John Leo on standards versus appearances: 

The nation’s public schools are a mess. Only 37 percent of 12th graders tested proficient in reading and only 25 percent in maths. Yet the inability to read or do maths seems to be no barrier to college. Unprepared students are flooding into college in record numbers. The Bureau of Labour Statistics says 70 percent of white high-school graduates and 58 percent of black graduates in 2016 enrolled in college. In his syndicated column, Walter E. Williams asks, “If only 37 percent of white high school graduates test as college-ready, how come colleges are admitting 70 percent of them? And if roughly 17 percent of black high school graduates test as college-ready, how come colleges are admitting 58 percent of them? It’s inconceivable that college administrators are unaware that they are admitting students who are ill-prepared and cannot perform at the college level.”

From the Walter Williams article quoted above: 

College professors dumb down their courses so that ill-prepared students can get passing grades. Colleges also set up majors with little analytical demands so as to accommodate students with analytical deficits. Such majors often include the term “studies,” such as ethnic studies, cultural studies, gender studies… The major for the most ill-prepared students, sadly enough, is education. When students’ SAT scores are ranked by intended major, education majors place 26th on a list of 38.

With that in mind, readers may wish to revisit this tale of modern educational wonders. As I said at the time, a school that has no discernible standards, academic or behavioural, and which makes no distinction between those who study and those who don’t even turn up, is in no meaningful sense a school.

And speaking of analytical deficits: 

A member of the pro-abortion club at the University of Minnesota-Duluth compared pro-life students to white supremacists during an open mic event last week. Throughout his [poetry] performance at the “Speak Out for Justice” event on April 21, Student Advocates for Choice member Reilly Manzer condemned the “pale faces” of the pro-life movement for criticising abortion.

Bear in mind that Mr Manzer – whose woke poetry is the obligatory feat of teetering pretension and outright psychodrama, and therefore loudly applauded – is, for many educators, an exemplary product of modern academia.

As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.

A compendium of intriguing hairy stumps. || The customer is always right. || Automated cat noises. || The thrill of carrots. || Suboptimal driving conditions. || Diversity on demand. (h/t, Jonathan) || She’s an academic. || Returner 77 is a game. || The Room: Old Sins is also a game. || Good deed. || The Great Wall of China, in fog. || He fell well. || “Women’s art.” || “Postqualitative research.” || Riposte of note. || “Will there be construction equipment to move the heavy parts?” || His tiny worlds are more detailed than yours. || More BBC sound effects than you could shake a stick at. || New Zealand does not exist. || Four seasons in the life of a small Finnish island. || To reignite hope, or failing that, to shorten the fall. || And finally, refreshingly, the eternal quest for sambuca.

However, it occurs to me that in eleven years we’ve never had an open thread, in which, I’m told, readers share links of possible interest and then bicker about them. So let’s try one of those and see what happens.

If all else fails, you can always poke through the reheated series and greatest hits.

Brace yourselves for crushing news: 

A radical socialist group at Indiana University-Bloomington is disbanding itself after realising that its efforts only reinforced the “bourgeois” nature of the institution.

Apparently, these tireless enemies of “patriarchy, white supremacy, socioeconomic inequality, and imperialism,” are outraged by “whiteness,” by “colonialism,” by “rape culture,” and by the cost of the campus policing that their own actions have made necessary. The group is also fatigued by the fact that bourgeois life has somehow resisted their full-spectrum onslaught. Specifically,

The radical group has been an active promoter of anti-capitalist vandalism on campus, and has distributed pamphlets that urged students to destroy the property of right-leaning organisations. In its lengthy public statement, the group goes on to argue that the university is indoctrinating students with neoliberal ideologies and is training the campus police, who they refer to as “slave catchers,” to detain and “murder” people of colour.

The campus environment, we’re told, “keeps bourgeois students in the bourgeoisie,” “reproduces class” – and worse, enables tomorrow’s “small business owners.” And so, the mighty Mao-lings will now direct their heroic and selfless efforts to “the larger community,” while plotting to “dismantle the capitalist settler-state of the USA.”

And remember, running a small, successful business is a sign of “domination” and therefore obscene. According to Oakland’s Mao-ling contingent.

Impressive name, cunning plan. (h/t, Damian) || The thrill of golf. || Graph of note. || Scumbag interruptus. || Shades of grey. || Grace under pressure. || A substantial sedan. || Sculpted glass. || Lab shots of yore. || You know, for kids. || I remember CompuServe. || Because they’re so open-minded, you see. || Meme history. || Chillin’ in Harlem, 1978. || Edinburgh, 1920. || Variations on a theme. || News item of note. || Burly. || Savage. || The eco-friendly, waterless, multimedia urinal you’ve always dreamed of. || Can robots assemble an IKEA chair in under 9 minutes? || This thing here is one of these. || Aerial tour of an abandoned Chinese fishing village. || And finally, in forward-looking fashion news, a jumpsuit that flashes and vibrates whenever asteroids approach the Earth.