Indiana Education Superintendent Tony Bennett is counting on improving Hoosier schools by getting a good chunck of President Obama’s Race to the Top funding. And he thinks the state is in good shape to be competitive for the money, considering its renwed commitment to charter schools and some of the changes Bennett is promoting. But will Race to the Top be effective?
The federal government has poured billions into education for one fad after another, including President Bush’s No Child Left Behind. Obama says this plan will succeed because if will reward only thos states that raise academic standards, improve teacher quality and expand the use of charter schools. But the The Wall Street Journal is skeptical that this effort will be any different than all the others:
Sounds great, though this White House is, at the behest of the unions, also shuttering a popular school voucher program that its own evaluation shows is improving test scores for low-income minorities in Washington, D.C. The Administration can expect more such opposition to “Race to the Top.” School choice is anathema to the nation’s two largest teachers unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, which also oppose paying teachers for performance rather than for seniority and credentials.
NEA President Dennis Van Roekel told the Washington Post last week that charter schools and merit pay raise difficult issues for his members, yet Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said states that block these reforms could jeopardize their grant eligibility. We’ll see who blinks first. The acid test is whether Messrs. Duncan and Obama are willing to withhold money from politically important states as the calendar marches toward 2012.
Money is seductive, even to a state school superintendent who seems conservative, so the tendency is to go for the federal funding whether one thinks greater federal involvement in education is good or not. And no matter how common-sensical it sounds to reward high academic standards and improved teacher quality, the money will come with strings attached that we aren’t even aware of yet.
LONDON (Reuters) - Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study published Wednesday.
Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said consumers were paying higher prices for organic food because of its perceived health benefits, creating a global organic market worth an estimated $48 billion in 2007.
A systematic review of 162 scientific papers published in the scientific literature over the last 50 years, however, found there was no significant difference.
I wonder how much of that $48 billion is spent by people who really think the stuff is healthier and how much by people who just feel good about being trendy? Guess the recession will sort that out. No matter how cheap you want to be, by the way, I don’t recommend you go on a diet of inorganic food.
A northern Indiana city is allowing goose hunting on a golf course where a large flock has been causing damage.
Round Barn Golf Club in Rochester asked the City Council to approve hunting on the course, where golf pro Lyle Lingenfelter says up to 1,000 Canada geese spend the winter.
Bet the hunters will get a lot more holes in one than the golfers.
The city has settled out of court for $335,000 the suit filed by the family of Jose Baudilio Lemus-Rodriguez, the illegal immigrant killed by rookie officer James Arnold after a brief car chase. Though a consultant who looked at the case said what Arnold did was ”objectively reasonable” and the county prosecutor declined to take action, the city’s settlement was justified, according to City Attorney Carol Taylor, because legal fees were mounting up and “approaching the amount of the settlement.” And:
Filed Thursday in local U.S. District Court, the settlement is good for all parties involved, according to the attorneys.
[. . .]
As part of the settlement, neither the city nor the officer admitted wrongdoing, Taylor said.
That might sound all neat and tidy to people used to the polite language of the legal system, but it doesn’t work that way in the court of public opinion, where the party who agrees to pay the money is usually seen as the guilty party. And that assumption, right or wrong, is reinforced in this case because there are videotapes of the incident, which some people have seen and described as not bolstering the contention that the shooting was justified, and which the city still refuses to release. Despite his de facto exoneration by the legal system, Arnold will now face growing doubts about his actions. He has been, so to speak, thrown under the squad car. Did he deserve to be? We don’t know, and the city isn’t helping.
In a story we ran last week, it was reported that liability claims against the Fort Wayne Police Department have increased significantly in past few years:
. . . due to excess claims in the police professional (liability category), claims paid out increased from about $700,000 in 2007 to $1.3 million in 2008, “of which $800,000 was claims against police,” Stergiou said.
He recommended council consider adding $1 million in the self-insurance indemnity fund to cover a potential rise in claims and legal fees in light of lawsuits against the Police Department. It can take $300,000 to $400,000 in legal fees to settle a $100,000 claim.
