by Penny, Laura
25. For more on the Texas textbook controversy, see “History’s First Draft: Newt Gingrich But No Liberals,” Houston Chronicle, August 20, 2009. Available online at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6581189.html. Also, “State Education Board Shouldn’t Rewrite History,” Dallas Morning News, July 18, 2009. Available online at http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-olivera_18met.ART.State.Edition1.4bb2401.html.
26. Michael F. Shaughnessy, “An Interview with Diane Ravitch,” EducationNews.org, March 2008. Available online at http://ednews.org/articles/24020/1/An-Interview-with-Diane-Ravitch-On-Some-Current-Events/Page1.html.
CHAPTER FOUR: SCREW U OR HATE MY PROFESSORS
1. U.S. Department of Education, Digest of Education Statistics, 2008.
2. Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, Trends in Higher Education: Volume One – Enrolment, 2007.
3. College Board, Trends in College Pricing 2007.
4. Figure from Statistics Canada’s Survey of Tuition and Living Accommodation Costs for Full-time Students at Canadian Degree-Granting Institutions, October 18, 2007.
5. National Leadership Council for Liberal Education and America’s Promise, College Learning in the New Global Century, January 10, 2007.
6. Jill Casner-Lotto and Linda Barrington, Are They Really Ready to Work?, released by the Conference Board in October 2006.
7. Ibid.
8. Spellings Commission, A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education, September 2006.
9. American College Testing Program, National Collegiate Retention and Persistence to Degree Rates, Trends 1983–2008. More stats are available at the act educational website, www.act.org.
10. Danielle Shaienks and Tomasz Gluszynski, Participation in Postsecondary Education: Graduates, Continuers and Drop-outs: Results from YITS Cycle 4, Statistics Canada, November 2007.
11. Barbara Kay, “Liberate the Campus,” National Post, October 24, 2007. Available online at http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2007/10/24/barbara-kay-liberate-the-campus.aspx.
12. Matthew Woessner and April Kelly-Woessner, “Left Pipeline: Why Conservatives Don’t Get Doctorates,” paper presented at the American Enterprise Institute conference “Reforming the Politically Correct University,” November 2007.
13. The press release announcing the Argus Project is available online at http://www.nas.org/polPressReleases.cfm?Doc_Id=278.
14. David Horowitz, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2006).
15. Russell Jacoby, “Gone and Being Forgotten,” Chronicle of Higher Education, July 25, 2008, p. B5.
16. Spellings Commission, A Test of Leadership.
17. “Why Universities Should be Graded, Too,” Maclean’s, September 4, 2006. Available online at http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20060904_132707_132707&source=srch.
18. Alan Finder, “Decline of the Tenure Track Raises Concerns,” New York Times, November 20, 2007, p. A16.
19. Lindsay Waters, “Bonfire of the Humanities,” Village Voice, August 24, 2004, p. 46.
CHAPTER FIVE: BULLY VS. NERD
1. H. L. Mencken, A Book of Burlesques (1916, reprinted by BiblioBazaar, 2007).
2. Chuck Todd, First Read blog, July 23, 2009. Available online at http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com.
3. Michael Hirsh, “Brains Are Back,” Newsweek, November 7, 2008. Available online at http://www.newsweek.com/id/168032.
4. From a town hall meeting in Sun City, Arizona, August 25, 2009.
5. Greer issued his press release on September 1, 2009. The full text is available online at http://www.rpof.org/article.php?id=754.
6. Actor Craig T. Nelson, appearing on Glenn Beck’s show, Fox News, May 28, 2009.
7. This gem was uttered by a protestor at a town hall meeting in Simpsonville, South Carolina, with Representative Robert Inglis and quoted by Phillip Rucker in “S.C. Senator Is a Voice of Reform Opposition,” Washington Post, July 28, 2009.
8. Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto (New York: International Publishers, 2001).
9. Robert Barnes, “Straight Talk Express’s Limited Engagement,” posted on The Trail, the Washington Post‘s online campaign diary, August 14, 2008. Available online at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/08/straight-talk-expresss-limited.html.
