University fires teacher for publicly identifying cheaters

The Daily Texan - University fires teacher : "The six students received F’s and were reported to the school, but their grades may not stand because of Young’s blog post [in which he publicly identified them]."

Not terribly long ago, at a school where I'm no longer on the active call-out roster, I busted a student for plagiarism. Dead to rights I caught the student, as in, "I took the last sentence of your essay and Googled it as a text-string search, and the only hit I got led me to your essay, verbatim, looking me in the face." When I went to my department chair, the first thing he asked me was whether or not I could document the cheating. Inside my head, my first response was, "Gee, you think I'd waste your time if I couldn't?" The second thing he asked me was if I felt inclined to give the student another chance. Out loud, I responded, "No, the students were specifically warned in my college-approved course syllabus that cheating would automatically result in a course grade of zero, no exceptions." And then he asked me if I was willing to let the student drop the course (W). I was astounded, and grew even more so when he then told me that unless I went immediately through the registrar to fail the student, the student could (via a not-so-roundabout process) drop my class without penalty and without my approval or comment!

This is the crux: students are no longer in any way held accountable for their actions. It starts in the public schools, where it's an open secret that teachers aren't allowed to fail more than X% of their students (and they have to document that they bent over backwards to help/assist the student, notified the parents multiple times, etc.), and that if every little step to "re-teach" hasn't been taken, the failing grade can (and often will) be overridden. Knowing this, students are quite confident in doing no work and/or cheating, because the onus is not on them but on their teachers to justify the grades. "You can't fail all of us, even though no one did the work, because if you do, you will get in trouble, not us." And yes, this even goes down to something as simple as doing worksheets!

In this professor's case, the students will probably end up getting course credit because, parallel to the public teachers, the professor did not follow proper procedure. And while violating FERPA is a huge no-no and the university is justified in not rehiring that adjunct, giving the students credit for cheating sends entirely the wrong signal here. They were warned that this could happen, why are they surprised and/or angry when it does?!? But because the entire education establishment is now "learner-centered," as in, "we need the learners in the seats so that we can get money," they know that they will now be rewarded, not punished.

But it's just plagiarism. The worst that can happen is that you end up Vice President.

Comparing the Election of 2008 to... Part I: 1800

[okay, I never did get the graphics issue resolved to my satisfaction, so I'm going to just write it out long-hand. And because I'm doing that, I might as well start with...]

Two parties that cannot stand each other, hurling mud and invective against the other faction's candidate. False charges, threats of violence, even revolution if the wrong person wins. A lot of fuss for two men in powdered wigs, but that's 1800.

Senator Obama's elevation to the White House is a big deal. Considering the long history of black Americans, for one to win a presidential election is a milestone, one that cannot be ignored. We can ruminate on the current significance of that in some future conversation; right now, it's time to play History Lesson and put this election into its proper historical context. And for our purposes here, that means forgoing the race angle as much as possible; race is simply too much of a non sequitur to be brought up at every turn and twist. Thus, apologies now to everyone who wants to harp on that point.

Let's look at the big points of comparison between the two elections, 1800 and 2008:

1. Unpopularity of the sitting President --without a doubt this played a major role in the elections of both Jefferson and Obama. John Adams's Federalists had come close to bringing the nation into a war to which a significant number of Americans objected. To pay for this war, taxes had been increased, further angering opponents of the war. Worried about the effect that opposition newspapers were having on volatile electorates, the Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1798, effectively criminalizing anti-government speech. Ironically, the Sedition Act had the effect of galvanizing the Republican opposition instead of stifling it. When the Quasi-War hysteria passed, many supporters of the Federalist faction began second-guessing the Adams Administration. In the 2008 election, we had a president who (evidently, according to Gallup) is the most unpopular president ever recorded, an economy with rising unemployment and much anxiety about the financial infrastructure. Oh, and said president led the nation into a once-popular-but-now-not-so-much-even-though-most-Americans-now-think-we've-won-or-are-winning war.


