Skip to main content

Trends in Politics and Religion

Two recent publications have been in the news lately, so I thought I'd point out what I know of them, if only because I thought they were interesting.

Judge Rold M. Treu recently ruled in Vergara V. California that California teacher tenure laws-- laws that protect teachers from being fired-- are unconstitutional because they encourage the retention of inadequate teachers. More specifically, the judge concluded that teacher tenure laws harm low-income and minority students because schools that serve these populations contain a larger proportion of inadequate teachers compared to schools that serve white and higher-income groups.

In regard to religion, authors of a recent Pew Research poll found that Republicans and Democrats are more ideologically divided now than at any point in the past twenty years. While the survey's authors and commentators alike have highlighted this aspect of the poll, Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times pointed out an interesting finding: Authors asked the following question, followed by ideological, racial, and other groups: "How would you react if an immediate family member were to marry...." Regardless of political leaning, Americans generally responded with tolerance. Members belonging to conservative and liberal groups were found to be relatively accepting of family members marrying outside their own races, political parties, nationalities, and other groups. The one area about which this was not true, however, was belief in God. Forty-nine percent of people who were asked said that they would feel unhappy if a family member married an atheist.

Vergara Case
1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/06/19/arent-california-tenure-policies-in-fact-unreasonable-plus-4-more-vergara-questions-asked-and-answered/
2. http://laschoolreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/SM_Vergara-v.-California-COMPLAINT.pdf

Pew Research Center Survey
1. http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/section-3-political-polarization-and-personal-life/
2. http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023899462_westneat22xml.html

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Nice Guy Fallacy

I read part of a poem recently by one of my favorite poets. It reads: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods. I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time Unfetter'd by the sense of crime To whom a conscience never wakes. Nor what may call itself as bles't The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate'er befall I feel it, when I sorrow most 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. At base, Tennyson contrasted a life of risk, and consequent pain, with one of security. He sides conclusively with the life of risk, and says he fails to envy those who have faced no hardship. I agree with him; and, for good or ill, his words are just as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century. Like then, there are those today who choose to live their lives with as little risk as...

Persuasion

At different points in history, governments have devoted men, women, and resources to try to persuade others to their side. One significant example of this occurred in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler knew how important it was to make sure the German people were on his side as leader of the country. One way he did this was by controlling what people heard. Specifically, near the beginning of World War II, Hitler made it a crime for anyone in Germany to listen to foreign radio broadcasts. These were called the “extraordinary radio measures.” He did this to ensure that Germans weren’t being persuaded by enemy countries to question their loyalty to Hitler. He knew that a German listening to a radio broadcast from Britain might persuade that German to believe that Great Britain was the good guy and Hitler the bad guy. This was so important, in fact, that two people in Germany were actually executed because they had either listened to or planned to listen to a foreign radio broadcast (one...

Experiment

My social studies students and I are studying Islam right now. The other day, we were reading about one of the Five Pillars, zakat (charity in Islam that means "that which purifies"). Muslims believe that giving away money helps to purify it and also "safeguards [them] against miserliness" (1). I asked the class if this was true, that giving money away makes us less greedy. They generally agreed that it does. I wanted to test whether or not they really believed this, so I handed a volunteer a $10 bill. I told the class that I would ask for the bill back the next day. I said that they should pass the bill around among their classmates, and that as a result, there would be no way for me to know who had the bill. For that reason, whoever wanted to keep the money could keep it. Even if I did learn who kept it, I told them, I would not punish that person. I wanted them to be motivated by their own honesty. The next day, I asked for the bill, and a student handed it to me...