Charter Schools, Connecticut and Florida

With the sad news that Florida courts have struck down their system of charter schools, championed by Jeb Bush - as being unconstitutional, we will take a look at the state of affairs in CT, where Gov. Rell seems to be reluctant to take on the issue - which means the unions. Hey, Gov. Rell - you have some political capital, so use it for something worthwhile.

From the WSJ: 

The politics of education reform typically features Republicans
pushing for more choice and Democrats defending the status quo. But not always. In Connecticut, Democrats in the legislature are eager to expand the state's successful charter school model while GOP Governor Jodi Rell refuses to lift a finger to help.

Forty states and Washington, D.C., now have charter schools, which were devised 15 years ago as education laboratories. Charters are public schools -- a fact that opponents like to play down -- but they are not overly burdened by union rules and hence are free to try different pedagogical approaches. A charter might extend the school day, for instance, or pay teachers based on results rather than seniority.

As it happens, Connecticut boasts some of the finest charter schools in the country. In June, the Hartford Courant reported that at "New Haven's Amistad Academy, where 98 percent of students are African American or Hispanic, math and reading scores have risen to triple those of neighboring public schools and equal to scores in [wealthier and predominantly white] Greenwich."

Common Ground High School, a charter in New Haven that caters to
at-risk students, has lower drop-out rates and higher college
participation than regular New Haven high schools. And at Bridge
Academy in Bridgeport, where 96% of students are minority, every
graduate last year was accepted to college. The waiting list for a
charter school in Connecticut averages 200 students, a function of the fact that the state has only 14 charters in operation and caps
enrollment at 300 students per school.

Last year charter proponents urged Governor Rell to lift the
enrollment cap, increase per-pupil spending (charter students receive several thousand dollars less than what the state spends for
non-charter students), and make funding for facilities more equitable. Yet when Ms. Rell released her budget in February, there was no extra money for charters.

It was due only to the efforts of Democratic leaders in the
legislature that Connecticut's charters ultimately received a modest
increase in per-pupil spending and a pilot program for facilities
funding that would allow one charter school -- one! -- access to the same school construction bonding that other public schools receive. Last month, the state board of education -- headed by another reform-minded Democrat -- voted unanimously to expand the state's charter program by 10 schools and $18 million.

Nevertheless, when Ms. Rell presents her new budget next month, she's expected once again to ignore the education reformers. That's because she is running for re-election in November and is seeking the support of the teachers union -- the Connecticut Education Association -- which is dead set against charters and any other education reform that threatens its monopoly. With a job-approval rating that's remained well over 70% since she took office, Ms. Rell has the political capital to take on an entrenched interest that hurts poor kids. But she apparently lacks the political will.

According to the most recent National Assessment of Educational
Progress report, Connecticut has the country's largest achievement gap between rich and poor students in fourth-grade reading, eighth-grade reading and eighth-grade math. Given their successful track record, charters could help Connecticut close that embarrassing gap. Too bad its governor is missing in action.

The Smell of Cordite in the Morning

It is time for one of our occasional free plugs for a good place. Wild Goose Lodge on PEI has been a loyal donor to our local Ducks Unlimited Chapter for many years, and everyone that I have spoken with about their trip has had a great time with Canada Geese. I look forward to my chance to go, because there are few adrenaline rushes like those that come with a flock of these giant (and delicious) birds cupping their wings to come into your decoys.

Two Books

Just finished Freddy and Fredericka. As often with Helprin, it is an adult fairy tale but, as is rare with him, it is filled with slapstick humor and vaudeville-style routines. One of the best scenes: Freddy telling the psychiatrist in the mental hospital where he is sedated and in a straight jacket that he is the Prince of Wales, and that the Governor of California will shortly order him released. (He is, and the Gov. does.) May I say that it is the sort of tale that can keep you up reading far too late?

And just found this one: Ordinary Wolves. Looks like a tale about the Real Alaska by a real Alaskan. Very good Bookslut review here.

