear the government is less effective than it used to be and stuff doesn’t get fixed as quickly. Can we turn that into a number somehow?

This scam is rampant in the federal government. An AA firm wins the award then “teams” with one of the beltway bandits who do most of the work. But, as Arclight says, the minority participation press release looks good, which is all that the diversicrats care about.

Taxation is parasitical to productive endeavors …

Speaking of parasitical taxation, the IRS just announced the new 2023 tax rates which have been indexed for inflation. The PIOMA rate they used was 5.7%, which means taxes are being raised by the IRS.

The spate of closures by leftist ideological propaganda organs and outlets is a good sign.

Jezebel delenda est.

Well, what is the phrase I’m looking for? Frys my bacon; grinds my gears? See we’ve been having super brilliant > 150 IQ conservative writers churning out text for the last, at least, 50 years and that method of avoiding disaster has failed. Every damn insane leftist belief of 10 years ago or greater is now embraced by “conservatives”; want to hear them quote MLK Jr. they can do it by heart and love it; they kind of accept abortion in a quiet way; oh no,no,no we’re not racis etc. etc. etc. What we need is to have an army of Bull Conners ready to do what needs to be done.

I can’t make sense of the thing you linked to, because it’s impossible to know whom the writer is referring, or he’s just talking rot.

“There are black families who say they turned to homeschooling in order to keep their kids away from the school-to-prison pipeline, Stuber said.

“Families of color and those with religious affiliations seeking to avoid bullying and racism.

“There are also families who pull their trans kids out of school to avoid an unhealthy situation where they feel threatened, Stuber said.”

I can’t make sense of the posting. “families of” what “color”? “bullying and racism” by whom?

The “school-to-prison pipeline” is non-existent.

“trans kids”?! That’s garbage.

A basic formula:

# of people x Type of Exam = Average score over time.

This would give a rough estimate of where competency is going; except, that almost no releases the raw data on exam results, and many organizations, not just colleges, are dropping competency tests. For instance, Comptia doesn’t seem to tell how many people have taken the A+ Cert exams, how many passed, and what the average score was, much less break them down by year. (Not that I can find, anyway. ) OTOH, the Texas Bar meticulously breaks down bar exam results, and they seem very consistent over the last 20 years. Of course, the exam might be easier too.

My best guess is that Academic Standards in schools have declined far more than Certification Standards in the working world, but that may just be a matter of time.

They’re getting close to my recommendation: once a kid can correctly fill out a tax return, school is optional with parental permission. It would save billions and put at least some of those kids to productive work. I’d even be willing to pay teachers the same regardless of how class sizes shrank.

Am I the only one who remembers back to the seventies when blacks who applied themselves and worked hard to get good grades were shunned, abused and ridiculed for “acting white”?

As doctor Phil might ask, “how’s that workin’ out fer ya’?

https://srlevine.people.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj25166/files/media/file/research_in_the_teaching_of_english_2019_levine.pdf

Those interested in English education have long debated the role and value of literature in high school students’ education and lives, developing a range of visions about what and how students should read. This study provides a historical perspective on the visions and values of educators and test-makers by analyzing a century’s worth of standardized New York State English Language Arts exams (now known as Regents Exams), with a focus on questions about literature. The study introduces a data set of 110 Regents English exams and explores the results of a content analysis of the exams’ literature questions. The study’s analysis finds significant changes over time in some of the most controversial aspects of English language arts. Specifically, the analysis shows an increase in racial and gender diversity of the authors of exam passages; a decrease in literal comprehension questions and a corresponding increase in interpretive questions; and a diminishing number of questions that ask for students’ individual responses to literary texts. These findings act as a valuable lens through which to track the history of changing visions of literary education in US high schools.

You’re sounding like Charles Murray. “Can’t they just see this?!” No, they can’t. Blacks are not just going to agree that their baseline skills are organically lower than whites. They will insist that the criteria are wrong and in any event it’s all due to systemic racism. It’s like asking a fat, purple-haired, 40-year old woman to admit that her lack of prospects are due to the pool getting smaller and that she’s no longer a prize. Why admit that at the price of ego instead of conveniently blaming racism/sexism/lookism?

This is why people like Biden have handlers.

Are you watching Illinois? Nobody's been registering their scary black rifles and standard capacity magazines. With about a month left to register, only like 2% of FOID holders have registered anything.

It'll be interesting (for lack of a better word).

https://t.co/ILpV98ZHXE

— Tennessee-Dave™ Ratliff (@xChicagoDave) November 13, 2023

Latest Illinois gun ban registry numbers at six weeks has 0.14% of FOID card holders registering banned items. pic.twitter.com/MM58h3CVmg

— Bishop On Air (@BishopOnAir) November 13, 2023

California filed an en banc petition with the Ninth Circuit today in two lawsuits challenging the state's minor firearm advertising law. You can read it here: https://t.co/3axWDCDMRn pic.twitter.com/tZmF29lTNR

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) November 14, 2023

A federal judge denied a motion for preliminary injunction against Colorado's waiting period law today, saying that even if purchasing guns is covered under the 2A, laws banning drunk people from possessing them are similar enough to waiting periods: https://t.co/5dZ9sPdYhM pic.twitter.com/hBqJezmJ39

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) November 14, 2023

The parties in this case filed replies in support of their motions for summary judgment today. You can read them here: https://t.co/wtqGOqzljv https://t.co/eUiIzdFfcM

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) November 13, 2023

"Firearms law experts and senior lawyer for the Firearms Policy Coalition, Cody Wisniewski, agreed that the first son might stand more to benefit from a favorable high court ruling in a different case like Daniels…" pic.twitter.com/ODul7waAp6

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) November 13, 2023

The D.C. Council passed emergency legislation Tuesday that will allow the easier sale and use of pepper spray-type devices for self-defense.

