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By Anonymous Mike, pseudonymously.



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Monday, June 30, 2008
 
The Goldwater Legacy

If you don't think there is enough juvenile name calling and snarky commentary in the blogsphere, then perhaps you can send an e-mail to Jason Rose and tell him to start a blog.

Don't know Jason Rose?

Mr. Rose is the head of the Rose & Allyn PR firm here in the Valley and his name is associated with many local projects, personalities, and campaigns. He is also associated with the Decades Music Theme Park, that great idea to draw tourists to that summer-time paradise known as Eloy.

Well the other week, an analyst from the Goldwater Institute wrote a piece for the East Valley Tribune criticizing a bill in the Legislature that would grant Decades quasi-governmental status and allow the enterprise to issue tax-free bonds. The analyst, Byron Schlomach, while acknowledging that the responsibility for repayment would fall on Decades, was concerned that bond purchasers would be confused by the public-private nature of the venture and that Arizona would be left vulnerable to future law suits and perhaps a lowered bond rating.

Now I don't agree with that part of Mr. Schlomach analysis, I think those who purchase such bonds have a decent idea of the risk involved. However it is only 1/2 of the piece withe the remainder expressing concern about the Legislature conferring such benefits on a private business However Mr. Rose rises up to defend his client and takes a sledgehammer to Mr. Schlomach's work:

"Inevitably a few people slip into Harvard and Yale who shouldn’t be there, as it appears to be the case with Schlomach at the Goldwater Institute. As an admirer of the organization, I am willing to give the group a mulligan on his admission so long as it doesn’t allow his rhetorical rubbish to matriculate further...."

"Principled opposition to such legislation can be respected, notwithstanding the fact that no major theme park has been built in the United States without local or state assistance. But neither supporters nor opponents should be allowed to corrupt public opinion with falsehoods..."

"Schlomach has achieved the remarkable. He has single-handedly turned the Goldwater Institute into MoveOn.org, while at the same time doing an impression of Spicoli in Fast Times At Ridgemont High...."

"And for that achievement we should all encourage Decades Music Theme Park to recognize Schlomach at Decades. Indeed, I think we have found Fantasy Land’s mascot."

Why Mr. Rose's blog-worthy invective?

"Consider his (Schlomach's) two main criticisms. One involved the potential for state of Arizona liability if the theme park failed. The other regaled readers with concerns that taxpayers might have to bail out bondholders since they might have been somehow snookered into buying them into the first place....

Schlomach’s first concern could have been alleviated immediately if he had bothered to escape the rarefied air of his ivory tower and actually read the enabling legislation. It specifically prohibits liability to the state. Schlomach may share a Clintonian view of English that “is” may not mean actually mean “is,” but in this case no liability means just that."

I am not a lawyer, so please excuse some mangling of legal terms. I do believe "liable" is a term that has some legal standing within the judicial system and is simply not a creature of the Legislature. As Mr. Rose's has suggested, I came down from my ivory tower- or in this case put down my bourbon and got our of my pool- and read the enabling legislation. "Liable" and "liability" are mentioned 5 times in SB 1450: twice to state that members of the district board and executors of the bond are not personally liable for their repayment, twice to deal with insurance and personal liability issues resulting egress or ingress from property that the district may lease, and once as an accounting term dealing with an asset and liability statement.

I think what Mr. Rose is getting at is that the district itself is that the bonds "... Are obligations of the district. Are not general, special or other obligations of this state, or of the city or county in which the district is located." What Mr. Schlomach is getting at is not Arizona might be obligated to pay for the bonds, but rather Arizona may be liable for creating the district int he first place. Could it? I doubt it, but then again I don't have the training of a lawyer or the motivation of an angry bondholder.

To top it off, Mr. Rose proclaims himself "an admirer of the (Goldwater Institute)" and states that he imagines that Goldwater's statue in Paradise Valley is rolling its eyes about Mr. Schlomach's work. The fact is that Decades is against much of what Senator Goldwater stood for; by granting quasi-government status to a private enterprise, the Legislature not only allows that business to gain favored access to the bond market but also to avoid paying local and state taxes. I don't think Senator Goldwater was about government bestowing such favors; after all what is implicit in the legislation is that the theme park couldn't survive without the hand out.

So not only does Mr. Rose hijack and misconstrue the legacy of one the greatest of Arizonans in order to further the purpose of a client, but he deliberately misconstrues and smears both the institute that bears that great man's name and that of one of its employees. I am sure Mr. Rose put some time and effort into writing this piece, so I can only say that such cruel slanders and twisting of the truth were pre-meditated on his part.

While I am on the whole glad that the institution has now passed, at one time in our history such public slander would have led to pistols at 10 paces. With that option closed, perhaps there are other ways to rescue Mr. Schlomach's reputation


Wednesday, June 25, 2008
 
Hey Ho, Let's Go!

It looks like the FY20o9 budget is going to get done and the broad outlines are already public, background is here. I do have some questions....

