Dirty Campaigning Is Being Camouflaged

Have you noticed that a lot of the political ads on TV are being sponsored by groups other than the political parties, -especially the negative attack ads?  With the exception of the “Taxman” ads, which are up front PC, the other ads opposing Hudak and Horwath seem to come from special interest groups.

In a day and age where the election is being fought in the shadow of Jack Layton’s call for integrity in politics, and the distasteful practices currently being played out in the U.S. is making politics feel dirty, Ontario provincial parties don’t want to associate themselves with negative campaigns.  So they have other groups do (or seem to do) their dirty work.

Take for example the anti-Horwath page on line at www.dirtyndp.ca.  (UPDATE: It seems that the site has been taken down this morning!)  The Liberals have disguised and camouflaged the site so that the only way you can associate it with the Liberal Party is to get a magnifying glass and look carefully at the text at the very bottom of the page.  “Authorized by the CFO for the Ontario Liberal Party.”

If a party is going to criticize a rival leader, which sometimes is quite justified on the basis of the facts, then they should do it up front and transparently.  They should be ready to be accountable for their facts and to rebut any criticism.  Hiding behind a straw group is cowardly and, frankly, suggests that you have something to hide.  Any attack ad can be reworded to address facts and question past decisions, assuming that the facts are accurate.

I’m disappointed that the Liberal Party is hiding in this manner.

Animal Rights and Pornography?

It seems more like an idea for some kind of sick and kinky web site, but it seems that PETA, the animal rights group, is going after a new market in spreading their message by launching a pornography site.  When logging in people will initially be shown pornographic material and then, later, will find messages about vegan lifestyles and information about animal torture.  (No, the above link is not to the porn site, but to the story.)

PETA representatives say that the goal is to spread the message in a variety of ways to reach as many people as possible.  Personally I have to say that this seems to be a bit of a nut-bar idea that will probably do more harm to their image than good.  Most people will either find the idea of using porn to further a cause distasteful, or they will see the inherent exploitation of women as being an issue.  The latter issue is one that PETA has had to deal with before, when they put up billboards campaigning against obesity with the slogan “Save the Whales”.

Is Home Schooling Better?

A recent study of 74 students between the ages of 5 and 10 seems to show that home schooled children outperform regularly schooled children when they have a structured environment in their studies.  While regularly schooled children were roughly at grade level, home schooled children were often a grade or two advanced.  In situations where home schooling did not have a strong structure, the children had the worst performance.

This is not at all surprising when you look at the variables.  Home schooled children, from my experience, fall into two categories.  The first is the conscientious parent who truly wants a better education for their child and is willing to put in the time to accomplish this.  Sometimes the child involved has an unusual learning style which the parent feels they can better accommodate at home.  The second is the eccentric parent who feels that the public system is flawed in some vague way, or who has religious standards, and who really don’t understand how to do home schooling.  I’ve come across many of those who have finally put their child back in the regular system after years of inadequate home schooling has resulted in the child being years behind in their achievement.  Each of these groups scored exactly where you would expect them to score in this study, with the operational distinction being in the word “structured” to describe the home schooling setting.

It makes sense that parents who are enlightened and capable are going to provide their children with a home schooling experience which may have more resources and individual attention than a public school can provide.  The motivation, time and customization is there.  The child is often more motivated because they can learn at their own level, frustration is minimized and individual learning styles accommodated.

The question I would ask is whether these home schooled children are developing normally on other strands than just the intellectual.  In many cases, I’ve noticed that home schooled children often are more poorly developed on a social level than others, -which some parents may regard as a good  thing.  Classrooms often emphasize groupwork and interpersonal skills in their programs.  IBM once said that they could retrain anyone to work at different skills, but that they were really looking for people who could work well with others in group situations.  This study doesn’t measure that variable at all.  The socialization which is sometimes a direct product and sometimes a byproduct of regular schooling involve important skills for life and eventual employment.  Parents want to protect their children from the undesirable social pressures of High School such as drinking or drugs, but insulating them is not doing them a favour.  Children eventually have to face the big, bad world, perhaps when going to university.  If they are unprepared for the temptations they will find there, they become easy victims for abuse and depression.  I’ve seen it many times.

Aside from being a rather small number of students, this study only measured academic achievement, which I think was very narrow minded on their part.  A study comparing home schooling to regular schooling should look at multiple facets of student development, from academic to creative to physical fitness to socialization to emotional stability.  That’s the only fair way to gage the relative benefits of home schooling.