Higher Education Update: University of Kentucky offers college credit for eating tacos...

Well, this is embarrassing... 

Via Eater:

It counts towards a degree — really.
Students at the University of Kentucky now have the distinct privilege of being able to get college credit for eating tacos. According to Munchies, the university is offering an undergraduate class called “Taco Literacy: Public Advocacy and Mexican Food in the US South,” and the professor behind it wants to use tacos as an avenue for students to learn more about how people can forge social connections through food.
“This class allows our students to explore the issues of immigration, inequality, workers, intercultural communication, and literacy through the prism of food,” Steven Alvarez, an assistant professor from the school’s writing, rhetoric, and digital studies department told Munchies.
Through coursework that involves writing restaurant reviews, sampling tacos, and collecting data, students are meant to explore their community and develop skills to analyze “transnational community food literacies and how these connect the stories of people and food across borders,” Alvarez said.
Keep on reading…

Liberal education update...

An Illinois middle-school handout has revised the Second Amendment.

“This amendment states that people have the right to certain weapons, providing that they register them and they have not been in prison”

Here is what the Second Amendment actually says.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

I wonder what other BS they are teaching kids in Illinois. 

Finally: Kentucky makes a top 10 education list...

This isn't a joke post...

Via Education Week:

In addition to the evaluations of performance within those individual categories, readers will find overall, summative letter grades and scores for the nation and the states. Those grades incorporate the most recent information available across each of the six categories that make up the full Quality Counts report card. Each category carries equal weight when calculating the summative scores.

For the fifth year in a row, Maryland posts the nation's highest overall grade. Scoring 87.5 and earning a B-plus, Maryland finishes 3.4 points ahead of second-place Massachusetts, which is followed by New York and Virginia. For the first time, Kentucky (10th) joins the top-10 states, while Florida (sixth) regains its top-10 ranking after falling to 11th place in 2012. At the other end of the rankings, South Dakota was awarded a grade of D-plus. A majority of states fell near the middle of the grading curve, with 38 states earning grades between a C-minus and a C-plus. The United States as a whole gained a half-point from last year, bringing the national grade up to a C-plus, from a C.

Why The Federal Budget Can Not Be Balanced (Must See Video)

This video breaks down the Federal Budget into major components that can be easily understood. In a nut shell, mandatory entitlement spending and interest on the Federal debt are larger in 2012 than total tax revenues. That means if we closed every government department and office, fired every government employee, disbanded our military and ended all discretionary spending, we would still have a small deficit. What would it take to balance the budget? We could raise taxes by 50% or cut entitlements like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid by 60%. Do you see any of those things happening? Is it just a question of time before we go the way of Greece?

United States Budget Dilemma (Video)

Old Obama Jobs Metric: “saved or created.” New Obama Jobs Metric: “supported.”

President Obama is claiming his jobs bill will create save support 400,000 teacher's union jobs.

Via Whitehouse.gov(pdf)

The American Jobs Act Could Prevent Hundreds of Thousands of Layoffs,
and Allow Schools to Rehire Thousands More:

• Nearly 300,000 Educator Jobs Have Been Lost Since 2008, 54 Percent of all Job Losses in Local Government: Local governments shed nearly 300,000 education jobs between August 2008 and August 2011. By another measure, employment of teachers fell by 7.2 percent between 2007-08 and 2010-11.
• Local Governments Have Lost Nearly 200,000 Education Jobs Over the Past Year: Over just the past 12 months, local government education employment has fallen by 194,000 jobs.
• State and Local Funding Cuts Put As Many as 280,000 Teacher Jobs At Risk Next Year: In the four largest states, budget reductions threaten teacher jobs and key funding for schools. In New York City alone, nearly 780 employees were expected to lose their jobs by October. In California, budget triggers may
shorten the school year. And in Texas and Florida, tens of thousands of teachers could be laid off.
• The American Jobs Act Will Support Nearly 400,000 Education Jobs—Preventing Layoffs and Allowing Thousands More to Be Hired or Rehired: The President’s plan will more than offset projected layoffs, providing support for nearly 400,000 education jobs— enough for states to avoid harmful layoffs and rehire tens of thousands of teachers who lost their jobs over the past three years.

The White House plays on the old idea that fewer teachers will cause increased class sizes and students learning less. That does not have to be true. Class size and money spent are not the driving factors behind improved student test scores. In Great Britain, they have found larger class sizes can lead to students learning more. Also, increased education spending does not necessarily equal better student scores.

 Via Education Next:

The strongest factors in increased math and science scoring by students was lack of strong teachers' unions involvement and strong competition from the private-school sector.

Via Education Next:

If President Obama really was concerned about education in America, he would ban teachers unions and institute school vouchers to increase competition. Sadly, President Obama is mainly concerned with saving the teachers, unions that are actually destroying education in America.