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More Wingard

(Again thanks to Ken Libby.)

Wingard denies global warming with a "clever" House floor speech.



You may be wondering how Wingard was elected to the state legislature. Well, he wasn't, at least not initially. He was appointed by the Washington County Commission in a trumped up proceeding that made a mockery of the democratic process.

A month later he ran as an incumbent and squeaked by with less that half the vote.

Now Rep. Wingard is doing his libertarian best to push school choice (the Rose Friedman Educational Opportunity Tax Credit Act) --and charter schools-- through the legislature.

'Hard science' suggests poverty DOES affect school performance

Is poverty an excuse for lower achievement in school?

The "no excuses" crowd --No Child Left Behind enthusiasts, DC's Michelle Rhee, and, yes, Barack Obama and his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan-- say no.  As far as schools are concerned, there are absolutely no excuses for poor student performance, including poverty.

Others argue (me included) that schools themselves are not responsible for the lousy test scores of kids in poverty.  In fact, if you are inclined to take test scores seriously, the "gap" between the scores of poor minority students and wealthier white students has significantly decreased over the past couple of decades.

The bigger issue is whether schools alone should be held responsible for closing the income gap in America, as Obama has implied in his pronouncements on education reform.  I've argued that poverty is a social issue, not just a school issue.  Fixing the schools alone will not cure poverty.  It's unlikely that fixing schools will close the "achievement gap."

Now comes further evidence from Cornell University bolstering the argument that poverty is indeed an "excuse" for poor academic achievement.  The authors of the Cornell study, published in the Proceediings of the National Academy of Sciences, 

"...show that childhood poverty is inversely related to working memory in young adults. Furthermore, this prospective relationship is mediated by elevated chronic stress during childhood."

That means poverty related stress affects memory, a key tool for learning anything.  Furthermore, the effect on memory is related to a physiological "response to chronic environmental demands."

That's hard biological science, not "psychobabble."

What does this mean for school reform? 

It means that the "no excuses" argument is fundamentally wrong.  It means that the NCLB demand that all kids, regardless of circumstance, should be able to "perform" as well academically as everyone else, is wrong.  It means that test-based school accountability is wrong.  It means that teacher merit pay (based on test scores) is wrong.  It means that the anti-teachers union so-called  "reformers" are wrong.

Laughably wrong.

It doesn't mean that schools should abjure calls for reform.  It does mean that reform should not be defined and packaged and handed down by politicians, neoliberals, charter school proponents, billionaire businessmen, Teach for America novices, or anyone who believes that learning can be measured by standardized test scores.  

Who should define and spearhead public school reform?  Simple.  Building educators, meaning teachers and anyone else who works in or near a classroom, the people truly concerned with the education of the children they encounter everyday. 

Teachers know about poverty.  Broad and Gates and the Business Roundtable don't.  It's clear who we should listen to.

How are we going to power electric cars?

Here's the one word answer:  Coal

Or more precisely, dirty coal, since there is no such thing as "clean coal".

You may have read about the coal fly ash ponds that store waste from coal-fired electrical plants, particularly the one near Nashville, Tennessee, that recently flooded hundreds of surrounding acres* with a toxic soup of arsenic, lead, chromium, barium and manganese all of which, according to the New York Times, "...can cause cancer, liver damage and neurological complications... ."

You probably didn't know --I didn't-- that these holding ponds, as well as coal ash stored in landfills, are the products of primitive attempts to "capture" carbon emissions from coal-fired plants to prevent the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  Carbon dioxide, as we all now know, is a greenhouse gas scientists claim is responsible for the recent upward spike in global temperatures. 

Meanwhile, politicians and technocrats speak rapturously about the new generation of electric cars that will help clear the atmosphere of automobile exhaust.  Few, however, are talking about the fossil fuel that likely will power these new plug-in vehicles --coal. 

Half the electricity in this country is generated by coal.  The plants generating that electricity account for  "one- third of the carbon dioxide production in the [world's] industrialized nations."

So I ask, what good are electric cars if they rely on the juice supplied by the dirtiest, and most toxic, of fossil fuels? 

In his Senate confirmation hearing, Energy Secretary-designate Stephen Chu, in response to questions from North Dakota's Byron Dorgan wary of Chu's stance on coal, said that he believed American technology would soon be able to come up with a true clean coal solution.  (North Dakota relies heavily on coal and coal production for energy.)

