1. Education Dollars in Illinois
Nice. The top 100 paid teachers in Illinois:



That list is an image, so I can't spreadsheet it up, but by visual inspection:

• 17 of the top 100 paid teachers teach Physical Education
  
• 4 teacher Driver's Ed

And please, humble reader, don't forget the most obvious of facts.

QOTD

"And all of that is for a 36-week work-year."
- Top 100 teacher salaries in IL, source

2. Education Dollars in Kansas City
Kansas City is shuttering tons of schools.


That link is to the neutered AP story. (Lordy, the AP sucks)
Here's a blog post with more of the gory details on egregious spending:

Apparently, through some judicial ruling on desegregation, KC received $2B back in 1985.
Since then, the public education spending spree has resulted in... "higher teachers' salaries, 15 new schools, and such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country." Source

And the payoff after 25 years... less than 1/3 of the kids perform at their grade level.

3. Education Dollars Everywhere
This KC pol is a great anti-example.

QOTD

"The urban core has suffered white flight post-the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. the Board of Education, blockbusting by the real estate industry, redlining by banks and other financial institutions, retail and grocery store abandonment."
- KC pol, source

Hey, little creepy KC pol... Your problem isn't white people of banks or money or anything, except... self-determination and choice.
KC spent (mis-spent) thousands of dollars per student every year.
If KC pols had given parents the choice of using those dollars to find the school of their choice, this wouldn't have happened.

It don't take no genius to connect the dots from the government monopoly in education to a new Obama-led government monopoly in health care. President Obama is trying to lead us into losing our choice in health care. The results of this change, like public education in KC, will be disastrous.
choice... yow, bill

Labels: healthcare, myphoto, qotd, schoolchoice

It's almost 60 flipping degrees out. Yow!

1. Cheli!
Cheli (aka Chris Chelios) is back in the NHL!


Well so, Bill... who cares?
I care.
Cheli is 48.
So, I reset the clock on a player my age being in a major professional sport.
It's sort of like remembering the last time you were carded (last year at Buffalo Wild Wings... Ty is my witness) or the last time you touched the rim of a basketball hoop (gulp... I haven't tried that in a while).

Too bad he's not a Blackhawk though.
Anyway, did you read that one... Cheli "has played in more games than any other American-born NHL player."
Huzzah!

2. Choice!
QOTD

"I've never met an apathetic mom of any race or ethnicity.
They all want good schools for their kids."
- Why school choice works, source

One of my all-time fave WSJ articles about charter schools in NYNY...


Choice!
peace out... yow, bill

Labels: qotd, schoolchoice, sports

Great story about a successful charter school in Harlem:


The place is called Harlem Village Academies: www.harlemvillageacademies.org

QOTD

"Because it’s not allowed."
- Harlem Village student on why there is no fighting at the school

choice... yow, bill

Labels: qotd, schoolchoice

This won't go anywhere, but here's a black guy in Chicago pushing for school choice:


QOTD

"Only eight out of 100 Chicago public school students will graduate from a four-year college."
- jeez, man

Hard to get your head around that one.
choice... yow, bill

Labels: qotd, schoolchoice

1. Betty White
Best Super Bowl commercial... Betty White.


Dammit, that's funny.
All the Super Bowl ads are at that link, BTW.
How do young people even know who Betty White is?

2. Argentina
Ah, the world would be so much better off if hot chicks were running things.
Um. Don't tell that to Argentina, where the girls are just as corrupt as the boys.



I will say this... it looks like they're having fun.
I don't know how much fun hyper-inflation is going to be for your average joe (jose?) in Argentina, but whatever.

3. Milwaukee School Choice
Speaking of corruption... Dear President Obama. Dear Arnie Duncan. School choice is working in Milwaukee and DC and NYNY and...


QOTD

"In 2008 the graduation rate for voucher students was 77% versus 65% for the nonvoucher students, though the latter receives $14,000 per pupil in taxpayer support, or more than double the $6,400 per pupil that voucher students receive in public funding."
- School choice stats in Milwaukee, source

So great that money can't buy results.
So great to see freedom working.

It's a smooth ride... arguing for choice and personal freedom.
How's that anti-freedom argument working... Obama and Arnie and the teacher's unions and other lefties.

