Wednesday June 22, 2011

A GRIM DUTY. Walter Russell Mead, seconded by such as Ole Perfesser Reynolds, dances victoriously with the news that some top-100 lists of public high schools in the U.S. have Red State schools in the top positions. This, he declares, means that teachers' unions are through, America needs more home-schooling, etc.

If you think about it for a couple of seconds, you remember that America has many thousands of high schools, and that the presence of a shining example or two in Texas doesn't make that state an education winner any more than the presence of Michael Jordan made the Washington Wizards NBA Champions.

Some of Mead's commenters point this out; others refer to flaws in the surveys' methodologies, etc. But none of that matters and you know it; it does as much good as reading Shakespeare to sea lions. Among the belligerati, the notion that schools in Republican territories are naturally, vastly superior to those found in fancy-pants states now spurs the usual internet chest-bumps, and will do so long into the future; when their local education budgets have been voided out because they're socialist, and their grandkids know only the Bible, the Turner Diaries, and how to cook meth, they're still be talking about how their schools (or, as they will then be known, "l'arnin' sheds") are the best in the nation Because Low Taxes.

I had expected to get to bed early and wasn't even going to mention this story. I mean, who needs the aggravation? People like Mead and Reynolds do this and worse pretty much every couple of minutes. Keeping track of it is a lost cause.

Well, maybe that's the point. It's good to be reminded that, any given moment, these guys are busy driving up our national rate of flying bullshit. (I think we're up around Tulipmania now, and fast approaching levels not seen in nations before, but only in cults and Amway seminars.) If you can't catch all the incoming, at least you have some idea where the smell is coming from.

UPDATE. The subject is depressing for other reasons, too -- commenter N.C. looks at his local listings and says, "I'm totally super excited about the two-tiered future of public education: great schools for rich kids and math nerds with good test-taking skills, and Junior Sing-Sing (Now With Books) for everybody else."