With all due respect to Dr. Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics, that response may be more wishful thinking --and political pandering -- than a realistic assessment of the difficulties confronting those working on scrubbing the air --and the earth-- of the pollutants associated with the burning of coal.

*(Erin Brockovich --yeah, THAT Erin Brockovich-- has a post up on HuffPo with graphic descriptions of "...a plume of this toxic ash floating down the river, resting on the banks."  It's definitely worth the read.)

Why is the high cost of gas a bad thing?

And why has it become a campaign issue?

Paul Krugman calls the push for offshore drilling to lower the cost of gasoline, now supported by the majority of the American people, "junk economics". But it may be a winning campaign strategy for John McCain.

Barack Obama has apparently come to the same conclusion.  His once adamant opposition to offshore drilling has morphed into support for a policy that he's smart enough to know, in Krugman's words, "...would have an 'insignificant' impact on oil prices."  

The way I see it, high fuel prices will discourage people from driving so much, encourage the more rapid development of alternative sources of energy, and eventually, as the demand for gas decreases, drive down the cost of oil.  Isn't that how "supply and demand" is supposed to work? 

Then there's the question of global warming which is at the heart of Krugman's column.  He points to  Harvard economist Martin Weitzman's conclusion that there's a 5 percent chance global temperatures will rise enough to ''effectively destroy planet Earth as we know it.''  So why take the chance?

What really troubles Krugman is that politics (again) has trumped science:

"If a completely bogus claim that environmental protection is raising energy prices can get this much political traction, what are the chances of getting serious action against global warming?"

I know that  the high price of gas imposes a severe hardship on those who rely on cars for their livelihood.  And that it's easy for a person like me, who doesn't have to drive and lives in a city with a fairly well-developed mass transit system, to suggest that high gas prices may be beneficial in the long run.  But I think that, compared to the cost of driving in other developed Western countries, American drivers still have it pretty good. 

If the high price of gas discourages unnecessary automobile use, I say that's a good thing, and certainly not an issue that should decide a Presidential election. 

(Isador Morgavi, writing in the Tigard Times, agrees with me.  Isador would like to see gas prices climb to $7 a gallon.)

Global warming 'religion'

That phrase was used Sunday in a letter to the editor criticizing "big government" for going after "big oil" in Congressional hearings and suggesting that, in "the near term" we start looking for more oil resources here at home --in the oceans and in Alaska, meaning I assume, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Now I'm no scientist but I do know how to read the 'scientific' conclusions of experts who say that oil from ANWAR wouldn't be available for at least ten years and even then might knock only seventy five cents off the cost of a barrel of oil.  That doesn't sound like much of a solution to the high price of gas, let alone our "addiction" to foreign oil.

But the part of the letter that got my attention was the reference to environmentalists preaching "...the tenets and doctrine of the Global Warming religion... ." 

Again, I'm no scientist.  And I don't have anything against religion.  But I do consider myself an environmentalist concerned about climate change and the ongoing degradation of the earth's ecosystems.  That concern is based not on religious "tenets and doctrine" (unless my regard for the survival of life on earth, including human life, can be considered "religious") but rather on the hard scientific data that overwhelmingly points to catastrophe in the very near future if we don't stop pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The burning of fossil fuels, including oil, accounts for almost all of those earth warming greenhouse gases.

If one were to base the formulation of public policy on science, then, it seems clear that oil advocates, not environmentalists and their alternative energy ideas, would lose out.  To conclude otherwise is wishful thinking, probably influenced by adherence to some form of free market ideology, which is probably more akin to religious belief than anything  espoused by those who work to save the earth. 

Chimps are smarter than people

If intelligence is defined as "immediate memory", then chimpanzees are the real Einsteins of the natural world, a category that includes human beings, by the way.

Primatologist Tetsuro Matsuzawa of Kyoto videotaped chimps successfully remembering where the numbers 1 through 9 --randomly displayed on a computer screen for no more than a second-- belonged after they disappeared. 

“Humans can’t do it,” Dr. Matsuzawa said. “Chimpanzees are superior to humans in this task.”

That brings me back to the issue of intelligence and race.  If intelligence is defined by what's measured on an IQ test, then there are demonstrable differences in intellectual capacity between the "races".  That's what William Saletan writes in a provocative article in the online magazine Slate:

"Tests do show an IQ deficit, not just for Africans relative to Europeans, but for Europeans relative to Asians."