Details Below:https://t.co/oBaNwM1Nes

— 7News DC (@7NewsDC) November 11, 2023

My veterinarian went to Cornell.

He told me that the grading was much harder there than at other Ivy Schools. There was no “Gentleman’s B” nor relying on the curve.

Dunning Kruger

How’s that Second Avenue Subway going? Maybe another 100 years will do the trick.

I-69 is going on 75. Amtrak’s only profitable route leaves from NY; its worst, from New Orleans– next to the states holding up 69.

Mississippians got a casino to spring for their segment of the Interstate– maybe that’s the answer to Second Avenue?

The rate hasn’t been raised.

They shifted the brackets up 5.7%, which may HELP lower what you pay overall if you didn’t get a 5.7% raise. You won’t pay at the next marginal higher rate for another 5.7% in income.

The IRS has the purview to do this per the Tax Code.

Blacks are not just going to agree that their baseline skills are organically lower than whites.

Jared Taylor has said for years that average rank-and-file blacks have no problem accepting what he tells them about differences in capabilities. In many cases, they probably already knew.

It’s the black leadership that vocally resists. And they likely already know as well. They just lie about it.

Not entirely OT:

With surge from India, international students flock to United States

“A report released Monday found 1,057,188 international students in the U.S. higher education system during the 2022-23 school year, up nearly 12 percent from the previous year. Not since the late 1970s has the total grown that much in one year. These students bring global perspectives to campuses and account for more than 5 percent of postsecondary enrollment in the United States.

The total from India reached 268,923, up 35 percent, according to the Open Doors report from the State Department and the Institute of International Education. That set a record for what is now the world’s most populous nation.

“The U.S. maintains a strong relationship with India on education, which I think is getting even stronger and even more connected between our governments and between the university sector and other stakeholders,” Marianne Craven, acting deputy assistant secretary of state for academic exchanges, told reporters recently. She said Indian students are drawn for many reasons, including “top-flight faculty in our colleges and universities.”

The report shows that most of these Indian students — nearly 166,000 — are seeking master’s degrees or other advanced credentials. They are gravitating in large numbers to Texas, New York, California, Massachusetts and Illinois.”

Part of the reason competency is not appreciated is that many competent men are not sexy, nor are they thugs. Now that women and their simp enablers have so much power, competent but nondescript men are marginalized.

What the hell, if a college degree in many subjects is next to worthless,
what’s a high school diploma worth? Employers will know.

Probably not. SantoCulto is a long time commenter who took a break from 2019 to mid-2023. See his comment history.

Back in the 1970’s the federal government made money available that would have funded most of the cost of the Second Avenue Subway. All that the city had to do in order to get the federal funds was throw in a much smaller amount of its own money, and it had already earmarked the necessary funds.

Unfortunately, subway fare revenues were falling short and a 5-cent fare increase looked inevitable. Fearful of the political fallout that raising the fare would produce, in a morally dubious but technically legal maneuver Mayor Abraham Beame skimmed off the earmarked Second Avenue funds to stave off the fare increase. As a result of the so-called Beame Shuffle the federal government withdrew its funds and Second Avenue never got built. And soon enough the subway fare ended up increasing.

Another example of Typical New York Incompetence, though not a government project, is the enormous Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, still far from completion even though construction started way back in 1892. Given the ongoing implosion of the Episcopal Church it’s a safe bet that the Cathedral will never be finished. Fun fact: the congregation that actually worships at the Cathedral, which has a seating capacity far into the thousands, has fewer than 200 members

To reason well about the world it helps to have a certain body of knowledge. For example, knowing something about history (and in particular the chronology) helps both making connections with today and exposing bogus “historical narratives.”

One benefit of being smart is it tends to be easier to learn things in a more holistic fashion rather than just endlessly rote learning things like historical dates. Making connections (e.g. a sequence of events) helps memory.

In other words, well made people don’t need school.

Perhaps, but they do need education. For many reading might suffice. Though it helps to have knowledgeable people making suggestions. And exposure to the world to both put things in perspective and allow making use of that knowledge and smarts.

Picasso famously said that he had to learn to paint people with two eyes and one nose before he could paint people with one eye and two noses. Back in my day (= way back), my high-school teachers were superb at teaching the two-eyes—one-nose things. They were not rocket scientists, but they did not need to be, to teach in this fashion. The problem we face today is that teachers would not be willing to do this, and certainly, students would never accept it. Smartphones and texting, of course.

One more thing, as Colombo would say. The result of not learning to think goes far beyond test scores on standardized tests. Rather, the result is spending your existence oblivious to the little ironies and metaphors; the nuances and richness, the factual background, of everyday life. There was a Gene Hackman movie in which someone asks Hackman how he resists a gorgeous, floozy-ish younger woman who could be his if he wanted. Hackman replies, Before we could have a conversation, I would always have to fill her in on everything first.

Hey, Bill, I know that one on the right. Isn’t she the City Council Member at LARGE?

2nd Ave subway is deliberately held back by the Upper East Side mega-wealthy. They like the fact that its difficult to get to their neck of the woods — keeps the riff raff (i.e. blacks and Puerto Ricans) out. Incidentally, the UES is where the majority of big-name NYC museums are — hence the nickname “Museum Mile.”

The only subway that serves the UES is the 4-5-6 line, which is notoriously small and slow and blocks away from any of the wealthy/popular places. Again, deliberately done to keep the riff raff out.

The government? Incompetency in government is not at all what I’m worried about – it can be a good thing much of the time.

How do we quantify the slide into 3rd-Worldliness? I can qualify it a least, but that’s because I have a good memory for the way things used to work.

And in related news from the High Frontier, we have yet another example of why women are unsuitable for aerospace/military missions.

Women have “screwed the pooch”* repeatedly during NASA missions and training, this is the second “oopsy” with the tools in orbit. The day approaches when a female AAA hire (Affirmative Action Astronaut) will “auger in”* and kill a whole bunch of people with the attendant loss of billions of dollars of equipment. Artemis, I’m looking at you.