Even granted that we live in litigious times, it seems reasonable to expect that if an instituion gets a reputation for settling quickly and easily, it will get sued more often than those that are known to tough it out. The argument that this is a good deal for taxpayers might be defensible in the short term, but the longterm results could be, well, unsettling, which is to say, very expensive. In too many ways for too many people, the fear of getting sued dictates the actions taken or not taken. Is that how we should want our city government to behave?
Car deals and the United States government? Nothing in that combination to instill a lack of trust, huh?
This much seems certain about the Cash for Clunkers program: Consumers are happy to take government rebates to buy new cars.
The fate of the $1 billion trade-in program was up in the air over concerns that it may have already burned through its funds less than a week after it was officially launched.
It was unclear whether car buyers would be able Friday to trade in clunkers.
[. . .]
As of Wednesday afternoon, nearly 30,000 Clunker transactions had already been submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the agency said, with requests totaling almost $96 million in disbursements.
Federal stimulus package: $787 billion.
Obama health care proposal: $1 trillion
Cost to American economy from cap-and-trade: incalcuable.
News that $1 billion clunker program may be suspended after $96 million because the government “may run out of money” for it: priceless.
I don’t think it’s such a hot idea for the institution that needs watchdogging to be called upon by the institution that’s supposed to be the watchdog to save the watchdog’s butt:
Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather called on President Barack Obama to form a White House commission to help save the press Tuesday night in an impassioned speech at the Aspen Institute.
“I personally encourage the president to establish a White House commission on public media,” the legendary newsman said.
Save us, save us, and we will continue to honestly report to the American people what you’re up to. Right.
As much as we (me included) carp about state officials, it has to be acknowledged how much better off our state is than most. California is getting the most negative press, but at least 39 states have imposed cuts that hurt vulnerable residents, and several sstates have imposed tax increases. And the crisis wasn’t exactly unforseeable:
For years, most states have spent like there’s no tomorrow, and now tomorrow is here. They bring to mind the lament of Mickey Mantle, who said, “If I knew I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.”
If they had known the revenue flood wasn’t a permanent fact of life, governors and legislators might have prepared for drought. Instead, like overstretched homeowners, they took on obligations they could meet only in the best-case scenario—which is not what has come to pass.
[. . .]
Overall, the average person’s state tax burden has risen by 42 percent since 1999—nearly 50 percent beyond what the state would have needed just to keep spending constant, with allowances for inflation.
We lived beyond our means here, too, but not so much that we couldn’t get our heads back above water, even if it is a tough swim.
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll gives us material for the “what goes around comes around” file:
In the new poll, the results have completely turned around, and Republicans hold a six-point advantage. On the related issue of controlling government spending, in July 2007, Democrats held a 16-point advantage. In the new poll, Republicans hold a nine-point lead.
Also in the Bush years, Democrats erased the Republican advantage on the issue of taxes. In November 2005, Democrats held a 10-point advantage over Republicans on the tax issue. That lead diminished over the next few years, but Democrats still held a five-point advantage in January 2008. In the new poll, Republicans have a seven-point advantage.
The party out of power enjoys the advantage of the party in power, in Barack Obama’s words, behaving stupidly. If Republicans in power spend and tax too much, and the public reacts negatively, and Democrats in power spend and tax even more with the public again reacting negatively, you’d think there’d be a lesson there. Well, there is. The party out of power promises a return to fiscal sanity, then gets in power and goes mad. We answer polls and write letters to the editor and call in to radio shows.
We’re so civilized now that crashing a wedding reception and shooting up the place, including putting a bullet in a 2-year-old’s head, isn’t considered attempted murder. It’s just “aggravated battery.”
David Wyser, the prosecutor’s chief trial deputy, said after the hearing that the office chose aggravated battery over attempted murder because Francisco Ponce apparently didn’t target anyone. Aggravated battery is a Class B felony carrying six to 20 years in prison on each count.
”There is no evidence that he intended to kill,” Wyser said. “These shots were fired at knee-high level.”
