Advanced displacement
There’s this guy at a large Alabama high school who teaches AP (Advanced Placement) Economics and Government/Political Science. He has a summer reading list from which the students are supposed to choose one. Maybe they all have to read the separately listed John Stossel one? Not clear.
2014-2015: Summer Reading
No They Can’t: Why Government Fails-But Individuals Succeed, John Stossel
•1. SuperFreakonomics, Steven Levitt & Stphen Dubner
2. Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions, Michael Savage
3. The Political Zoo, Michael Savage
4. The Enemy Within, Michale Savage
5. The Dynamics of Working-Class Politics, Michael Savage
6. Trickle Up Poverty: Stopping Obama’s Attack on Our Borders, Economy, and Security, Michael Savage
7. Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, Mark Levin
8. Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America, Mark Levin
9. End the Fed, Ron Paul
10. Race & Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination, Walter Williams
11. The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal, Robert Murphy
12. Who Killed the Constitution?, Thomas Woods & Kevin Gutzman
13. FairTax: The Truth, Neal Boortz & John Linder14. Flat Tax Revolution, Steve Forbes15. Glenn Becks Common Sense, Glenn Beck16. Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and their Assault on America, Ann Coulter17. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism, Christopher Horner18. 48 Liberal Lies About American History (That You Probably Learned in School), Larry Schweikart19. Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation, Ronald Reagan20 It’s OK to Leave the Plantation: The New Underground Railroad, C. Mason Weaver21. The MAGIC of Gun Control and The County Sheriff: America’s Last Hope, Sheriff Richard Mack22. Libertarianism In One Lesson – New 9th Edition, David Bergland23. The Land of Fair Play, 3rd Edition, Geoffrey Parsons24. America’s Providential History, 3rd Edition, Stephen McDowell25. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, James Loewen26. The Everything American Government Book, Nick Ragone27. God & Government, Chuck Colson28. On Two Wings, Kerby Anderson29. Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Thomas Sowell30. Climate of Corruption: Politics & Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax, Larry Bell
Who do you think hired this guy?
A bot?
Ophelia: Perversely, this guy probably owes his continued employment to worker-protection rules that were fought for by unions–the very embodiment of the anti-capitalist, regulatory impulse that glibertarians like this obvious douchewaffle so despise.
He presumably does the creationist shuck-and-jive of also teaching the ‘official’ answers to various historical questions, so that the kids can do sufficiently well on their standardized tests. But then he undermines it with shit like the above test. However, note that the vast majority of those books seem to have very little to do with religion, and everything to do with screwing over the poor. A student’s parents can complain about the former, but the latter is pretty much under the broader blanket of protected speech given to teachers by the union-sponsored contracts.
Oh surely not. Teachers’ unions didn’t fight for teachers’ right to assign reading that has very little to do with the course. From what I know public school teachers are generally expected to stick very closely to a curriculum and syllabus chosen by officials. Assigning irrelevant books to high school students is not “protected speech” by anybody’s definition.
As I said in the post, the political deformation isn’t my main issue with this, I’d still be objecting if his bent were left instead of right. My issue is that the books are trash, ephemera, polemical froth – they’re not relevant to AP exams.
I would say when one of the titles is “Liberalism is a mental disorder”, you have gone far beyond exposing the children to the “other” side. This is not about teaching economics or political science; it is about promoting a single world view.
It’s a million miles from teaching economics or political science. It’s teaching Hack Polemical Journalism 101.
Yeah, my first thought, looking at this list, is that it’s just not what I’d expect AP students to be asked to read. Am I right in thinking that AP students are the high achieving teens of 16 or 17? The equivalent of UK A’ Level students?
Because that list isn’t nearly academic enough to stretch kids of that level. I read the whole list in the hope there might be examples from across the spectrum of economic thought. Doesn’t look like it…
Yes. AP stands for Advance Placement and it means being able to skip first year courses designed for students who had crap high schools or did badly in high school or both.
Most of those books aren’t economics books at all, they’re “political” – not in any academic sense but in a Fox News sort of sense.
Usually school administrators are looking for AP teachers who can successfully prepare most of their kids to pass the exam. This has all the “teach to the test” issues one might expect, but at least it’s a criteria. I can’t believe this guy is doing much for the pass rate of his students.
Also, this would be a case where not doing the reading leaves a student better off.
I lost it at “Glenn Becks Common Sense” by, of course, Glenn Beck. Does it come with a free electron microscope?