*”Right Stuff” lingo, where there was none

What makes these men patriots? Because they are fighting for Zionism? An ideology of a foreign people that imported the foreigners that they are now fighting?

You want to problem solve and have an original insight? Do a lot of rote homework.
People who have mastered an art or science, or at least studied one enough to appreciate the craft, know that practice, drills, and rote work are essential.
Modern educators are idiots.

100%.

Likewise, a lot of “modern educators” are opposed to “teaching to tests,” but this is contrary to actual, you know, scientific evidence on that issue, which has shown that tests (and studying for them) improve knowledge retention, i.e. when pupils know they will be tested on a subject, they tend to pay more attention to memorizing and retaining the knowledge that is required for the particular tests.

I wonder if the G.E.D. carries more weight than a H.S. diploma now.

Shudders.

The Competency Crisis Is Growing

https://laist.com/news/transportation/the-10-is-closed-downtown-due-to-huge-pallet-yard-fi

No standards, no rules. No zoning because it is racist. Allowing people to live illegally in ramshackle flammable shantytowns under critical infrastructure because civilization is oppression. This is not going to work out well. Despite this catastrophe, do not expect the Mayor of Los Angeles or the Governor of California will not change their policies one iota.

I don’t recall if this article on the Competence Crisis has been linked here previously:

https://www.palladiummag.com/2023/06/01/complex-systems-wont-survive-the-competence-crisis/

This is not true. The Second Avenue Subway is for the more eastern part of The Upper East Side which is less affluent than Park Avenue/ Fifth Avenue. The pre-existing 4/5/6 lines are closer to the Museum Mile and wealthier areas, the Second Avenue Subway is blocks east.

In Manhattan, subway service increases property values, but it can cause headaches during the construction period.

About two weeks ago Z at his Z Man blog had a post about trying to get fast food near Bodymore, Murderland where he lives.

https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=31060

My reply to him was:

“My own experience of Fast Food is I avoid it when I can but out in Suburbia in damned near literal farmland the staff at our local McD’s is teenagers who share my skin palor, smile, are pleasant, and can fill orders.

Closer in to the edges of Our Big City (Democratic run of course) if you stop in a McD’s expect to see confused expressions and hear “¿Que?” a lot when ordering.

Within Our Big City? Oh Hell Naw!”

But Diversity Is Our Strength you know.

This is what happened when a crackhead had a “hold my beer” moment in Atlanta a few years ago.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_85_bridge_collapse

Industrial society meets r-selection.

You cut it off before the best part:

“As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”

The UES mega-wealthy don’t want visitors unless they spring for cabs. Well-functioning subways bring Harlem blacks and outer borough folks in. The 4-5-6 is dilapidated because of this desire to keep them out, and the constant delays in the 2nd Avenue Subway are part of this.

Merely because neither are on 5th/Park does not mean anything — the point is to keep the UES as inaccessible as possible via subway. This isn’t hard.

In other words, well made people don’t need school.

Ok. This goes down as the absolute dumbest comment on this and many other threads.

So, give us an example of a “well made” person who had in education whatsoever?

Of course intelligent people need education. Pretty much everyone who has ever made any significant contribution to any field of human endeavor has had a plenty of formal education or training. An intelligent mind needs knowledge on which to act, otherwise it’s like an engine without fuel.

There is footage from the cockpit of Columbia of one of the pilots telling a female crew person to knock off the chitchat as he attempts to pilot the doomed bird down as system failures were already registering. Admittedly this happened because a white meritocracy became a white bureaucracy. DIE will accelerate what is already failing.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/corruption-in-u-s-military-academies-is-harming-our-national-security/

Great news.

We pray blue cities will be overrun with idiocracy.

As a late 50s dude, I sometimes explain to the youngsters about a mythical time when you went out in public and everyone was thin, there were no tattoos, people were dressed appropriately, and there was a commonly accepted set of manners.
==
Tattoos were rare in 1970. Rude people, fat people, and badly groomed people were not.

White men want to be like Steve Jobs. This is the for it the problem with America. Everyone of all races want to be Steve Jobs, because nowadays Steve Wozniak would be a social and financial loser.
==
Mr. Wozniak has been through three sets of divorce proceedings and is, by the looks of him, morbidly obese.

Blacks are not just going to agree that their baseline skills are organically lower than whites.
==
That’s not the question you’re asking when you administer as standardized regents examination. This isn’t that difficult.

You might be able to get a rough estimate of how competency levels are decreasing in the future by federal tax receipts. They dropped by almost half a trillion dollars from fy 2022 to 2023. The younger mostly nonwhite workers replacing old mostly white retiring Boomers will be less productive and will generate less tax revenue in future years.

This makes our current welfare-warfare state unsustainable for much longer. We are approaching a cliff but instead of putting on the brakes we are pressing our foot down on the accelerator pedal. The government is trying to pay its bills with money printing but the resulting inflation is leading to a drop in living standards as wage increases do not keep up with inflation increases.

With the previous others, I disagree. Even for high IQ people, you need schema to problem solve. Essentially a lot of creativity and problem solving is actually combination and recognition. A high IQ may help in the occasional “cavalry charges”. And it may help in terms of memory and of assimilation of data. But it’s still very much something where you need to train and to train by learning things. Yes, whether you are Lisa Randall or just a 145 IQ Steveosphere commentor…or even a 100 IQ mechanic. Yes, there are differences amongst us, but there are very many commonalities of pedagogy (limits of the meat brain) also.

https://gregashman.wordpress.com/2015/06/13/teaching-for-understanding/

“It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle — they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.”

It’s the Vietnam War. Got the kids all weirded out.

