Testing Time…

The school year is drawing to a close.  It’s always a bittersweet time.  It is good to bring the year to a close, to finish all that we’ve worked on for a year and to take some small satisfaction in all we’ve learned.  But it’s a sad time as well, for all too soon, each of my classes, made up of all of my students, will never meet again.  Each class has its own unique personality made of the personalities of all of my students.  I’ll miss them.

But this year, more than any other, I’ve badly failed them.  How?  Here’s an example.  Each year I keep track of all of the inadvertently funny things my students write.  I normally collect around 120 of these gems, but this year, I have only about 70.

Why only 70?  State mandated testing.  This year, Texas switched from the old TAKS tests to the new STAAR tests.  Why would we change?  Are you sure you want to know?  You won’t like the answers…  Very well, but be sure to take your blood pressure meds.

State mandated tests are absolutely perfect, you see, the best human beings can create, absolutely the state of the art.  And so it was with the TASS tests that came before the TAKS tests.  And the TAKS tests were the pinnacle of perfection, which is why they have now been replaced by the STAAR tests.  So perfect are they, the state paid the company that authored them—Pearson—just under a half billion (yes, billion with a “B”) dollars just to buy the tests for the next five years.  Even in Texas, that’s real money.

And the STAAR tests?  So perfect there are no words to express their perfection—until the next batch of new and even more expensive tests is required, and of course, a new acronym will have to be dreamed up by the state education agency for acronym dreaming.  We’re big on acronyms in education.  They are so perfect there were originally to have been some 15 of them that kids would have to pass to graduate from high school, but the public—damn them anyway, what do they know?  They’re not educrats!—rose up and threatened the reelection of state representatives and senators, and lo and behold, perfection has been pared back to only five tests in the future.

I’ll be dealing with many testing related issues in the next, related article to be posted on the same day next week, and perhaps, a third.  But this article is focused on one of a teacher’s most precious resources: time.

State law requires a school year of no less than 180 days, which is common around the nation.  And this takes me back to the comic writings.  This year I collected only about 58% of the usual number of comic writings.  That’s significant in that these come to me as a result of unintentional mistakes made in a variety of writings.  This means, in essence, we were able, as a direct result of mandated testing, to write only about 58% as much as usual.  In other words, my students lost 42% of their writing opportunities this year.  Were you the parent of one of my students, would you find that acceptable?

Because we were in a transition year, we lost even more time.  Junior students were taking the TAKS tests for the final time, and sophomore students were taking the STAAR tests for the first time.  We knew what to do with TAKS, hard-won lessons puzzled out over many years, for the state educrats throw a veil of secrecy over all testing, ostensibly to prevent cheating.  So irrational are they that teachers aren’t allowed to so much as look at any of the tests or the student’s answer documents, and we are absolutely prohibited from saying a word about the tests upon pain of having our teaching certificates revoked.  But wait, it’s even better than you imagined.  We’re also simultaneously required to look at their answer documents to ensure they’re not cheating and they filled them out completely and correctly, but we can’t actually look at them to do it.  They actually tell us things like “glance at the answer document…”  You see the difference, don’t you?

While test security is important, we all know what’s going on.  They don’t want teachers—people who actually know how tests should be constructed—to see the tests, so badly constructed are they. They absolutely don’t want parents to know.

The other interesting factor is that the state refuses to tell teachers the content of tests.  Oh, they hand out hints about the form of some sections of the tests, but the actual content, well, that’s a secret too.  To be absolutely fair, the public uproar about the tests has forced the state educrats to promise to release the tests given this year so teachers can actually have some idea what to teach the kids, but that won’t be until later this summer, and who knows how they’ll decide to change things for next year now that they didn’t get their way in forcing 15 tests on the kids?  I’m sure any errors on the original test will be sanitized before they’re released to the public.

So this year, we had only a vague idea of what to teach the kids to pass tests that would, in large part, determine whether they would graduate from high school.  There were a variety of Internet sources purporting to have some idea, tests given by other states that may or may not have been similar, but we could not be sure.  Add in the fact that the legislature was in session and rumors were flying about how many tests would be required, how they’d be scored and what that would mean for students, and you begin to understand the teacher’s dilemma.

