By Sam Burnham
@C_SamBurnham 

I would like to call attention to an article posted this morning by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on their Get Schooled blog. The article puts a light on information from a research scholar on East Asian education. All of my life I've heard the comparisons between American education and that of Asia, particularly the Japanese in my youth.

The scholar, Cornelius N. Grove, speaks of one major difference between the two and that difference is a regular topic of discussion at ABG. According to Grove, the major difference is the roles parents play in the education of children. Rather than seeing the teachers as professional specialists hired to take on the entire task of educating children, Asian parents see teachers as highly respected resources. Teachers are a tolls that parents have to assist them in their task of educating their children. 

As this next school year begins in Georgia, we need to be focused, as parents, on the education of our children. Here at the house, we have used our road trips, museum visits, cultural activities, and even conversations around the dinner table to guide the education of our boys and their teachers have often commented that they can tell that the boys' education is not limited to the schoolhouse. As parents, one of the most important roles we play is that of educator. And if we ever feel like we don't know enough to be educating the boys about a topic, then we find a way to learn more about it together.  

When we do turn our children over to professional educators, we take an approach of a partnership. The teacher does not absolve us of our duties. Instead, the teacher is there to enhance our task, to improve our outcomes as educators. The success of our children depends on us, not the teacher. Even an inept teacher teamed with engaged parents can be successful. But even the greatest of teachers is fighting an uphill battle when not teamed up with parents who take the lead role in the education of their children. 

Take a look at the AJC post linked in my opening paragraph and think on it for yourself. The future is in our hands. 

By Sam Burnham
@C_SamBurnham

Right now, at this very moment, bureaucrats are discussing the future of healthcare policy in this nation. They are debating the merits and drawbacks of a sort of Frankenstein's Monster that we have created - a hybrid of big business and big government that is responsible for funding all of our well-being.

Anyone who has ever been denied coverage for a covered treatment knows the danger of trusting a large corporation with your health. Anyone who has been following the tragic story of young Charlie Gard knows the danger of entrusting the government with our health. Considering how much each of these relies on the other and how deep they are in each other's pocket, we're playing with a ticking time bomb and we're all going to lose.

There is a tendency on the Left to look to government and higher taxes to find all of the answers to every question in the central government. There is a similar tendency on the Right to allow the market to handle everything. But we find time and again that neither of these institutions ever seem to have acceptable answers to the major social issues of our time. Homelessness, healthcare, relief for the poor, education, none of these seem to improve no matter how much tax money or tax credits for businesses we throw at them. And yet we keep trying the same things over and over.

We deal so much with community here. Community is the small answer to so many huge problems. My personal doctor is in my community. I can walk to his office in a few minutes of leisurely stroll. There is a doctor, a nurse practitioner, and several nurses. But this is not a true private practice. It is incorporated with a regional hospital. While that is good that it is included in a network that includes specialists and a major medical center, it's not really part of the community. It doesn't allow my doctor to be one of those people that Mr. Rogers would include as "in your neighborhood." There is a corporation, complete with all standards and requirements, pages of paperwork each visit, and to send bills from some far off place to remind me that I owe money that my big corporate insurance company isn't going to pay because my lofty deductible still has not been met.

There is also, no fewer than a dozen churches within a similar distance to my home. They all have a tax-exempt status. They are fairly involved in our community, especially when they think it might draw the kind of attention that would result in higher attendance on Sundays. What I want to address here is the role that tax exempt organizations, including churches, can play in this. Few of the churches in my community are what I'd call extravagant. But there are many in the area as a whole that are quite extravagant. If instead of entrusting our healthcare services to the government, and big businesses, why shouldn't we tie the tax exempt status of these organizations to their level of investment in the community? As we see huge dining areas, acres of parking lots, arena-style worship centers, health club style gymnasiums, electronic message boards, these organizations have resources. But are they charitable? Do they benefit the community at large? It's just a question.

What other ideas can we find in our communities to help answer this problem? It is time to quit listening to Washington and the insurance industry as they are not interested in our well being. Neither of them are. We need to put our minds together and find ways to bypass corporate hospitals, insurance companies, and big government. The answers will be small and there will be many of them. Send us some feedback. Think locally, act locally.

By Sam Burnham
@C_SamBurnham

In the last post I addressed some of the errors in the study by three academics representing three different northern schools. The study purported that people who support the public display of Confederate symbols tend to know less about Confederate and Southern history than people who oppose the public display of such symbols.