1) As the AZ Republic states, the Senate version of the budget (the one that seems most likely to pass) will close the budget gap with a 50-50 mix of spending cuts and borrowing. Keep in mind that the State, unlike the Feds, cannot explicitly float debt to pay for budget deficits. What it can do is use borrowing for the same purpose by off-loading capital programs like school construction from cash to lease-finance and using some accounting trickery to delay payments until the next fiscal year.

The problem with borrowing is well... it isn't free. Yeah you can move off the budget several hundred million in school construction in exchange for smaller annual payment, but school construction is a recurring need. Keep paying for school construction with borrowing year-after-year instead of cash and it won't be too many years before your annual financing charge equals what you would have paid if you stuck with cash in the first place. Also that accounting trickery has to show up sometime on the expenditure side and so...

How much is all of this kicking the fiscal can down the road going to cost us both in terms of finance charges and deferred expenditures? Give me a dollar figure.

2) When is the fiscal mess going to end? Short answer when the economy rebounds, but when will that happen? The deficit from FY2008 (the current one) is $1.2 billion. The deficit for FY2009 (which starts next week) is projected at $2.2 billion. See a trend? Want to bet a shiny quarter that we'll have a deficit of some size for FY2010? So what are the options for closing that inevitable deficit in FY2010?

I ask because the strategies you use to close a deficit one year have a direct impact on the ones you use to close the deficit the year after that and so on. If you switch from cash to finance to pay for school construction, you can get several hundred million off the books that first year but the next year those savings will start to be eaten up by the financing charges. You can tap cash reserves in various agency accounts and the Rainy Day Fund but after doing that for 2 budgets that option is pretty much gone.

The Senate budget plan, with its borrowing and fiscal can kicking, assumes the economy and therefore revenue will turn around sooner rather than later. If that approach is the correct one, they look like geniuses. If it isn't, then we may have developed a structural deficit that cannot be
closed without significant tax hikes.

3) What are they smoking down at the Capitol?

You have a budget that has the largest deficit of any state in the country (measured percentage-wise) so why in the name of all that is holy and sacred would you commit Arizona to backing bonds on whose success depend on people being stupid?

The Legislature seems likely to pass a bill that will allow a private developer to draw on $750 million in bond financing to construct a theme park in Eloy. The bonds would be paid off from tax revenue generated by the theme park so on the face of it... it doesn't cost taxpayers a cent. However what if the theme park isn't successful? Who pays the bonds? Oh you think this is a cannot miss proposition? All it depends on is having people willing to spend their summer vacation dollars in a place (Eloy) that's an hour drive from anywhere and daytime temperatures are north of 105 degrees. Since we the taxpayers are backing this thing, has anyone seen a business plan?

The Senate budget contains a provision for the issuance of $1 billion of bonds to pay for the construction and renovation of university buildings. The bonds will be paid for in part by... an expansion of revenue from the Arizona Lottery, in other words people willing to throw more of their money away on gambling. The number being thrown around is an extra $1.2 billion over the next ten years with about $519 million that dedicated to paying the bonds.

Let's leave aside the ethics of paying for universities (education) by having people act in a stupid manner (gambling.) Can the numbers even work or is this pie-in-the-sky type of thinking on par with the Governor's idea of closing the budget gap with photo radar? Right now the Arizona Lottery generates, after prizes and expenses, about $139 million (FY2007) with $52.9 million going to the general fund; that's about $1.4 billion over a ten year period. To make the projected numbers, the Lottery will have to double the total take. This is despite the fact that FY2007 revenues showed a slight decline from FY2006.

So if even if the Lottery could meet those numbers, which history of both revenue and Lottery management provides no evidence of, why would the Legislature commit to skimming off that money for new projects when the state revenue picture is so dire?

So as far as I can see the likely budget compromise is short on knowledge of costs and long on hopes and prayers (that revenue will sharply turn around in the next year, that people will gamble more, and that people want to spend their summers in Eloy)

That my friends is called gambling.


Monday, June 23, 2008
 
Beer and Popcorn

When you hang around someone long enough, whether a spouse or a co-worker, you observe enough behavior and hear enough comments from them to develop a pretty good behavioral profile. They might never spout a word on politics or society, but I bet you can pretty much anticipate what they would say if they did.

So it is with what is still the Valley of the Sun's paper of record, the Arizona Republic. Newcomers to Arizona may think that the local paper should emulate the libertarian legacy of the state, but it doesn't take more than a few weeks of reading the broadsheet to get a totally different impression.

There there are days when it goes beyond impression to a total slap in the face... like yesterday's front page article "Tax policies draw attention during hard times." Keep in mind the "hard times" refers to hard budgetary times, not economic. The gist of the article? The low to moderate tax rates that Arizonans enjoy have led to the impoverishment of much needed programs. You selfish bastard.

That question.... lower taxes or more money for public spending is in the short term a political question and while you may think an article like this belongs in the opinion section and not the front page, it is a valid issue especially in an election year and with the state budget in deficit. However for the AZ Republic, there are two assumptions that pervade the article and bias the terms of debate.

First the focus on tax rates and tax revenue per capita, not on growth in spending or on the efficiency or validity of public programs. A budget deficit always has two sides, a revenue and a spending side. While there is a sharp drop in state tax revenue, that drop has been exacerbated by the large increase in spending during previous years. Proponents of TABOR, tying spending increases directly to inflation and population growth, point that if Arizona had such a policy and reined in spending we would still have a budget surplus.

