The Most Active Threads Since Friday

Fully six of the ten most active threads over the weekend were ones that I've already discussed. Moreover, two of the remaining four address topics that were the subject of other threads about which I've recently written. As a result, this won't be the most original of posts. I'll start with a thread that was the sixth most active. Titled, "Gaza war and College Campus Protests" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, the thread was created instead of a part 4 of the Gaza war thread. When the Gaza war threads have reached 1,000 pages, I have locked them and started a new part. When the previous thread was nearly 1,000, a thread about college campus protests was also getting very long and there was quite a bit of overlap between the two threads. Therefore, I combined them into this thread. The thread is currently 72 pages and I am not going to bother reading very much of it. From what I have read, it appears to consist mostly of the same things over and over. Strategies for debate the war and discussing the protests have really solidified with each side having established its talking points which are simply repeated over and over. Those supporting the Palestinians tend to highlight atrocities being committed by Israeli forces in Gaza and discuss the Biden administration's involvement in supporting such actions. Of course these posters fully support the protesters, whose actions they defend. The pro-Israel posters mostly take the exact opposite positions. They tend to describe the protesters, as well as pro-Palestinian posters in the thread, as being "pro-Hamas". They are unwilling to accept that someone can be opposed to the death and destruction being wrought on Gaza while also opposing Hamas. To them, any opposition to Israel is simply pro-Hamas. They, of course, for the most part are unwilling to recognize any Israeli excesses in Gaza. To the contrary, every action is justified and blamed on Hamas. Ironically, the pro-Israel posters are also critical of Biden at times. There are a few hardliners who actually consider Biden to be pro-Hamas himself. The mutual antagonism of both sides in this thread doesn't make for a very substantive discussion. A lot of it is simply attempts to score points. For instance, the most recent topic of discussion was a disruption by pro-Palestinian protesters of New York's pride parade. Pro-Israel posters claimed that this demonstrated antipathy toward the LGBTQ community on the part of the protesters. Such posters have often highlighted LGBTQ issues due to Hamas' normally anti-gay stances and the generally welcoming environment in Israel. The fact that neither Hamas nor Israel actually measures up to their portrayal is simply one of those details that gets ignored. But the disruption of the parade fed directly into the pro-Israel narrative. In point of fact, some pro-Palestinian protesters have adopted a strategy of disrupting any large event simply to obtain publicity and to demonstrate that they will not be ignored. The parade's disruption was not meant to be anti-gay, but rather to simply draw attention to the plight of Gaza. Whether this is a good strategy or not is another argument. But such nuances are impossible to discuss in threads of this sort.

The next thread that I will discuss was posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. Titled, "Strictly ranting: my kid is so average it hurts :(", the original poster is very frustrated with her middle school-aged son. While he has a number of good qualities, he is not a high achiever in school, currently having a 2.9 grade point average. She believes he is smart, but lacks focus. The original poster herself was almost always at the top of her class and even today considers herself to frequently be the smartest person in the room. She attributes some of the differences between herself and her son to be the competitiveness of the area. She grew up in a less competitive environment, but her son faces significant competition. I'm not going to have time to read much of this thread, but I did skim through it. The original poster is not too worried about her son, who she thinks will be fine despite his current performance. It speaks to the competitive nature of the DC area that being average is considered a near tragedy. At least one poster suggests that the original poster consider having her son evaluated for ADHD. To be fair, the poster had other reasons for the suggestion beyond the boy's "C" grades, but it is notable that average grades are not only disappointing for a parent, but considered an indication of possible health issues. The DC area really is sort of a self-envisioned Lake Wobegon where "all the children are above average." Or, at least parents hope. Most parents agree that there have to be students who receive average or below average grades. Otherwise, the already incessant complaints about "grade inflation" would be out of control. But, parents don't want those kids to be their kids. The result is that average kids get treated as if they have something dreadfully wrong with them. But not all of the posters are willing to go along with this thinking. A number of them argue in favor of happiness rather than achievement. Similarly, some posters point out that the highest achieving, smartest people in the room, often ended up with pretty average lives. In contrast, some average people turned out to have very nice lives. So middle school achievement might not be much of an indicator of ultimate success or lack of it. A number of posters were quite critical of the original poster, finding her to be narcissistic and in need of some self-reflection. For her part, the original poster was receptive of constructive criticism and generally seemed to realize this is more of an issue with her than it is with her son.

