Education and Web Searches: Schools Are Important to Everyone, I Promise!

Joanne Jacobs linked today to a post about the top 15 web searches conducted by children. The results are as follows:

1. Games
2. Dogs
3. Animals
4. Civil War
5. George Washington
6. Holocaust
7. Abraham Lincoln
8. Multiplication
9. Math Games
10. Weather
11. Frogs
12. Fractions
13. Planets
14. Sharks
15. Plants

The results were tracked by Thinkronize, the developers behind netTrekker d.i., which is a safe educational search engine.

One need not be an AERAcrat to realize that a “safe educational search engine” presents only search interests in a relatively closed system.

I’m a bit bothered that dogs have trumped cats yet again - Pia is rightly miffed - but I’ll save that for another day.

What’s most interesting is what the general population searches for regarding “school” terms.

In website consulting/design, one needs a handle on common keywords in one’s niche to craft/maintain a website that aligns, to some degree, with consumer interest. We nerdlings call this Search Engine Optimization. Several sites monitor keyword frequency in internet searches.

Below are the results for “school” from one of the sites I use frequently - keep this in mind when we read over the next few months how important schools and education are to both political candidates and the voters who support them.

The children are our future!

Keyword Suggestion Searches / month
1. high school musical 232,500
2. school 103,800
3. big tits at school 85,500
4. school girl 70,620
5. school girls 58,680
6. high school musical 2 46,890
7. high school graduation 46,170
8. school sex 44,940
9. school uniforms 36,900
10. high school 32,310
11. hentai school 32,280
12. high school girls 29,160
13. high school sex 25,560
14. school girl sex 24,810
15. High school musical 24,270

So, what are you searching for? Unfortunately, the odds dictate that it ain’t fractions or Abe Lincoln.

Technical Details Resolved and a Quick Etymological Challenge

A thorough code-rejiggering [this is hyperbole] fixed the little javascript issue I had earlier today. All paragraph tags and line breaks are restored!

So, as I play catch up, this here’s an image of a shovel that I lifted from The New York Botanical Garden.

Or is it a spade?

What’s the difference? Do you know? Why or why not?

It’s time for a little agrarian etymology.

The rules:

1. No cheating. Googling stinks.
2. Personal vignettes about shovels and spades are encouraged.
3. Insinuations and/or protests that “calling a spade a spade” is inherently a racist phrase won’t be tolerated. It simply isn’t true. And, as Mr. Obama might say, it’s a “distraction” from a substantive discussion about digging tools.

GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOOGOGOGO! In the comments, that is.

A Glimpse at Coventry University in Coventry, UK

Coventry University is one of a host of “post-1992″ Universities - also called “New Universities” - that were former polytechnic institutes that were granted University status by the government in 1992.

Coventry University has innovative programs from technical/engineering-based disciplines like automotive design to contemporary social disciplines like disaster relief. The University’s appeal to international students is notable, and Coventry increasingly finds its student population to be more diverse each year.

It doesn’t hurt that Coventry, UK is a wonderful small city in the West Midlands and is a stone’s throw from the larger Birmingham. And, of course, if you need more than Birmingham can provide, London is a scant 95 miles by train.

Take a gander at Coventry’s summary video - it’s worth a look. [RSS readers, click here]

Sorry, Folks - No Blogger Summit for Me

Oh, the ebb and flow of schedules and obligations. Regrettably, I’ve got to pass on the Ed in ’08 Summit.

Don’t forget to vote in the Blogger Poll even if Mr. Downes is convinced that the whole thing is rigged.

I’m eager to follow the discussion that will come from the group’s viewing of Two Million Minutes - hopefully many in attendance will be our eyes and ears and give us some fresh reactions to the film and its implications.

They might see, as Fordham’s Coby Loup didn’t, that it isn’t a film that warns of economic damnation, or, as Loup put it, “armageddon.”

He points us to Jay Mathews’ piece about the film and thanks Mathews for the deliverance:

“Thank you, Jay, for injecting some badly needed sanity into this discussion. This is one of those articles you want to bookmark or print out so it’s easily accessible when education or globalization comes up at your dinner party.”