You catch that last part?  Not only are Africans dumber than Europeans, but Hitler's fair-haired, blue-eyed Aryans are intellectually inferior to their World War II co-conspirators. How's that for irony? 

The data that Saletan relies on, of course, are IQ test-centric.  And IQ tests, as Saletan himself acknowledges, are simply predictors of success in modern society --in school, in the modern workplace, and in the economy generally.  It's also worth repeating that IQ tests measure only linguistic, logical, and some spatial skills, but none of the other of Howard Gardner's "multiple intelligences".

I personally think there are other variables that have more to do with "success" in modern free market societies than IQ, qualities like greed and unbridled ambition, for example.  Many smart people would make lousy corporate CEO's because, unlike Microsoft's Bill Gates or Nike's Phil Knight, they lack the genes for greed and unbridled ambition, or the one that stimulates the lust for absolute power which, as Machiavelli tells us, corrupts absolutely.

Many smart people would also make lousy Presidents, often considered the pinnacle of success in America.   A new edition of the book, Bush on the Couch, just came out.  The author of the book, Dr. Justin Frank, psychiatry professor at George Washington University Medical School, calls George W. Bush an "effective" President despite his diagnosis of Bush as both narcissistic and psychopathic. He likes to destroy things and has little empathy for those he hurts.  Since few would consider Bush a candidate for MENSA (some have even suggested he's downright stupid), maybe we should add certain personality disorders to the list of qualities necessary for success in modern society. 

Saletan tempers his genetic criticism of those of African descent by pointing out that the only "viable candidate" for President to get the decision to go to war with Iraq right was the lone black candidate. (Never mind that Barack Obama is only half black.)  But is judgment about war and peace a function of IQ?  Not necessarily.  The President who sent us to war is probably no brainiac.  But many of the war's supporters are at least as bright IQ-wise as its opponents. 

Knowing what's right and what's wrong is just one more of those traits that IQ tests fail to measure. 

IQ, racism --and 'white flight'

Two recent news items may shed further light on Beth Slovic's devastating piece in today's Willamette Week on school choice in Portland and its effect on school segregation.

The first reported a study that linked higher intelligence --over six IQ points-- to breast-fed  babies.  The catch was that the smarter babies were dependent on a particular gene.  The study concluded that it took the right genes -nature- in combination with the decision to breast-feed -nurture- to produce the gains in intelligence. 

That genetic variable raises the issue of race, as The Economist coverage of the story was quick to point out:

"The two questions that arise over and over again are 'is it a result of nature or nurture?' and 'to the extent it is nature, does race make a difference?' "

The second item had to do with research into the small portion of human DNA that varies based on continent of origin.  This newfound knowledge again leads to speculation that certain "races" of people may be intellectually disadvantaged by their biology.  Taken to extremes, it can reinforce the belief that people of African origin are, by nature, both stupid and lazy.  Racial prejudices like those, says the New York Times writer, "...could undermine principles of equal treatment and opportunity that have relied on the presumption that we are all fundamentally equal."

Both the Times and The Economist tell the story of how Nobel Prize winner James D. Watson, the man who discovered the structure of DNA, was forced out of his job after publicly speculating about the "inherently gloomy... prospect of Africa" because "Africans are innately less intelligent than other races."  The Economist calls it a "stupid comment", and then somewhat humorously notes the irony of the survival of the gene that precludes IQ gain from breast-feeding, concluding that, through natural selection, "the dull are as evolutionarily fit as the clever."

The larger issue for me is the continued reliance on the Euro-centric IQ test as the starting point for discussion of "evolutionary fitness."  Even Alfred Binet, who invented the test, didn't believe that it was a true measure of intelligence.  The notion of an "intelligence quotient" has lately been superseded by other theories, notably Howard Gardner's "multiple intelligences."   Gardner identifies eight discrete intelligences, only two of which are assessed on traditional IQ tests.  Like the standardized achievement tests used to gauge student learning and the "success" of schools, IQ tests paint only a partial picture of human potential. 

Local educational leaders would do well to keep these issues in mind as they struggle to make sense of Portland's transfer and school choice policies, policies which have so clearly shortchanged dark-skinned students when it comes to "equal [educational] treatment and opportunity."