TPS Performance

This post comes from a previous post this past Tuesday.
There was a phrase in that post, "freedom of learning."
I ask, freedom of learning in Toledo Public Schools today?
Maybe, "freedom of learning" is one of the problems for
the low proficiency rates for children in our public schools.
If this country and local school districts are going to continue
educating children in brick and mortar central buildings, it
may be time to forget about "freedom of learning" and instill
a core curriculum of reading, english, spelling, writing, math,
science, and civics. Bring on the memorizing, re-instill strict
discipline, get rid of school counselors. I don't seem to recall
counselors in all of my primary and secondary education. None.
And, some how most of us survived, flourished, went on to
college, graduate degrees, and successful careers. There was
less time in Toledo public schools in the pre-1970s than today and
test scores were higher. Prior to the implementation of school
lunches in the late 1960s, TPS sent all the students home for lunch.
The schools were empty for an hour and a half. Yet, there was
time to fully educate the children. TPS was shut down for 90
minutes, imagine that today. From the information that I have
been able to retrieve there is hardly a school in TPS reaching the
requirements of "No Child Left Behind". Here is a sampling of
data for 2007: Listing school, reading proficency, math prof:
Cherry Elem 28.9% 30.0%
Chase Elem 41.1 39.4
Byrnedale 76.4 56.6
Deveaux 67.5 47.4
Elmhurst 80.3 86.8
Eastside 59.9 50.7
Fulton 52.1 64.7
Grve Patrsn 85.4 80.3
Jones 33.2 26.0
Lagrange 33.3 20.0
Larchmont 73.2 48.3
Libbey 73.0 48.3
McKinley 50.5 42.9
Pickett 36.3 26.8
Rogers 76.3 60.2
Scott 75.4 49.1
Start 88.6 77.6
Waite 81.3 64.9
Woodward 72.3 51.6

Most TPS are not meeting the proficiency goals. Neither
is the nation at large. Yet, TPS spending per child is
probably $10,000+ For what? Failure? So, if we didn't
have national performance goals and testing, all this could
be hidden? Why are like teachers at say Pickett and Start
receiving roughly the same pay? Or Jones and Grove Patterson?
The Union tells me so? How can schools like Pickett, Lagrange,
Chase, even be called a place of learning? Apparently, even
teaching to the tests in TPS has not made successful learning.
How many children is TPS leaving behind?

100% of House GOP Votes AGAINST Tax Relief

Apparently the GOP doesn't care much for middle-class Americans [as if we didn't know.] They also lie [as if we didn't know]. They tout 'tax relief' which is, in fact a GOP initiated word. But only if it is relief for the upper classes.

On Friday the House passed a bill that would relieve an estimated 23 million taxpayers from being subject to the alternative minimum tax for a year. All Republicans voted against it.

Why would the 'party of tax relief' vote against tax relief? Because it was tax relief for the wrong Americans. There were many who object to provisions that would raise tax rates on private equity managers, venture capitalists and some real estate investors to income tax rates as high as 35% instead of capital gains tax rates of 15%.

Now it becomes crystal clear which party stands for the average American citizen. Clearly.

The Hinges of History: America's Obsession With Killing

Historian and author Thomas Cahill was featured on Bill Moyer's Journal last evening. He was speaking of his latest book, the Hinges of History, and made this remarkable statement:

"All societies have a dream and a nightmare. And our nightmare has been, I think, our racism. We practically committed genocide on the people who were here, the Native Americans. We enslaved another race of people, the Africans. And then we dropped the atom bomb on Asians. We would have never dropped that bomb in Europe in my view. And I think that's what proves the racism of it. That's the nightmare of America."

Although his book is titled, How the Irish Saved Civilization, this remark about America stuck in my brain as did another about how Texas loves to execute people:

"I think throughout the country but especially in the state of Texas, there is a kind of collusion among lawyers whether they're prosecutors or defenders, and judges, and an awful lot of horrible things happen in order to get as many people as possible executed."

Enter the former governor of that state. The governor who has killed at least a half-million Arabs. A governor whose compassion has been overshadowed by his penchant for killing. A majority of Americans cheered the man, hooting and hollering: in shock and awe.

Civilization. The Roman Colosseum is the number one tourist attraction in the world. A place of killing. Why? asked Cahill. Apparently we have something inside of us as humans that has some sort of attraction to killing.

Attraction to killing.

America.

Profits From Iraqi Oil a No-Show

I can't recall which lying neocon conned the American people into believing that Iraqi oil would somehow pay us for 'the war.' Was it Wolfowitz, Cheney or Rummy? Doesn't matter who told the lie.

CNN reports today that Iraqi oil production today is lower than March 20, 2003, the date of Shock n' Awe. The article, Still waiting to cash in on Iraqi oil, says, "Iraq is currently lucky to pump 2 million barrels a day. Decades of war and neglect have nearly halved production from a high of 3.5 million barrels in the late 1970s. Output is now below where it was when the United States first invaded in 2003, and some experts say that Iraq could see production fall by 200,000 barrels a day per year under present conditions."