The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase; if you pursue happiness you'll never find it.

C. P. Snow

Blame Bush

Blame Bush! is one of our favorite satirical blogs, but, with increasing frequency, it is difficult to decide whether statements by the press and the Dems are satirical or genuine. Michelle pointed out this one today - an editorial today in the NYT on the mine accident, which could very well have been posted on Blame Bush. You see, Bush was too busy helping his pals in Big Coal get rich to care about the miners, when he knew darn well that this accident was coming.

The press is going to make the Blame Bush! blog obsolete, if it has not already done so. The next time an editorialist gets diarrhea, I will await its being blamed on Bush's relationship with Big Fiber.

A Mini-Cooper paint job

Steyn on the War, Population, Multiculturalism, Tolerance, and the Masochism of the West

 From It's the Demography, Stupid, in the WSJ:

"That's what the war's about: our lack of civilizational confidence. As a famous Arnold Toynbee quote puts it: "Civilizations die from suicide, not murder"--as can be seen throughout much of "the Western world" right now. The progressive agenda--lavish social welfare, abortion, secularism, multiculturalism--is collectively the real suicide bomb. Take multiculturalism. The great thing about multiculturalism is that it doesn't involve knowing anything about other cultures--the capital of Bhutan, the principal exports of Malawi, who cares? All it requires is feeling good about other cultures. It's fundamentally a fraud, and I would argue was subliminally accepted on that basis. Most adherents to the idea that all cultures are equal don't want to live in anything but an advanced Western society. Multiculturalism means your kid has to learn some wretched native dirge for the school holiday concert instead of getting to sing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" or that your holistic masseuse uses techniques developed from Native American spirituality, but not that you or anyone you care about should have to live in an African or Native American society. It's a quintessential piece of progressive humbug.

Then September 11 happened. And bizarrely the reaction of just about every prominent Western leader was to visit a mosque: President Bush did, the prince of Wales did, the prime minister of the United Kingdom did, the prime minister of Canada did . . . The premier of Ontario didn't, and so 20 Muslim community leaders had a big summit to denounce him for failing to visit a mosque. I don't know why he didn't. Maybe there was a big backlog, it was mosque drive time, prime ministers in gridlock up and down the freeway trying to get to the Sword of the Infidel-Slayer Mosque on Elm Street. But for whatever reason he couldn't fit it into his hectic schedule. Ontario's citizenship minister did show up at a mosque, but the imams took that as a great insult, like the Queen sending Fergie to open the Commonwealth Games. So the premier of Ontario had to hold a big meeting with the aggrieved imams to apologize for not going to a mosque and, as the Toronto Star's reported it, "to provide them with reassurance that the provincial government does not see them as the enemy."

Anyway, the get-me-to-the-mosque-on-time fever died down, but it set the tone for our general approach to these atrocities. The old definition of a nanosecond was the gap between the traffic light changing in New York and the first honk from a car behind. The new definition is the gap between a terrorist bombing and the press release from an Islamic lobby group warning of a backlash against Muslims. In most circumstances, it would be considered appallingly bad taste to deflect attention from an actual "hate crime" by scaremongering about a purely hypothetical one. Needless to say, there is no campaign of Islamophobic hate crimes. If anything, the West is awash in an epidemic of self-hate crimes. A commenter on Tim Blair's Web site in Australia summed it up in a note-perfect parody of a Guardian headline: "Muslim Community Leaders Warn of Backlash from Tomorrow Morning's Terrorist Attack." Those community leaders have the measure of us.

Radical Islam is what multiculturalism has been waiting for all along. In "The Survival of Culture," I quoted the eminent British barrister Helena Kennedy, Queen's Counsel. Shortly after September 11, Baroness Kennedy argued on a BBC show that it was too easy to disparage "Islamic fundamentalists." "We as Western liberals too often are fundamentalist ourselves," she complained. "We don't look at our own fundamentalisms."