I’d think shooting into a crowd, even at “knee-high level” would be evidence of something, and it’s not much comfort that he “apparently didn’t target anyone.” He hit three someones, including the 2-year-old. If she dies, would that be considered “murder,” even thought her wounding isn’t considered “attempted murder”? Or would it just be called extreme aggravated battery?
Oh, and this is the very last sentence of the story:
The Ponce brothers are undocumented immigrants from Mexico, Wyser said, and he said Francisco Ponce apparently wasn’t deported after a 2006 handgun possession conviction in Hamilton County.
Thank goodness they’re only undocumented immigrants. I was starting to worry that they might be some sort of troublemaking illegal aliens. And since Francisco had had only one handgun violation against him, he obviously was unfamiliar the such a weapon and had no idea shooting it off might hurt someone.
It seems like every time I beat up on Dick Lugar, he goes and does or says something I agree with:
Trying to provide health coverage to all Americans will hurt the economy at a time when it’s already ailing, Sen. Richard Lugar said today.
[. . .]
But Lugar said in a statement today that he disagrees that failing to pass health reform will increase the deficit.
Instead, the Indiana Republican argued, Congress should put off trying to overhaul the system and try instead to find some “inexpensive, incremental improvements.”
Sigh. “Incremental improvements” are what made the federal government the moster it already is. And I have no doubt that if Obama were to take Lugar’s advice, and the president came back with the same “reform” package when the economy was healthier, Lugar would be right in the pack we’d be trying to beat down with a stick. Still, a mess we don’t enact this year is a mess we don’t have to live with yet.
Like President Obama, the rest of us weren’t present when the policeman and the professor had their now-infamous confrontation. But we really don’t have to know the exact facts in order to make one declaration: Even if we stipulate that everything the cop said is true — that Prof. Gates went on an unjustified, vile, race-inspired, hate-filled rant — the cop should have backed down. He had the badge and the gun and therefore all the power. His was the greater obligation to calm things down by just walking away. Once it was established that Gates was indeed the owner of the house, and it was clear no crime had been committed, it was time for the police to leave. Gates was essentially arrested just for giving the officer lip. I’ve covered the police beat a time or two in my journalistic career, and I know that happens a lot. I once overheard some officers talking in a squad room, and one bragged that he always treated his traffic stops nicely, unless, of course, they started mouthing off.
This guy says it a lot better, and the whole thing, which has ample Supreme Court case cites to back up his claim that this is, at heart, a First Amendment issue, is a recommended read:
The Cambridge Police Department and the District Attorney of Middlesex County wisely agreed with Gates and his lawyers to dismiss the charge of “disorderly conduct.” Perhaps the dismissal was occasioned by the discomfort prosecutors–and perhaps both sides–were feeling about proceeding to a criminal trial where both Gates’ and Crowley’s words would be on public display. But the D.A. had another reason for dismissing the charge: Had Professor Gates and his lawyers raised a First Amendment defense, the defendant almost certainly would have prevailed–if not at the trial court level, then in the appellate courts–and the scope of the “disorderly persons” statute would have been severely limited in all future citizen-police confrontations. The future use of handcuffs to penalize a citizen mouthing-off against official authority would have been, at long last, curtailed. Perhaps the common good would have been better served had the case proceeded to trial after all.
There is a serious problem in this country: Police are overly sensitive to insults from those they confront. And one can hardly blame the confronted citizen, especially if the citizen is doing nothing wrong when confronted by official power. This is, after all, a free country, and if “free” means anything meaningful, it means being left alone–especially in one’s own home–when one is not breaking the law.
Since the writer is a criminal defense and civil rights attorney, the one thing that is missing from his analysis is any sympathy for Sgt. Crowley. Police are under enormous stress — any confrontation on any day could be a fatal one — which makes some of their overreactions understandable. But his defense of our right to say dumb things is a rousing one, nonetheless.
A defense that also applies to President Obama, who, we can hope, will take from this teachable moment a determination to keep his mouth shut when something is none of his business.
