The Smithian

May 10th, 2013

It is a new thing, a big social experiment…we’ve accidentally decided to engage in…Let’s send a whole class of people out into their professional lives with a negative net worth. Not starting at zero, but starting at a minus that is often measured in the tens of thousands of dollars. Those minus signs have psychological impact, I suspect…

Kevin Carey, director of the Education Policy Program at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based research group

re the

millstone of student-loan debt, which recently exceeded $1 trillion in total…

May 7th, 2013

thesmithian

'A female science student conducts an experiment with chemicals that explode in a classroom, causing no damage and no injuries. Who gets to be the adventurous teenage genius mad scientist and who gets to be the criminal led away in handcuffs facing two felonies to juvenile hall?'

May 4th, 2013

thesmithian

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“We didn’t hate white people…We didn’t even know any. We hated the system. That’s what we were protesting about.”

more.

May 4th, 2013

thesmithian

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May 4th, 2013

thesmithian

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Mary Ann Vecchio [is]…the girl in the haunting photo—crying, kneeling over the student’s body. That was Kent State University, May 4, 1970, a few days after Richard Nixon, who’d campaigned for president on an implicit promise to end the war, widened it by invading Cambodia…At Kent State, where two days earlier the ROTC building was burned down, National Guardsmen fired into a crowd and killed four unarmed students, the closest of whom was nearly a football field away

more.

Mary Ann Vecchio [is]…the girl in the haunting photo—crying, kneeling over the student’s body. That was Kent State University, May 4, 1970, a few days after Richard Nixon, who’d campaigned for president on an implicit promise to end the war, widened it by invading Cambodia…At Kent State, where two days earlier the ROTC building was burned down, National Guardsmen fired into a crowd and killed four unarmed students, the closest of whom was nearly a football field away

more.

April 12th, 2013

thesmithian

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In conjunction with other conservative groups attacking the “liberal” judiciary and the press, they continued to shore up the movement’s populist credentials by identifying an elite to which conservatives could stand opposed — a task that grew in importance as populist elements within the Republican Party gained even more prominence. They continued to provide a vocabulary for conservative college students (and their parents) to express frustration with their higher education experiences. And they helped to call into question the credibility of academic knowledge, which made the growing number of conservative intellectuals in think tanks working on topics like taxes or energy policy or financial deregulation seem more reliable and trustworthy by comparison.

more, from an excerpt, here.

In conjunction with other conservative groups attacking the “liberal” judiciary and the press, they continued to shore up the movement’s populist credentials by identifying an elite to which conservatives could stand opposed — a task that grew in importance as populist elements within the Republican Party gained even more prominence. They continued to provide a vocabulary for conservative college students (and their parents) to express frustration with their higher education experiences. And they helped to call into question the credibility of academic knowledge, which made the growing number of conservative intellectuals in think tanks working on topics like taxes or energy policy or financial deregulation seem more reliable and trustworthy by comparison.

more, from an excerpt, here.

April 11th, 2013

thesmithian

…what was most unique was for whom, and to whom, Michelle spoke. Her words gave voice to an oft ignored (but disproportionately affected) victim of America’s gun violence: the black mother. The first lady spoke of Hadiya Pendleton, the slain 15-year-old student, gunned down just blocks from the Obama’s Chicago home—and only days after Pendleton had attended the president’s second inauguration. With tears in her eyes, Michelle said, “Hadiya Pendleton was me and I was her.”

more.

…what was most unique was for whom, and to whom, Michelle spoke. Her words gave voice to an oft ignored (but disproportionately affected) victim of America’s gun violence: the black mother. The first lady spoke of Hadiya Pendleton, the slain 15-year-old student, gunned down just blocks from the Obama’s Chicago home—and only days after Pendleton had attended the president’s second inauguration. With tears in her eyes, Michelle said, “Hadiya Pendleton was me and I was her.”

more.

April 4th, 2013

thesmithian

'At the root of many American problems lies an ineffective and outdated education system that is failing our students. Inequality and education have always been inextricably linked, and if we don’t fix education, we don’t fix inequality. Simply put, our citizens are not being prepared to compete in today’s global, hyper-connected economy, and, for low-income students, the outlook is especially grim.'

April 3rd, 2013

thesmithian

'“HBCUs are part of the African-American community. We want to be engaged in all parts of the African-American community. So it’s important for us to do outreach to HBCUs,” says Raffi Williams, the RNC deputy press secretary and the outreach coordinator to African-Americans. “We’re still in the planning process, obviously, figuring out what the best strategy is moving forward.”'

April 2nd, 2013

thesmithian

‘…kids now have to have fake epiphanies about the suffering of other, less privileged people instead of just having fake epiphanies about themselves…’

…This proves that they are really caring human beings who want to do more for the world than just make money so that they, too will, in their time, be able to get their children into Harvard. This entire thing is absurd. I understand why kids engage in this ridiculous arms race. What I don’t understand is why admissions officers, who have presumably met some teenagers…actually reward it. Why not give kids a bonus for showing up to a routine job during high school, like real people, instead of for having wealthy parents who can help you tap their affluent social network for charitable donations? Why have we conflated “excellence” with affluence, driven parents, and a relentless will to conform on the part of the kids? Unfortunately, the admissions system seems to be primarily geared towards fake sincerity and ersatz enrichment.

more.

April 1st, 2013

thesmithian

…those Asian Americans that say race doesn’t matter anymore bother me the most. Race does matter. Do I want people to be judged by their merit? Of course. But that’s just not the country we live in. Let’s be real here. Race plays a major factor in things like education, health, social economic outcomes, whether you can get a loan from a bank, get a job interview, criminal sentencing, etc. As an Asian American, sometimes it’s just not as oblivious [sic] as it is for other people of color. But they are still there. They are just more subtle. For example, if it was all about merit, wouldn’t it mean that there should be more Asian American politicians, CEOs, and people in positions of leadership in California? Especially when you consider about half the students graduating from the University of California system are Asian/Asian American? Whew. I’m glad I got that off my chest…

screenwriter Koji Steven Sakai

March 30th, 2013

thesmithian

'Once again, federal student loan interest rates are set to double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent (on new loans; existing ones wouldn't be affected).'

March 25th, 2013

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This year, Cinderella looks like Sherwood Brown…

This year, Cinderella looks like Sherwood Brown…

March 25th, 2013

thesmithian

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[a] group of college students…started a campaign to help people learn how to see past common assumptions about race and privilege…

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March 24th, 2013

thesmithian

Fifty years ago, Loyola and Cincinnati, the two teams meeting in the NCAA tournament final, combined to put seven black players on the floor at the same time. It was an era when lots of colleges—and college basketball teams—were segregated, and coaches at lots of programs that weren’t segregated were careful to limit the number of black players, either because they had to be, or because they thought they had to be, or because they simply preferred it that way…But Ramblers is about much more than a particular game.

more.

Fifty years ago, Loyola and Cincinnati, the two teams meeting in the NCAA tournament final, combined to put seven black players on the floor at the same time. It was an era when lots of colleges—and college basketball teams—were segregated, and coaches at lots of programs that weren’t segregated were careful to limit the number of black players, either because they had to be, or because they thought they had to be, or because they simply preferred it that way…But Ramblers is about much more than a particular game.

more.