Five takeaways from Schorsch's 16 takeaways from a "book" no human being will ever read -- but that will likely shower somebody in cultural welfare grift cash. Plus a bonus Pedicini dunk.
I don't follow Pete Schorsch closely on Florida Politics; AG Gancarski covers my neck of the woods. However, lately PS seems to be drunk on the MAGA wine. I will search the site to see if I missed the screed published by Corcoran -- who is no friend of public education. Billy T. has been a fount of info on the Corcoran rip-off of Jefferson County schools. Surprisingly, no grand jury or state attorney seems to have noticed. Shocking!
Sarasota County School District is voting on December 10 for a motion to add New College as an affiliate partner. This is after they unanimously voted to allow Liberty University to become an affiliate. The Superintendent went to bat for that one, with hair-tossing Ziegler letting him do the bidding for her.
I did dip my toe in a few chapters of the book, and it does seem at least partially machine-written.
I tried to leave this as a (kinda long) comment under the Florida Politics post, but I guess the site rejected it. I'll see if I can stick it here as a thumbtack of fact-checkin':
Might be worth adding a little context to a couple points where Corcoran's book strays a bit from facts on the ground.
> He pointed to student surveys showing some within the student body felt isolated and unable to express opinions that differed from what Corcoran describes as “groupthink.” And he writes that “simple data” prompted DeSantis to appoint a new Board majority at New College, including numbers showing “plummeting retention rates, enrollment numbers, and test scores.” <
That chapter talks a lot about the Art & Science Group survey from 2019, but neglects to mention that 1. to quote the survey itself, "Most of the findings and conclusions around prospective students were drawn from observations of interviews with 278 Inquiring students (INQ) and 123 interviews with Admitted Applicants (AA)" - in other words, *prospective* students, not *actual* students - and 2. it was superseded by the 2022 ”Intellectual Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity” survey, which you can read here: https://www.flbog.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/SUS_IF-SURVEY_REPORT_DRAFT__2022-08-16.pdf
Corcoran doesn't mention that survey because it found the opposite: New College students overwhelmingly agreed with the statement "Students at my college or university are encouraged to consider a wide variety of viewpoints and perspectives." Only 10 disagreed. (That's 10 respondents, not 10 percent.) Only 12 disagreed with "My college or university is doing a good job when it comes to promoting or encouraging diverse political viewpoints." More than half answered "Don't Know" to "My professors or course instructors are generally more (Conservative/Liberal)."
> a total of 347 students had enrolled for the Fall semester in 2023, the largest incoming class of freshman in New College’s history. <
The school's largest enrollment remains 2016's class; the number of students transferring out, including incoming student-athletes, has meant that the student body has netted I think 8 more students than in 2022. Meanwhile, incoming GPAs and test scores have plummeted.
> He specifically mentions, at several points, the irony behind New College reform critics comparing the “takeover” to Nazism while simultaneously ignoring the Jewish people directly impacted by the Holocaust. <
This is ironic indeed, given that Corcoran withheld the diploma of a graduating senior accused of chanting "Free Palestine" during a commencement speech, when in fact the student (proudly Jewish and a self-declared conservative economics major) was wearing "Free the Hostages" bracelets at the time.
I don't follow Pete Schorsch closely on Florida Politics; AG Gancarski covers my neck of the woods. However, lately PS seems to be drunk on the MAGA wine. I will search the site to see if I missed the screed published by Corcoran -- who is no friend of public education. Billy T. has been a fount of info on the Corcoran rip-off of Jefferson County schools. Surprisingly, no grand jury or state attorney seems to have noticed. Shocking!
Here 'tis: https://floridapolitics.com/archives/710561-16-takeaways-from-richard-corcorans-new-book-storming-the-ivory-tower/
And, thanks to Bill T. for bringing this up.
Sarasota County School District is voting on December 10 for a motion to add New College as an affiliate partner. This is after they unanimously voted to allow Liberty University to become an affiliate. The Superintendent went to bat for that one, with hair-tossing Ziegler letting him do the bidding for her.
I did dip my toe in a few chapters of the book, and it does seem at least partially machine-written.
I tried to leave this as a (kinda long) comment under the Florida Politics post, but I guess the site rejected it. I'll see if I can stick it here as a thumbtack of fact-checkin':
Might be worth adding a little context to a couple points where Corcoran's book strays a bit from facts on the ground.
> He pointed to student surveys showing some within the student body felt isolated and unable to express opinions that differed from what Corcoran describes as “groupthink.” And he writes that “simple data” prompted DeSantis to appoint a new Board majority at New College, including numbers showing “plummeting retention rates, enrollment numbers, and test scores.” <
That chapter talks a lot about the Art & Science Group survey from 2019, but neglects to mention that 1. to quote the survey itself, "Most of the findings and conclusions around prospective students were drawn from observations of interviews with 278 Inquiring students (INQ) and 123 interviews with Admitted Applicants (AA)" - in other words, *prospective* students, not *actual* students - and 2. it was superseded by the 2022 ”Intellectual Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity” survey, which you can read here: https://www.flbog.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/SUS_IF-SURVEY_REPORT_DRAFT__2022-08-16.pdf
Corcoran doesn't mention that survey because it found the opposite: New College students overwhelmingly agreed with the statement "Students at my college or university are encouraged to consider a wide variety of viewpoints and perspectives." Only 10 disagreed. (That's 10 respondents, not 10 percent.) Only 12 disagreed with "My college or university is doing a good job when it comes to promoting or encouraging diverse political viewpoints." More than half answered "Don't Know" to "My professors or course instructors are generally more (Conservative/Liberal)."
> a total of 347 students had enrolled for the Fall semester in 2023, the largest incoming class of freshman in New College’s history. <
The school's largest enrollment remains 2016's class; the number of students transferring out, including incoming student-athletes, has meant that the student body has netted I think 8 more students than in 2022. Meanwhile, incoming GPAs and test scores have plummeted.
See: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/new.college.of.florida.institutional.research/viz/IPEDSEnrollmentPart1-NewCollegeofFlorida/EnrollmentbyAge
> He specifically mentions, at several points, the irony behind New College reform critics comparing the “takeover” to Nazism while simultaneously ignoring the Jewish people directly impacted by the Holocaust. <
This is ironic indeed, given that Corcoran withheld the diploma of a graduating senior accused of chanting "Free Palestine" during a commencement speech, when in fact the student (proudly Jewish and a self-declared conservative economics major) was wearing "Free the Hostages" bracelets at the time.
See: https://wslr.org/what-happened-to-the-new-college-6/
There's a lot more, if one starts looking closely at the claims being made. But close looks aren't really what the book is for.