One particularly ugly problem was the legislature required that the tests be 15% of each student’s grade for the year in those subjects.  This might sound reasonable, but it was an absolute nightmare.  Schools have varying schedules and methods of grading, and for students moving or otherwise changing schools, it was impossible.  Consider too that the test results wouldn’t be given to schools until the very last days of the year—if then—and it’s not surprising this provision of the law was deferred for several years, and finally, done away with.  No one would know if a student actually passed a class until the state got around to posting the scores at the very end of the year or sometime during the summer, and by then, it would be far too late to turn things around.

Consider too that STAAR tests are supposed to be “end of course” tests, but actually aren’t and can’t be.  Yet, much depends on that fiction, and many mandates emanate from it.  The English tests—there are two—are given at the beginning of April and the rest weeks later.  The English tests take much longer to grade, so they have to be given earlier.

We did know that the essay portion of the English tests was completely changed.  The old TAKS test required a single, two-page essay, but the new STAAR test requires three single page essays.  Why three?  Pearson, the company writing the tests, also does the SAT test.  STAAR is basically the SAT format.  It’s quicker and easier to grade, and one of the essays is a developmental essay that does not contribute to a student’s score.  In other words, kids are required to write an essay that will help enrich Pearson by lowering their future test development costs.  Of course, no one knows which of the three is the developmental essay.

Basically, the essays have been dumbed down to make it easier for temporary graders and to increase Pearson’s profits.  Kids have to put together only 3-4 paragraphs, but because we had no idea exactly what the test graders would be told to look for, we were guessing about that too.

But there are additional problems.  Because their jobs ride on test scores, our school administrators demand that we do “benchmark” testing to give them an idea how the kids might do on the STAAR tests.  Like the state educrats, local administrators, more and more, are all about data rather than education.  It doesn’t matter that since we had no real idea what to expect, we had no real idea what to test with benchmark tests, or how the STAAR test would eventually be graded, therefore, benchmark test results would be essentially meaningless.  However, we were producing data, which is now the entire point of education.

Now, about time: the benchmark tests cost us five days of classes.  That’s 180-5=175 or about 3% of the school year.  Those tests alone cost us three percent of our potential time for learning.  Understand that when I speak of lost “days,” I mean that I see each of my classes for 50 minutes a day, five times a week.  If that class doesn’t meet or is testing, at a pep rally, etc., I’ve lost a day of learning opportunity for that class.  As I’ve often noted, all any teacher can do is provide the best possible opportunity to learn—we can’t make anyone learn anything—and the most important factor is time.  Much of what we do isn’t accomplished in 50-minute blocks.  Killing one 50-minute class can disrupt or even wipe out the effectiveness of instruction for an entire week.

We also lost eight days to state mandated testing this year, and I’m being very conservative in this, as the number of days was actually greater, but let’s give the educrats the benefit of the doubt.  That’s about 4.5% of the year so we’re down to only 167 days.

We also lost eight days to pep rallies, assemblies, other testing, and similar matters.  Again, I’m being conservative.  That’s another 4.5% of the year, and we’re down to about 159 days.

But wait, there’s more!  In order to construct a 30 minute tutoring period in the middle of each day so students could be drilled in various subjects in the hopes of passing the tests, the content of which was a secret, we took five minutes from each of our 50 minutes classes, which is the equivalent of 20 days of classes (5 minutes times 180 days = 900 minutes, divided by 45 minutes (the remaining class time) equals 20 class periods/days or 11% of the school year).  We’re now down to 139 days.

Because we had so little idea of the content of the STAAR tests, and because we were actually doing two testing regimes, we spent two solid months before the tests doing nothing but drilling for those tests.  That’s actually 34 days of avoiding the curriculum entirely, so now we’re down to 105 days.  In a “normal” testing year, I would spend only about six, rather than eight, weeks of test drill, but that would save only 10 days.

All of this means that as a direct result of mandatory, high stakes testing, we had only 58% of the entire school year available to teach the normal curriculum.  Now do you see why I collected only about 70 comic writings rather than the normal 120?  Those mathematically inclined readers will, by now, have noticed that 70 is also 58% of 120.

It’s actually possible for many students to have less than 50% of the school year available for learning due to activities of various kinds.  An article I wrote for PJ Media explains how.