Well, said the interviewer, what exactly would those Western liberal fundamentalisms be? "One of the things that we are too ready to insist upon is that we are the tolerant people and that the intolerance is something that belongs to other countries like Islam. And I'm not sure that's true."

Hmm. Lady Kennedy was arguing that our tolerance of our own tolerance is making us intolerant of other people's intolerance, which is intolerable. And, unlikely as it sounds, this has now become the highest, most rarefied form of multiculturalism."

Read entire. It's the kind of masterpiece essay that inspires deep humility in every blogger, and it's an excellent summary of Steyn's view of the world. Kinda makes ya wonder why FDR didn't visit a Japanese restaurant after Pearl Harbor.

The magnificent Snowy Owl
can be found almost
anywhere in the US during
the mid-winter when they tend to move south from their tundra home, and on some low-lemming years in considerable numbers. 1973/74 was remarkable for Snowies. I have a friend who had one using his roof as a perch in CT for a week.

These tundra birds are partial in general to tundra-like wind-swept areas in the winter: marshes, shores,  large fields, garbage landfills, etc., and hunt from a low perch or sit on the ground. They are daytime hunters and eat any small furry things but voles (meadow mice), rats, and the like are their main diet.

In the northeast, it isn't unusual to find them on eastern Long Island and Cape Cod.

Info on the Snowy here at CLO. Remarkable the way owls can turn their heads around, isn't it, as in this photo by Janice Laurencelle via Owl Pages.

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.

Mark Twain

If you are new to Maggie's Farm, click the Aliyah Diary category to find out what this is about.

12-22-05 Persimmons and Shaheebs

    Yesterday was my Friday on Kibbutz.  Pruning -- Khoftzim -- the very
limbs from which we were picking  -- Koftzim -- persimmons in the last
few weeks.  A lonelier day in several ways: the Bedouins have packed
up, back to their Kfar, the limbs are shorn of their colors, although
the leaves cling to some green, the sky is a Chicago gray, threatening
or promising rain, it is colder.  I, late, hail a cab, then call
Moshek who brings me to joining the two
Thai regulars.  Later, Moshek gives me some quick demography of
foreign workers and their experiences, at least on kibbutz. My best
remembrance of numbers is some 200,000 workers: the Thais in fields;
the Phillipinos in the homes for elderly; the Chinese, in
construction.  The Chinese are well-regarded as efficient, hard
workers, with only occasional complaints. The Phillipinos, mostly
women, leave behind family, even children for one, two years, are
dedicated, quiet, shy. The Thais, well, I have told you a bit about
Shai.  Moshek describes trying to hire workers form former USSR, the
last wave of immigrants ('90's) many of whom (perhaps 40%) came with
questionable claims to Jewish paternity or maternity and came for
economic reasons; would prefer to be in the US, Canada, Europe.  Many
have built a life here (I think Moshek is being polite or kind at this
moment), but misery for the men in particular. The women snap up jobs
-- with the elderly, kitchens and such.  Hebrew is learned in these
settings.  The men, Moshek thinks, coming from a hierarchical setting
in which their word (and fist) ruled, dismiss such "demeaning" work.
They wave off the Ulpan crap, dismiss job offers they consider below
them, and if they do take a job and find it unsatisfactory, bolt.
Yes, since the last wave of "Russian" immigrants, more prostitution,
crime, violence and plenty of alcoholism.  The irony here, I learn at
the end of the day, is that Moshek's grandparents came here from
Russia in the '30's, helped build this kibbutz, this country. But a
bit more later.

Robust, synergistic and scalable solutions to overutilized language: Just think outside the box and you'll be good to go.

Here's a site for trite, cliched, and over-used words from the tech world. Here's a list of annoying words from 2003 - still annoying. Here are 18 nasties. Lake Superior State University has begun work on their 2006 List.

This is from an email making the rounds:

The London Blitz

Scroll down this page and check the "Bomb Damage" section, which they offer in three levels of map resolution. The preservation of St. Paul's is as remarkable as the extent of the devastation of the bombing and the V1 and V2 rockets.