The Jenny Beth Show

Berkeley Calculus: A Professor Is Teaching Middle School Fractions | Angela Morabito

Episode Summary

A Berkeley calculus professor published the numbers on her own students, and the single most common score on her eight-topic readiness test was zero. Not the average score. The most common one. These are students the University of California chose to admit, and a professor is now standing at the front of a college calculus class teaching middle school fractions. Angela Morabito joins Jenny Beth Martin for the full hour. Before California threw out the SAT and ACT in 2020, seven in ten Berkeley calculus students showed up ready. After it, fewer than half. More than a thousand University of California faculty have signed a petition to bring standardized testing back, and the administration is still arguing. The same instinct runs through every level. The University of Michigan will stop putting first-semester freshman grades on transcripts. Two former Metro Nashville teachers say administrators directed them to change failing grades, and the teacher of the year quit rather than do it. Morabito, who watched a testing scandal send Atlanta educators to prison, calls it academic fraud. Also this hour: a CBS News and YouGov poll finding 71 percent of college-educated Democrats view socialism positively, one in three American men out of the workforce, Mississippi's climb from fiftieth in math to sixteenth, and where the SAVE America Act stands. Angela Morabito is spokeswoman for the Defense of Freedom Institute, a visiting fellow at the Independent Women's Forum, and former press secretary at the Department of Education. More at jennybethshow.com and teapartypatriots.org.

Episode Notes

Angela Morabito is spokeswoman for the Defense of Freedom Institute and a visiting fellow at the Independent Women's Forum. She served as press secretary at the United States Department of Education, she came up through the Atlanta-area school system, and she spends most days making the case against the teachers unions. This is her first appearance on the show, and she stays for the full hour.

Robert McNeily, Director of Broadcasting and Grassroots Engagement at Tea Party Patriots Action, co-hosts the full hour. Jenny Beth Martin hosts.

Key topics:

• The University of Michigan's largest college will stop putting first-semester freshman grades on the official transcript, while the registrar keeps those same grades for athletic eligibility, financial aid, and academic honors
• Morabito on why the stated mental-health rationale does not hold, and what she calls college with training wheels
• Two former Metro Nashville teachers who say administrators directed them to change failing grades to passing ones, one of whom was her school's teacher of the year and has now left teaching
• Why Morabito calls it academic fraud, and the Atlanta eraser parties that ended in racketeering convictions
• A Berkeley teaching professor of mathematics who published her own students' readiness numbers, where the most common score was zero
• The calculus student who could not solve seven x minus five equals nine
• Seven in ten Berkeley calculus students arrived ready before 2020, fewer than half afterward
• More than a thousand University of California faculty signing a petition to restore standardized testing, including more than two thirds of the system's mathematics faculty
• Why the University of California ignored its own academic senate recommendation in May 2020 and dropped the entrance exam anyway
• Taxpayers paying twice: once for the K-12 education that failed the student, again for the federally backed loans
• The Department of Education's twenty directed investigations into passing the trash, and the Defense of Freedom Institute report behind them
• The argument that the SAT measures wealth, and Morabito's answer about which advantage a capable poor kid can actually overcome
• A CBS News and YouGov poll of 2,287 adults finding 58 percent of Democrats view socialism positively and 71 percent of college-educated Democrats do
• Civics proficiency for high schoolers running under one in four, and what that means in a voting booth
• One in three American men over 15 neither working nor looking for work, and male labor force participation down to 66 percent from 73 percent in 2006
• Why Morabito says pulling competition out of schools hurts everyone but hurts young men most
• Mississippi going from forty-ninth in reading and fiftieth in math in 2013 to ninth and sixteenth today, on roughly half of New Jersey's per-pupil spending
• Mississippi's Literacy-Based Promotion Act, the read-by-three law, plus literacy coaches and three screenings a year
• Where the SAVE America Act stands after a five-week Senate recess, and the eleven senators who filed statements saying they would have voted against going home
• Laken Riley, and the officer who says he arrested the same man six months earlier

Timestamped breakdown:

00:00 — Cold open: the most common score was zero

00:59 — The theme: when big government gets involved, the results are not good

02:22 — The Supreme Court, mail-in ballots, and citizenship verification

04:19 — Primaries in Florida, Alaska, and Wyoming

05:52 — Iran's army chief puts a price on American soldiers

06:32 — Twenty-five denaturalization complaints in two weeks

07:31 — The heart of the hour is education, and meet Angela Morabito

08:26 — The University of Michigan stops putting freshman grades on transcripts

12:48 — Nashville: teachers say they were told to change failing grades

21:57 — Berkeley: a calculus class learning middle school fractions

29:07 — The Department of Education moves against passing the trash

29:40 — What passing the trash actually means

31:30 — The case against bringing back the SAT

33:50 — Two years to drop the test, and how long to get it back

36:22 — Final thoughts: school choice and the 2027 scholarship tax credit

39:50 — An alarming new poll on socialism

44:11 — One in three American men out of the workforce

46:40 — Raising twins through the same school system

48:52 — The woke era ripped competition out of schools

50:46 — Mississippi: from dead last to ninth in reading

54:48 — Thank you to Angela Morabito

55:47 — Where the SAVE America Act stands

59:57 — On losing a battle and refusing to quit

01:00:25 — August 17, 1943: Patton reaches Messina

01:02:14 — What happened to math at Berkeley happens everywhere

01:02:59 — Your job for today

01:04:53 — Laken Riley, and the officer who had arrested the man six months earlier

01:07:13 — Closing

Links: jennybethshow.com | teapartypatriots.org