Erika Sanzi reports on an educational breakthrough: 

Richard Carranza, Chancellor of schools in New York City, has done it again… There will be no numeric grades allowed for high schoolers, and no teachers, in any grades, are allowed to give a failing grade. The lowest “grade” allowed for elementary schoolers will be “needs improvement.” For middle schoolers, failing grades will be designated as “course in progress.” And for high schoolers, an F will become an “Incomplete,” whether the student plans on turning in any work or can show that any learning of the subject has actually occurred.

While grades and attendance are to be deemed bothersome details unworthy of attention, “factors such as equity” will, we’re assured, be given more prominence. Readers will note that the retreat from clear metrics into euphemism and pernicious fuzzwords – chief among which, “equity” – not only makes it difficult to determine pupils’ academic progress and actual competence, but also has a secondary effect of making it more difficult to identify the shortcomings of left-leaning educators and administrators. A coincidence, I’m sure.

Via here, via here. 

Previously in the world of “equity” – in San Diego, in San Francisco, and in Ohio.  

And somewhat related, this: 

And then there’s “equity” – another word favoured by both educators and campus activists – and which is defined, if at all, only in the woolliest and most evasive of terms. And which, when used by those same educators and activists, seems to mean something like “equality of outcome regardless of inputs.” Inputs including diligence and punctuality.

If that sounds a tad perverse and an unlikely path to human flourishing, our betters are only too happy to correct your unsophisticated notions.

I keep seeing this meme going around that’s like, “I’ll still be your friend if you voted for Trump, I’ll still be your friend if you voted for Biden…” and it’s making me ragey. 

So writes Sa’iyda Shabazz in the pages of Scary Mommy, where progressive parents display their piety to each other, and where rage and tears, even feigned or delusional rage and tears, are a currency of sorts, markers of woke status. Part of the game.

If you still support [Trump] after the last four years of his bullshit, then guess what? I don’t want to be your friend. Because if you support that monster, you can’t possibly also care about me.

A monster. Specifically, a “racist, misogynist, xenophobic monster.” I suppose we were destined to start in high gear, something approaching opera. It does seem to be the custom among Scary Mommy contributors. Having dutifully denounced Mr Trump as the Demon King, the cause of all human sorrow, Ms Shabazz then goes on to reveal, albeit inadvertently, the extent to which the wider world should in fact care about her, being as she is so lovely and not at all demented.

I know that I have friends who voted for Trump in 2016. And I know I probably have friends who did this year, too. One of them is one of my oldest and dearest friends. To say that I was horrified is an understatement. 

In terms of progressive outpourings, understatement is a rare treat. Let’s take a moment to savour it.

The friend that I knew for sure voted for him? We didn’t talk for three years. I couldn’t reconcile the person I knew with the person who’d do something so awful… As a Black woman who is queer and poor, I know this administration wants to make me a second-class citizen. I cannot associate with someone who even hints at feeling the same.

I think I see the problem. The questionable premise.

My college degree isn’t going to stop [the police] from shooting me dead in the street if they feel inclined.

Of which, it turns out, there may be more than one.

One of our leftist betters encounters his own leftist betters: 

“There’s my Biden sign. Don’t destroy anything.”

Also available in screengrab form.

Consider this an open thread, in which to share links and bicker.

Best friend. (h/t, Damian) || One battery, two magnets. || At last, a mobile bowling alley. || As WWII-zombie-Nazi movies go, this one isn’t bad. || “I hope you find a way to abolish criminals, too.” || Grey Sun. || Radical solution. || Steep sprinting. || A sidelined history of slavery. || Cactus encounter of note. || Today’s word is neoteny. || How computers work. || That’s exactly how I would’ve done it. || The thrill of the Western Electric Model 500. (h/t, Elephants Gerald) || Moment of triumph. || The pale devil and his works, a small compilation. (h/t, Amalama) || The 20 most expensive penthouses in New York. (h/t, Things) || And finally, encouragingly, via Perry, some ladies ponder the issues of the day.

So it’s Lockdown II and The Election That Never Ends. Good times.

Consider this an open thread, in which to share links and bicker.

Oh, and lifted from the comments, this. 

My son needed masks that wouldn’t make him lose his shit when his favourite isn’t clean,

Yes, we’re once again visiting the pages of Scary Mommy, home of progressive parenting and assorted “empowerment.” But don’t worry, the stroppy son in question, the one losing his shit, is a juvenile, a tween, not a grown adult. Unlike his mother, Amber Leventry, who shares with us an account of a shopping expedition. It is, needless to say, a tale of sorrow and trauma:

We loaded ourselves into the van, and while getting out at our first stop, we heard horns honking and engines revving. We looked around to see if there was an old-fashioned car rally that happens in our town once in a while.

Brace yourselves, dear readers.

This was a different car rally but with people with very old-fashioned ideas about what makes America great.

You may wish to grip your chair arms as the world spirals out of control.

My queer family was witnessing a Trump parade, and would end up being stuck in the middle of it while running our errands.

Woke hell is real, people.