I’d treat the cheap marginalization of our argument [insanity], but I know that deep down Loup knows the meaning of “tendentious.” Hopefully I’ll get around to a full dissection of Mathews’ article - either the one he originally wrote for his Post column a while back or the rehashed, resale version that appears in The Wilson Quarterly.

Really, folks, Two Million Minutes is a look at the lives of students in the United States, India and China. It’s not a case for impending doom and it’s not prescriptive. There are mild, common-sense intimations about the long-term effects of our approach to education - a laundry list of credible interviewees draw these conclusions - but it’s nothing outlandish. It’s simple, basic reality - not paranoia.

Mathews’ piece isn’t as bad as the National Association of Secondary School Principals’ reaction - for which they were fisked soundly - but it ain’t good, either.

I’m left wondering whether Loup, who seems to have missed the point of Two Million Minutes quite badly, spent 60 minutes of his own watching the film in the first place.

I suppose he’ll get a glimpse on Wednesday night.

Irvington’s Pismire Paul Mandel on New York State Taxes: Episode 3

I first wrote about Irvington’s Paul Mandel in Public School Arrogance on New York State Taxes: Irvington Union Free Edition - I detailed the problem with Mandel’s assertion that state EXCEL Aid costs taxypayers nothing.

Of course, state funds come from taxpayers, so any state-funded project is funded by taxpayers. Having an intermediary in the process doesn’t negate the source.

Mandel’s claim is easily made honest by explaining that buildings/grounds work funded by EXCEL Aid create no additional hardship for the taxpayer - after all, they’ve already paid the money. The distinction is important.

Mandel and the board called upon their arrogance once more. In Irvington’s Pismire Strikes Again: Lesson 2 in New York State Taxes, I reproduced Mandel’s mailing in which he claimed that the building projects were “100% funded by New York State” - again, New York State is, one presumes, made up of taxpaying New Yorkers and their businesses - and stresses that there is “almost no cost to taxpayers for these important projects.”

Almost no cost? Well, he cites the debt service that may accrue but never the taxes paid in the first place. The subtle-but-tendentious language - “these important projects” - didn’t go unnoticed.

That’s when I wrote a brief note to the Board about the language they used to describe EXCEL Aid. I wrote:

To the Board:

I hope that you will regard my comments about Irvington’s billing of EXCEL Aid as “absolutely no cost to taxpayers” and as “almost no cost to taxpayers” with the sobriety they warrant. All districts - in New York State and nationwide - must treat their constituents with the respect they deserve and must communicate honestly. Twice your e-mails have failed to clear this relatively low moral and governmental hurdle - I’m confident, for the sake of Irvington’s citizens and those who contribute from other parts of the state, that it won’t happen a third time.

Many thanks,

Matthew K. Tabor
[email protected]
www.matthewktabor.com
607.821.1752

The following days brought a rash of views from Westchester BOCES servers and since has been a mainstay of daily Google searches. Popular searches include variations on “Paul Mandel Irvington,” for which these posts occupy the top two slots in Google results, and variations on “Irvington union free budget.” Top two slots on the that one as well.

There was no response to my messages, nor was there an acknowledgment of its receipt. Classy folks, those ones.

The kicker? They’ve done it again.

In “Budget FAQs,” Mandel writes:

What will Irvington get and what will these projects cost taxpayers?

Irvington is eligible for up to $627,781 and 100% of the project costs will be covered by the state. So the projects do not cost the Irvington taxpayers anything, unless we need to borrow to fund the projects before receiving the aid payment (the borrowing may cost us about $20,000 in 2009-2010).

The emphasis here is mine.

Mandel et al. truly don’t give a whit about New Yorkers who have already paid the taxmoney that will fund Irvington’s projects. Like I said before, we’re happy to do so - but we don’t like being held in such contempt.

I thought that Mandel and the grisly gang who work his wicked will - or is he the one being worked? - would change their language after one pointed out to them how dishonest and disdainful it was. After all, I do understand that subtlety is often missed and that Mandel/etc. must be shocked that someone outside Irvington reads their newsletter - but at this point there’s no excuse for not being honest.

Mandel has been informed. He has decided that pandering to citizens who are concerned [rightly] about their annual tax levy is more important that honesty.

The tragedy here is that Mandel and the board don’t realize that they can be forthcoming, honest and still garner the support of taxpayers - and maybe even more than they’re getting right now.