Abraham Lincoln had very little formal education.

agents fired at perps breaking into Bidens granddaughter car

We are lectured over and over that lethal force may not be used in defense of property. Her vehicle was unoccupied. What gives?

https://apnews.com/article/naomi-biden-secret-service-shooting-washington-georgetown-997126378e864c5acd0c9a1c6618c4e2

Violent crime in Washington has also been on the rise this year, up more than 40% compared with last year.

Given how elevated it was last year, that’s saying something. And Washington is hardly alone. Good thing we have a Democrat administration — otherwise we’d have to do something about this.

Most of the people who occupy this Brave New World won’t be bothered by collapsing standards of professional or personal behavior. It’s what they’re used to, and if it bothered them they would have changed their own ways.

What will bother them is when gibs are at stake, and even that will probably be an incremental collapse. So long as white people are seen to be suffering the most, standards collapse will be tolerable. But will the (MSM) ever portray this accurately? Not soon, I don’t think.

Yes , the story seems incomplete.

Elsewhere some1 asserted that in no US district where Black Schools beat White Schools. From https://infohub.nyced.org/reports/academics/test-results the data just prove that is wrong.

NY state 2022 pic.twitter.com/spw6RaHk6f

— darren xie (@dux_ie) November 14, 2023

Follow @CompCrisis on Twitter/X

“An intelligent mind needs knowledge on which to act, otherwise it’s like an engine without fuel.”

Research indicates that a high IQ person without a sufficiently rigorous education becomes either a criminal or a schizophrenic.

CHRISTA MCAULIFFE used to be no. 1 for all NYC schools. What happen??

Rank| M6Score|Cat|Name
1| 506.27|Asian|NEW EXPLORATIONS INTO SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND MATH
2| 505.65|Asian|THE ANDERSON SCHOOL
3| 497.68|Asian|THE 30TH AVENUE SCHOOL (G&T CITYWIDE)
4| 496.94|Asian|TAG YOUNG SCHOLARS
5| 496.0|Asian|BROOKLYN SCHOOL OF INQUIRY
6| 495.29|Asian|P.S./I.S. 119 THE GLENDALE
7| 494.75|Asian|YORKVILLE EAST MIDDLE SCHOOL
8| 493.88|Asian|P.S./M.S. 200 – THE MAGNET SCHOOL OF GLOBAL STUDIE
9| 492.91|Asian|THE CHRISTA MCAULIFFE SCHOOL I.S. 187

The NY district G8 math scores for White and Black schools.

White males who can handle the trades are going to out earn all the mediocre youth whose college education has been made obsolete by AI.

Unless a brown horde of Latinos and East Indians floods the blue color job market.

Do a search on billionaires in New Zealand. It’s sort of the de facto place for wealthy preppers.

It’s like corruption in the Soviet Union. It was explained to me by a defector. Even the leaders understood that some market economy was needed to keep things functioning…and the black market was at least a market!

we have lost 45 million young whites since 1990

As one of those 130 million, I’m (sort-of) happy to report that according to the actuarial tables 90% of us are still here. We’re just not young anymore.

That might just reflect a post-covid rebound.

All this talk about old-timers. I bet some of you guys can remember when half a trillion was real money!

What do you have against South Carolina?

I easily foresee a future where students are taught about the great idiocy that people are equal, and how it set humanity back decades.

Only in areas of society and economics where objective standards are maintained can competency be maintained. Technical areas of the military (mostly) have done this

Scratch the military from that list–including the “mostly” part. They contract out so much technical work/maintenance these days that it’s sickening. FedGov too, as a whole.

And when these 45 y/o White Men doing that work are gone, here won’t be any replacements able to shoulder the load. It’s gonna get ugly. Hell, it’s already ugly.

Americans never were an intellectual rigorous people. American cars have always been junk.

Before WW2, the best American cars vied with the best from anywhere. Speaking of names like Packard, Duesenberg, Pierce-Arrow and such.

And this was the same period when America rose to technological pre-eminence in virtually every other field. In many of which WW2 was actually the catalyst for further advances.

… America runs out of whites.

BUT – There’s nearly 2 billion subcons to import from and award H1B visas to.

Grade 8 Math, the usual score for NAEP.

The basic phenomenon is

To educate means to put up a fight with the will to succeed.

Goethe had this to say about it:

GGGGGGG – Goetheana XVII – GGGGGGG
– education and it’s limits: are discussed here
in the concisest manner –

…it is the highest punishment that we impose on the pupils; they are declared unworthy to show reverence and compelled to present themselves as crude and uneducated; but they do everything possible to save themselves from this situation. However, if a young creature becomes stubborn about this and is not willing to repent, you will send them back to their parents with a short but concise report.

Anyone who does not learn to obey the rules must leave the area where they apply.

From Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s late (1821/29) .E.d.u.c.a.t.i.o.n.a.l. .N.o.v.e.l. (=Bildungsroman) – Wihlem Master’s Journeyman Years, 2nd Book, 2nd chapter, p. 151, in the German dtv ed., ’62

(from my ongoing X-series about the novel)

Yep. The richest person I know has a house in NZ, with a spectacular sea view too. He hardly ever visits but it must be comforting to know it’s there.

CHRISTA MCAULIFFE

In case someone never heard this one, transport yourself back to 1986. Keep in mind that Christa was one of the first civilian astronauts. It was a very big deal that a school teacher could go up in the space shuttle.

“OMG! They found the black-box flight recorder from the Challenger, and they now know Christa McAuliffe’s final words!”

“What’s this button do?”