Imagine being given 42% less time to accomplish any job, yet being held accountable for the same, even enhanced, results, and you have some idea of what’s happening in education these days.  The problem is we’re not talking of lessened profits, but of lost learning opportunities.  All of those days are forever gone, the opportunity for kids to learn all they should have learned and to grow as much as they should have grown are also forever gone.

But so what?  Aren’t kids learning something worthwhile in all of that test preparation?  Not much.

In learning to write very brief, terrifically simplistic essays, they’re not developing the analytical and writing abilities they need.  When I’ve lost 42% of the school year before the first class of the year begins, my kids will miss a huge amount of literature and a huge amount of their classwork, which includes not just writing, but reading, analysis, and the exercises necessary to build bigger, better brains.  Instead, we’re making them whizzes at passing highly specific tests of middling difficulty.

This year, that meant that instead of acting out at least three acts of Julius Caesar, we had time for only one.  It meant not reading three novels we normally do, and drastically cutting short the few we managed to read.  It meant drastically curtailing the discussion of those works necessary for true understanding.  It meant doing only about half of the poetry we normally do.  We did not do story writing, and read only a few short stories.  We didn’t make vital neural connections, but oh, we produced data!  Data that with only 10 days of school left, we have yet to receive.  We probably won’t get it until school is out.

And because the kids won’t get the results, and because the tests are changed each year, what will they be able to do to improve?  The fact is that in order to teach them to pass the tests, we teach a small amount of actual skill and content, but mostly, specific tricks and methods that provide the answers for temporary test graders that will be spending minutes, perhaps even seconds, grading their tests.  And for all of that, all that is produced is a tiny bit of data that tells us nothing more than how a given student fared on a given test on a single day.  Considering how much that tiny bit of data cost in taxpayer dollars, I suspect most people, if they knew the truth, wouldn’t be pleased.

Don’t think for moment, gentle readers, that my experience in Texas is substantially different than where you live.  It’s not.  And while my students told me they felt they were well prepared for the tests and the exercises we developed to prepare them seemed to be like the tests, we won’t have any real idea until we finally get the test scores. Even if we guessed right, we have no idea how the temps will be told to grade the essays, which are always the most heavily weighted portion of the tests.

That’s my failure, forced upon me by considerations political and financial, not educational.

Stay tuned for the second in this series of articles, to be posted next week, which will explore the philosophy of testing, and what they can, and cannot, accomplish.

I’m Baaaccck!

Credit: Yaqui

Regular readers may have noticed that my usual writing pace has slacked a bit over the last week.  I’ve been engaged in a musical pursuit, specifically, Karl Orff’s Carmina Burana.  The choir in which I serve as the men’s section leader, the Southwestern Seminary Master Chorale (Dr. David Thye, Director) is the principal choir of the Ft. Worth Symphony Orchestra (Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Conductor).  We perform with the symphony many times each year, and from time to time the symphony programs a major work that requires a very large chorus, more than our usual 100-125 complement.  In this case, we ended up with about 180 singers.

Carmina Burana is such a work, so two additional choruses, and several tenors from another, were added.  A critique of one of the three performances is available here.  

The entire work takes a bit over an hour to perform at brisk tempos, and is also demanding to rehearse.  That’s why I’ve been a bit preoccupied.  Last week we had rehearsal on Tuesday night, dress rehearsal on Thursday night, performances on Friday and Saturday nights and a matinee performance on Sunday.  For tenors—I’m among the rarest of the rare, a true first tenor–the work is exhausting, spending an enormous amount of time at “g” or higher—at forte or fortissimo volume levels–and occasionally leaping to “c,” so my time away from rehearsal or performance last week was spent in sleeping or recovery.  Many people don’t understand how exhausting singing on this level is.  The entire body is the instrument, and works like Carmina Burana demand world-class levels of exertion and concentration.

The performances were done at Bass Hall, the home of the Symphony.  It’s a gorgeous, world-class performance hall with exceptional acoustics.   Photos are available here. That’s one of the two angels on the north face of the hall at the top of the article.