An atheist group that recently won its fight to buy ad space for signs on Bloomington city buses was denied in Indianapolis.
The group, known as the Indiana Bus Campaign, filed a federal lawsuit that said Bloomington Transit’s policy of not allowing controversial material violated the First Amendment.
Before the case got to court, the transit company agreed to allow the ads, 6News’ Renee Jameson reported.
The same group is spreading its message on buses in South Bend, but IndyGo told them that it wouldn’t allow the ad.
Atheists in Bloomington and South Bend now have the comfort of knowing there are others like them. They have a support group, so they realize they belong to something bigger than themselves. They can ride the bus around and around and read the “You Can Be Good Without God” signs over and over until they feel at peace.
Atheists in Indianapolis remain alone, insignificant little specks in the universe, bereft of all sympathy and hope of understanding. Can they possibly be good without “You Can Be Good Without God” to inspire them?
There was quite a drama in South Bend. A man climbed a TV tower, and a three-hour standoff with police ensued. The South Bend Tribune published a rather dry — that is to say, dull — account of the incident, which it identifies as coming from a WSBT-TV report:
The man has been identified as a 42-year-old from South Bend. He climbed down after a standoff with police for more than three hours. He was taken to the hospital for evaluation after authorities found a gash on his head from climbing up or down the tower.
The rest of the story is just as sanitized. The man is not identified by name, although it is mentioned in passing that he also climbed the tower in 1989. He called a friend on his cellphone to say he was either going to jump or get in a standoff. Most of the last half of the story is dedicated to assurances from the management of the station that, by golly, they’re very safety conscious, and they do everything they possibly can to keep things like this from happening. Then, at the end of the story, there is this (the bold is theirs): Because of the sensitive nature of this story, The Tribune is not allowing comments to be posted. What? There was nothing at all sensitive in this account. There must be a lot more to the story.
And there is. In an account on WSBT-TV’s website, we learn that the man is 42-year-old Steven Lowell, that he has a history of mental problems, was in fact in a mental institution when he was younger, has battled drug problems, is sometimes suicidal. That friend he called — Shania Hunder — was quoted:
“He just said ‘I’m sorry. I’m so lonely. Everything’s going wrong. Nothing’s good,’” Hunter recalled.
This account actually captures a little of the human drama that can happen when one life goes off the rails. It’s compelling and, yes, has some elements like the mental illness that are “sensitive.” And 33 people so far have commented on the story.
And the comments do include some of the things the Tribune was probably worried about — snarks about the guy and dumb statements from people who don’t understand mental illness. But a lot of people also expressed sympathy for Lowell and showed a grasp of mental-health issues. There was even a back-and-forth about the public-safety issues. The reaction was uneven and messy and just as compelling as the story itself.
Maybe the TV station is out on a limb and will get sued by somebody. Maybe the Tribune was wise to avoid that possibility. But “not getting sued” wouldn’t seem to be an effective survival strategy for newspapers these days. They have to tell good stories, just like always.
I just did a blog post yesterday about the couple of hundred million the Obama administration is “saving” while spending trillions, and I did an editorial about the $8 billion set aside for high-speed-rail development. Today comes the news that more billions are being spent to save police jobs across the country. So when a story like this comes along, my first reaction is: Why is the state making such a big fuss over peanuts?
A judge ruled Tuesday that the state of Indiana owes thousands of current and former employees a total of $42.4 million for 20 years of back pay.
Judge John Hanley issued the ruling Tuesday in Marion Superior Court in Indianapolis. A spokesman for the attorney general said an appeal is likely.
The judgment was based on estimates that up to 15,000 state employees worked 40-hour weeks from 1973 to 1993 but received the same pay as others in similar jobs who worked only 37.5 hours.
But $42.4 million is a big deal to a state our size in the middle of a recession, and the thousands or even hundreds of dollars each employee gets is an even bigger deal. Governments waste billions. Real people watch dimes and quarters (I was about to say pennies, but, you know, inflation).