While the process of determining support for the symbols in question and the historic knowledge of the study's subject both had fatal flaws that rendered them useless for serious contemplation, it was the last portion of the survey that unveiled both the predictable agenda of the study and its obvious bias.

As we step into the portion of the study which attempts to drill down into the heart of each subject and determine how each person feels about members of different races, we begin to see that this trio had set out to toss a familiar stereotype in a Southern direction hoping to see it stick once again. Let's look at the specifics, again, from the Georgia survey. 

   ​"To assess these competing perspectives, we regress support for the Confederate flag on knowledge about Southern history, feelings of attachment to the South, and a number of racial attitude measures: racial resentment (Kalmoe and Piston, 2013), opposition to interracial dating, and denial that Blacks are worse off than Whites when it comes to jobs and education. Control variables include ideology (measured as support for limited government), party identification, and select demographics (sex, age, education, birthplace, urbanicity, and home ownership). We estimate a logistic regression due to the structure of the dependent variable: respondents were coded “1” if they preferred the version of the state flag that prominently featured the Confederate battle emblem and “0” otherwise."

Once again, we see that fatal flaw surrounding the flag, scoring the current Georgia as if it was the pre-1956 flag, which it isn't. But now we see new claims. "resentment", "opposition", and "denial". So we can look into those. We had three (3) questions to determine support for symbols, two (2) questions to determine how much support we have for symbols, and then nine (9) questions to determine if we are racists.  - 

​Let's look at the questions:

In the United States today, do you think the average African American is better off, worse off, or just about as well off as the average white person in terms of income?
1. Better off  2. Worse off  3. Just about as well off

And what about education? Do you think the average African American is better off, worse off, or just about as well off as the average white person?
1. Better off  2. Worse off  3. Just about as well off
 
Finally, what about in terms of the types of jobs they have? Do you think the average African American is better off, worse off, or just about as well off as the average white person?
1. Better off  2. Worse off 3. Just about as well off

Honest question on these first three. What is an "average" white or black person in this survey? Speaking strictly for Georgians, the target of this particular survey, if the subjects live in the rural North Georgia mountains, they're going to see a lot of poor whites and almost no blacks. They are going to tend, from personal experience, to disagree while someone from Atlanta or the rural "Black Belt" region will see many poor black people and tend to agree. People from Georgia's suburbs will see a strong and diverse middle class and could go either way on this or they may go with choice three. This is a variable based on point of view, not resentment or denial. 
 
Would you object if a child of yours dated someone of a different race?
1. Yes  2. No

This is a strong hypothetical that has many variables. Would I object or the basis of race alone? No. Factoring religious, cultural, and other factors? Depends on the individual. It also depends a lot on what a person tells a poll taker and what a person does when faced with the real situation. 
 
Please tell me whether you Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, or Strongly Disagree with each of the following statements.  
First:  The Irish, Italians, Jews and other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors.
1. Strongly agree 2. Agree 3. Disagree 4. Strongly disagree
 
Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for Blacks to work their way out of the lower class.
1. Strongly agree  2. Agree  3. Disagree  4. Strongly disagree
 
It is really a matter of people not trying hard enough; if Blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as Whites.
1. Strongly agree  2. Agree  3. Disagree  4. Strongly disagree

Here we see a set of questions that are designed to corral Southern conservatives, especially from rural areas,  into a pen and brand them with the racist stamp. Do you believe in "White Privilege?" If you think the privilege issue is more related to class than race, you are a racist, even if your daily existence is being white and poor with little, if anything to do anything about it. Again, personal perspective can produce various answers here. 
 
More good jobs for Blacks mean fewer good jobs for members of other groups.
1. Strongly agree  2. Agree  3. Disagree  4. Strongly disagree

Statistically, I guess this is true the way it is written. I know what they are getting at here but it is sort of a trap. More good jobs is good and it doesn't matter which racial groups the new employees are from. And what are "other groups?" Are those groups strictly white or are they from other races? This is a poorly worded question.  
 
Some people think that discrimination against blacks is a big problem in this country, while others think that it is not a big a problem.  We would like to know what you think about it.
1. A lot  2. Some  3. None at all


With so many variables, and the fact that there are two questions to determine knowledge of history and 450% more questions for you to slip up and be a racist, I'm going to file this study where it belongs, in my trash can and move on to the next topic. This is merely a hit piece to label Southern conservatives as ignorant, racist, or both. Liberals who want to believe this study will do so, flaws and all. My two articles contain all the energy I plan to expend to change that.