One More Reason to Homeschool: You Can Recreate the 1st Thanksgiving in Peace

File this one under the category of "don't these people have anything more important to do?"

Police in Claremont, CA (an upscale suburb of L.A.) were called to Eleanor Daly Condit Elementary School after rival protesters clashed in front of the school. The dispute stemmed from the decision by the school board to cancel the construction paper costume portion of the four decades-old tradition of having the kindergarten students recreate the First Thanksgiving.

Apparently, one Condit parent, Dr. Michelle Raheja, who teaches Native American Literature at UC-Riverside, complained that the costumes were "racist". She compared the recreation to:

"asking children to dress up like slaves (and kind slave masters), or Jews (and friendly Nazis)"

Testifying in front of the school board in support of Dr. Raheja's position were Dr. Jennifer Tilton, professor of Race & Ethnic Studies at the University of Redlands, and instructors from Pitzer College and Riverside Community College.

Parent Constance Garabedian accused Dr. Raheja of:

"using those children as a political platform for herself and her ideas. I'm not a professor and I'm not a historian, but I can put the dots together."

The school board took the political correct position and ordered the students to forgo the costumes "in order to be sensitive to the Native American culture."

I'm of Irish heritage. My ancestors had to deal with oppression by foreign conquerors and when they fled to the U.S., they faced discrimination. But that was a long time before I was born. I wouldn't get my knickers in a knot if some kindergarten kids wanted to celebrate St. Patrick's Day by making leprechaun costumes out of construction paper. True, it may be a bit cartoonish, but certainly not racist.

They don't call it "La-la Land" for nothing!

Average American Fails Civic Literacy Quiz

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute has released the results of its 3rd annual Civic Literacy quiz, and they're pretty dismal. 71% of respondents failed the quiz; the average score was only 49% correct. A mere 0.8% of those surveyed received an "A", yikes! Those in my age group (25-34) got only 46% correct. College graduates only did slightly better than average, with a still mediocre 57%.

I'm pleased that I only missed one question, for a score of 96.97 % :-) And it was an economics-related question, which is a subject I have never formally studied. I had narrowed down the choices to 2 possibilities and simply guessed wrong.

You can take the quiz here.

As If I Don't Have Enough Stuff To Do...

I just got a jury summons to appear 8 days before my due date. So now I've got to get a note from my OB to verify that I would be medically unable to serve at that time. What a complete pain in the you-know-where...

Anybody Use a Cloth Diapering Service?

I've always been tempted to cloth diaper but frankly have never wanted to deal with the hassle of so much additional laundry. With my previous 2 babies, there's never been a diaper service available where I was living. This time around, I've found a service called Tiny Tots that's based out of Campbell and delivers to my area.

Their monthly price isn't really a huge premium over what I'd be paying for disposables so I'm seriously considering giving it a try.

Has anybody out there used a cloth diapering service? If so, were you satisfied with the quality of the diapers and the customer service?

It's Going to Be One Heck of an Election Day...

...if the lines for the early voting in my county are any indication. I'd been hearing predictions of a heavy voter turnout for next Tuesday's election for a while now, so when I happened to be over near the county elections office this morning I decided to swing by and cast an early ballot. Even though it was mid-morning on a Wednesday, the place was mobbed. I had to wait about half an hour before it was my turn.

As I was leaving, I happened to remark to a Fed-Ex deliveryman that I was surprised to see it so crowded. He told me that it'd been that way for the past couple of weeks!

Although I have a feeling that I may not be too happy with the outcome of this year's election, I do think on the whole it's a good thing for our country for its citizens to show a higher level of civic engagement than has been the norm in recent years.

Any Suggestions for Relieving Pregnancy-Induced Isomnia?

I've tried drinking chamomile tea, I've tried reading a dull book, I've tried yoga and I'm *STILL* not tired. This has been happening a fair amount lately, and also I've been waking up in the middle of the night & then having trouble falling back asleep :-(

Anybody got ideas for how a mom-to-be who really needs to catch some Z's can do so?

I Can Pick Cherries, Too! The Myth of the "Teaching Penalty"

I recently came across an interesting post on the "Public School Insights" blog from back in March entitled "Teacher Pay is Prosperity Proof". It discusses a report from the liberal think tank the Economic Policy Institute called The Teaching Penalty. You can read the full 82 page report here, but in a nutshell the researchers argue that the average weekly pay in 2006 for teachers was 14.3% below those in "comparable occupations".

The validity of this argument hinges on whether the occupations selected for comparison truly are comparable. The authors of the report give a highly technical explanation for how they chose "comparable" occupations, but a number of the results seem to defy basic common sense.

Here's the occupations the authors claim are comparable to teaching: accountant, reporter, registered nurse, computer programmer, clergy, personnel officer. Okay, I can see nurse, clergy, and possibly personnel officer because like teaching these are all "helping" professions. But the others strike me as having little similarity to teaching.

Including accounting and computer programming in particular is going to skew the results because those have some of the highest entry level salaries for new college graduates (as of 2007 they were $46,718 and $56,201 respectively). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 25th percentile of wages for accountants is $44,230 and the 75th percentile is $75,020. For computer programmers, the numbers are $51,450 and $87,950.

Two occupations that strike me as much more similar to being a schoolteacher are social worker and librarian. According to the BLS, the 25th percentile of wages for social workers is $30,250 and the 75th percentile is $50,530. For librarians, the numbers are $40,730 and $63,440.

If I average the BLS median weekly wage for social worker, librarian, registered nurse, and personnel officer, I come up with a figure of $940. That's only $20 greater than the EPI number for the average weekly wage for teachers. Not to mention that that if I average the numbers from the BLS data for elementary, middle, and secondary schoolteachers, it results in a figure of $1,205/week, which is 28% more than the average for the 5 "helping" occupations.

My college stats professor used to love to remind us of the old saying about there being 3 kinds of falsehoods: lies, d*** lies, and statistics.

So the next time you hear someone using the EPI report to bolster his/her argument that teachers are underpaid relative to comparable occupations, you'll know to be appropriately skeptical...