Because we sing with the Symphony so often, it’s almost easy to take those opportunities for granted, but whenever I walk onstage in Bass Hall, I never fail to remind myself of where I am, and of the tiny portion of humanity that will ever have the opportunities I so often enjoy.  Yes, I worked very hard for many years to earn those opportunities, but they are precious nonetheless.  Speaking with members of the other choirs that rarely have such opportunities was a worthwhile reminder of how blessed I am in so many ways.

I’m still a bit tired, but am recovering nicely, and I beg your leave for my temporary absence.  But now, as Ricky Ricardo would have said:  ”Lucy, I’m hoooooommme!

More articles to follow this week…

A Never-Ending War

 

H&K MP5-SD6: A Very Scary Looking Gun Indeed

For the moment, gun control issues have been pushed to the back pages, but we should not forget for a moment that the ongoing war against freedom never ends.  I’ve put together this brief reminder.

Five million.  Five million active members.  For an organization representing the political interests of any group of American citizens, that number is extraordinary.  In fact, it’s unobtainable.  No other special interest group comes even remotely close to the willing, enthusiastic and above all, involved, membership of the National Rifle Association.  Keep in mind that its membership was four million—still far, far above any other special interest group—just a short time ago.  This is another accomplishment of President Obama—though one I doubt he’ll be listing on a resume—adding a million dedicated members, and enhanced political clout, to the NRA in record time.

At the National Rifle Association’s recent convention in Houston, TX, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre… concluded his speech with the theme of all the NRA officers, vowing, ‘From liberty’s defense, we will never back down. We will never surrender. We will always stand. We will always fight.

A sampling of the speeches at the convention:

Outgoing NRA President David Keene gave his valedictory address, noting the challenges of responding to recent tragedies: ‘We’ve all been under attack… by those who would exploit the victims of a madman to advance their own anti-Second Amendment agenda.’

Keene then exulted in the fact that despite incredible money from leftists and a mainstream media that opposes gun rights, that nonetheless over 58,000 Americans joined the NRA in one day after Obama gave his initial gun-control speech. Amazingly, the NRA’s membership has grown by roughly one million—an astounding 25% increase—since the middle of last year.

Keene cautioned members and supporters against complacency and thinking their victory was permanent. ‘We must never confuse winning a battle with winning the war.

Quite so.  Mr. Obama and various denizens of congress such as Joe Manchin, have made it clear that this is a never-ending war.

In his speech, LaPierre credited NRA members for working together to generate Obama’s humiliating loss, saying, ‘Apparently, there’s nothing the president will not do to get something—anything—through Congress to advance his agenda to destroy the Second Amendment. Nothing. So far, thanks to you and millions of Americans like you, that’s exactly what President Obama has gotten—absolutely nothing!’

LaPierre discussed the major disconnect between NRA members and establishment leaders in politics and the media. He characterized it not as a divide between Republicans and Democrats, but instead the profoundly different worldviews between the elites in D.C. and New York in political, academic, and media circles, as compared to ordinary men and women throughout the vast majority of the country.

He also noted that many of these elites can’t understand why the NRA won’t support measures these opinion leaders call ‘reasonable,’ and try to blame the NRA for tragedies such as Newtown. LaPierre assured his members that NRA leaders might be unwelcome to some in those refined circles due to their refusal to give things away at the negotiating table, but, ‘They can try to blame and shame us with all their might, but when it comes to defending the Second Amendment, we will never sacrifice our freedom upon the altar of elitist acceptance. And we will never surrender our guns!

LaPierre is correct, of course.  Most Americans correctly equate the loss of guns with the loss of freedom, particularly with recent revelations of IRS and other egregious Obama Administration abuses of power.

Chris Cox, the head of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action…noted statements from billionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s surrogates that they could use tragedies such as Newtown to push public acceptance of gun control. He said that for the NRA, by contrast, ‘We want to prevent Newtown, not take advantage of it.

Cox told the audience such tragedies were being exploited to push an anti-gun agenda and emphatically stated, ‘We will not stand idly by while politicians, billionaires, or the media try to destroy the rights that American heroes died defending.’

‘…Universal background checks would not have prevented Newtown. Let’s focus on that for a minute. The centerpiece of President Obama’s response to Newtown, would not have prevented Newtown.’

‘We will never apologize for who we are and what we believe,’ Cox concluded. ‘We will never be intimidated by a president. We will never be ashamed by a national news media. And we will never be scared of a billionaire. Instead I promise you, that we will stand, and we will fight.

