SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

I AM SO SHOCKED AT THIS – FROM COLLEGE FIX:    Congress is moving closer to passing a $1.9 trillion bill under the auspices of COVID relief. However, two education researchers recently found that union influence, not a lack of money for health initiatives, keeps public schools closed.  “Major teachers unions have claimed repeatedly that public schools need gobs of cash to reopen in person,” Corey DeAngelis, the director of school choice for Reason Foundation, and Christos Makridis, a professor and researcher at Arizona State University and MIT, said.  “But our new analysis suggests funding isn’t the reason teachers unions are keeping schools shut,” the pair wrote in a March 9 opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. “In fact, our prior work has found that union influence, rather than scientific concerns about the spread of the virus, is the primary driver behind reopening decisions.”  “Many teachers unions, by contrast, have been fighting to stay at home. The difference is one of incentives,” the opinion piece said. “Public schools get their funding regardless of whether they open their doors.”  The new research from DeAngelis and Makridis found “no evidence to suggest that higher revenue or expenditures per student are associated with a higher probability of reopening schools for in-person learning.”  The Democratic Party, which depends heavily on teachers unions for campaign contributions, will ignore this.  Who cares about kids?  Kids don't vote.

WHAT IT'S COME TO – FROM COLLEGE FIX:    Students would chant to an Aztec god that accepts human sacrifice under a proposed California ethnic studies curriculum.  “The curriculum includes an official ‘ethnic studies community chant,’ in which students appeal to the Aztec gods—including the god of human sacrifice—for the power to become ‘warriors’ for ‘social justice.’ Students seek a ‘a revolutionary spirit’ through these incantations,” reports journalist Christopher Rufo, who tweeted out images of the curriculum to support his statements.  At stake? “Adoption would clear the way for the state legislature to vote on a bill making ethnic studies a high school graduation requirement for all 1.74 million high schoolers in the state,” reports RealClear Investigations.   There is also video of another proposed chant that shows high school students in Los Angeles cheering in various Spanish, Swahili and Native American phrases in advance of discussions on topics such as oppression, power, solidarity and systemic racism, RealClear reports. That video is linked within the proposed curriculum before the California Department of Education.  In it, the students clap and stomp their feet as they chant about tackling various struggles together, according to a translation by RealClear.  The tragedy is that the world isn't buying what these people are selling.  They will wind up watching that world go by.

March 13, 2021