A sad juxtaposition

I be hooked on Teabonics, the new dialect for Teabaggers. Like "ebonics", it is the language of uneducated people who fail at the basics of English grammar and spelling.

Texas Board of Education defiantly stands by their decision to drop Thomas Jefferson from Texas world history standards. And not only did they drop Tommy Boy -- they dropped the entire Enlightenment. Because, of course, that rejection of Church authoritah just could not stand, man.

Jaime Escalante is dead. He was a difficult man who was used by right-wingers during the 1980's to get a lot of nonsense passed, such as the TAAS (Texas Assessment of Academic Skills) in Texas, which was supposed to end social promotion and promote mastery but instead mostly just caused the majority of students to drop out at the end of middle school (not officially -- they simply never showed up at high school and were never counted as dropouts -- but they wuz *gone* -- hey look, I can do Teabonics too!). Jaime was fine with being used by right-wingers, assuming that all teachers were as good as he was and thus his ideas could be implemented by mere mortals without his direct supervision. When it became clear that was not true, he bitterly resigned and headed back to his native Bolivia to finish his teaching career. Despite his orneriness, he did a lot of good for a lot of children -- he was a genuinely talented teacher who had a lot of success with kids who others might have given up on. Just goes to show that skill in one area (teaching in his case) does not necessarily translate to skill in other areas (promoting educational reform, politics, etc.).

So there you have it. Two groups of people determined to inflict stupidity and ignorance upon the world, and one man who dedicated his life, however imperfectly, to bringing education and intelligence to the world. It does seem that those determined to inflict stupidity and ignorance upon the world are winning, sigh...

-- Badtux the Obituary Penguin