| |
|
|
| NOTE: This is an occasional piece, unrelated to the weekly economic analysis piece that is circulated over the weekends, which will, of course, continue. ---- |
 |
News on the Education Front
The Times of London reports that for a mere $43,500 per year your child can attend Avenues: The World School in Manhattan, where 4-year olds sit in swivel chairs and are taught in Mandarin or Spanish half of the time. Every student is expected to become a responsible "global citizen" from a "world course" designed by Harvard University. There are courses in humility, too: Students will be taught by their ten-person "success team" to be "humble about their gifts and generous of spirit, but "meekly," comments the Times. Parents insist that the school canteen offer snacks like seaweed and zucchini bread.
Those fortunate students need not worry about federally mandated school lunch programs. But those in the public school systems around the country must. At the Washington Technology Magnet School in St. Paul, the school nutritionist hopes she has struck the right balance between health and what students will eat, and comply with the 2010 law pushed through by the First Lady as part of her "Let's Move," which the Obamas will soon do to the relief of many. The nutritionist offers taco pizzas accompanied by fresh fruits and vegetables. No analysis of the school's compost heap is available to reveal students' reaction to the combo plate, or to determine whether the $98 million the Department of Agriculture has allocated to buy equipment and for training is paying off in healthier kids.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that "Americans Pack Shooting Survival Classes," where training company Sage Dynamics teaches gun owners how to survive an attack by terrorists and other deranged killers. There are staged scenarios to test students's reflexes and shooting skills. But not in New York City, where only the bad guys can get guns, and the mayor has appointed an independent civilian to monitor the police department's counter-terrorism activities to make certain they do not concentrate on Muslim neighborhoods or mosques.
Finally, Saudi Arabia's education system is believed by President Obama and Defense Secretary Carter to be up to the task of de-radicalizing Guantanamo detainees released in its care. Mohammad al Rahman al Shumrani, a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden "who had trained for suicide missions", according to the Wall Street Journal, was deemed by a 2009 six-agency task force too dangerous to release. But last September, a Periodic Review Board set up by the President in 2011 deemed him eligible for transfer and re-education by what the New York Times, an advocate of closing Gitmo, describes as a "rehabilitation program for lower-level Islamic terrorists." What distinguishes a lower-level from a top-notch terrorist is not reported. Now get this. It seems that Mr. Shumrani has indicated a strong desire, according to the review board, "to receive guidance from the clerics at the rehabilitation center about Islam and his willingness to submit to the authority of the Saudi government." These are the clerics whose version of Islam provides the theological basis for ISIS's decapitators, and the undeniably authoritative Saudi government was home in their formative years to the terrorists who brought down the World Trade Center. Never mind: The review panel believes that the risks associated with the transfer of this low-level terrorist are "adequately mitigated by the Saudi rehab program and the supervision of our Saudi allies."
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|