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Will it sink in?
Ian Rowe: Teaching Virtues
Advisor Spotlight
FAIR
Ian Rowe believes in teaching students four cardinal virtues: courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance. These qualities make up the core curriculum at his forthcoming International Baccalaureate public charter high schools in the Bronx, set to open in 2022. A product of New York City’s public school system himself, Rowe is determined to give parents an option that promotes classic ideas about equality that many still believe can work.
“The schools will be grounded in the ideas of equality of opportunity, individual dignity and our common humanity,” says Rowe. “They're schools that will be dedicated to this idea of democratic discourse, our ability to debate across differences, where we won't reduce kids to individual, immutable characteristics. We won't reduce kids to just characteristics like race or gender, but instead treat each student as individual human beings with great capacities to achieve.”
Students in Rowe’s charter schools will study real-life cases of individuals who overcame persecution to achieve greatness. As an example, he cites Booker T. Washington, who partnered with Julius Rosenwald to build nearly 5,000 schools for black children in the south during the Jim Crow era. Rowe believes these stories will inspire his students to be more determined and self-confident in their own lives.
Many of the current debates surrounding children’s education focus on what belongs in the classroom, including Critical Race Theory, Common Core Standards, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, and anti-bullying campaigns. But Rowe points out that these debates ignore more pressing issues.
“I think a lot of [these debates are] a massive distraction from some fundamental issues facing kids of all races in our country,” said Rowe. “It's still the case that less than 40 percent of all kids in our country are reading at grade level. This is a massive literacy crisis. Things like Critical Race Theory and DEI have nothing to do with improving outcomes for children and take attention away from important factors like family structure, having school choice, the ability for parents to choose great schools, really empowered curricula that's rigorous in nature, the science of reading. You know, these are the factors that really determine whether or not kids are going to be successful.”
Rowe is also Chairman and CEO of Spence-Chapin, a nonprofit adoption services organization. Although adoption and education may initially appear unrelated, Rowe believes that student background and socioeconomic status are even more important in determining a student’s academic performance than factors like school funding or facilities.
“Given that the research was so overwhelming and it's never been disproven that family structure and home environment are far greater determinants of student outcomes, then a lot of my research is focused on, well, how do we build stronger families for kids?” explained Rowe. “And one of the ways we can do that is through strengthening adoption as a more culturally acceptable answer, especially for young women who find themselves pregnant or without a partner.”
Rowe is a strong supporter of schools playing an active role in influencing the lifestyle choices of students. The Success Sequence, for example, is a research-based roadmap to the middle-class based on just three steps: finish high school, get a full-time job, get married before having children—and in that order. According to a report titled “The Millennial Success Sequence” by Wendy Wang and W. Bradford Wilcox, 97 percent of millennials who followed this model were able to avoid poverty.
“I run schools in districts where only 2 percent of kids are graduating from high school ready for college, meaning that the kids that start in ninth grade, they either drop out or four years later, they actually do earn their high school diploma, but still can't do reading or math without remediation if they were to go to college. And that's just not giving young people a good enough start in life.”
As a member of FAIR’s Board of Advisors, Rowe brings the knowledge he’s gained from over a decade working in public schools. He helped develop the FAIR Learning Standards, which provides a pedagogical framework for educators to implement FAIR’s pro-human approach throughout their curriculum.
“One of the existing advisors recommended me to the board of advisors and I met Bion [Bartning],” explained Rowe. “We started talking and discovered that we were aligned in this idea that we need a pro-human approach to schooling, to so many areas of our life, but we very much bonded on that whole idea.”
Since joining, Rowe has been an active member of the Board and is currently working to implement the ideals of the FAIRstory Curriculum into his own charter schools. Rowe aims to spread the idea that we must treat young people as unique individuals, regardless of race or ethnicity. He has hosted FAIR webinars, educating parents about the opportunities and challenges of using the legal system to end unethical, race-essentialist educational policies.
“I ran for school board in my own hometown and won, so I've actually done webinars for FAIR for people who are interested in running for school board. So I've tried to help more people who are considering taking action in their own local communities and uphold the FAIR principles.”
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Salena reports on a conservative candidate who asks the audience to ask the questions they are reluctant to ask and they do and he responds.
In PA senate primary GOP voters aren’t the caricatures the media portrays them as—which makes them miss what all of 2022 is about
Dispatches from
the middle of somewhere
the middle of somewhere
In my estimation, there is no patch of geography in this country that is the
"middle of nowhere." This is America; everywhere is the middle of somewhere.
BETHEL PARK, Pennsylvania — Late last week, David McCormick found himself in front of a tough, smart crowd brimming with a lot of questions about his candidacy. The Washington County native told the crowd he knew his job that night was to face their scrutiny; then, he challenged them to throw the kitchen sink at him.
“I want you to think about the question that you won't ask, and then, you're going to lean over to your wife or your husband or whoever else and say, ‘I wish I would ask this, but it'd be too uncomfortable,’” McCormick told the crowd of over 200 seasoned conservative voters.
“I want you to just start with the most uncomfortable questions, anything that's on your mind, and I'll do my best to answer them. And then, if we get all the questions, we could just socialize. Let's start with you here and then go to you, sir,” he said, pointing to the first questioner.
For the next 90 minutes, McCormick fielded questions that ranged from where he stood on abortion (he is pro-life), the integrity of the election process (he supports voter ID and strengthening the process at the state level), and his biggest challenge (name ID in a field that has a former nationally syndicated television host).
When asked if he made it through the primary process how would tackle either John Fetterman or Conor Lamb as his general election opponent, McCormick first observed how far left each candidate has been forced to move because of the preferences of an increasingly left-wing Democratic electorate. In last year's primaries, three incumbent big-city Pennsylvania Democratic mayors lost to liberal challengers.
