TFA in KCMO

The Kansas City Star reports on Teach for America’s role in city schools. Teachers with the organization clearly make contributions to schools in need, but also face a good deal of challenges and sometimes their presence generates controversy.

TFA has earned rave reviews and fierce criticisms during its still relatively short existence. On the whole, I’m strongly supportive of the organization and its efforts. Why wouldn’t we want to get some of the country’s best and brightest young people going into the classroom to teach?

Just because not all of them are going to stay, or because some of them are using the position to pad their resumé before going on to “bigger and better” things, doesn’t mean it’s not a good thing for the system. Some will stay, some will move on, but all will have brought energy, optimism and aptitude into struggling public schools for at least a season.

Sometimes you’ll hear education establishment types (veteran public school teachers, ed school professors, etc) bad mouth TFA and its young teachers who enter tough teaching posts across the country. They didn’t go through the right channels, they don’t belong to the union (some are, some aren’t, mostly depending on location, I believe), or some other myopic, petty grievance is sometimes behind the sniping. To me, this is the sort of backwards, tribalist approach that has eaten away at the system from the inside for many years.

Keep up the good work, TFA. Do all you can in the time you have to make a difference.

Race riots once more?

Excellent article by Heather MacDonald in City Journal about the twentieth anniversary of the LA Riots. Law enforcement should be ready for such events, prepared to act swiftly and decisively to put a stop to them. If the George Zimmerman is acquitted, cops could be put to the test, she writes.

The trouble with hate crimes

Bill Keller writes a surprisingly cogent piece for the The New York Times. The idea of criminalizing not only crime but the thought behind it gives him “…the nagging sense that hate crime legislation resembles something from an Orwell dystopia.” He also interestingly points out that hate crime legislation can promote ready-made narratives that opportunists such as Al Sharpton can easily latch onto to stoke tension for political or economic gain.

Keller is not only a columnist for The Times but also its former executive editor. In the piece, he cites his own views as well as those of liberal academic Heidi Hurd, who also rejects hate crime laws. So while conservatives have lamented hate crime legislation for some time, his observations on this topic might turn some heads – and hopefully get some people re-thinking their support for these unfortunate statutes that cloud our code of justice.

Scarborough metamorphosis complete?

Is Joe Scarborough‘s transformation from Republican Congressman of Florida to something closer to a liberal-leaning MSNBC host complete? I don’t watch Morning Joe regularly, so I can’t definitively answer that question. However, I will say that every time I’ve checked in periodically over the years, it seems he’s a bit further from where he started. In the clip below for instance, he seems clueless as to why some are questioning the Trayvon Martin narrative we’ve been spoon-fed by the media. His example brings to light the old adage that the two things which will influence you most are what you read and who you spend time with. My advice to Joe: leave MSNBC now, while you still can!

Scarborough on Morning Joe, via Real Clear Politics.

Trayvon Martin commentary

Investors Business Daily weighs in on the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman issue, saying the narrative crafted by activists and carried by the media is now falling apart. I’ve been following this issue for a while and will probably offer some thoughts of my own in the coming days.

What I will say now is this: it has been disconcerting to see the way many have jumped to conclusions and spoken and acted with very little apparent knowledge of the facts of the case. Not only that, but the immediate reaction by some was to indict an entire nation as racist. The way the president inserted himself to fan the flames of racial tension in this issue was deplorable, but not exactly shocking.

I want justice to be served in this case. It doesn’t seem that Zimmerman acted wisely, but that doesn’t make him a murderer. The facts must be sorted out and the truth established. Then, if there is a case, charge him.

The media has been willfully culpable in portraying Martin as an innocent victim, and Zimmerman as a bloodthirsty perpetrator. The selective use of images (showing dated pictures of a baby-faced Trayvon and a time-worn mug-shot of a sinister-looking Zimmerman) has been totally unjournalistic. To their credit, somebody from the Poynter Institute, a media ethics group, said the very same thing on TV the other day.

More to follow….

Santorum not up to par, says Coulter

Ann Coulter trashes GOP presidential primary candidate Rick Santorum in her latest column, saying even when he takes the right position, he makes the wrong argument. I couldn’t agree more. It’s insane that Santorum is even in the game at this point. I’ve watched him in interviews from time to time in the last couple years and remember thinking, “This guy seriously wants to run for president?”

He has absolutely no presence, and at times seems slow on his feet. As I discussed in my last post, he also has difficulties communicating with constituencies who don’t reflect his own values. That’s problematic when you’re trying to win over a national electorate.

The former Pennsylvania senator has looked good on the stump a few times during this race, and has played the role of the tortoise admirably. He kept slogging on in Iowa for months on end, even when it looked like he had no chance of winning. And that’s paid off. Whether by luck or strength, he’s the last un-Romney standing. But enough of this, let’s get this thing over. Santorum shouldn’t be left standing, and it’s time to knock him out.

Republican primary voters, do your duty.