All you have to do is allow for a little risk... the risk that people will take care of their own stuff (like kids) better than anyone else.
No risk with the gov plan... you know it will suck.
an easy choice... yow, bill

PS - "bikini school choice"

Labels: fun, politics, qotd, schoolchoice, sports

QOTD

"I often get in trouble for saying this, but I actually think it's true—that collaboration and consensus-building and all those things are, quite frankly, overrated. None of you CEOs run your companies by committee. So why should we run a school district by committee?"
- Michelle Rhee, DC schools, An Educated Work Force

That is a great quote.
I heart Michelle Rhee... school choice, taking on the teacher's union, competition.

Movie: "Pan's Labyrinth"
Review: 4 bill-stars (out of 5)... outstanding!

Different and good... that's the money.
Different = lots of weird fantasy stuff with fairies and monsters and such.
Good = compelling, exciting drama with outstanding performances and direction.
This is a 4+ star movie that I struggled to keep out of the 5-star category.
It's in Spanish with subtitles. Si.

Maribel Verdú (right) is one of the the stars of the movie... and she is incredibly beautiful.
muy caliente... yow, bill

PS - Too cool monster from Pan's:

Labels: 4stars, movies, qotd, schoolchoice

QOTD

"High-school graduation rates are lower today than they were in 1970."
- WSJ article, source

Another stat worthy of your consideration: public schools spend an average $10,000/pupil.

President Obama's solution:

• Hire Arnie Duncan, failed poo-bah of Chicago public schools, to head the Education Dept
• Give him $100B to piss away in the stimulus bill

Hope and change?
Are you kidding me?
And I'll be Mr. Bipartisan here... W's solution was to go watch movies with Ted Kennedy, spend a bunch of money for 8 years, and not get a dang thing out of it either.

Williamt solution (stolen):

• Give any parent that wants it a $5K voucher to educate their crappy kids wherever they please.
• Let the public school keep the other $5K.

Hey, the schools in Naperville ain't bad. Or Plainfield. Or tons of lily white suburbs.
IMHO, inner-city poverty and violence is rooted the inability of these kids, mostly non-white, to get a quality education.
Are these the last tendrils of systemic racism in the US? You tell me.
peace... yow, bill

PS - Hillary Swank (below) running away from Obama's anti-choice education platform... in her bikini, of course. He he.

Labels: politics, qotd, schoolchoice

QOTD

"I don't know. Cubs fans haven't won in 100 years."
- Lou, on the Pittsburgh Pirates losing 17 years in a row, source

The Pittsburgh Pirates have had a losing record for 17 straight years. No team in the history of US professional sports has lost 17 years in a row. That kind of surprised me... don't know why.

So, Lou brings up an interesting tradeoff. Would you rather lose for 17 years straight (the Pirate) or not win a World Series for 100 years (the Cub). In fact, the Pirate have won the World Series 5 times since the Cub tallied their title in 1908. Pittsburgh won in 1909, 1925, 1960, 1971, and 1979 (source).

I think I'll take the Cub over Pittsburgh. It's been frustrating... a century of foreplay. But it's been pretty fun and entertaining too.

Great idea
I grabbed The Bolingbrook Bugle at Portillo's... lunch reading material. There was an op-ed piece by some guy named Morgan Dubiel. I don't know who he is, but he had an idea that I'll bend and steal.

It's pretty simple... a school choice idea:

1) You can send your kids to public school, or
2) You can get a voucher for 1/2 of what the school receives for each kid

You follow that? Let's say crappy public school XYZ gets $10K/kid. If you want your kids to attend private/parochial/religious school ABC, then you can get a voucher for $5K and public school XYZ keeps the other $5K to spend on whatever even though your kid ain't going there.

So, pubic schools get a 100% funding advantage. Parents can stay in public school "for free" (cough), or get half their money out to make their own choice. Win-win right?

I know, I know... never happen.
I reckon a good percentage of public schools across the country would be shuttered in a generation or so. I'll also bet that we'd dent the fuck out of inner city poverty and violence in a generation or two as well.

As Spongebob would say, let's use our "imagination" and visualize a candidate that endorses choice in school and health care and lower taxes and... I'm probably a nut burger, but it seems like such a gaping hole in our political scene. I don't know.
imagination... yow, bill

Labels: politics, qotd, schoolchoice, sports

Good one. WSJ editorial today: School Reforms on the Brink

QOTD

"The great moral outrage of our time is the way the public schools establishment puts its interests ahead of children, trying to kill every school choice program whatever its success."
- WSJ editorial

school choice... yow, bill

PS - Rose knows... well, before the nose job and God knows whatever else she's had done. Can you imagine deciding to hack that face up. Talk about your moral outrage. Jeez.

Labels: qotd, schoolchoice