2. Regional appeal of the opposing candidates. Jefferson's support came solidly from the South and the trans-Appalachian states, but he only won the election because he carried the swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York. Obama's support is perimeterial in nature (is that even a word? It is now, heh), with the coastal states and the Great Lakes solidly lining up behind him, and key swing states --including Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York-- also coming into line. Obama also picked up support in other traditional (last 30 years) Republican areas, so in that sense, he is much less a creature of the regions than Jefferson.


3. Nastiness of the campaign. In both elections, the candidates themselves eschewed the sort of negative attacks that Americans find distasteful from their presidents, but love to see from their subordinates. McCain was noticeably more negative as the campaign wore on, and some believe that it held him back (while others consider it his fatal flaw that he didn't "go negative" sooner). The attacks on Jefferson and Adams by their respective opponents are the stuff of legend. Federalists warned that Jefferson would import the guillotine from France and begin executions of his opponents. Republicans warned that Adams wanted to institute a hereditary monarchy and aristocracy. Both sides' supporters published false, malicious and/or misleading statements about the other guy --in fact, this was used by the Federalists as continued justification for the Sedition Act. In that sense, nothing much has changed in over 200 years, although the number of Republicans demanding the jailing of the New York Times staff remains quite small. (NB there is a real sense, on the other hand, that an Obama Administration may punish those perceived to be "hostile"; witness the bumping of reporters from Obama One is the closing days from papers whose editorial pages supported McCain.)


4. Congressional coattails. In 1800 the Republicans rode the wave of dissatisfaction to commanding leads in both chambers of the Congress, with a 68-38 majority in the House but only a 17-15 majority in the Senate (one vacant House seat, two vacant Senate seats). While the Democrats already controlled both chambers going into the 2008 elections, they have managed to increase their margin to fifty-odd votes in the House (435 members total) and are close to 59 seats in the Senate (including the two independents who caucus with them; also depending on the final vote tally in the Minnesota race). Significantly, though, Jefferson may have had the better deal, as the Senatorial filibuster had not yet come into existence and debate could be closed by a simple majority vote. In the end, there would be limits to Jefferson's power over Congress, such as the rise of the "Tertium Quids" who ultimately out-Jeffersoned Jefferson in their adherence to strict constructionalism. Party unity in the present day, however, is generally much more structured, although the Blue Dog faction in the House may yet pose problems for Obama and his close ally, House Speaker Pelosi. (Aside: the grand irony is that Jefferson's coattails almost did him no good, as this election was an electoral tie owing to shenanigans involving Republican electors and rumors that Aaron Burr, the designated running mate, may have actually wanted to be at the head of the ticket. As such, the outgoing Federalist-dominated House actually decided the election, ultimately choosing Jefferson as the "known" devil over the "ambitious" Burr.)


5. Ramifications for the judiciary. I doubt severely that we will see the kind of repercussions in the judiciary in the modern day that the nation saw in the wake of the 1800 election. The court system was simply far too small and limited to have any real impact --or so it would seem. Yet Federalists so feared the Republican take-over that they deliberately stacked the judiciary in an attempt to limit the power of the Republican government. From this came the case of Marbury vs Madison,from which I take great pleasure in discussing how Chief Justice John Marshall out-constructed Jefferson and Madison and argued that an ultra-strict reading of the Constitution actually gave the Court the power to deny itself an ability (mandamus), yet in so doing achieve the greater power of interpreting the Constitution, even to the point of being able to nullify acts of the Congress which it felt violated the Constitution. Jefferson and his allies would then spend the next few years targeting judges for impeachment, ultimately with very limited success. Given the nature of Senate procedure today, especially the reluctance of the Senate to formally adjourn (thus giving the President the opportunity to make recess appointments), there will be no similar court-packing today.
   
   6. The popular vote. Not that it mattered in Jefferson's time, since the vast majority of the electors were chosen by the state legislatures (Electoral College 1.5, as I like to call it), nevertheless Jefferson won about 68% of the popular vote in those areas where electors were thus chosen. Obama's margin is much much smaller, on the order of 53% or so.

--okay, I think that will do for a start. Comments are most welcome. Coming next time: the election of 1824.

But...but...there's only so much Farsi I can learn before they go broke!

#115 Promising to Learn a New Language

It's no great secret that a significant number of poker players in my area are foreign-born. In fact, it makes things much more interesting. The casino-standard rule "English-only at the tables during a hand" has started many heated arguments.