McCormick said that Lamb has attempted to portray himself as centrist but that his voting record does not bear that out. Lamb and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose positions are reflective of the liberal left wing of the Democratic Party, agreed on 93% of the votes cast during the 117th Congress in 2021 and 2022. That's up 5 points from their 88% agreement on the votes taken in the 116th Congress of 2019 and 2020.
Click here for the full story.
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Our newly adopted family pet, forlorn Penny, just underwent, I hope, her last leg/hip surgery and will heal and walk normally.
Penny is the dog Abby found by the roadside on her weekly bike ride and rescued her from what would have been a tragic fate.
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The mass media have to protect the political left because they invested a great deal of their sinking credibility in the Clintons, Obama and now Biden over the last decades. Consequently they will continue to have egg on their face because those they support have proven to be the opposite of what Kennedy asked of voters.
They have no choice but to ignore Durham and in the end I believe the CNN's. and NYT's etc, will have slashed their own throats.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/02/two_intriguing_points_about_the_durham_allegations.html
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John Bolton has often burned some personal bridges but his views are well worth listening to because he remains a very credible and clear eyed hawk.
Entente Multiplies the Threat From Russia and China
The misguided idea that the U.S. needs to ignore one to focus on the other intensifies the danger.
By John Bolton
It’s been more than 75 years since the U.S. last faced an axis of strategic threats. Fortunately, that axis proved dysfunctional. Had it been otherwise, Japan and Germany would have systematically attacked the Soviet Union, not America, first.
Our current strategic adversaries, Russia and China, aren’t an axis. They’ve formed an entente, tighter today than any time since de-Stalinization split the communist world. Involving some mutual interests and objectives, displays of support, and coordination, ententes are closer than mere bilateral friendships but discernibly looser than full alliances. The pre-World War I Triple Entente (Russia, France and Britain) is the modern era’s prototype.
Moscow is junior partner to Beijing, the reverse of Cold War days. The Soviet Union’s dissolution considerably weakened Russia, while China has had enormous economic growth since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. Russia’s junior-partner status looks permanent, given disparities in population and economic strength (whatever today’s military balance), but Vladimir Putin seems determined to move closer to China.
This entente will last. Economic and political interests are mutually complementary for the foreseeable future. Russia is a significant source of hydrocarbons for energy-poor China and a longtime supplier of advanced weapons. Russia has hegemonic aspirations in the former Soviet territory, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. China has comparable aspirations in the Indo-Pacific region and the Middle East (and world-wide in due course). The entente is growing stronger, as China’s unambiguous support for Russia in Europe’s current crisis proves.
Washington would undoubtedly be more secure if it could sunder the Moscow-Beijing link, but our near-term prospects are limited. This entente, along with many other factors, renders especially shortsighted the common assertion that opposing China’s existential threat to the West requires reducing or even withdrawing U.S. support for allies elsewhere.
Barack Obama’s “pivot” or “rebalancing” to Asia produced a decade of variations on the theme that China matters and other threats don’t. Donald Trump agreed, although he wanted primarily to strike “the biggest trade deal in history” or impose tariffs if he couldn’t, along with assaulting China for the “Wuhan virus” when it became politically convenient. Some analysts argue that the global terrorist threat is diminishing and that hydrocarbon resources are becoming less important because of the green-fuel revolution. Both would mean that we could safely reduce U.S. attention to the Middle East. Thus, Joe Biden argued that withdrawing from Afghanistan was required to increase attention to China’s menace. Sen. Josh Hawley and others even believe we shouldn’t be deeply involved in the Eastern Europe crisis, to avoid diverting attention and resources from countering Beijing.
Such assertions about reduced or redirected U.S. global involvement are strategic errors. They reflect the misperception that our international attention and resources are zero-sum assets, so that whatever notice is paid to interests and threats other than China is wasted.
This is false, both its underlying zero-sum premise and in underestimating non-Chinese threats. Our problem is failing to devote anything like adequate attention or resources to protecting vital global interests. Political elites (who are noticeably lacking in figures like Truman and Reagan) focus on exotic social theories and domestic economics rather than national-security threats. America’s own shortsightedness, particularly an inadequate defense budget, makes us vulnerable to foreign peril. Washington must pivot not among competing world-wide priorities, but away from domestic navel-gazing.
Critically, those who exclusively fear China ignore the Russia-China entente. The entente serves to project China’s power through Russia, as Beijing also projects power through North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs. Moreover, Beijing closely assesses Washington’s reactions to crises like the one in Ukraine to decide how to structure future provocations.
Mr. Biden had it exactly backward in Afghanistan. The U.S. withdrawal not only signaled insularity and weakness, but allowed China and Russia to extend their influence in Kabul, Central Asia and the Middle East. Beijing and Moscow thereby also became more confident and assertive. And that’s not to mention that even the Biden administration admits that terrorism’s threat is rising again in Afghanistan.
Beijing is not a regional threat but a global one. Treating the rest of the world as a third-tier priority, a distraction, the U.S. plays directly into China’s hands. Pivoting to Asia wouldn’t strengthen America against China. It would have precisely the opposite effect and weaken our global posture.
We need to see this big picture before the Russia-China entente grows up to be an axis.
Mr. Bolton is author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” He served as the president’s national security adviser, 2018-19, and ambassador to the United Nations, 2005-06.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ PJ Had a marvelous sense of humor and was very much on point when he wrote:
| P.J. O'Rourke, RIP |
| by David R. Henderson via EconLog Humorist P.J. O’Rourke died this morning, at age 74, of lung cancer. As well as being a humorist generally, he was the top economic humorist in the United States. +++ |
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