“Idiots,” I muttered, and became instantly angry at the pride and self-righteousness with which Trump supporters carry themselves—so much so that they organise themselves to drive through towns to wave their giant Trump flags, honk their horns, and hang out of windows to cheer for a man who breeds and encourages bigotry and violence.

Quite why supporting the current President of the United States necessarily entails being “old-fashioned” is not deemed worthy of elaboration. Nor is it clear how said incumbent “breeds and encourages bigotry and violence.” No clues are volunteered. These things simply are, apparently.

It was shocking how similar all of the people looked: white, middle-aged and older, and seemingly male.

No bigotry there, thank goodness. What with them all looking so similar and being so terribly male. Well, not quite all:

An open thread, in which to share links and bicker.

As a sweetener, I’ll include a free blessing: Should you hear the news of a second lockdown, may your hairdresser send you a late-night text asking if you’d like an unscheduled cut the very next day, before said lockdown kicks in and she has to shut up shop.

Oh, and as some of you may be shopping from home a little more than usual, please bear in mind that any Amazon UK shopping done via this link or the search widget top right, or for Amazon US via this link, results in a small fee for your host at no extra cost to you.

It helps to keep this place here.

For those in need of further diversion, the Reheated series is there to be poked at.

Goodness, that’s a big one. || Suboptimal sights. || They bend. || It turns out the Minecraft world is actually quite big. || Attempt at playful belly-rubbing not entirely successful. || Desire me now or I will call you names. || Radical appliance relocation. || Attention, shoppers – you are being watched. || Wakey-wakey. || Oh, we’ve all done it at least once. || At last, a Letraset database. || Librarian training of note. || Law and order. || The thrill of drains. (h/t, Richard Cranium) || He’s an educator, you know. || Classroom scenes. || The constellation of Orion. First one to find the Horsehead Nebula wins a beverage voucher. || Girl’s got reflexes. || A festive treat. || And finally, fiendishly, it’s perhaps a tad excessive.

Further to this and this, Max Eden reveals what “prioritising equity” actually looks like:

[T]he Ohio Department of Education kicked off this school year by promoting… its recommended “Anti-Racist Allyship Starter Pack,” a resource for social studies teachers… It’s not clear whether anyone from the ODE reviewed these articles in full before recommending them. But surely someone at least took a cursory glance at them. The ODE recommended that teachers read “How White Womens’ [sic] Tears Threaten Black Existence,” “When Feminism is White Supremacy in Heels,” and “White People Have No Culture.” Teachers were also urged to read “In Defence of Looting” and “Forget ‘Looting,’ Capitalism is the Real Robbery.” More recommended reading: “The Case for Delegitimising the Police,” “Abolish the Police?”, and “Yes, We Literally Mean Abolish the Police.” 

Ohio social studies teachers – and by extension, their students – will learn that having brown skin is some kind of accomplishment, a basis for applause and favours, unlike being white, which is apparently the opposite, a basis for atonement. In order to achieve “absolution” – and yes, that term is used in the recommended literature, with all that it implies – the “stone idol” of “whiteness” must be “smashed to pieces.” Students and educators are also informed that insofar as “white people” have any culture at all, it is merely one “of colonisation, of genocide, of taking,” in which “envy and fear” are defining features. It is, we’re assured, “the culture of death.” 

If the above suggests the outpourings of monomaniacal bedlamites with dubious intentions, the kind of people you really shouldn’t entrust with influence over your children, then you may be on to something.

Somewhat related. 

For newcomers, more items from the archives:

Artists For Gaia. 

Our betters sail north at taxpayer expense. Gas is released courageously.

Such was the level of inspiration, some of the assembled artists began to work their creative magic immediately: “Tracy Rowledge constructed three series of ‘automated’ physical drawings, mapping the movement of the boat during the expedition.” For readers of a technical inclination, these ‘automated’ drawings involved suspending a felt-tip pen from the underside of a chair, resulting in random scribble on numerous sheets of paper positioned underneath. This feat was “REALLY exciting,” we learn, as it “explored movement, time, place and permanence.” The radical innovation also freed the artist to leave the dangling pen and do something more interesting. According to her two brief blog entries, the sum total of her commentary, Ms Rowledge spent much of this liberated time struggling with Greenlandic place names and making sure her fellow passengers knew how “overwhelmed” she was. 

I Don’t Deserve This Shabby Treatment. 

On the routine vainglory of the academic left.

Professor Surber’s self-regard continues to tumesce. He has fathomed all of history and it validates him. Liberal-arts professors tend to be leftwing, we’re told, “because we liberal-arts professors… have carefully studied the actual dynamics of history and culture; and we have trained ourselves to think in complex, nuanced, and productive ways.” In short, if you haven’t reached a similarly leftwing conclusion, then you haven’t achieved sufficient complexity and nuance in your thinking, you peasant. Luckily, we can count on Professor Surber and his peers to guide us to the light, such is their benign magnificence. They may be cruelly underappreciated, but by God they’re better than us and they will save us from ourselves.

You’ll Notice They All Wear Shoes.

The unhappy sights at San Francisco’s 2012 radical nude-in: