The Burden Of Bad Ideas

Author : Heather Mac Donald
Publisher : Ivan R. Dee Publisher
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : Intellectuals
ISBN : 1566633966

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The Burden of Bad Ideas by Heather Mac Donald Pdf

Critics have attacked the foolishness of some of today's elite thought from many angles, but few have examined the real-world consequences of those ideas. In The Burden of Bad Ideas, Heather Mac Donald reports on their disastrous effects throughout our society. At a Brooklyn high school, students perfect their graffiti skills for academic credit. An Ivy League law professor urges blacks to steal from their employers. Washington bureaucrats regard theft by drug addicts as evidence of disability, thereby justifying benefits. Public health officials argue that racism and sexism cause women to get AIDS. America's premier monument to knowledge, the Smithsonian Institution, portrays science as white man's religion. Such absurdities, Ms. Mac Donald argues, grow out of a powerful set of ideas that have governed our public policy for decades, the product of university faculties and a professional elite who are convinced that America is a deeply unjust society. And while these beliefs have damaged the nation as a whole, she observes, they have hit the poor especially hard. Her reports trace the transformation of influential opinion-makers (such as the New York Times) and large philanthropic foundations from confident advocates of individual responsibility, opportunity, and learning into apologists for the welfare state. In a series of closely reported stories from the streets of New York to the seats of intellectual power, The Burden of Bad Ideas reveals an upside-down world and how it got that way.

Author : Heather Mac Donald
Publisher : Ivan R. Dee Publisher
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Intellectuals
ISBN : UOM:39015049621009

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The Burden of Bad Ideas by Heather Mac Donald Pdf

The prevailing orthodoxy of ideas, she finds, has affected our law schools, our schools of education, our museums, even our schools of public health - with ruinous consequences for the teaching of our children."--BOOK JACKET.

Author : Robert Peal
Publisher : Anchor Books
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2014
Category : Education, Elementary
ISBN : 1906837627

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Progressively Worse by Robert Peal Pdf

Author : Nicole French
Publisher : Independently Published
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2018-02-20
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1980344930

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Bad Idea by Nicole French Pdf

Repeat after me: stay away from the hot girl. The beautiful girl. The f**king ray of sunshine in the middle of your delivery route. Layla Barros is everything I never knew I wanted. Everything I'll never have.She's an innocent young student. I'm a convicted felon. She's a rich girl from a nice family. I've got nothing but a broken home.But if I'm an addict, she's my drug. I can't stay away, even though I know I'll ruin her in the end. She might be the girl of my dreams, but I was always a bad idea.

Author : Melissa Benn,Janet Downs
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 184 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2015-11-06
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781317331766

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The Truth About Our Schools by Melissa Benn,Janet Downs Pdf

"A superb, crucial, blistering expose of all the myths about our education system that are all too often used to attack it. Melissa Benn again proves why she is one of country's most formidable education campaigners - and why the powerful should fear her. Owen Jones, Guardian columnist and best-selling author Never has it been more urgent to publicise the truth about what works and doesn't work in our education system. Debunking the ideology of marketisation, and exposing the half-truths that pass for objective reporting, Benn and Downs meticulously lay out the evidence: that a national system of comprehensive schools delivers the best outcomes. This hugely important book should be required reading for each new Education Secretary. Caroline Lucas, MP Opinions about comprehensive education are often made into easy-to-swallow sound-bites by media and politicians alike and whilst the benefits of a genuinely comprehensive education for all pupils are obvious, untruths have unwittingly evolved into hard facts. Based on Melissa Benn and Janet Downs’ work as part of the pioneering Local Schools Network, The Truth About Our Schools calls for us to urgently and articulately challenge unquestioned myths about state education. Benn and Downs have meticulously built an argument for its still enormously vital role, and rigorously challenge assumptions that: Comprehensive education has failed Local authorities control and hold back schools Choice, competition and markets are the route to educational success Choice will improve education in England: the free school model. Academies raise standards Teachers don’t need qualifications Private schools have the magic DNA Progressive education lowers standards Anyone who thinks that comprehensive education cannot deliver, that local authorities are the chief block to improving our school system, that competition and markets are the route to educational success and that private schools hold the magic DNA that can simply be transferred to other state schools will have their beliefs shaken by this blisteringly incisive book. .

Author : Heather Mac Donald
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2018-09-04
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781250200921

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The Diversity Delusion by Heather Mac Donald Pdf

By the New York Times bestselling author: a provocative account of the attack on the humanities, the rise of intolerance, and the erosion of serious learning America is in crisis, from the university to the workplace. Toxic ideas first spread by higher education have undermined humanistic values, fueled intolerance, and widened divisions in our larger culture. Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton? Oppressive. American history? Tyranny. Professors correcting grammar and spelling, or employers hiring by merit? Racist and sexist. Students emerge into the working world believing that human beings are defined by their skin color, gender, and sexual preference, and that oppression based on these characteristics is the American experience. Speech that challenges these campus orthodoxies is silenced with brute force. The Diversity Delusion argues that the root of this problem is the belief in America’s endemic racism and sexism, a belief that has engendered a metastasizing diversity bureaucracy in society and academia. Diversity commissars denounce meritocratic standards as discriminatory, enforce hiring quotas, and teach students and adults alike to think of themselves as perpetual victims. From #MeToo mania that blurs flirtations with criminal acts, to implicit bias and diversity compliance training that sees racism in every interaction, Heather Mac Donald argues that we are creating a nation of narrowed minds, primed for grievance, and that we are putting our competitive edge at risk. But there is hope in the works of authors, composers, and artists who have long inspired the best in us. Compiling the author’s decades of research and writing on the subject, The Diversity Delusion calls for a return to the classical liberal pursuits of open-minded inquiry and expression, by which everyone can discover a common humanity.

Author : Heather MacDonald
Publisher : Ivan R. Dee
Page : 187 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2010-06-16
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781461662341

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Are Cops Racist? by Heather MacDonald Pdf

False charges of racial profiling threaten to obliterate the crime-fighting gains of the last decade, especially in America's inner cities. This is the message of Heather Mac Donald's new book, in which she brings her special brand of tough and honest journalism to the current war against the police. The anti-profiling crusade, she charges, thrives on an ignorance of policing and a willful blindness to the demographics of crime. In careful reports from New York and other major cities across the country, Ms. Mac Donald investigates the workings of the police, the controversy over racial profiling, and the anti-profiling lobby's harmful effects on black Americans. The reduction in urban crime, one of the nation's signal policy successes of the 1990s, has benefited black communities even more dramatically than white neighborhoods, she shows. By policing inner cities actively after long neglect, cops have allowed business and civil society to flourish there once more. But attacks on police, centering on false charges of police racism and racial profiling, and spearheaded by activists, the press, and even the Justice Department, have slowed the success and threaten to reverse it. Ms. Mac Donald looks at the reality behind the allegations and writes about the black cops you never heard about, the press coverage of policing, and policing strategies across the country. Her iconoclastic findings demolish the prevailing anti-cop orthodoxy.

Author : United States. Congress. House. Committee on Financial Services. Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 628 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : Political Science
ISBN : PSU:000048701723

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Housing Affordability and Availability by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Financial Services. Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity Pdf

Author : Jayce Carter
Publisher : Totally Entwined Group (USA+CAD)
Page : 228 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2021-09-28
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781839435195

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Saving the World and Other Bad Ideas by Jayce Carter Pdf

FROM POPULAR AUTHOR OF PARANORMAL REVERSE HAREM ROMANCE JAYCE CARTER Book three in the Grave Concerns series I finally get four hot men and the world's going to end. Typical. I've gone to hell, I've faced off against the devil and I've lost someone who meant the world to me. That's usually the end of the story, but it seems the universe isn't quite done with me yet. Lilith is still out there, the end of the world is getting closer and only I can hope to stop it. The more I discover, the deeper I dig into the mystery of Lilith's past and my own powers, the less sure I am that I can actually defeat her. Still by my side are the four men I've fallen hopelessly in love with—leave it to me to get my romantic life in order just as the world falls apart. With all the questions, there are only two things I know for certain—I will face Lilith, and only one of us will walk away from it.