The NRA is a force feared by anti-freedom politicians not because of its financial resources, which in comparison to many other lobbies are relatively meager, but because it defends a fundamental constitutional freedom.  Five million Americans have supported that defense with their dollars, but tens, perhaps hundreds of millions more feel the same and are also willing to vote with that in mind.  Nothing frightens politicians more than being voted out of office.

A recent farewell article by the assistant opinion editor of Iowa State Daily.com is very much worth your attention.  Barry Snell wrote an informative article about the disconnect between the self-styled elite and actual Americans.  It’s very insightful and could–if they would listen—provide a life-changing opportunity for the other side.  Yeah. Unlikely, I know.

A few excerpts:

In the gun debate, I’ve discovered that one cannot be expert enough about guns. Indeed, when it comes to the gun issue, opinion rules. There doesn’t seem to be any opportunity for any genuine, honest debate on guns, and even liberals would agree with that. I’ve often wondered about this over the years. Is it because my side of the debate is actually loony? I don’t think so; at least, I think I’m pretty normal. Sure, we’ve got some oddballs we all wish would go away, just like any group does.

But all the pro-gun people I know are normal people too — people so normal that nobody knows they’re gun people until they’re told. In fact, there are so many gun owners that if we are all crazy like some suggest, the daily crime rate in America would look more like our crime rate for the entire decade combined, and CNN would actually have something to report on other than the latest gossip.

That is to say, there’s a hundred million of us, owning a few hundred million guns combined, and we contribute to society peacefully every day. Many of us even literally protect society for a living, or used to.

I’ve come to realize after the Sandy Hook shooting that the reason we can’t have a rational gun debate is because the anti-gun side pre-supposes that their pro-gun opponents must first accept that guns are bad in order to have a discussion about guns in the first place. Before we even start the conversation, we’re the bad guys and we have to admit it. Without accepting that guns are bad and supplicating themselves to the anti-gunner, the pro-gunner can’t get a word in edgewise, and is quickly reduced to being called a murderer, or a low, immoral and horrible human being…

Liberals always make the common plea, ‘We need to get some experts to solve this problem!’ for any public policy issue that comes along, which is a good thing. But when it comes to the gun issue, gun expertise is completely irrelevant to the anti-gunner — people who probably have never fired a gun or even touched one in real life, and whose only experience with guns is what they’ve seen in movies or read about in bastions of (un)balanced, hyper-liberal journalism, like Mother Jones. That a pro-gun person might actually know a lot about their hobby or profession doesn’t stand up against the histrionic cries of the anti-gunner.

How can we ‘gun people’ honestly be expected to come to the table with anti-gunners when anti-gunners are willfully stupid about guns, and openly hate, despise and ridicule those of us who own them? There must first be respect and trust — even just a little — before there can be even the beginnings of legitimate discussion of the issue.

Snell well explains why those that support freedom don’t trust anti-gunners:

Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because anti-gunners always talk about 90 percent of Americans supporting this gun control measure, or 65 percent supporting that one, as if a majority opinion is what truly matters in America. We don’t trust anti-gun people because you think America is a democracy, when it’s actually a constitutional federal republic. In the American system, the rights of a single individual are what matters and are what our system is designed to protect. The emotional mob does not rule in America.

Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because they keep saying they “respect the Second Amendment” and go on about how they respect the hunting traditions of America. We don’t trust you because you have to be a complete idiot to think the Second Amendment is about hunting. I wish people weren’t so stupid that I have to say this: The Second Amendment is about checking government tyranny. Period. End of story. The founders probably couldn’t have cared less about hunting since, you know, they just got done with that little tiff with England called the Revolutionary War right before they wrote that “little book” called the Constitution.

Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because they lie to us. President Obama directly says he won’t tamper with guns or the Second Amendment, then turns around and pushes Congress to do just that. We don’t trust anti-gunners because they appoint one of the most lying and rabidly (and moronically) anti-gun people in America, Vice President Biden, to head up a “task force” to “solve” the so-called “gun problem,” who in turn talks with anti-gun special interest groups instead of us to complete his task.

Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because they tell us they don’t want to ban guns, only enact what they call ‘common sense gun laws.’ But like a magician using misdirection, they tell everyone else they want to ban every gun everywhere. While some are busy trying to placate us with lies, another anti-gunner somewhere submits a gun ban proposal — proposals that often would automatically make us felons for possession. Felons, for no good reason. And you anti-gunners can roll up your grandfather clauses and stuff them where the sun don’t shine. If it ain’t good enough for our grandchildren in 60 years, it ain’t good enough for us right now.

Take the time to read the entire article; it’s time well spent.

And to meet the kind of people Snell is talking about, take the link for an article by Dave Perry, the editor of the Aurora Sentinel.  It’s remarkable for it’s lack of intellect and sheer venom.  Some examples:  

I have seen the light. After all these years, I now agree that it’s fruitless to give the benefit of the doubt to people who are so obviously corrupt, so clearly malevolent, so bent on hurting innocent people for their own sick gain.

No more due process in the clear-cut case of insidious terrorism. When the facts are so clearly before all Americans, for the whole world to see, why bother with this country’s odious and cumbersome system of justice? Send the guilty monsters directly to Guantanamo Bay for all eternity and let them rot in their own mental squalor.

No, no, no. Not the wannabe sick kid who blew up the Boston marathon or the freak that’s mailing ricin-laced letters to the president. I’m talking about the real terrorist threat here in America: the National Rifle Association.

Just like Mr. Obama, Perry isn’t taking the defeat of anti-gun legislation graciously:

By using the weapon of choice for all terrorist organizations, extortion, the NRA has forced the action of about 45 ineffectual U.S. senators, a clear act of terrorism and treason. And Wayne LaPierre and his arrogant cronies are laughing about it. They’re laughing at 9 out of 10 of you and your insistence that Congress do something reasonable to stop the insanity in this country.

That’s the kind of reasonable discussion and mutually respectful dialogue we can expect.  Read the whole thing, and keep in mind the fact that regardless of which new scandal is revealed this week, the battle against tyranny is always boiling just below the surface.

The Power To Tax…

The power to tax is the power to destroy.

Daniel Webster, McCulloch v. Maryland 1819

It’s important to remember, perhaps better never to forget, that government has no conscience.  None.  Some believe that government will “take care of me,” but government has no caring.  It has only policies, imperatives and whims, all of which can change at a moment’s notice, executed by nothing grander than the lowest level functionary who decides they don’t like your politics, the fact that you might be criticizing the current government, or the color of your shirt.

As we have recently discovered—rather than suspected—the whims of government and its functionaries on all levels unquestionably adhere to one of life’s more insightful quotations, made by Lord Acton: 

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

There has been much speculation along the line of “what did Mr. Obama know and when did he know it.”  The most recent gaseous emanations from the White House suggested that they’ve descended to admitting that rather than being criminally liable, they’re idiots, and that Mr. Obama’s various advisors actually decided not to bother his pretty little head about such minor issues as the IRS criminally abusing innocent citizens who just happened to be of the opposing political philosophy.

I’ll leave it to you, gentle readers, to determine how likely it is that the most overtly and thuggishly political of all American presidents was not fully informed, at the earliest possible moment, of each and every political issue that might harm his political viability, his messianic image, and the exercise of his power.  I’ll also leave it to you to determine how truthful Mr. Obama is, and how often he chooses to employ little bits of the truth as a political, rather than a moral, tactic.

Where the IRS is concerned, who knew what, when is an important matter in the overall scheme of things and in determining which criminal charges–if any–might be appropriate, but a secondary matter in everyday reality.  The relationship between the American people and the IRS is fraught with distrust in the best of times.  An agency of the government given the power, without due process of law, to seize every asset one possesses, and to put them in prison while essentially forcing them to prove themselves innocent against a presumption of guilt, will tend to do that.  Only by employing the highest ethical standards, and by each and every agent always keeping in mind the golden rule—treat others as you would like to be treated—can the IRS be tolerated by the American public.  And now we find that the IRS, from the highest to the lowest levels, has decided to harass and harm fellow Americans for daring to exercise their fundamental rights to freedom of speech and association.  No doubt, this abuse of power has even baser motivations, particularly, crippling the ability of conservative and libertarian citizens to raise money and oppose Barack Obama in the 2012 election.

In brief, the IRS chose sides and betrayed every principle of our constitutional republic.  It betrayed America and all she stands for.

And despite a weak apology of sorts occasioned only by the fact that its malfeasance was about to be exposed, the commissioner of the IRS appeared before Congress claiming to know nothing, but did so in a particularly arrogant, contemptuous manner reminiscent of the worst of Mr. Obama who seldom misses a chance to pose with his nose in the air in the manner of Benito Mussolini.

I have no doubt that these practices originated at the highest levels of our government, and at the highest levels of the IRS, and were ordered from on high to the lowest levels, the individual agents who actually handled the paperwork, the requests from Americans for the tax free status the organizations they wished to establish deserved.  Therefore, it’s particularly frustrating to watch Congress hold hearings in which they fecklessly question various high-ranking bureaucrats who pretend to have no idea who might have done anything wrong, and congressmen pretend they have no idea which pertinent questions they should ask next.

As I write this, The Washington Post is reporting that Lois Lerner, the woman in charge of the section of the IRS primarily responsible for targeting conservatives, the woman who, for her efforts to destroy the trust of the American people in the IRS and the government, was promoted, according to her lawyer, is planning to take the Fifth when she testifies before Congress.

UPDATE: 05-22-13 1900 CST:  Lerner, after delivering a statement in which she declared herself utterly innocent of any wrongdoing, took the Fifth.

That’s the difference between actual working Americans and the Congress and our permanent bureaucratic class.  In the real world, everything and everyone operates on trust.  If we can’t trust that the people with whom we work will do what they say they’ll do, and do it properly and on time, no one can accomplish much of anything.  If those people lie to us, even just a little, they’re of no use to us.  If they do wrong, knowingly harming others, they’re despicable.  And when people make mistakes, it is not in the least difficult to discover who made them and why and to correct them.

So for the benefit of the Congress, it’s quite simple: find out which agents actually worked on each of the 500 cases–the numbers of which are daily increasing–where people were stonewalled, harassed and mistreated.  Their names are on that paperwork.

Talk to each of those people, and in each case, read their work and see what they did or didn’t do and how long it took and why.  Demand to know why they did what they did and who told them to do it.  I suspect that few of them will be willing to fall on their swords for higher-ranking miscreants.  Then talk to each of those second level supervisors and ask the same things.  Relatively few of them will be willing to fall on their swords, and so on and so on until there is no doubt who ordered what and who did what when.  This is not rocket science.  This is how the real world works, and it’s time the IRS joined the real world.

That done, every one of them must be fired and/or prosecuted if they’ve violated the law; Ms. Lerner apparently believes she has.  And if no one violated a law, it’s time for Congress to actually earn their keep and make those kinds of abuses of power federal felonies.

I’m being too harsh, you say?  Remember that at the very least, each and every one of those IRS employees, from the top to the bottom, had to know that what they were doing was wrong.  They made a conscious choice to harm honest, law abiding Americans doing nothing more than trying to exercise their rights under the law.  They chose to deny them their constitutional freedoms, to harass and terrify them, and to cost them money they didn’t have.  In many cases, it wasn’t enough to cause them temporary stress and harm, no, they had to stretch it out for years on end.

What kind of person does that?  What kind of person purposely sets out to abuse and brutalize others?  What kind of person continues to do it–for years?  Are these people sociopaths?  Common thugs?  Criminals?  Is every employee of the IRS willing to do this to their fellow Americans?

It’s plain to see that power does corrupt, and that exposure to governmental power causes individuals to adopt the traits of government such as caring nothing for those they are hired to serve.  And just as government has no conscience, so too do these IRS employees have no conscience.

If the public is to have any trust in the IRS, if any trust in the government is to ever be restored, each and every person in the IRS, the Treasury Department, the Department of Justice, and other government agency involved, and the White House, must be fired and/or otherwise removed from government service.  Then we can talk about necessary reforms.  Abolishing the entire IRS might be a good start.

Failing to take extraordinary steps to right this multitude of wrongs may very well constitute crossing a line no sane man wants to cross.  If that turns out to be the case, taking the Fifth may one day be the least of the worries of governmental officials.

I’ll let you know when the IRS audits me.