Hmm, this should not be a surprise. I have forgotten previously I had pointed out those harebrained scheme of NYC politicians were full of holes that you could drive a bus thru them. I had a detailed quantitative guide on how to GAME the scheme and if enough people followed them there could be THE REVERSED OF WHAT THEY EXPECTED WITH MORE WHITE AND ASIAN IN THE ELITE8 SCHOOLS. In short elite middle school like Christa Mcauliffe used to have high % entering the Elite8 but it was cut down to I think 23% in the new scheme. What those parents should estimate the potential SHSAT scores of their children and re-distributed those below the 77 percentile to other lesser schools. The consequence of that is that the performance of Christa Mcauliffe WILL DROP, LIKE IT IS NOW. The kicker is that those students that has NO CHANCE with FAR BELOW THE SHSAT CUTOFF to enter the Elite8 under the old rules can now enrolled in schools that previously not sending any students to the Elite8 that 23% of them COULD NOW HAVE THE CHANCE TO ENTER THE ELITE8. I even gave out the list of schools with respect to the expected SHSAT scores.

decades

Wow, you are an unreasonable optimist.

The Competency Crisis Is Growing

And it’s only just begun. Idiocracy was overly optimistic.

The top 20 Countries with the highest birth rates have an IQ average of 67.86

https://citizenwatchreport.com/the-top-20-countries-with-the-highest-birth-rates-have-an-iq-average-of-67-86/

I went to a garage to pick up my car today, and I looked around and thought: What a bunch of degenerates! One bald old dude had tattoos all over the top fo this head. The other two guys had earrings and one was grossly obese.

I’ve come to realize they WERE acting white.

Good point, I was thinking more of how growing up in the big city private was always better than public, from schools to transportation.

I believe you…what do you mean?

Was a general article on the increase in homeschooling; mocking teacher’s union leader Randi Weingarten for wondering why there was an increase.

Was a bit strange the writer leans on people-of-color/trans kids quotes.

Succinct comment:

“via Zoom, parents got a glimpse into what was happening in the classroom, they didn’t like it.”

Hasn’t most of human existence been the “Elysium” model? I.E. you carve out a village of 150 people or so; defend it, and hope no one takes what you’ve got.

I suppose hedge funds have made some coin off education inc., but the thing is mainly a publicly funded jobs program/babysitting service. Local ghetto-ish school has doubled the workforce/pupil since the 70s; half or better of funding comes from fed gov.

Few of the teachers/staff live locally; commute in, pick up a check, go home.

Too much altruism will get you killed. Learn this, Mr. Beast, and let those Africans dig their own damn wells.

Maybe when those two hundred aging liberals finally kick the bucket, the Cathedral can be turned into a fancy restaurant or something else that’s useful.

Yeah, women are doing the hiring.

Well, men. Keep your powder dry and your chariot axles well greased.

Or, if you’re a mariner, it’s time to build our own lifeboat and cast off from this sinking ship. Make provision for yourself and any European woman who wants European children.

It’s basically a city person/rural person split. We’ve lost the cities but that’s not a disaster as they’re not as important today, what with decentralization due to autos and the internet.

As I’ve traveled across America I’ve noticed that many small factories and machine shops have relocated to the rural/suburb fringe zone due, no doubt, to cheaper land, new infrastructure and the intelligent White workforce.

Let Dems keep the cities with their clogged roads, decrepit waste water systems, run-down public transit, polluted air/water and generally, disagreeable whiners. Dems love to try and solve problems which are better walked away from; it gives their meaningless lives purpose.

Latina woman? How stupid!

I hadn’t read your post when I posted below. You’re right on about the good stuff being located “out in Suburbia in damned near literal farmland”.

As for the fast food in minority-staffed city joints, Jesse Jackson taught them it’s okay to spit in White people’s food.

“In general, the demise of education reform looks like an early phase of the coming Competency Crisis as America starts to run out of whites.”

No worries – we will import Indians to fill in the competency gap caused by fewer whites. There are hordes of right-of-the-curve Indians with an IQ > 110 willing to colonize the Anglosphere as one if its new elite classes (nothing to do with India’s average IQ of 84).

I know because I am a half-Indian (dot not feather) millennial. The other half of me is legacy white American.

Yeah, but he read a ton and became a lawyer the old-fashioned way etc. Plenty of actual education there.

Hat Tip:

Indian ‘students’ are really settlers.

it became racist to attribute racial gaps to anything other than Systemic Racism and to suggest any remedies other than jobs and cash handouts for blacks.

In general, the demise of education reform looks like an early phase of the coming Competency Crisis as America starts to run out of whites.

This is a non-sequitur because the Black population, which everyone in HBDland obsesses about, has remained more or less stable in the US. It’s the Latino mestizo population (and other groups such as Asians, Indians, etc) that have mushroomed.

While the racial replacement (by Latinos, not Blacks) is part of the “crisis of competency”, there are other factors as well.

The main one, I think, it’s just social disintegration. No one cares about the institutions, communities, etc because they don’t really exist, we don’t live in a cohesive, real country anymore.

It’s each group, or not even that, but really just each individual for himself.

Hard to have a “high trust society” this way, regardless of the “IQ” stuff.

Warning shots intentional, to avoid the news stories about Biden’s Secret Service actually killing a scholar?

I remember song but never saw the video. Can’t say I’ve ever seen a woman play the saxophone.

LEO shooting tends to be a joke. Compared to the shooting skills shown by your average “good guy with a gun”, law enforcement is up there with gangbangers in their ability to find the X-ring.

Everybody’s not going to need to know where to put the word “not” in a sentence.

Before World War II there weren’t many countries making cars, so it is easy to rank as one of the better ones.

As soon as Japan and Germany and now China have reindustrialised it is easy to see American cars were never good.

America rose to technological pre-eminence in virtually every other field. In many of which WW2 was actually the catalyst for further advances.

LOL

America rose because its competitors were nuked, occupied, bankrupt or just plain war torn and robbed of a generation of young men. Plus America took in Nazi scientist with the very real that if non-cooperation meaning being hanged by the triumphant conquerors.

Like I said Americans were never an intellectual rigorous people.

C’mon, man, I have to explain quick-cut journalism like the shitheads at Axios produce?

