On grades and politics
Aug. 28th, 2004 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
weaktwosOkay, I've been up for a few hours, piddling about online.
I was doing some research. I've been bird-dogging the community![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
2004_elections and saw my favorite conservative nutjob posting silly statistics up there again. Many folks were arguing with him. What I notice is that he takes a lot of propaganda as fact. Now, I am sure I have done the same in my day, but his is unique.
He did bring up an interesting point: that John Kerry had received worse grades than George Bush at Yale. I had never heard such information come out, so I thought I would do some research.
I could not find any definitive support for that allegation. Googling for things like:
yielded nothing conclusive, except various people mentioning it in their blogs. Some folks were even completely ignorant, making claims like, "Kerry got worse grades than Bush, and didn't even go to graduate school." But of course, these bright bulbs don't consider a Juris Doctorate graduate school. Oops.
What seems to be accurate thus far is that Kerry has not discussed his grades. Nor does it seem like any serious journalists without a political leaning has even queried him about it. Furthermore, because of this failure to comment, many conservative hostiles are just assuming Kerry did poorly at Yale.
I must confess, I am curious about how Kerry performed. And yes, I might be willing to suppose that he did not necessarily get exemplary grades at Yale. At the same time, it really shouldn't be an issue.
People can still do poorly in college and even drop out of college and still choose to learn and self-educate and become quite thoughtful, and productive individuals, in addition to making great contributions to our society.
Still, it would be interesting to do a study of all the grade point averages of our public officials. What a trend that would be. I would be inclined to wager that on average most political officials had average grades. Unless they were communications studies majors. You would have to be brain-dead to not do well in those classes. But most folks involved in politics were always out at rallies, or networking in the political sphere. Their grades accordingly would reflect that their time was spent elsewhere, instead of studying.
One thing I do feel certain of, however, is that George Bush has not made a great contribution to society.
I was doing some research. I've been bird-dogging the community
2004_elections and saw my favorite conservative nutjob posting silly statistics up there again. Many folks were arguing with him. What I notice is that he takes a lot of propaganda as fact. Now, I am sure I have done the same in my day, but his is unique.He did bring up an interesting point: that John Kerry had received worse grades than George Bush at Yale. I had never heard such information come out, so I thought I would do some research.
I could not find any definitive support for that allegation. Googling for things like:
- kerry bush gpa
- john kerry yale gpa
- john kerry yale grades
- john kerry gpa
yielded nothing conclusive, except various people mentioning it in their blogs. Some folks were even completely ignorant, making claims like, "Kerry got worse grades than Bush, and didn't even go to graduate school." But of course, these bright bulbs don't consider a Juris Doctorate graduate school. Oops.
What seems to be accurate thus far is that Kerry has not discussed his grades. Nor does it seem like any serious journalists without a political leaning has even queried him about it. Furthermore, because of this failure to comment, many conservative hostiles are just assuming Kerry did poorly at Yale.
I must confess, I am curious about how Kerry performed. And yes, I might be willing to suppose that he did not necessarily get exemplary grades at Yale. At the same time, it really shouldn't be an issue.
People can still do poorly in college and even drop out of college and still choose to learn and self-educate and become quite thoughtful, and productive individuals, in addition to making great contributions to our society.
Still, it would be interesting to do a study of all the grade point averages of our public officials. What a trend that would be. I would be inclined to wager that on average most political officials had average grades. Unless they were communications studies majors. You would have to be brain-dead to not do well in those classes. But most folks involved in politics were always out at rallies, or networking in the political sphere. Their grades accordingly would reflect that their time was spent elsewhere, instead of studying.
One thing I do feel certain of, however, is that George Bush has not made a great contribution to society.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-28 11:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-28 11:48 am (UTC)Two comments...
Date: 2004-08-28 11:10 am (UTC)And then there's me. :)
One thing I do feel certain of, however, is that George Bush has not made a great contribution to society.
I don't know about that -- he's made a great contribution to society in the same sense in which Lily Tomlin once observed that, "I always wanted to be someone. I should have been more specific."
Re: Two comments...
Date: 2004-08-28 11:12 am (UTC)Re: Two comments...
Date: 2004-08-28 11:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-28 11:12 am (UTC)So yeah, proof positive that college doesn't always mean anything.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-28 11:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-29 06:45 am (UTC)I agree a lot with what you said in your post. I sit on both sides of the desk right now as a student and as a teacher, and I still can't get over just how fixated people are on grades. I had one student begging me to change his grade from a C to a C+. (No, I didn't do it)
But with public officials, if they are serving the public, does it matter that they didn't have the perfect 4.0 as an undergraduate? I would hope not. Not to mention, a poor GPA at Yale is still better than a poor GPA at Podunk University, Nowhere, U.S.A.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-30 11:58 pm (UTC)