10. Richard Hofstader, Anti-intellectualism in American Life (New York: Knopf, 1963).
11. “Agnew Unleashed,” Time, October 31, 1969. Available online at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,839090-1,00.html.
12. Kenneth J. Hughes, Jr., “Nixon vs. the Imaginary ‘Jewish Cabal,’” History News Network, September 24, 2007. Available online at http://hnn.us/articles/42970.html.
13. See Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (Jackson, TN: Public Affairs, 2000).
14. Reagan’s 1985 address to the cpac, “Creators of the Future,” is available on the organization’s website at http://www.conservative.org/pressroom/reagan/reagan1985.asp.
15. Evan Thomas, “The Left Starts to Rethink Reagan,” Newsweek, May 3, 2008, p. 38.
16. See “The Mendacity Index,” Washington Monthly, May 2003. Available online at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0309.mendacity-index.html.
17. See Jonathan Chait, The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007).
18. George W. Bush, commencement address, Yale University, May 21, 2001.
19. George W. Bush, press conference, September 10, 2007. Transcript available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/09/20070920-2.html.
20. “Live Desk with Martha McCallum,” Fox News, June 9, 2008. Transcript available online at Media Matters.org, http://mediamatters.org/items/200806100003.
21. See the transcript for Limbaugh’s August 29, 2008, broadcast online at http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_082908/content/01125111.guest.html.
22. Tom Kizzia, “‘Fresh Face’ Launched, Carries Palin’s Career,” Anchorage Daily News, October 23, 2006. The paper posted this and other old Palin stories online during the 2008 campaign. Available at http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/background/story/510447.html.
23. Chris Clizza, “McCain Manager: This Election Is Not about Issues,” posted on The Fix, a Washington Post political blog, September 2, 2008. Available online at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/eye-on-2008/mccain-manager-this-election-i.html.
24. Jeffrey Lord, “Batman and Rush: Why McCain Will Win,” American Spectator, August 19, 2008. Available online at http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=13726.
25. Jonathan Dignan, “(Less) Male, (Even Less) Educated, (Even Less) Experienced & (Even More) White,” released by the Public Policy Forum in May 2009. Available online at http://www.ppforum.ca/publications/lessmale-even-less-educated-even-less-experienced-%0Beven-more-white.
26. See Calvin Trillin’s “Paper Baron,” a profi le of Lord Black, on p. 62 of the December 17, 2001, issue of the New Yorker for more on Canada’s “tall poppy” syndrome.
27. See Joe Klein, Politics Lost: How American Democracy Was Trivialized by People Who Think You’re Stupid (New York: Doubleday, 2006).
28. The Rasmussen poll is available online at http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/february_2009/59_still_believe_government_is_the_problem. The Gallup version is also online, at http://www.gallup.com/poll/123101/Americans-Likely-Say-Government-Doing-Too-Much.aspx.
CHAPTER SIX: MORE IS LESS
1. From The State of the News Media, 2006, the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s annual report.
2. “The Death of Journalism” appeared on Huckabee’s self-titled Fox News show on September 14, 2009. The full text is available online at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,550160,00.html.
3. Bill Bishop, “America’s Partisan Reading List,” The Big Sort blog, Sl
ate.com, posted October 29, 2008. Available online at http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/bigsort/archive/2008/10/29/the-many-ways-we-sort-ourselves.aspx.
4. Sacred Heart University’s annual poll, “Trust and Satisfaction with the Media,” was released September 2009. Results are available online at http://www.sacredheart.edu/pages/30046_shu_national_poll_trust_and_satisfaction_with_the_national_news_media.cfm.
5. Allison Hope Weiner, “The Web Site Celebrities Fear,” New York Times, June 25, 2007, p. C1.
6. Upton appeared on nbc’s Today show on August 28, 2007.
7. Pew Research Center for People and the Press, “Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two-Decade Low: Public Evaluations of the News Media, 1985–2009,” September 14, 2009. Full results are available online at http://people-press.org/report/543/#prc-jump.