Meanwhile, people like this cannot be borne by our government. Too numerous and white…

https://nypost.com/2023/09/30/german-family-who-sought-asylum-in-us-for-homeschooling-faces-deportation/

My thanks was for the meme/poster, HJ. I’m almost sure that with all the burden placed on Americans by this immigration invasion, one could come up with a few more monetary effects (in the negative) that this study missed. Were one to somehow quantify some of the quality of life effects, this could go to the many Trillions.

Anyway, I wrote to note that even today 1/2 a Trillion $ IS still “real money”. It’s over 10%, maybe near 15%, some years, of all the income tax collected by the IRS. Now, once hyperinflation happens, then you can start using $100,000,000,000 bills to light your joint, HammerJack, which you’ll probably need …

I think your argument is a denunciation in search of a rationale.

Boomers can be legitimately blamed for failing to resist Jewish power as it grew to nation destroying/open borders levels. But, then again few did so knowingly. Your arguments about the quality of various tech products versus your expectations comes from a strained starting point: your capacity for disappointment.

“The fruits of boomerocracy are in full view of everyone.”

“Apple makes overpriced crap for tech illiterate.
Google search is crap.
Microsoft sucks even more now.
Boeing planes crash.
US Naval ships collide and catch fire.
Politics is a gerontocracy sideshow.”

You’re calling for a fascistic police state to be imposed on the citizens?

Angry, low IQ government agents with dogs and fire hoses to keep the citizens in line?

Would you feel more safe if we suspended the constitution for a while and let those government agents really do their thing?

It got them “Weirded out” for good reason.

Anyone who joined the military after 1973 is an utter moron.

All the lessons on the reality of the situation were available to learn at that point.

I wasn’t thinking bus drivers, so thanks for that reminder, SFG. Nor was I thinking workers at the Highway Department (DMV) etc.

My point was the the Potomac Regime agencies that are at this point Totalitarian bureaus out to get us – see Tucker Carlson’s interview with Doug Mackey, who’s getting 10 years jail time for forwarding tweets. – will get their proportion of AA/Woke employees who can’t get the real job done. That will be a good thing for us.

I always think of those Jason Bourne movies. I think Hollywood and Gov’t WANT us to think that the CIA, whoever it is, is really composed of a crack squad of men who don’t miss anything, while there are actually the usual share of screw-ups, bureaucratic BS, and such that mean you can get away with a lot more than the movie would make you think.

I wrote about this long ago in a series of Peak Stupidity posts: Apprehending Jason Bourne – All-powerful Feral Gov’t – NOT!: Part 1 – – Part 2 – – Part 3.

Humorous excerpt from Part 2 below, from the not-yet-released Bourne Stupidity:

You are forgetting to count all the whites pretending to be indians.

If these numbers were correct, they would be front page news everywhere. Biden would be visiting, Kamala would be dancing and Nobel prizes would be awarded. Very fishy.

“High-IQ Parrots”

What does it mean?

And what’s this about:

Jewish Paidean

Even if one accepts your premises and conclusions, who else would you embrace in today’s world? Africans? Meso-Americans? Various Asian models? Not like there’s an obvious perfection we’re too stubborn to face.

Not the St. Paul I grew up in….

“Rude people, fat people, and badly groomed people were not.”

I don’t know when I first started noticing all the fat people but it was well past 1970. I do recall feeling slightly judgmental standing in a cafeteria line and an obese girl purchased an ice cream cone. This was approx 1984. Rude I don’t recall until visiting NYC in the 1980s.

I blame rock and roll music

I think the problem with “teaching to tests” is when it turns towards the extreme of “here are the ten questions you are going to be asked, no need to learn anything else.”

Mr. Wozniak has been through three sets of divorce proceedings and is, by the looks of him, morbidly obese.

But he can dance.

It may be in the genes.

Polish family turns Master Ballet Academy into international success

Then again, Woźniak is tenth most-common surname in Poland. It’s their version of our Carter or Porter. (Porter Wagoner must have been strong, porting and pulling simultaneously.)

I wonder if the G.E.D. carries more weight than a H.S. diploma now.

I don’t think so, but the potential is there given score granularity. The current SAT 99th percentile is 1550-1600 so only 6 distinct scores in that range. The GED 99th percentile is 187-200 so 14 distinct scores. Different norming may reduce that difference (SAT percentiles more against college bound).
https://www.test-guide.com/ged-scores.html
https://blog.prepscholar.com/sat-percentiles-and-score-rankings

Just having a consistent test to allow between school comparisons is probably even more valuable.

P.S. It appears the military treats the GED as less than a HS diploma.
https://blog.essentialed.com/students/army-ged
This kind of makes sense as a proxy for willing (or not) to put up with school.

I kind of agree that not everyone will need to learn historical dates/advanced math etc. Schools are really designed to find the few kids that can and put them on track for advanced education.

I think the problem with “teaching to tests” is when it turns towards the extreme of “here are the ten questions you are going to be asked, no need to learn anything else.”

I helped an immigrant or two study for the citizenship test, and found that’s what I was expected to do. Our second grader could probably answer most of the questions without study, just from being in the room when her brothers watched history and geography videos, and she could learn the rest in a week if needed.

How tough are citizenship tests in Europe, Latin America, and the rest of the Anglosphere?

It’s worse than that. “Everybody’s not going to need algebra,” is to say that “Nobody’s going to need algebra.” What the “educator” meant to say was “Not everybody’s going to need algebra.”

I would hate to live in a society in which nobody needed algebra. I’ve read that there are tribes in Africa in which their number system is “1, 2, 3, many.” I’m sure I wouldn’t want to live in such a culture but parts of America are going in that direction.

Maybe the lack of basic arithmetic skill is contributing to the drug overdose problem; the dealers don’t know how much fentanyl to use when the amount of milk powder is cut in half.