A spokesman for the state attorney general’s offce said an appeal is likely, but why drag out a losing cause? The judge noted in his ruling that the state spends approximately $38 million per day every day of the year. Just shut the state down for a couple of days, and there’ll even be money left over. We all win.
When Graham Richard was mayor, his preference for the policy-wonk part of the job over the public-appearance part was an issue. Even I got into the act. This is from an editorial I wrote in 2003: “There is something about leadership that MayorGraham Richard still doesn’t get. In voluntarily seeking the public arena, he was entering into a contract with the electorate that requires him to be visibly engaged in the community’s issues. But he clearly prefers to be a behind-the-scenes mayor, edging into the spotlight only when it suits his purpose.”
May I take that all back now, please? Or at least let me express the hope that there exists a happy medium somewhere between Richard’s virtual absence from the public scene and Mayor Tom Henry’s, well, ubiquitousness. Is there anything he won’t use as an excuse to make a few off-the-cuff remarks or mug it up for the cameras? Apparently not. The photo below is one of two on the Chamber of Commerce’s blog and sent out to the press by e-mail. The mayor is posing with Ronald and Co. — and even cutting the ribbon — for a McDonald’s opening.
This should be perfect material for all you Photoshoppers and caption writers out there, and if the photos don’t show up in Republican mayoral campaign materials, they don’t deserve the damn office.
UPDATE: Both gadfly and AWB point to an AWB post in which captions are, indeed, provided. I’m taking the link out of comments and putting it here because the code takes up a couple of lines and keeps ”recent comments” from displaying where they should.
A challenge that President Obama made to his Cabinet in April resulted in cost-cutting measures that more than doubled the original $100 million target, his administration said Monday.
At his first Cabinet meeting, Obama asked Cabinet members to find $100 million in savings in 90 days. The deadline passed last week with no announcement, and the White House responded to reporters that information was being compiled.
The Office of Management and Budget announced the results Monday, saying Cabinet members identified $243 million in savings through the end of next year.
And to think I’ve been hard on Obama for his profligacy. Imagine — $243 million saved! If they save that much every single year for the next 4,115 years, they can pay off the current deficit! Then another 4,115 more and Obamacare will be paid for. Then a few thousand more, and the cost of the stimulus package will be repaid. We’re on our way to economic sanity at last!
Eight Midwestern governors, including Indiana’s Mitch Daniels, have signed a memorandum that sets up the Midwest Rail Steering Group, which plans to lobby hard for a share of the $8 billion set aside by the federal government for high-speed rail projects. They plan to pursue a system that would connect 12 metropolitan areas with Chicago as the hub, but they’re a little sketchy on the cost. We’d likely get only a small portion of the $8 billion, and estimates are that what the governors are talking about could cost $10 billion, which means it would really cost about $25 billion:
Some have criticized the governors for being unclear about costs.
“They don’t want the price tag out there when everyone’s talking fiscal restraint,” said John Tillman, head of the conservative Illinois Policy Institute. After costs of construction, Tillman said, operating expenses could soar into the billions of dollars over several years.
But the backers, if a little vague on the costs, are very specific in their enthusiasm for the supposed benefits: reducing road congestion and lowering greenhouse gas emissions. But that would require not just having the right routes and trains that are truly high-speed. It would require persuading Americans — or forcing them, through such measures as punitive taxes — to do something they’ve never showed an inclination to do before: abandon their cars for other modes of transportation. Pie-in-the-sky goals, fuzzy on the costs, looking to the federal government. What could possibly go wrong?
While some of you have been wasting your time worrying about who was going to win “American Idol” or “Dancing With the Stars” or even (the more traditional among you) the NFL or the NCAA, you’ve been ignoring the great and wonderful Annual World Peashooting Championsip. This year marks the 39th annual contest. Pictured below is one of the contestants. I don’t know how well he did, but that is one awesome peashooter.
He should have to register that thing and get a concealed-carry permit. But don’t get carried away. Remember, if peashooters are outlawed . . .
