Yep--another no weigh in Friday, as my girth expands....
What are you thinking about, folks? What's got you up in arms? Are you a little jealous you didn't get to have a tickle fight with Representative Massa before he left DC? Living a desolate life after no radio show this week? Savin' your pennies for that lovely CW t-shirt?
Share friends, share.
Friday, March 12, 2010
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17 comments:
The Kansas City schools are in trouble. It seems they can't maintain the planetariums and the mock UN buildings (with real translator booths) the Olympic size pools etc.
Surprised? Well a few years ago a judge decided the school discriminated therefore he would take them over. He ordered massive spending which as night follows day resulted in massive tax increases. What did the citizens of KC get for the palaces they built for their precious chilluns? Jack, that's what they got.
This hasn't really hit the news too hard just yet. At the the moment they are working tirelessly in task force and committee doing their level best to come up with a plan... to blame Whitey.
Just reading article in WSJ about the same topic. The jury is still out for me on charter schools. On the one hand, I think that parents who care about their children's education should have the option to send their kids to high performing schools without having to break the bank. On the flip side, the consequences for the kids, who by God's "grace" were born into families who can't or don't care and are left in these underperforming schools, are dire. I need someone to explain the details to me of how these kids educational needs are met during the competitive process that will "drive" the lower performing schools to improvement. Is there enough extra capacity in the already higher performing schools to absorb these unfortunates? Or is it just "tough shit kid, you picked the wrong womb to come out of." Money doesn't solve the issue, but neither does creating a system of educational citadel enclaves surrounding educational ghettos either.
As most of folks who follow this blog will attest, it is parental involvement that is the key. If the parent doesn't care, it is HIGHLY unlikely that the child is going to get a good education. No amount of school funding can fix that. With this in mind, I cannot shake the the thought that we have had and will have, growing cohorts of undereducated children who grow up to be adults who will not be involved and cycle will continue. How do we break that cycle?
One correction: I used families and recognize that it is part of the problem that there are too many single parent households exacerbating this problem.
Oh, congrats go out to all the Wahoos for their wonderful victory over Boston College. As you may know I was never in favor of allowing BC into the conference. Va. Tech was a good fit. They had a natural rival in UVA and geographically and academically, they again were a good fit. The same applies to the other expansion schools. They all brought something to the table. But what did BC bring, other than a bunch of God-Damned Yankee bastards with disgusting accents? Boston ain't even a college town. They have Red Sox and Celtics on the brain, nobody apart from those who actually attended the school give a damn. Therefore the TV money and all the cash streams associated doesn't exist for BC.
So, Swofford, WHY?
RT--help me out with something. I know you're much more of a humanitarian than I am--but exactly what is different about the education of our young people today than say, 50 years ago--in terms of OUTCOME. Were there not also "educational ghettos" then? Was there not also a "biological lottery" then? We built the most advanced, most powerful, and most technologically savvy country the world has ever known with a two-tiered educational system (broadly)--one that served the best and brightest well, and one that provided the rest with a baseline of reading, writing and ciphering.
So what's different now? Why all of a sudden are we uncomfortable with that approach?
I wish I didn't have to work today because this is a running gun battle I want to have. At least one response after work, I promise.
You guys ever take statistics? Do you know what a bell curve is? Of course you have and of course you do.
Well as you know there's gonna be two/three percent that you can't do anything with regardless of the system the school the resources whatever. That two-three percent is the cancer. That tiny percentage costs the hell out of us.
We shouldn't be greasing the rails for those idiots we should be putting up impediments. We should discriminate against them. We should kick their asses and put a shovel in their hands (or a chicken neck as the case may be). They have dragged our society down for too long. If they want to rise up and be somebody, make 'em work twice as hard and if they don't succeed at least we gave 'em something to cry about.
3/7
A kind word from the Conservative Wahoo has the same effect as the Sport's Illustrated cover jinx.
For the group -
This week, I had a chance to host astronauts Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell, and Gene Cernan at one of our deployed PATRIOT battery sites.
Also with them was none other than David Hartman, he of "Good Morning America" fame, and more recently, moderator of the panel CW sat in San Diego several weeks ago.
I chatted up Dave (by the way, he's a very tall man) and told him I was friends with Commander Bryan McGrath. I expected a half-memory response out of him about his engagement with Bryan, as Dave serves as moderator/host for many different groups (the astronaut visit being one), and CW was just another drumstick on the rubber chicken circuit.
I could not have been more wrong.
Dave was full of effusive praise of our own CW. He cited CW's ability to take the Navy UnderSec to task, CW's work on the Maritime Strategy, sharpness, wit, intellect, etc. CW had definitely made an impression. I told Dave to be on the watch for Bryan hitting the political scene in 7 years. Dave didn't believe he needed to wait that long.
Pretty cool.
Oh yeah, meeting the first man to step on the moon was OK, too.
Told ya CW! Stop being a pussy. Get off your ass and run for Senate.
Watch out Tea Party here comes the Coffee Party http://coffeepartyusa.com/
The University of New Jersey knocked out the University of Virginia 57-46 in ACC Tournament action today. The Virginia Polytechnic Institute is still very much alive in the tournament and is amused by their arch-rival's early exit.
Still at work, so you won't get the full response as soon as I'd like. Nevertheless, I would like to point out that "we" have not necessarily ever been comfortable with the two tier system.
To your point about how great we are, I agree we are great, but I would stay that a fire started with cheap kindling burns bright and hot for awhile, but it doesn't necessarily burn for long.
More to follow...
Hammer, Cow U's glee is short lived, as Cuba College ejected the farmboys from the tourney today.
Dan--thank you for the nice story of your time with Dave Hartman.
CW - Regarding the complimentary tshirts I wear a 2XL. Prefer a gray or white, no pocket. You know, just go ahead and give me one of each. Please put in a plastic bag before packaging. Sometimes the delivery folks leave packages on the porch and we've had rain every other day here. Oh, and when you get the jackets in, I'll take a dark green or advantage camo, same thing, 2XL. But to be fair, I'll pick up the shipping on that one.
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