Author: Penna Dexter

Penna Dexter
The trend toward de-emphasis on hard work and merit is playing out in large school districts in Nevada, California, Iowa, Virginia and other states. Policies there now require that schools make doing homework optional and give students multiple opportunities to complete tests and assignments. The Wall Street Journal reports that these districts have decided to jettison hard due dates, giving students “more chances to prove they have mastered a subject without being held to arbitrary deadlines.” Students’ knowledge of material is only measured at the end of the term.
This is being done, says The Journal, “in recognition of challenges some children have outside school” — perhaps a job or caring for siblings. A new theory, equitable grading, purportedly eliminates bias toward students living in stable homes. It relies on students’ “intrinsic motivation” in allowing them to decide when, or if, they will turn in homework.
Clark County, which encompasses Las Vegas, is the fifth largest school district in the nation. Laura Jeanne Penrod, who teaches English there, told The Journal, “intrinsic motivation…is the furthest thing from the truth” for students in her 11th grade honors class. With an assignment to write a persuasive essay, she would normally require them to first brainstorm the project and then to write a rough draft. Under the new system, students skip these steps without penalty, but they miss out on the teacher’s guidance along the way.
Alyson Henderson, another Clark County high school English teacher says, “If you go to a job in real life, you can’t pick and choose what tasks you want to do and only do the quote big ones.” Samuel Huang, a straight-A student in the district doesn’t like the new system. He sees AP students skipping class until the exam and says “There’s an apathy that pervades the entire classroom.”
These are top students. Ditching homework is even worse for average students and those who struggle. They need more accountability, not less. 

Ditching Homework Read More

Penna Dexter
House Republicans proposed the Limit, Save, Grow Act as an attempt to pair modest reductions in spending growth with approval of an increase in the debt limit. The legislation includes requirements that able-bodied adults work if they are to receive welfare such as food stamps and Medicaid.
This is not angry mean Republicans “cutting benefits.” The Wall Street Journal points out that both SNAP, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, and Medicaid “were turbocharged in pandemic measures, including higher food stamp benefits and a ban on states from removing from the Medicaid roles individuals who may no longer be eligible.” Work requirements for SNAP were “waved away” and should be restored with the end of the emergency in May.
And Medicaid, which was expanded under ObamaCare to include men of prime age above the poverty line, needs to include a work requirement. Otherwise, the Journal warns, we threaten “America’s social and economic future as government sustains a permanent dependent class.”
A new entitlement is on the table: A proposal for increasing child tax credit payments which contains no work requirement.
With nearly two jobs open for every unemployed person, it’s a terrible time to implement policies that discourage work. House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (TX) argues, in a Journal op-ed, that Congress should “return to commonsense policies that encourage people to look for work and rejoin the labor force.”
Rep. Arrington says getting people back to work is “pro-growth and pro-family.” It provides “the surest way out of generational poverty.” It will improve the solvency of Social Security and Medicare.
When we require Americans who work to subsidize able-bodied Americans who don’t, we exacerbate political and social divisions.
In God’s eyes, work has dignity and importance. A recent survey that shows the decline of hard work as a core value for Americans bolsters the case for encouraging work in law and policy. As Rep. Arrington says it’s a “moral imperative.”

Culture of Work Read More

Penna Dexter
House Republicans proposed the Limit, Save, Grow Act as an attempt to pair modest reductions in spending growth with approval of an increase in the debt limit. The legislation includes requirements that able-bodied adults work if they are to receive welfare such as food stamps and Medicaid.
This is not angry mean Republicans “cutting benefits.” The Wall Street Journal points out that both SNAP, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, and Medicaid “were turbocharged in pandemic measures, including higher food stamp benefits and a ban on states from removing from the Medicaid roles individuals who may no longer be eligible.” Work requirements for SNAP were “waved away” and should be restored with the end of the emergency in May.
And Medicaid, which was expanded under ObamaCare to include men of prime age above the poverty line, needs to include a work requirement. Otherwise, the Journal warns, we threaten “America’s social and economic future as government sustains a permanent dependent class.”
A new entitlement is on the table: A proposal for increasing child tax credit payments which contains no work requirement.
With nearly two jobs open for every unemployed person, it’s a terrible time to implement policies that discourage work. House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (TX) argues, in a Journal op-ed, that Congress should “return to commonsense policies that encourage people to look for work and rejoin the labor force.”
Rep. Arrington says getting people back to work is “pro-growth and pro-family.” It provides “the surest way out of generational poverty.” It will improve the solvency of Social Security and Medicare.
When we require Americans who work to subsidize able-bodied Americans who don’t, we exacerbate political and social divisions.
In God’s eyes, work has dignity and importance. A recent survey that shows the decline of hard work as a core value for Americans bolsters the case for encouraging work in law and policy. As Rep. Arrington says it’s a “moral imperative.”

Culture of Work Read More