QT says his latest film “Inglourious Basterds” might take its title from the 1970s B-movie “Dirty Dozen” ripoff ”Inglorious Bastards” but it is not a remake. It is, instead, Tarantino’s version of a Spaghetti Western set in Nazi-era Europe. Goody, can’t wait. A lot of the discussion about the film centers on the misspellings in the title, which most observers conclude is “just one of those Tarantino things” he does to stand out. I did catch this, though:
Rumor has it that Pitt’s character is an illiterate, lynch-rope-scarred hillbilly from Tennessee, hence the movie’s purposefully misspelled header, “Inglourious Basterds.”
I don’t have my Appalachian heritage insulted nearly enough now that everybody’s gotten so sensitive. Thank God I can still count on the movie business.
I know what some of you will be thinking when you read about these two artifacts from a bygone era — what a perfect match!
HAMMOND, Ind. - A box of horse manure and nearly intact copies of the local newspaper have been found in two copper time capsules contained in the cornerstone of the Masonic Temple.
The box of manure had a note saying future generations might not understand its significance as automobiles replaced horses. Har, har, some sense of humor they had way back then.
But even if we were in danger of forgetting the significance of that particular kind of manure, we’d be reminded by the presence of all of that substance from another familiar farm animal, massive amounts of which can be found in any newspaper any day of the week.
As the story notes, though, public demand does not govern nominations for the prize, which can be suggested by members of governments, professors and former winners of the prize. Maybe Jimmy Carter and Al Gore can get together and put his name up, which would be more useful for humanity than anything else they’ve been doing lately.
Obama professes to believe in free market economics. But no one expects his policies to reflect the unfettered capitalism of a Milton Friedman. That’s too much to ask. Demonstrating a passing acquaintance with free market ideas and how they might be used to fight the recession–that’s not too much to ask.
But the president talks as if free market solutions are nonexistent, and in his mind they may be. Three weeks after taking office, he said only government “has the resources to jolt our economy back into life.” He hasn’t retreated, in words or policies, from that view.
U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, typifies what’s wrong with the Republican Party these days as it struggles with being the minority party:
DeMint, speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” said Congress and the White House need to “slow down and get this right.”
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., chairman of the budget committee, agreed with the need to get it right, but not if slowing down is just a strategy to kill health-care reform efforts Democrats are hammering out in Congress.
“Jim, I think, has been very clear. He wants to kill it,” Conrad said as the two senators debated the issue.
DeMint countered that he has a better plan than the ones Democrats are putting together in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
Republicans have become so defensive about being called the “party of no” they’ve forgotten that the best answer to bad policies is usually no. And if the proposal is to jump off a cliff, the only answer is, “Hell, no!” If Republicans want to get back into the debate, they need to stop trying so hard to come up with slightly less deranged ideas as alternatives to Democrats’ really deragned ideas.
I’m waiting for the senator or representative willing to say, “Do I want to kill the health-care reform effort? Well, I want to shoot it with a silver bullet and drive a stake through its heart, then cut it into tiny pieces and bury them at the four corners of the Earth to keep them from ever reuniting. That’s how dead I want the health-care reform effort to be. And before you ask, that’s also how I feel about cap-and-trade, stimulus packages, an amnesty bill and all the other crap you’re trying to bury the Constitution under.”
Central Indiana libraries have recently reported surges in patronage. Indiana’s summer festivals, including the Three Rivers Festival, have had spikes in attendance. And now the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore says it had 27 percent more visitorslast month than during June 2008:
State park property manager Brandt Baughman told The Times of Munster that he attributed the increase to more people planning trips close to home.
Today, we test your powers of observation and deduction. You’ve probably heard about the town manager in Florida who was fired when it was discovered that the manager’s spouse was a porn star. The town is defending the move because it feared governance would be difficult “with all the disruption and interruption,” which is, oops, just what it has since news of the firing broke. Anyway, your quiz today: Which one is the porn star?
Good call! But it would have been nifty if it had been the other way around, eh? Oh, well, an old fogy can dream, can’t he?