8. Kris Kodrich, “Uncovering the Truth,” Denver Post, October 22, 2009. Available online at http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_13612051.
9. Anne Trubek, “We Are All Writers Now,” More Intelligent Life blog, The Economist. Available online at http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/content/anne-trubek/we-are-all-writers-now.
10. “Clive Thompson on the New Literacy,” Wired, August 24, 2009. Available online at http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-09/st_thompson.
11. The full lists are available online at http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html.
12. John Markoff, “The Passion of Steve Jobs,” bits blog, New York Times, January 15, 2008.
13. National Endowment for the Arts, “Reading on the Rise,” January 2009. The full report is available online at http://www.arts.gov/research/readingonRise.pdf.
14. The poll found that more Americans (73%) than Canadians (69%) read a book in the past year. See “Canadian Book Readers Fall Behind U.S.: Poll,” Canwest News Service, January 1, 2008. Available online at http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=81b3a991-6004-4ca8-8259-4d605e1cf767&k=50303.
15. Turner-Riggs for Department of Canadian Heritage, “The Book Retail Sector in Canada,” September 2007. The full report is available online at http://www.pch.gc.ca/pgm/padie-bpidp/rep/rapp-rep_07/rapport-pdf-report-eng.pdf.
16. Craig Wilson, “Professor Pausch’s Life, ‘Lecture’ Go from Web to Book,” USA Today, April 8, 2008. Available online at http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2008-04-07-pausch_N.htm.
17. These figures are from the trade analysts Bowker’s Books in Print database.
18. Liguori made the remark at the 2008 “upfronts,” the presentation of the network’s new shows. Available online at http://www.slate.com/id/2191209/.
19. Enjoy the clip yourself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANTDkfkoBaI&feature=related.
CHAPTER SEVEN: IF YOU’RE SO SMART, WHY AIN’T YOU RICH?
1. Paris said this to Barbara Walters, whom she had called collect from jail. It ran on ABC and was widely and swiftly quoted in both the old and new media.
2. Margaret Spellings, commencement address, Montgomery College (Montgomery County, MD), May 17, 2006.
3. The transcript of the Palin/Hannity interview is available on the Fox News website at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,424346,00.html.
4. The transcript of the vice-presidential debate is available on cnn’s website at http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/debate.transcript/.
5. The clip was posted by a kindly soul named Connecticut Bob. You can watch the shit-show on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAEIcsOL2n4.
6. The Wall Street Journal‘s Washington Wire has the full text of his speech at http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/02/07/text-of-romneys-speech-i-hate-to-lose/.
7. Santelli’s rant is available on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEZB4taSEoA.
8. Matt Taibbi, “Wall Street’s Naked Swindle,” Rolling Stone. The online version, posted on October 14, 2009, is available at http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/30481512/wall_streets_naked_swindle/1.
9. Nancy Keates, “Realtors’ Former Top Economist Says Don’t Blame the Messenger,” Wall Street Journal, January 12, 2009, p. A1.
10. An excellent episode of PBS’S Frontline profi les Brooksley Born and her concerns about the financial system. It is called “The Warning,” and you can watch it online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/?utm_campaign=homepage&utm_medium=proglist&utm_source=proglist.
11. Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (London: Penguin Books, 1963).
Copyright © 2010 by Laura Penny
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Penny, Laura, 1975-
More money than brains : why schools suck, college is crap, and idiots think they’re right / Laura Penny.
eISBN: 978-1-55199-346-1
1. Canada – Intellectual life – 21st century. 2. United States – Intellectual life – 21st century. 3. Education – Aims and objectives – Canada. 4. Education – Aims and objectives – United States. 5. Educational sociology – Canada. 6. Educational sociology – United States. 7. Canada – Civilization – 21st century. 8. United States – Civilization – 21st century. I. Title.
LA192.P45 2010 306.097109’0511 C2009-905222-9
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