EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION: Texas tracks for equity: ‘I didn’t know honors existed.’

California progressives are eliminating advanced math in middle school in the name of equity. In Texas, equity means expanding access to advanced math, writes Talia Richman on the Hechinger Report. In Dallas, all students with above-average math scores are placed on the honors track in sixth grade. Students who don’t want the challenge must opt out.

Dallas nearly doubled enrollment in Algebra I in eighth grade from, 2018 to 2022, and students are far more racially diverse.

Tha Cung, an immigrant from Myanmar, had been in classes for English learners. “I didn’t know ‘honors’ even existed,” he said. His fifth-grade scores put him in advanced math in sixth grade.

Exit quote: “Tha Cung is now an eighth grader enrolled in Algebra I, writes Richman. ‘My mom told me that I could be anything,’ Tha, 13, said. ‘So I chose engineer.'”

SOUNDS KINDA FASCIST:

Just so we're keeping score: The Biden DOJ is suing SpaceX for not hiring refugees, the DOJ and SEC are investigating Tesla, the EEOC is also suing Tesla, the FTC demanded @elonmusk hand over internal Twitter comms and the SEC is now investigating Elon's purchase of Twitter.

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 5, 2023

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Warm, Fuzzy, ‘Unifier’ Trump Is Totally Weirding Me Out. “Trump’s combativeness is his biggest selling point to me. I’m not ready for him to put on a cardigan and relax into fireside chat mode. As I wrote at the beginning of year, I want him to go full scorched earth if he gets another shot at the White House.”

ART OF THE DEAL: Trump Stakes Out Abortion Compromise.

LIGHTNING DEAL: Zigzagger Men’s Slip On Moccasin Slippers. #CommissionEarned

FIRE THEM ALL: California Teachers’ Union Threatens Strike for Free Yoga and Homeless Camps.

WHY THE GOP NEEDS TO ELECT A SPEAKER ASAP: Do you know that while the Speakership is empty, the person who is next in line to the presidency — after Kamala Harris — is Patty Murray?

HMM: Democrats have relied on one company’s tools to power campaigns. They’re now facing a possible collapse.

NGP VAN provides tools used by Democrats, from the White House to local school boards, to raise money and mobilize voters. But with new management in recent years, it has been stripping its operations to the bare bones.

The potential decline of these tools — which have given Democrats a significant technology edge over Republicans over the past few cycles — would be so threatening to operations that a handful of top Democratic digital firms recently called a roughly hourlong Zoom meeting with leadership of the company to seek answers. Among their demands: reassurance that NGP VAN wouldn’t dismantle one of its top products, an online organizing and fundraising tool called ActionKit. Without it, Democrats worried about their prospects during the 2024 cycle and beyond.

“I’m hoping that I’m wrong, that we’re all wrong, that everyone’s fine,” said a former NGP VAN employee, granted anonymity to speak candidly about their former employer. “But this could mean something really bad for 2024.”

The alarm relayed on the call reflected a larger concern: that the Democratic Party has grown too dependent on a small handful of companies to carry the bulk of its campaign operations.

The GOP for years had the technological edge, starting with direct mail and ending around the time Big Tech went all-in with Barack Obama.

If they want it back, they’re going to have to fight for it, rather than just gloat when a Democrat-connected firm or two collapses.

#JOURNALISM: Why Did CBS Blur the Face of the Man Who Stabbed a Lefty Community Activist in NYC? “As some noted, Daniel Penny, who arguably saved lives when he put a mentally unstable man in a chokehold on a subway, wasn’t afforded that courtesy when he was arrested for manslaughter.”

CHUTZPAH: Palestinian students are suing University of Illinois Chicago for being excluded from an information session for study abroad to Israel. According to the plaintiffs’ own press release, there was disruptive scheme afoot that was thwarted: “I planned to attend the information session to voice my concerns about how a study abroad program in Israel discriminates against me as a Palestinian student.”

Well You see an ‘information session’ is for *them* to give *you* information about the program, not for *you* to hijack the session to express your political views. As a Twitter commenter noted, “the plaintiffs are seeking to establish a permanent right to harass and obstruct any activity related to Israel.”

The standard illustration of the Yiddish word chutzpah is the guy who murders his parents and then pleads for mercy because he is an orphan. Suing a university for being denied the “right” to disrupt university activities is another good one.

IT WOULD EASILY BE HIS MOST ENTERTAINING SHOW SINCE THE APPRENTICE: Trump Would Accept House Speakership… But There’s a Catch.

LIFE IN THE BLUE ZONES: Top California Teachers’ Union Wants Homeless People To Sleep in Its Public School Parking Lots.

ALLIES: U.S. F-16 fighter jet shoots down an armed Turkish drone over Syria.

The shoot down came after repeated communications to stay away from U.S. ground troops near al Hasakah in northeastern Syria. This is believed to be the first time the U.S. has shot down a drone from Turkey, a NATO ally.

The Pentagon called the incident “regrettable” but said no U.S. forces were injured and there are no indications Turkey intended to target U.S. forces.

“It’s regrettable when you have two NATO allies and there’s an incident like this,” Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters Thursday.

Like everything else in the Middle East, it’s complicated.

#JOURNALISM: You don’t hate the media enough: NBC steps in it with story linking congressman to ancestors’ slaves.

EXCLUSIVE: FBI Whistleblower ’Vindicated’ by Exposure of FBI Targeting MAGA.

A CASE OF TAX FRAUD AT THE IRS. “The IRS this month agreed to settle and drop a penalty in Lakepoint Land II LLC v. Commissioner. A judge in U.S. Tax Court had sanctioned the IRS in the case, ripping the agency’s counsel for acting in ‘bad faith’ and having ‘multiplied the proceedings in this case unreasonably and vexatiously’ by failing to tell the court that documents it used to assess a penalty had been backdated. Several other Tax Court cases suggest wider IRS document fiddling.”

The lawyers involved should be reported to the bar for discipline. This should cost them their law licenses.

THE FIRST SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ARTICLE WORTH READING THIS CENTURY:  Cats Are Perfect. An Evolutionary Biologist Explains Why.

WHEN PROGRESSIVES DIE FROM PROGRESSIVISM: Two Murders—and the Cost of Luxury Beliefs. “The death of two progressive activists shocked the nation. And that says everything about crime and class in America.”

I WAS UNDER THE IMPRESSION OUR NATION’S COLLEGES ALREADY MANAGED TO DO THAT:  How AI threatens to make traditional college degree ‘obsolete’: experts.

THIS IS NOT EVEN WORTHY OF MY SHOCKED FACE:  Abercrombie & Fitch and a rather predictable sex scandal.

SO, A TASTE OF HOME FOR ILLEGALS?  Murders, cartels, squalor: Inside ‘colony’ near Houston accused of being ‘haven for illegal aliens’.

DUDE! IT WON’T WORK. WE TOLD BOTH CALIFORNIANS AND NEW YORKERS THAT DENVER SUCKED, YET THEY KEPT COMING:  Adams warns of ‘nightmare’ in pursuing the ‘American dream’ in Mexico City.

RESIST THE TRANNY TYRANNY:  Virginia college swimmers reveal fight to keep trans athlete from joining women’s team after competing as male.

IN THE US THEY FORCED DOCTORS TO HAVE THEM OR BE FIRED:  NZ doctors avoided Covid jabs while insisting the public had them.

I THINK THEY ALL DO:   Texas medical college mandates ineffective COVID jab.