A search shows it appearing in iSteve (comments or post text) since it was published. Here is a mention from June 20th.
https://www.unz.com/isteve/blacks-vs-hispanics-part-298/#comment-6019674

In any case, well worth another mention. Especially in this thread. Thanks.

Ok. This goes down as the absolute dumbest comment on this and many other threads.

Well, there was Mr Mason’s recent assumption that Toys for Tots was meant to supply gifts for our underpaid military families. How long did he live in Florida?

Flight Instructor Gets Student Killed!

This is the natural result of 50 years of affirmative action. Supervisors, managers, directors who simply don’t know the basics of the jobs they hold.

The Regents tests people on subjects learned (English, the sciences, math etc). If your buddy goofed off and aced the Regents his IQ must be at least one SD north of the norm, probably even higher. I goofed off too (I have the Regents test scores to prove it!) but the difference is my IQ is several clicks south of the norm.

Some people are innately very intelligent. They’ve been dealt four aces. The rest of us have not so we play the hand as best we can, if we choose to play it at all.

Look up Barbara Lerner Spectre. You know, the lady who said Jews must destroy Europe to save it.

Picasso famously said that he had to learn to paint people with two eyes and one nose before he could paint people with one eye and two noses.

In other words, come up with a gimmick that would awe the critics. Good for him, I guess.

Great movie quote from Hackman, thanks.

Wait so now are we allowed to kill thieves or is that only for our betters?

The military used to accept a GED as equal to an HS diploma. I always thought the tier thing was a response to complaints from Teachers Unions that kids were dropping out of HS because they knew they didn’t need it to get into the military.

I appreciate Marjorie Taylor Greene as the only congress critter “impolite” enough to bring up issues like this and attempt to do something about them. Unfortunately, her effort to have Mayorkas impeached failed.

Jordan is an intelligent guy and proffers some useful observations and advice — when he’s not crying or repeating things he doesn’t know much about.

Big Mo (“Mohammad Hijab”) in early 2023 re: J Peterson’s kowtowing to Netanyahu:

J Peterson Questioned on “Message to Muslims”:

As a bonus, a history of Palestine / “israel”, sans J Peterson:

Evidently the one Hmong incumbent got dumped, so the final tally is less representative of the nonwhite population of the city than before, let alone the whole. A St Paul council without a Mick, Kraut, or even Jew? (IIRC, my old ward’s council member was Jewish.)

So they’ve got two black chicks, one with straightened hair, a Subcontinental with a Germanic surname (marriage? mixed-blood?), an Asian with a Kashmiri or Arabic surname, and a Korean. Koreans are easily the most successful of the many Asian groups in this very Asian city. I doubt her brethren are this far left, though.

Some were endorsed by this left-wing group:

https://directory.runforsomething.net/candidates/MN

They’re active in most states. Anyone familiar with this organization? Is it one of Soros’s? Other headlines from their front page:

•Doc Martens, Bomber Jackets, No Ties: Parsing Gen Z Politicians’ Style
•What Is a Gerontocracy? A Government Ruled by the Elderly
•Battle of the ages: how America’s gerontocracy is a challenge for democracy
•A generation full of fighters: Young progressives are rising up to defend LGBTQ+ equality
•Mississippi Democrat wins primary, set to become the state’s first openly gay lawmaker (he’s black)

https://runforsomething.net/

They do have a point about gerontocracy. But, hey, if you don’t want “boomers”, all that’s left is pre-boomers. That is, if you want skill and talent.

I could have introduced you to the receptionist at my suburban elementary school, along with all the cafeteria staff bar one if you wanted an example of rude. (The school nurse had her office down the hall from the lunch room. She once broke the fourth wall to me and said the disagreeable part of her job was ‘fights in the kitchen’). No clue how the fat people didn’t register with you, the adolescents with long hair, the young adults with absurd hair cuts and eyewear…

Here’s the footage, and the female was Kalpana Chawla:

Picasso famously said that he had to learn to paint people with two eyes and one nose before he could paint people with one eye and two noses.

Arnold Schoenberg’s composition texts are surprisingly conservative, like the man himself. (Though the monarchist in him greatly enjoyed living in the California Republic.)

He didn’t want anyone to mess with the new stuff until he had the old stuff down pat. Good advice. Better advice would have been to abandon the new stuff when it proved unproductive.

Then again…

[MORE]

Then again again…

I blame rock and roll music

The Rev. Jimmie Snow, son of crooner Hank, certainly did:

“…a contributing factor to our juvenile delinquency today.”

It’s clear that as a credential a high school diploma doesn’t really mean anything anymore. In principle, most states have the intention of graduating everybody from high school, no matter what. Secondary schools are for childcare and distribution of free meals. And more and more the credential value of a college degree is weakening.

It will be interesting to see how employers cope with this and what measures they will be using in the future to determine the competency of potential employees.. They need to figure out some way to measure intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity. Tech companies have been able to do this via Zoom meetings during which real time programming tests are given and interviews are conducted. Your comportment, dress, and speech can be observed, your intelligence can be indirectly measured via coding tests, and your conscientiousness can be evaluated via how well you put up with numerous interviews over the course of several weeks and your preparation for tests.

Queens is* that rare county where blacks outperform whites. Vancouver, BC is* a similar instance. Selection is a factor for both races, but upward for blacks– these are largely immigrants– and downward for whites. And that assumes these are “non-Hispanic” whites. Are they?

Did you know a child can be born both in Brooklyn and in Queens County at the same time? Unbelievable? Well, Hank Snow was:

*I use the present tense, but it may have changed. My source for both is the print version of American Renaissance, a couple of decades ago.

America rose because its competitors
==
Per capita product in this country in 1820 trailed only that in Britain, the Netherlands, and northern Italy. By 1913, we were leading the world. NB. war reconstruction in Europe was complete by 1959. You’re peddling fiction.

