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High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials

washingtonpost.com

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Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials

#161

Post by areyousure »

nkurz wrote: post #29

I don't know how common falsified credentials are in school administration, but I'll mention a parallel experience that was a formative part of my upbringing. While I was in high school, my father taught at a small private college in Wisconsin, where he was on the hiring committee for the new college president. After being hired, the chosen candidate's behavior was surprisingly erratic, prompting my my father to cont…

> Thinking he had solid proof of this, and not being politically savvy, my father presented his evidence to the other faculty who had been on the hiring committee.

A few years ago, I could have used some advice from someone who is more politically savvy.

I received a tip a while ago that a then-sitting member of the United States Congress did not possess a degree listed on his website on congress.gov (and repeated elsewhere). I looked into it, and sure enough, I do not believe he received the degree in question. The congressman was not incredibly famous, but would make the news now and then. He is no longer in office.

What was the correct course of action, if I wish(ed) to stay anonymous? Tip off a reporter? Post on reddit?

Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials

#162

Post by rabboRubble »

areyousure wrote: post #161
nkurz wrote: post #29

I don't know how common falsified credentials are in school administration, but I'll mention a parallel experience that was a formative part of my upbringing. While I was in high school, my father taught at a small private college in Wisconsin, where he was on the hiring committee for the new college president. After being hired, the chosen candidate's behavior was surprisingly erratic, prompting my my father to cont…

> Thinking he had solid proof of this, and not being politically savvy, my father presented his evidence to the other faculty who had been on the hiring committee. A few years ago, I could have used some advice from someone who is more politically savvy. I received a tip a while ago that a then-sitting member of the United States Congress did not possess a degree listed on his website on congress.gov (and repeated el…

Suggested courses of action to protect anonymity...

1 - Tip off reporters nationally and most importantly, locally in the Congress person's home district.

2 - Level 23 move, tip off his/her opposition in the campaign both in the primary / general. Also tip off the Congressperson's opposing party heads. Example, if the CP was a Republican tip off the local DNC and if Democrat, tip off the RNC. This is one way the Clinton's got their opposition research.

Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials

#163

Post by tomcam »

nkurz wrote: post #155
WhiteSource1 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But wouldn't academics have to at least show framed diplomas somewhere? Or research?

Here's an odd part: it was a small enough college community that a "get to know you" type party was held at the president's private residence soon after his arrival. Being an asocial high-schooler dragged along, I noticed a bound copy of his PhD thesis was one of the few books on the shelf. I skimmed through it (something very verbose and academic about the theory of business administration) and found it incomprehens…

There's a book in this story. Please write it!

Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials

#164

Post by areyousure »

Arizhel wrote: post #113
noxToken wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's really a shame we don't value education more. This might sound nit-picky but I think we all (Americans) value education as a whole. We just don't care (as a whole) about education for others outside of our sphere . When you have the ability to move to better school system or to pay for private school attendance, you have no need to improve public schools. Not all public school systems are bad. I image that eve…

>This might sound nit-picky but I think we all (Americans) value education as a whole. That's a bunch of crap. If we (Americans) valued education as a whole, we wouldn't vote for leaders who continually cut education budgets. It's very simple: we as a society do not care about education. It's not a top political issue ever, unlike abortion, defense spending, guns, and who uses what bathroom. We keep school funding an…

Some context in case anyone is curious:

Education is the third-biggest item of (combined) US government spending, after healthcare and pensions. Defense is fourth. It accounts for roughly 15% of total spending and 5% of GDP. I found this history of education spending informative regarding "leaders who continually cut education budgets": http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_spending

Perhaps Politifact can be used as a barometer of "issues" during elections. They have rated 954 statements about education, 415 about guns, 390 about the military, 377 about terrorism, 316 about abortion, 64 about sexuality (including "bathroom bills"), and 20 or so about Planned Parenthood. Even statements about the federal budget in general (which include many of the previous issues) only totaled 938 items.

Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials

#165

Post by DanBC »

jlarocco wrote: post #10
AndyNemmity wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no college experience, and no one has ever even asked. I've never once had to justify it or discuss it in an interview. Education is no where on my resume.

It's hard to know how impressed to be without knowing what you do ;-) Usually the only time education is important on a resume is when a person has no other relevant experience.

Or when they're applying for a job that requires a professional registration, where that registration requires a specific qualification.

Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials

#166

Post by sebleon »

splawn wrote: post #152
sebleon wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welp this got downvoted, I guess HN doesn't look kindly at promoting positivity here?!

First "hn rule" of the voting system... use it. (Its a good way of promoting positivity) Second "hn rule" of the voting system... don't needlessly talk about it.

Are these rules posted somewhere? Overall, HN has some really interesting content and insight, mixed in with hateful negativity - seems like talking about the rules would be good, if we wanted to cut out the negative bits

Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials

#168

Post by [deleted] »

sebleon wrote: post #166
splawn wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First "hn rule" of the voting system... use it. (Its a good way of promoting positivity) Second "hn rule" of the voting system... don't needlessly talk about it.

Are these rules posted somewhere? Overall, HN has some really interesting content and insight, mixed in with hateful negativity - seems like talking about the rules would be good, if we wanted to cut out the negative bits

[deleted]

Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials

#169

Post by splawn »

sebleon wrote: post #166
splawn wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First "hn rule" of the voting system... use it. (Its a good way of promoting positivity) Second "hn rule" of the voting system... don't needlessly talk about it.

Are these rules posted somewhere? Overall, HN has some really interesting content and insight, mixed in with hateful negativity - seems like talking about the rules would be good, if we wanted to cut out the negative bits

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: High school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials

#170

Post by bhickey »

Macsenour wrote: post #151
jrs235 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the other person get to decide and be judge on what's rude and disrespectful? If I believe it's rude if you do not kiss the ground I walk on and that's it's disrespectful if you don't obey my commands, tough shit for me and anyone else who thinks that way. If someone is rude to you in your eyes and based on your standards, how you react is still on you and is your responsibility. You can still be respectfu…

Respect is a two way street, agreed. The other person decides if it's rude to THEM. You decide for yourself if something is rude. The knight will decide for himself if it is rude to not call him Sir. I think it's wrong for someone to say it's NOT rude to NOT call him Sir. It should be up to THEM.

This is patently absurd. Let's walk through an example: I think you're being rude to everyone here. It's wrong for you to disagree with me.

By abandoning any pretence of objective analysis you're reducing rudeness to a meaningless concept.

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