Ridiculous Item

“Within a discipline, professors count rather than read the publications of their colleagues who are up for tenure; and once one gets outside one’s field, no one dares quarrel with a record that contains enough articles in good enough journals that are widely enough cited.”—James R. Stoner, Jr., political science professor at Louisiana State University in the Fall 2011 issue of the Claremont Review of Books.

“Nine of 10 major educational software products on the market have no effect on test scores, the federal Department of Education found in 2009.”—Heather McDonald of the Manhattan Institute.

“Those who find it comfortable going into high ethical strictures go into politics, those who don’t do into academia.”—Michigan State University economist Steven Waldman noted wryly at the fifth anniversary of the Free State Foundation.

“We live in a society where you can lose your job for making a racist joke but where there are usually no consequences for making regional slurs.”—Althea Webb, assistant professor of education, Berea College, in The Chronicle Review, October 7, 2011.

“With all this stuff about state standards, I just assumed that every school had a curricula handed down from the state.”—Derek Neal, economist, University of Chicago, at Brookings Institution conference on September 27, 2011.

“In a twist to notions of race identity, new 2010 census figures show an unexpected reason behind a renewed growth in the U.S. white population: more Hispanics listing themselves as white in the once-a-decade government count.”—Hope Yen, Associated Press, September 29, 2011.

ill Ayers will be a keynote speaker at the National Association for Multicultural Education’s 2011 conference.

“We were waking up from a dream in the ’60s, and it was not easy to wake up, especially with all the drugs we were taking.”—singer Judy Collins in an interview with The Washington Post.

There are none so fearful of TEA parties as those who will not attend them.

“The recent growth in state laws requiring voters to show a photo identification has advocates for students worried that their clout at the polls will be sharply reduced.”—The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 29, 2011.

“More than half of those who come to my college are not prepared.”—

Robert Templin, president, Northern Virginia Community College, July 19, 2011, The Atlantic forum on The New Work Era.

“Unfortunately, what we’re getting throughout America is kids who can’t do math with no speaking skills.”— Mike Morris, chairman and CEO, American Electric Power Company, Inc., July 19, 2011, The Atlantic forum on The New Work Era.