Next was a thread titled, "Budget Information - Updated SAE 6/3" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. I have discussed a number of threads related to budgetary issues affecting the Montgomery County Public Schools. Budget cuts have led to the possible elimination of programs such as the Montgomery Virtual Academy and concerns about school staff cuts. The second of these concerns appears to be coming to realization today. This thread started out with the original poster pasting an email sent to MCPS principals alerting them that today they will receive School Allocation Execution (SAE) reports reflecting teaching staff cuts that they would have to implement. The teachers chosen for "involuntarily transfer" must be identified by Wednesday. After some back and forth about whether or not the original poster's email was authentic, most posts turned toward anger. Teachers, understandably, don't want to be a victim of cuts themselves or see their colleagues involuntarily transferred. They warn that this will result in larger classes and a worse educational environment. As often in the case, posters start looking at who to blame and for easy solutions. Various school and county officials are identified as culprits and a number of various programs or initiatives are cited as wasteful. As is often the case in these discussions, the staff of the central office gets the most criticism. They are variously described as being responsible for financial mismanagement, a waste of money themselves, incompetent, and the ones who should be cut. Even a poster claiming to be a central office employee agrees that there are unneeded positions that should be eliminated before teaching positions. Some posters are frustrated that by law, public schools have to educate everyone. That includes recently-arrived migrants and children with sometimes acute special needs. These posters perceive these students as absorbing an undue portion of limited resources and would like to see them removed from school. Some posters take even a broader view, blaming Montgomery County's emphasis on affordable housing for attracting low income families who, such posters believe, have children that are difficult, and expensive, to educate. Other posters see this entire escapade as a ploy to justify additional property tax increases. This is unlikely the case given the difficulty of implementing a tax increase, modifying school budgets, and reallocating teachers on a short timeline. Some posters were determined to blame the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) for the cuts. According to these posters, MCEA's most recent contract that obtained raises for teachers created a budgetary problem requiring some teaching positions to be cut. When some posters blamed increasing health insurance costs for the financial issues, a poster actually claimed that use of Ozempic was the cause. Based on this analysis, if you encounter a previously fat teacher who is now thin, you know who to blame.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Titled, "It's been 10 years since our oldest graduated from high school. The most successful are", this poster did the old "continue the topic into the body of the post" routine. The completion of the subject line was a statement that the most successful students in high school turned out to be the most successful adults, regardless of the caliber of the university they attended. If stretching the topic into the body of the text was not enough to irritate me about this post, the tone of the post certainly did it. Just about everything in this post bothered me, from the condescending attitude to the know-it-all posture demonstrated by the original poster. The original poster's conclusion, based on who knows how big of a sample size, is that top high school kids will be successful no matter what and middle of the road high school kids are doomed to a life of mediocrity, regardless of where they go to college. The original poster warns so-called "tiger moms" that their efforts to get their loser kids into top schools will be futile. Even if they succeed, it will be of no help. Their children will still be no more than mildly successful. The original poster judges "success" by the quality of jobs obtained and marriage. Getting married directly out of college is highly esteemed by the original poster. Needless to say, many of those responding take issue with the original poster. They question the breadth of her knowledge of "success rates" and whether she is familiar with enough students to come to her conclusions. The type of tracking of others that is suggested by the original poster is considered a bit weird even if it were done on a small scale, let alone for a large number of students. Posters especially take issue with the original poster's insistance that marriage is a key indicator of success. Posters go on tangents addressing various factors related to marriage. When some posters questioned whether marriage at the fairly young age the original poster applauds is actually very common, the original poster provided examples of two celebrity children. Personally, I am suspicious that the original poster is on the up and up. This familiarity with celebrity children and other aspects of her posts suggest that, rather than being a parent, she is a student and that some of her analysis might actually be wishful thinking. At any rate, a number of posters disagree with her overall point and have a number of examples of less than excellent high schoolers blooming in college and exceeding expectations. Overall, this is a pretty disappointing thread that, frankly, is really not worth anyone's time to read.