A good many of my acquaintances are Persian-born, exiles from the Islamic revolution of 1978-9. So I am s-l-o-w-l-y learning conversational Farsi --which, not coincidentally, is a good way to learn to swear and order drinks in most Middle Eastern bars. It's also fun because I become a source of much amusement when I mangle pronunciations...

Shedding Potential Kos/Huff Cooties

You know you you are, and you know why you're here, so let me spell out the other side for the sake of balance:

Suppose McCain/Palin wins the election, but the Senator from Arizona is Unavailable before December 15, the date of the formal election of the President via the Electoral College ballots. Republican electors have two options: to honor the spirit of the Constitution's Article II and the 20th Amendment and vote Gov. Palin as President-Elect; or to select a candidate of their own choosing, perhaps at the behest of the Republican National Committee. YOUR worst-case scenario, worse than Newt, worse than Cheney, even worse than Huckabee: Tom Delay is elected President. Remember: he's not a convicted felon, and it's looking a lot like all the charges will end up being dismissed in the end anyway.

[This post relates to a comment I made on The Volokh Conspiracy regarding what might happen should the Senator from Illinois win the election but decede before December 15.}

The Folly of Temper

It may come as a surprise to some (but not to those really close to me) that I actually have a very nasty temper. It was much worse when I was younger (testosterone?), and I have made many long strides in the last ten years in bringing it to a manageable level. It still shows itself in verbal slips now and again, but that just adds to my curmudgeonly charm. It's when It (that's what I call the beast) surfaces when things can quickly get ugly.

Wednesday night, after a particularly questionable hand of poker, It emerged. Its immediate target was an innocent, inanimate cocktail table. I attempted to place-kick it across the room. Left-footed --that's how upset I was. Unfortunately, said table proved to be much heavier than it looked. I did knock it over, but at the cost of a broken severely bruised big toe. The next day, I was unable to do any serious walking. And the day after that. And today.

It was today when I really regretted my folly, because Mrs. declared it was such a nice day that she wanted to take the Wee One to the zoo for the very first time. After some protests, I gave in and walked all over the park with my family. The Wee One enjoyed it and my wife now adores me (again). I managed to walk slowly without putting weight on that toe --which inordinately stressed the calf of that leg as a consequence, and so I'm back to limping at half-speed anyway.

Bright spot: I can still lift at the gym and do cardio, so the workouts continue apace. I'm glad I'm no longer doing free-weight squats.

Why Tuesday? Plus, Voting Reform

Why Do We Vote On Tuesday? --short answer is that farmers liked it that way. Lots of bellyaching in the comments about how voting procedures need to be modified to allow more inclusiveness.

Shying away from What We Expect Mojo To Say (i.e., "Making it easier to vote inevitably will lead to people taking voting for granted," or even, "Why do we want everyone to vote? "), let me take a different tack --one that WordPress inexplicably refused to let me post (?):

[In response to the idea that Election Day should be a national holiday] NO! to a holiday for voting. I submit that making it a holiday will actually depress voter turnout rather than enhance it. Consider: the pressure would be enormous to make the holiday on either a Monday or a Friday to avoid (further) disrupting the work week. How many people take Memorial Day Monday to go pay their respect to the war dead, hm? How many people go on Labor Day to see the unions parade? Voting Day would turn into another wasted workday, with added absenteeism before and afterwards (honk if you've ever taken off Friday before a Monday holiday weekend, or Thursday before a Friday holiday weekend). And since voting wouldn't take all day, retail stores would be encouraged to run sales to attract the off-work consumers (screwing the employees who have to work that day, natch). The easier and cheapest solution across the board is to extend voting hours in all jurisdictions to 24 hours beginning 5AM EST on Voting Tuesday.

Visitors? HERE???

I'm expecting online visitors, strangely enough. If that's you, how-de-do! Rummage the archives and lie around on the floor reading old issues.

When Gaming and Politics Collide

somehedgehog: Adventuring Party Politics: The Campaign is Getting Ugly

Shhh, if this gets out I'm out of a day job...