Correction: Adams went off to college in 1975, so the male-female ratio was down to 3:2. But, as the chart shows, that had been a very recent development (no more need for a draft deferment?), and maybe Scott was going by outdated information. Still, there were more girls at Hartwick, and he got to enjoy an NCAA national championship while there.

Oh, wait… So did Cornell, apparently their last:

https://cornellbigred.com/sports/2016/5/26/team-national-champions.aspx

Download the McDonald’s app and order on your phone. With the app you can get a medium Big Mac or Quarter Pounder combo for $6.49 (plus tax). (The regular price is approaching ten dollars.) The large coffee is only a dollar.

Only in areas of society and economics where objective standards are maintained can competency be maintained. Technical areas of the military (mostly) have done this

Nah!

https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2023/11/08/current-year-us-military-is-hilarious/

“Everybody’s not going to need algebra. Everybody’s not going to need historical dates,” Mr. McCutchen said.

So, if Aaron Burr hadn’t killed him in a duel, how old would Abraham Lincoln have been when Harriett Tubman invented quantum mechanics?

A competency crisis I’d like to raise is not US education but UK politics.

In my direct experience, the quality of aspiring political candidates for the UK has never been outstanding. Few people put themselves forward. If chosen they must put in a lot of speculative time before gaining a seat, if they do. The job comes up for a make or break review, largely beyond the candidate’s control at irregular, unplannable intervals. The rewards are few. The salary is not outstanding. The hours are gruelling. Influence, thus bribes, is minimal unless one is chosen for a senior government position. Most people are there to criticize you.

Those prepared to put up with these prospects may not have had the intellect to think it all through. Typically in the UK, the party HQ attempts to screen at least some candidates. These days, screening tests for loyalty rather than ability in life as most such candidates have been working in politics since they graduated. That said, the central committees do try and screen out scandals and look for electability. Some smaller parties allow candidates to get on to the selection list at local level too. However, the choice is made by the local party. Party members are of course extremists. So they are looking for extreme views on matters of substance. Hence, the less electable local guy gets through the system. Parliament is thus filled with loyal mid (to be generous) wits who are polarizing the system whenever there is an emotionally strong issue like Brexit or for Labour, nationalization.

Can this crisis of competency be prevented? Highly centralized forms of PR hand decision making concerning candidates to the professionals in the the central committee. Is List based PR an answer? Should MPs salaries be greatly raised. In the UK they are rather modest if successful professionals are to be attracted.

The US appears to have similar problems, except for the salaries. Senators appear to be paid a lot and have opportunities for influence.

Were you living in the Northeast? I wasn’t. That might explain it.

we have lost 45 million young whites since 1990.

That doesn’t include another 30-40 million lost since 1973. There was this court case named, ironically, after eggs.

first generation Latinos are generally reliable workers- they might not be bright, but they make up for it in motivation. But their kids are the ones who can’t pass the regents

Yes, they assimilate down. We bring them in to replace lower class Whites but their kids end up comparable to lower class Whites…so then we need to bring in more Latinos. It’s like the Looney Tunes cartoon where the hotel guest orders a cat to chase out a mouse, ends up with an elephant, and then needs a mouse to chase out the elephant…

‘Take a look at this and tell me it’s going to go well.’

Well, it could. It could go like one of those group projects in school. Everyone listens to the sensible Chinese girl and gets an ‘A.’

…my daughter used to get disgusted by that; it was so obvious. Every time the class was broken up into groups, each group got either an Asian, my daughter, or the other smart white kid.

OT:

Ex-CIA boss gets Ukrainian cellphone firm directorship
Mike Pompeo is taking a seat on the board of the Veon subsidiary Kievstar
[…]
Pompeo has no telecommunications experience. He was a tank commander during his days in the US Army, ran Thayer Aerospace from 1996 to 2006, and served as a congressman from Kansas from 2011 to 2017, before running the CIA during the early days of Donald Trump’s presidency. He took over the State Department in 2018.

https://www.rt.com/news/587268-pompeo-veon-board-kievstar/

The military is lowering standards because the civilian unemployment rate is less than 4%, more than 50% of public school students are on free lunch, and the military is coming out of a long period of higher tempo operations.

In Northern Cali, that experience would have been a couple of 23 yr old girls at Starbucks…

Isn’t Oregon not requiring proficiency in anything to graduate now?

I hear Former Friends of The US has a vacancy

Re: do we need to study algebra?

If paying taxes, calculating the price of something when it’s on sale, or doubling a recipe is beyond your mental capacity, we have a problem.

Perhaps I misunderstand your comment, but these items require arithmetic not algebra. We definitely need to instruct the young in arithmetic.

It was for the good of the smart three.
Imagine the cat fight if they were grouped together.

Thank you, Alden, for your thoughtful reply. I know you get kicked around here a lot, but your comment is very relevant and meaningful.

I too pretty much got into my university because I tested at the 99th and 98th percentiles on the ACT. (I was advised that they used the ACT out there in my west, so I took it. Frankly, it seemed a lot more relevant to scholastic subjects than the SAT. I had taken the PSAT in high school, so I knew what it looked like — rather simplistic, frankly.)

Imagine my surprise at gaining entry into my state’s particular flagship university after dropping out of high school and working my way around the country! It meant a lot to me.

The test was right, of course. I went on to the dean’s list and being an RA and then a career that most people would envy. (I still consider myself a failure, however, because I know in my heart that there was far more potential there.)

Yeah but abortion killed relatively more non-whites, so that evens it out. If non-white women couldn’t get abortions in tbe lste 20th century this country would be like 20% white.

An even greater number of whites were lost just because white women chose not to get pregnant in the first place; waiting until their late 20s to have a smaller number of children so they could get their liberal arts degrees.

Abortion’s a small fry. The real cause is anti-natalist hyper-individualistic attitudes that got normalized in the 70s.

Oh well. I don’t even care. I think Asian women look better and I want half-Asian kids anyway.