Author : Heather Mac Donald
Publisher : Encounter Books
Page : 138 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2016-06-21
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781594038761

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The War on Cops by Heather Mac Donald Pdf

Violent crime has been rising sharply in many American cities after two decades of decline. Homicides jumped nearly 17 percent in 2015 in the largest 50 cities, the biggest one-year increase since 1993. The reason is what Heather Mac Donald first identified nationally as the “Ferguson effect”: Since the 2014 police shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, officers have been backing off of proactive policing, and criminals are becoming emboldened. This book expands on Mac Donald’s groundbreaking and controversial reporting on the Ferguson effect and the criminal-justice system. It deconstructs the central narrative of the Black Lives Matter movement: that racist cops are the greatest threat to young black males. On the contrary, it is criminals and gangbangers who are responsible for the high black homicide death rate. The War on Cops exposes the truth about officer use of force and explodes the conceit of “mass incarceration.” A rigorous analysis of data shows that crime, not race, drives police actions and prison rates. The growth of proactive policing in the 1990s, along with lengthened sentences for violent crime, saved thousands of minority lives. In fact, Mac Donald argues, no government agency is more dedicated to the proposition that “black lives matter” than today’s data-driven, accountable police department. Mac Donald gives voice to the many residents of high-crime neighborhoods who want proactive policing. She warns that race-based attacks on the criminal-justice system, from the White House on down, are eroding the authority of law and putting lives at risk. This book is a call for a more honest and informed debate about policing, crime, and race.

Author : John Tierney,Roy F. Baumeister
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2019-12-31
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781101616468

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The Power of Bad by John Tierney,Roy F. Baumeister Pdf

"The most important book at the borderland of psychology and politics that I have ever read."—Martin E. P. Seligman, Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology at that University of Pennsylvania and author of Learned Optimism Why are we devastated by a word of criticism even when it’s mixed with lavish praise? Because our brains are wired to focus on the bad. This negativity effect explains things great and small: why countries blunder into disastrous wars, why couples divorce, why people flub job interviews, how schools fail students, why football coaches stupidly punt on fourth down. All day long, the power of bad governs people’s moods, drives marketing campaigns, and dominates news and politics. Eminent social scientist Roy F. Baumeister stumbled unexpectedly upon this fundamental aspect of human nature. To find out why financial losses mattered more to people than financial gains, Baumeister looked for situations in which good events made a bigger impact than bad ones. But his team couldn’t find any. Their research showed that bad is relentlessly stronger than good, and their paper has become one of the most-cited in the scientific literature. Our brain’s negativity bias makes evolutionary sense because it kept our ancestors alert to fatal dangers, but it distorts our perspective in today’s media environment. The steady barrage of bad news and crisismongering makes us feel helpless and leaves us needlessly fearful and angry. We ignore our many blessings, preferring to heed—and vote for—the voices telling us the world is going to hell. But once we recognize our negativity bias, the rational brain can overcome the power of bad when it’s harmful and employ that power when it’s beneficial. In fact, bad breaks and bad feelings create the most powerful incentives to become smarter and stronger. Properly understood, bad can be put to perfectly good use. As noted science journalist John Tierney and Baumeister show in this wide-ranging book, we can adopt proven strategies to avoid the pitfalls that doom relationships, careers, businesses, and nations. Instead of despairing at what’s wrong in your life and in the world, you can see how much is going right—and how to make it still better.

Author : Chris Atherton,Stuart Kime
Publisher : Critical Publishing
Page : 171 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2021-05-05
Category : Family & Relationships
ISBN : 9781913063153

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What Every Parent Should Know About Education by Chris Atherton,Stuart Kime Pdf

What do you really know about how children learn? How helpful are different types of assessment and what do the results mean? Is homework necessary and how you can you encourage your child at home? Will ability groups and setting help your child achieve more? How do you choose the right school to suit your child? The government and the media have a lot to say about education, but what is the evidence behind these debates? This book walks you through all the most important issues in education, comparing commonly-held beliefs with simple summaries of the evidence, providing you with clear, jargon-free information. It covers topics including school choice, testing and assessment, homework and revision, primary- and secondary-specific topics, stress and mental health, and special needs. Most importantly it ensures you will be able to ask schools the right questions, interact positively with teachers and effectively support your child throughout their education. "Chris & Stuart have written a parent's guide that is jam packed with practical advice, research and informative summaries that any parent can use to support their child to succeed at school. It's organised so you can easily dip in and out when looking for information and guidance, and gives answers to questions that parents may have about their child's education. I recommend this book to all parents & guardians that want to work alongside their child's school to get the best out of their time there." Dawn Cox, Teacher and Blogger

