A couple of years ago I wrote a letter to New York Magazine about Yvonne's restaurant on Route 28 past Phoenicia. I said then that dinner at Yvonne's is like a visit to your French grandmother's house, and if you're not French then you're in for a great treat. Yvonne retired two years ago and my wife and I were in mourning/withdrawal in '06, but behold, she reopened in '07 better than ever. The duck is amazing, but I often get the beef bourguignon, the steak, the cassoulet, the boar and several other dishes. Yvonne makes amazing cold cream of fruit soups (last week's was cream of peach) that never cease to blow me away.
On Saturday, rather than a July 4th barbecue, Sharad Karkahnis, Phil Orenstein, Raquel Lacomba Walker and I had dinner at Yvonne's. Personally, I had a blast. Let's hope for many more years!
Friday, July 6, 2007
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
IF YOU'RE HUNGRY, EAT NCATE
The Steven Head case has a number of important implications. Thirteen months ago, I spoke at a hearing of the Department of Education concerning recognition of the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) as an agency that the government recognizes to accredit education schools. I noted that NCATE has been at the nexus of declining educational achievement in the United States.
In a blog today, Phil Orenstein points out that declining educational attainment is due to the "social justice" education that NCATE advocates:
"I have discussed this with immigrant co-workers and colleagues who are the product of fine technical institutions from Argentina to Israel who lament that the engineering schools and manufacturing programs of America are a joke. The dumbing down of competitive skills, workplace values and discipline in the postmodern academic world has put U.S. scientific and technical education to shame as compared with foreign countries."
The indifference to objective knowledge, factual learning and rigor is characteristic of the anti-foundationalism prevalent in the humanities and in the education schools today. NCATE has adopted failed anti-foundationalist ideology, which it enforces through its accrediting standards. In turn, NCATE's approach to education makes young Americans unemployable. Americans of future generations will starve because of NCATE, but at least they will have NCATE to eat.
Phil Orenstein's point amounts to this. When American jobs leave America, NCATE, the education system and their advocates in the education schools are in no small part to blame.
In a blog today, Phil Orenstein points out that declining educational attainment is due to the "social justice" education that NCATE advocates:
"I have discussed this with immigrant co-workers and colleagues who are the product of fine technical institutions from Argentina to Israel who lament that the engineering schools and manufacturing programs of America are a joke. The dumbing down of competitive skills, workplace values and discipline in the postmodern academic world has put U.S. scientific and technical education to shame as compared with foreign countries."
The indifference to objective knowledge, factual learning and rigor is characteristic of the anti-foundationalism prevalent in the humanities and in the education schools today. NCATE has adopted failed anti-foundationalist ideology, which it enforces through its accrediting standards. In turn, NCATE's approach to education makes young Americans unemployable. Americans of future generations will starve because of NCATE, but at least they will have NCATE to eat.
Phil Orenstein's point amounts to this. When American jobs leave America, NCATE, the education system and their advocates in the education schools are in no small part to blame.
Steve Head, a Man for All Seasons, Needs Legal Advice
I have previously blogged about Steve Head's courageous pro se lawsuit against the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education, NCATE.
Head had run afoul of the dispositional assessment requirement at San Jose State University College of Education (SJSUCE). His multicultural instructor (sic) told him that he was unfit to teach because he defended the United States in class. Much like an incident at Brooklyn College several years ago involving student Goldwyn and Professor Parmar, SJSUCE used quack "dispositional theory" to fail Head. Head then sued.
Head brought a pro se case to federal court through a section 1983 lawsuit. California State University (CSU), of which SJSUCE is a part, filed a motion to dismiss. The federal San Francisco Northern California District Judge William Alsup agreed with CSU's right to throw out students based on dispositional assessment. Judge Alsup threw out Head's case.
Since then, Head appealed, still pro se, to the 9th Circuit. The briefs (opening, CSU's response, and Head's reply) are filed as of July 2.
Head's is the first federal case and first federal appellate case to consider the constitutionality of using outright quackery, namely dispositions theory, to discriminate against a student. The fight illustrates that the problem with public schools lies partly in their political and legal regulation and partly in the judiciary's willingness to kowtow to their political power, to include NCATE's.
The 9th circuit has a reputation for being liberal but also a reputation for defending First Amendment rights such as those Head claims. Typically, pro se appeals in the 9th circuit are assigned to a pro se office in which they are quietly sabotaged by forbidding the pro se litigant to appear before the appellate bar, and instead substituting an in-house lawyer to make oral arguments ostensibly on behalf of the pro se litigant. These steps are implemented in a way engineered to sabotage the case for the sake of reducing 9th circuit caseload and of kowtowing to powerful interests such as teachers' unions and the educationist establishment. What does Judge Alsup care if the schools have let our children down?
Lawyers shy away from representing such cases, I suppose, because they know that if they ever attempted to argue effectively on the record in oral argument, they would run the risk of being blacklisted by judges. In any case Mr. Head finds himself in the situation of having fought CSU legally to a standstill in federal appellate court over whether dispositions, which lack validation, violate first amendment rights of education students.
Head is now in search of a lawyer to represent him to take the heat. He is also looking for amicus briefs and for help with legal fees which he has largely borne himself in the last 3 1/2 years in his fight for better quality public education and students' constitutional rights.
Those interested in helping him may contact him via my e-mail address (mailto: mlangbert@nyc.rr.com).
Head had run afoul of the dispositional assessment requirement at San Jose State University College of Education (SJSUCE). His multicultural instructor (sic) told him that he was unfit to teach because he defended the United States in class. Much like an incident at Brooklyn College several years ago involving student Goldwyn and Professor Parmar, SJSUCE used quack "dispositional theory" to fail Head. Head then sued.