America's Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor's Degree, wherein we find these figures:

Today, amazingly, a majority of the students whom colleges admit are grossly underprepared. Only 23 percent of the 1.3 million high-school graduates of 2007 who took the ACT examination were ready for college-level work in the core subjects of English, math, reading, and science...



A 2006 study supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 50 percent of college seniors scored below "proficient" levels on a test that required them to do such basic tasks as understand the arguments of newspaper editorials or compare credit-card offers. Almost 20 percent of seniors had only basic quantitative skills. The students could not estimate if their car had enough gas to get to the gas station.

So undergraduates aren't ready for us. I blame the public education system and subcultures that devalue pedagogy. But when the author begins talking about solutions, I began to cringe:

• A national test, which could be developed by the major testing companies, should measure skills important for responsible citizenship and career success. Some of the test should be in career contexts: the ability to draft a persuasive memo, analyze an employer's financial report, or use online research tools to develop content for a report.

What part of HELL NO do I need to spell out? Not that testing is evil in and of itself. I just know where this will lead: federal funding (which will create more useless bureaucratic jobs) will become tied to test scores, and low-performing colleges will begin teaching the exams at the expense of subject matter. It's the path of least resistance.

The author makes some other points, many of which are good (or, at least, present no immediate sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach). I especially liked this one:

• If your child's high-school grades and test scores are in the bottom half for his class, resist the attempts of four-year colleges to woo him. Colleges make money whether or not a student learns, whether or not she graduates, and whether or not he finds good employment. Let the buyer beware. Consider an associate-degree program at a community college, or such nondegree options as apprenticeship programs (see http://www.khake.com), shorter career-preparation programs at community colleges, the military, and on-the-job training, especially at the elbow of a successful small-business owner. [emphasis mine]

And therein we find the root of all evil: colleges are money-making machines for administrators, bureaucrats and student loan officers. I would love to see a financial aid worker's face if one were ever told that they could lose their jobs if too many of their "clients" failed out or otherwise defaulted on their obligations. Bank officials can lose their jobs if they make too many bad loans (oh wait, not if they're the bank executives or if they contribute to members of Congress...), why not financial aid workers?

But I digress. Colleges are money-making machines, and most students don't need half of what they are forced to learn, prepared or not. I should be careful, though. If word of this gets out, historians may be out on the streets --or even asking for a Congressional bailout.

UPDATE: wave if you came here via Gates of Vienna. I'm actually quite pleased that thoughtful people can have serious disagreements on some things yet find (non-esoteric) things to agree on.

I miss boating.

I was all excited earlier this year when I finally got my boat back from the shop, rebuilt engine and all. Sure, there are still a few glitches that need attention, but those pale in comparison to the smell of the water, the roar of the engine, the whole enchilada...

Sadly, I've managed to take the boat out precisely twice this year. Granted, one of the times was with Family Mojo and that was pretty cool. But inevitably Things Came Up. Weekend commitments. Teaching loads. Hurricane Ike. Especially Hurricane Ike. Late September - early October are my prime times to hit the bay and go fishing. The storm completely wrecked every facility that I know of. And even if I could get out onto the water, all of the channels etc. have been re-arranged; I'll have to do a complete trip just to map out the safe routes through the bay.

So the boat hasn't been back out. It may not go out again at all this year. Man I miss boating.

Testing: a picture of The Wee One

--and this isn't even one of her better pictures!

A Reminder Of Why I Have Gates of Vienna On The Same List As Boing-Boing

Opposite ends of the political spectrum, same questionable intelligence.

Gates of Vienna: The Iranian Death Ship: talks about how the Iranians were going to blow up a huge cargo ship of radioactive sand on Yom Kippur off the Israeli coastline, killing thousands in potentially the largest terrorist strike in human history.

Haroog??? Put up a highly radioactive cloud that could drift into Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and even Saudi Arabia itself? (But they're Sunnis... Yeah, but you'd kill thousands of Shia Palestinians as well...)

And in a way that would almost certainly invite a massive nuclear counterstrike from the Israelis???

Leave all that aside, though, and consider the Extremely Bad Juju that would result if the al-Aqsa mosque were rendered unusable due to fallout. Radioactive cargo: yes. Evil madman plot: dubious.