Author : Nora McInerny
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2023-05-09
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781982186722

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Bad Vibes Only by Nora McInerny Pdf

From the host of the podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking—called “a gift” by The New York Times—a raw and humorous essay collection in the spirit of Jenny Lawson and Samantha Irby. Nora McInerny does not dance like no one is watching. In fact, she dances like everyone is watching, which is to say, she does not dance at all. A bestselling author and host of the beloved podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking, she has captured the hearts of millions with her disarming and earnest approach to discussing grief and loss. Now, with Bad Vibes Only, she turns her eye on our aggressively, oppressively optimistic culture, our obsession with self-improvement, and what it really means to live authentically in the online age. In essays that revisit her cringey past and anticipate her rapidly approaching, early middle-aged future, McInerny lays bare her own chaos, inviting us to drop the façade of perfection and embrace the truth: that we are all—at best—slightly unhinged. Socrates claimed that the unexamined life is not worth living. Bad Vibes Only is for people who have taken that dictum a bit too far—the overthinkers, the analyzers, the recovering Girl Bosses, and the burned-out personal brand—reminding us that a life worth living is about more than just “good vibes.”

Author : Jake Hunton
Publisher : Crown House Publishing
Page : 302 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2014-03-26
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781845909574

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Fun Learning Activities for Modern Foreign Languages by Jake Hunton Pdf

Students learning modern foreign languages often comment that it is just too hard to learn, and remember, all of vocabulary presented to them. Yes, there is a lot of content that needs to be covered, and a lot of vocabulary that needs to be learned. But there is a way of making this process engaging and motivating. Language lessons needn't be full of grammar worksheets, endless drilling and rote learning lists of vocabulary. Learning languages isn't always fun and games. But these aren't games; they are fun learning activities. And they can help revolutionise language teaching; enabling teachers to authoritatively impart knowledge while fostering a thirst for knowledge and love of learning in their students. First, the Vocab Fun Learning Activities (VFLAs) learn the vocabulary in ways which will improve recognition and recall. Then, the Fun Learning Activities use this vocabulary knowledge to build sentences and paragraphs; explore and use this language while keeping the whole class engaged and actively learning. The activities are designed to encourage all students to participate and learn more through enjoyment. Based on the author's extensive classroom experience, and underpinned by research into how students learn best, each activity comes complete with a detailed explanation and plenty of ideas for variations, differentiations and extensions. The activities come with example vocabulary lists in French, German and Spanish as a starting point, which are all available for download via a link provided in the book. However, the activities will work effectively in any language and with any vocabulary list of the teacher's choosing, and can be adapted to suit every topic, learning objective and age range. Discover ready to use activities which will make for outstanding lessons in every class and ensure engagement, motivation, rapport, progress and attainment over time.

Author : Mark Blyth
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 305 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780199389445

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Austerity by Mark Blyth Pdf

Selected as a Financial Times Best Book of 2013 Governments today in both Europe and the United States have succeeded in casting government spending as reckless wastefulness that has made the economy worse. In contrast, they have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts--austerity--to solve the financial crisis. We are told that we have all lived beyond our means and now need to tighten our belts. This view conveniently forgets where all that debt came from. Not from an orgy of government spending, but as the direct result of bailing out, recapitalizing, and adding liquidity to the broken banking system. Through these actions private debt was rechristened as government debt while those responsible for generating it walked away scot free, placing the blame on the state, and the burden on the taxpayer. That burden now takes the form of a global turn to austerity, the policy of reducing domestic wages and prices to restore competitiveness and balance the budget. The problem, according to political economist Mark Blyth, is that austerity is a very dangerous idea. First of all, it doesn't work. As the past four years and countless historical examples from the last 100 years show, while it makes sense for any one state to try and cut its way to growth, it simply cannot work when all states try it simultaneously: all we do is shrink the economy. In the worst case, austerity policies worsened the Great Depression and created the conditions for seizures of power by the forces responsible for the Second World War: the Nazis and the Japanese military establishment. As Blyth amply demonstrates, the arguments for austerity are tenuous and the evidence thin. Rather than expanding growth and opportunity, the repeated revival of this dead economic idea has almost always led to low growth along with increases in wealth and income inequality. Austerity demolishes the conventional wisdom, marshaling an army of facts to demand that we austerity for what it is, and what it costs us.