Tuesday, January 29, 2008

In case you aren't turned on

Michael Ramirez

Let me introduce him to you.

Bush fails on education

Pell Grants for Kids would support State and local efforts to increase educational options for low-income K-12 students enrolled in the Nation's most troubled public schools. Under the Pell Grants for Kids program, the Education Department would make competitive awards to States, cities, local educational agencies, and nonprofit organizations to develop K-12 scholarship programs for eligible low-income students attending schools that have not made adequate yearly progress under No Child Left Behind for five years, or that have a graduation rate of less than 60 percent.

Students in chronically underperforming schools could use scholarships to pay tuition, fees, and other education-related expenses at higher-performing out-of-district public schools or nearby private or faith-based schools. These scholarships would supplement aid already available through the Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies program and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which would follow the child.

Pell Grants for Kids is modeled after the highly successful Federal Pell Grant program for college students. The Federal Pell Grant program provides low-income students with financial support to attend any of more than 5,000 public, private, and faith-based colleges. The same choice, flexibility, and support now available to students seeking a quality college education should be offered to low-income families with children in chronically low-performing schools.


Link to source

This is like putting new furniture in a house that is burning. It is a total waste.

If you want to fix the school system, take the total revenue available, divide by the number of kids, and give their parents a voucher for that amount. Subject voucher to be used at the school of their choice.

When administrators and teachers start getting fired because their school is terrible you will see a remarkable change in their attitudes.

Until then you won't see squat.

Hogging or Graveling??

I had a friend of a mutual friend today email me today that they had just stocked a stream near his home that he was going "fishing."

That developed into a discussion of how to harvest fish. He favored dynamite and I favored an old magneto from a telephone. And when I mentioned hogging he indicated he thought I was referring to graveling. Perhaps.

Hogging is not for the faint of heart. The essence of it is to take a toe sack, strip off and walk in waist deep, or more, water along the banks of sloughs and streams, reaching up and under where the water has undercut the bank looking for enclaves where catfish have made their homes. You grab what you can, pull it out and put it in the sack. The question is, what have you grabbed?

As a youth I was always cheered by the assurance of my elders and peers that a snake can't bite you underwater. I later found that to be untrue, or perhaps the snakes of my youth had been convinced that they couldn't. Truth be known, I never unwittingly or knowingly grabbed a snake, and was known to quickly yield possession of the water to any snake I saw at any distance. However,on dry ground I was a deadly and dedicated foe to the cotton mouths and copperheads we saw at every turn. My memory of these dastardly reptiles and actual pictures are somewhat different, but then one can't be too careful when it is known that one bite will result in death within two minutes.