Head brought a pro se case to federal court through a section 1983 lawsuit. California State University (CSU), of which SJSUCE is a part, filed a motion to dismiss. The federal San Francisco Northern California District Judge William Alsup agreed with CSU's right to throw out students based on dispositional assessment. Judge Alsup threw out Head's case.
Since then, Head appealed, still pro se, to the 9th Circuit. The briefs (opening, CSU's response, and Head's reply) are filed as of July 2.
Head's is the first federal case and first federal appellate case to consider the constitutionality of using outright quackery, namely dispositions theory, to discriminate against a student. The fight illustrates that the problem with public schools lies partly in their political and legal regulation and partly in the judiciary's willingness to kowtow to their political power, to include NCATE's.
This is a first-impression case that defines the limits of permitted, non-disruptive, classroom speech that challenges the inculcation/indoctrination divide at a time when it is most important in our national life.
Steve's fight is not over multiculturism but rather the use of multiculturalist rhetoric as ideological litmus. Steve's "F" grade was not based on his failure to learn the required materials but due to his professor's dislike for his thoughts, which are entirely mainstream.
The 9th circuit has a reputation for being liberal but also a reputation for defending First Amendment rights such as those Head claims. Typically, pro se appeals in the 9th circuit are assigned to a pro se office in which they are quietly sabotaged by forbidding the pro se litigant to appear before the appellate bar, and instead substituting an in-house lawyer to make oral arguments ostensibly on behalf of the pro se litigant. These steps are implemented in a way engineered to sabotage the case for the sake of reducing 9th circuit caseload and of kowtowing to powerful interests such as teachers' unions and the educationist establishment. What does Judge Alsup care if the schools have let our children down?
Lawyers shy away from representing such cases, I suppose, because they know that if they ever attempted to argue effectively on the record in oral argument, they would run the risk of being blacklisted by judges. In any case Mr. Head finds himself in the situation of having fought CSU legally to a standstill in federal appellate court over whether dispositions, which lack validation, violate first amendment rights of education students.
Head is now in search of a lawyer to represent him to take the heat. He is also looking for amicus briefs and for help with legal fees which he has largely borne himself in the last 3 1/2 years in his fight for better quality public education and students' constitutional rights.
Those interested in helping him may contact him via my e-mail address (mailto: mlangbert@nyc.rr.com).
High Net Worth Needs to Be Adjusted for Risk
Last week, Merrill Lynch and Capgemini released their 11th annual study of high net worth and ultra high net worth households. High net worth means that someone has over one million dollars in liquid assets (excluding primary residence but including second homes, investment real estate and liquid investments) while ultra high net worth means that someone has over thirty million dollars. They find that:
"Driven by a strong global economy, the wealth of the world's high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs1) increased 11.4 percent to US$37.2 trillion in 2006...The number of HNWIs in the world increased 8.3 percent in 2006 to 9.5 million and the number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals (Ultra-HNWIs2) grew by 11.3 percent to 94,970."
According to bar graphs on p. 3 and the appendix to the study (p.31), the United States has the most HNWI's, with the number having increased by 9.4% to 2.9 million. According to the Census Bureau, the US population is currently roughly 303 million, so HNWIs are about 0.95% of the US population. However, the number of millionaires is growing more quickly in developing countries like India than in the US.
There has been concern about growing inequality. Globalization and the Americanization of the world economy, some critics might argue, is now causing increasing inequality around the world.
Measures such as the Merrill Lynch Capgemini study are misleading, though. The study notes that high net worth individuals have benefited from a booming global real estate market. Likewise, several years of stock market valuation increases also have contributed to the increasing number of high and ultra high net worth individuals.
About 31% of HNWI's wealth is in equities, 24% in real estate, 21% in fixed income securities and 14% in cash. This a moderately risky investment profile. Wealth is not static. Should real estate, stock and other financial markets contract, the number of high net worth individuals will contract in tandem.
Measures of HNWIs and ultra HNWIs ought to account for the riskiness of their holdings, for example by showing the historical variance in returns of the assets that HNWIs hold. Given that markets in real estate and stocks have been bubbly in recent years, the global bouyancy in the Merrill Lynch/Capgemini numbers may be misleading.
"Driven by a strong global economy, the wealth of the world's high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs1) increased 11.4 percent to US$37.2 trillion in 2006...The number of HNWIs in the world increased 8.3 percent in 2006 to 9.5 million and the number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals (Ultra-HNWIs2) grew by 11.3 percent to 94,970."
According to bar graphs on p. 3 and the appendix to the study (p.31), the United States has the most HNWI's, with the number having increased by 9.4% to 2.9 million. According to the Census Bureau, the US population is currently roughly 303 million, so HNWIs are about 0.95% of the US population. However, the number of millionaires is growing more quickly in developing countries like India than in the US.
There has been concern about growing inequality. Globalization and the Americanization of the world economy, some critics might argue, is now causing increasing inequality around the world.
Measures such as the Merrill Lynch Capgemini study are misleading, though. The study notes that high net worth individuals have benefited from a booming global real estate market. Likewise, several years of stock market valuation increases also have contributed to the increasing number of high and ultra high net worth individuals.
About 31% of HNWI's wealth is in equities, 24% in real estate, 21% in fixed income securities and 14% in cash. This a moderately risky investment profile. Wealth is not static. Should real estate, stock and other financial markets contract, the number of high net worth individuals will contract in tandem.
Measures of HNWIs and ultra HNWIs ought to account for the riskiness of their holdings, for example by showing the historical variance in returns of the assets that HNWIs hold. Given that markets in real estate and stocks have been bubbly in recent years, the global bouyancy in the Merrill Lynch/Capgemini numbers may be misleading.
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