I'm not saying that GoV is totally full of beans, but the leaps in logic from factual stone to factual stone in this piece make me shake my head.

UPDATE: ZOMG!!!111!!!1! I GOT A MENTION DIRECTLY ON GoV!!! Here it is! Also check out the comments...

When Warren Buffet Talks, You Should Listen

Buy American. I Am. - Warren Buffett in the New York Times:

A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. And most certainly, fear is now widespread, gripping even seasoned investors. To be sure, investors are right to be wary of highly leveraged entities or businesses in weak competitive positions. But fears regarding the long-term prosperity of the nation’s many sound companies make no sense. These businesses will indeed suffer earnings hiccups, as they always have. But most major companies will be setting new profit records 5, 10 and 20 years from now.
...

A little history here: During the Depression, the Dow hit its low, 41, on July 8, 1932. Economic conditions, though, kept deteriorating until Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933. By that time, the market had already advanced 30 percent. Or think back to the early days of World War II, when things were going badly for the United States in Europe and the Pacific. The market hit bottom in April 1942, well before Allied fortunes turned. Again, in the early 1980s, the time to buy stocks was when inflation raged and the economy was in the tank. In short, bad news is an investor’s best friend. It lets you buy a slice of America’s future at a marked-down price.

He's right. I'm still kicking myself for not doubling down on Charles Schwab after the '87 crash --I'd have made a huge killing by selling off in 1999. Mr. Buffett's logic is a perfect example of contrarian investment, and his track record is pretty good. I'm long in cash right now, and for the short-term that is very good. Buy for the long haul and quit looking at the news. Companies that are fundamentally sound will survive and prosper.

Remember: if no one were buying any stock, the market would be at zero. The market is not at zero, ergo there are people buying stock.

"Ahh, I see Professor Mojo has given his first exam of the term..." [REPOST]

[NOTE: this post was originally made over the summer, but it applies just about every semester to just about every section I teach. This semester has so far proved no exception.]

"Ahh, I see Professor Mojo has given his first exam of the term: his students look like they've been gut-shot."

I try to keep class upbeat, lively, and not boring --oxymoronic aims for a history lecture, one might say (and yes, there are days when even I get bored by the things I have to cover). But I never intentionally mislead my students. From Day One, I warn them that if they don't study for the exams --and especially if they blow off the essay questions -- they will fail. But there are a significant number who simply do not listen.

And so every term, I get Exam One grades (out of 100) like 55. 38. 18. Welcome to the world of Community College Education.

For what it's worth, I also tell the students that this happens to everyone, and that I will take significant improvement into account when final grades are calculated. My mission is to improve these students, I don't get paid extra for failing them --that's how I justify it. Even so, I also know from past experience that only half of those students who bomb Exam One (bomb: = = anything less than a D/60) will even bother to finish the course, they'll head for the door at break and keep on going to the registrar to withdraw. It makes me sad.

But I can only do so much. I'm not legally allowed to use a war elephant (with howdah) to chase down those counselors who push students into classes for which they are absolutely unprepared; nor can I use Invoked Devastation on the schools which produce these students. I can only encourage and work with those who stick it out, and at least get them on the Path of Right Learning ("Study! Read! Think!").

[Slightly modified from the original. The really sad part is that many of them will "shop around" for an "easier" prof next semester, and then end up failing again when they don't bother to study. This is college: I'm not doing any favors by reinforcing the bad habits they picked up in high school. And yes, I can throw stones at high schools, I used to teach high school, and I do know what it's like.]

New Deal actually a bad deal? I've been arguing this for a while now...

FDR's Policies Prolonged Depression by 7 Years, UCLA Economists Calculate
There is a growing "new" conservative critique of FDR's New Deal, one that doesn't rely on ideological revulsion so much as cold hard data. This is an example of one such critique. It lends credence to the thesis behind Liberal Fascism's argument that government interference has generally made things worse and not better. Another conservative economic critique of FDR's policies can be found in Great Myths of the Great Depression (I assign this one to my students as an anodyne to the rah-rah-"if-anything-the-New-Deal-was-too-conservative" line taken in my main textbook. )