I suppose that is why Bush wants another $50 billion for his war. What addle brains actually believed this guy back in 2003? If you did, would you please offer a confession?

Georgia To Pray for Rain

ATLANTA (AP) -- What to do when the rain won't come? If you're Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, you pray. The governor will host a prayer service next week to ask for relief from the drought gripping the Southeast.
"The only solution is rain, and the only place we get that is from a higher power,'' Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley said on Wednesday.

Perdue's office has sent out invitations to leaders from several faiths for the service, set for Tuesday. Perdue has several times mentioned the need for prayer -- along with water conservation -- as the state's drought crisis has worsened. Over the summer, he participated in day of prayer for agriculture at a gathering of the Georgia Farm Bureau in Macon, Ga.
Perdue, a Baptist, has enjoyed strong support from Georgia's Christian conservatives.

-----------------------

I think that Georgia is being smitten by God for its general and wide-spread sinfulness. Rain will not come until each and every citizen of Georgia falls down on its knees and asks God for forgiveness.

Six Dems Hand Waterboarding AG Victory

Six Democrats voted in favor of Mukasey's nomination for Attorney General, giving Mr. Bush legal authority to continue waterbording torture.

The 6 were: Bayh of Indiana, Carper of Deleware, Feinstein of California, Landrieu of Louisiana, Nelson of Nebraska, and Schumer of New York.

What was their 'reasoning,' if any?

Guesses??

John Roberts Plays Softball on CNN

The man who hums, Bomb, bomb,bomb bomb Iran all waking hours was in a softball game this morning on CNN. Former [short-term] UN Ambassador and neocon John Bolton has a new book out with a befitting name for the jackass, Surrender is Not and Option. CNN's John Roberts lobbed one softball question after another to Bolton who knocked them all over the fence. What a pitiful display of pandering.

During the 'interview,' Bolton was shown a clip of Senator Chuck Hagel arguing against any attack on Iran; when it concluded Bolton dismissed it with one of the most juvenile debate tactics- a comment about Hitler.

Bolton brings with him a red flag background. Wikipedia lists these organizations to which he belongs:

American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), Project for the New American Century (PNAC), Institute of East-West Dynamics, National Rifle Association, US Commission on International Religious Freedom, and the Council for National Policy (CNP).

Wow! pass the disinfectant.

Bolton is just one more neocon telling the naive governor how to run his foreign policy. We should have been alerted to this character a year before Shock 'n Awe when, in 2002, Bolton accused Cuba of transfers of biological weapons technology to rogue states and called on it "to fully comply with all of its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention."

Weapons of mass destruction: a preview of coming attractions.

Wikipedia also says this about Bolton:

Bolton is alleged by the Knight Ridder news agency to have been scheduled to tell the House of Representatives International Relations subcommittee that Syria's development of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons had progressed to such a point that they posed a threat to stability in the region. Knight Ridder reported that Bolton’s appearance was cancelled after CIA and other intelligence agencies said that assessment was exaggerated.

Bolton is also a prime suspect as the author of those infamous SOU words that Bush rattled off in 2003, the uranium from Africa lie.

I suppose Bolton chose CNN and John Roberts because he knew that the softball game would be so easy. Yet the disservice to the public displayed in that farce reminds us all of that same kowtowing that the media did for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice and the pre-emptive war.

I guess we're back to 2003 with just a slight, one-letter change of subject.

Sorry Condi, You Don't Get a Second Chance With War!

From Newsweek: Condi Rice, on being asked what went wrong in Iraq gave this soppy reply, ""I'll give you one with Iraq. If I had to do it all over again, we would have had the balance between center, local and provincial better. But that's the kind of thing you learn over time."

No you don't Ms Rice. You get it right the first time. There are no second guesses. If you and your cohorts didn't know how to 'do' a war, you shouldn't have started one.

Dumbass!

Step 1: Clean Water; Step 2 Health Care

...am I going way too far? Have I lost my senses? Is hope blinding reality?

The Bush Legacy: 25% of Homeless are Veterans

CNN reports: More than 25 percent of the homeless population in the United States are military veterans, although they represent only 11 percent of the civilian adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday. On any given night last year, nearly 196,000 veterans slept on the street, in a shelter or in transitional housing, the study by the Homelessness Research Institute found.

In other news this morning the GOP is playing politics with American vets, surprise, surprise. It seems that through some usual GOP maneuvering, they were able to extract the $65 billion, intended for veterans, out of the omnibus spending bill that will be sent to Bush. They feared he would veto it: too much money, apparently.

Odd isn't it that these Republicans support every dollar Bush asks for his war, but they don't want to spend it on the vets afterwards. Did I say, 'odd?' Forgive me, not 'odd' but rather typical. They and Bush like the macho, fighting men and women, the ones with actual blood on their faces; when these men and women are 'used-up' they drop off of the radar.

Typical of the new GOP, though. Take the abortion issue, around which they solidly gather, and another example of this faux-protectionism that they preach. They vigorously guard the developing fetus for those 9 months in utero, but after it is born, slap it on the ass and say, 'good luck, kid, you're on your own!'

Users and discard-ers. Politics trumps life.