The Republic's approach, looking at tax revenue instead of what the money is spent on, should look pretty familiar to anyone following school finance debates. Those school debates are driven by the measure of spending per student, low spending is equated with low student achievement. Never mind the evidence showing the lack of causality between increased spending and performance, the implicit assumption is that to be more effective an educational system needs to be higher cost; that leads to focusing the debate on raising costs rather than raising effectiveness. Same here with tax revenue with the Republic implicitly stating that Arizona needs to be a higher tax state in order to become a more effective and competitive one.

Second is what I call the "beer and popcorn" argument.

A few years ago, an aide to the previous Canadian prime minster argued against diverting money from child care programs to instead a subsidy given directly to the families that would use those services saying that those people would waste the money on "beer and popcorn." In other words the government knows how to spend your money better than you. We're not quite at that point here in Arizona, but there does seem to be a growing conceit as the article quotes an ASU economics professor:

"Our legislators have taken every opportunity to deliver tax breaks to individual households, but it doesn't mean it's providing for the infrastructure that the state needs," he said. "I'd argue that taking the same money and investing it in infrastructure like roads, schools and advanced water systems would be far more enhancing to economic growth."

I certainly don't have a Ph.D. in economics, but I get the impression from the learned professor that he thinks that those individual households take their rebated tax money and burn it in giant backyard bonfires as opposed to say, spending it which puts it back into the economy which raises more tax revenue.

I am sure the professor feels that it would be better for the money to be taken out of private hands, where it would be wasted on beer and popcorn, and instead spent on things like tax breaks for favored corporations and light rail. Of course that presupposes the fact that Arizona has already assumed the responsibility for school construction or for years had brought in large budget surpluses while still delivering those selfish tax breaks.

So as the state fiscal crisis reaches boiling point this week, you and every other Arizonan should feel just a twinge of guilt because you are too cheap. For myself, I'll be spending my state tax refund on... you guessed it... beer and popcorn.


Friday, June 20, 2008
 
Blogging Hiatus

I will be not be blogging this afternoon as my eyes will be glued to ESPN watching Croatia and Turkey play soccer to determine once and for all which is the greatest nation on earth.


Thursday, June 19, 2008
 
My Little Hobgoblin

I think Barack Obama is being treated a little unfairly regarding his decision to go back on his pledge regarding public campaign financing. Yes he has pledged to stay on public financing in the general election if his Republican opponent would agree to do the same.

However consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. If times and circumstances change, sticking to a now outdated solution for the sake of consistency is well.. stupid.

So what changed?

Well Obama made the pledge before he became the presumptive nominee, when he bursting on the scene as the harbinger of hope and change. He was the underdog, the fresh face taking on the Clinton Machine. We all know candidates make all sorts of promises in the primaries in order to appeal to the base or stick out from the crowd of candidates (I'm looking at you Chris Dodd) that just aren't going to cut it in the general election.

After all Nominee Obama has different needs than Candidate Obama. Based on current projections, Obama stands to raise more than 3x what McCain will receive from public financing, that's alot of scratch to give up on principle.

Plus I'm betting it was Austan Goolsbee who advised Obama on all of this.

So Obama makes the announcement through a video on a Web site and spends the day ducking questions. Within a week, the flip-flop will be old news and the media cycle will be chewing on something else. Obama will have his money and force McCain to fight up-hill on this.

Yes he'll pay a price for it and if he continues to flip-flop on issues this whole campaign finance episode will come back and bite him as part of "Obama greatest flip-flops." So why did he do it? So far few people in the media are asking why did he take the money ?

Here's my guess... this is a man who since New Hampshire has been one-man blooper reel. It's not just when he's off the teleprompter like in San Francisco with his "clinging" remark. It's the fact that he used people like Ayers, Rezko, and Wright to make his political bones in Chicago and now that he has hit the big time he can claim that's "....not the man I knew. " It's when in March he gave that speech on brace that had many in the media liken him to MLK, that speech when he said he could no more disown Reverend Wright than his own grandmother... when he then proceeded to do weeks later. It goes on and on.

So Obama has to know he is going to get swift boated in the campaign and I'm sorry Mr. Kinsley, but swift boating is not about the irrelevant but rather exposing the hypocrisies of a politician's campaign through the words of the people who actually know him. Except in this case you can just roll the tape of the candidate himself. To counter those allegations, to counter his numerous bloopers and gaffes, to counter his sketchy bio; he's going to have to run a massive media blitz so that he and not his past will define to the world who Obama really is.

That media onslaught will take money, alot of money... about 3x what John McCain on his campaign. Let's see how many people in the MSM squawk this Fall about "too much money in elections.


Wednesday, June 18, 2008
 
Allow Me to Sweat with Dignity

The lead story on the local news last night was the high(er) temperatures that we are experiencing here in Phoenix. I say high(er) because well it's June and Phoenix and while it is a bit warm, you expect temperature toward and some times above 110.

Well now we have a "heat advisory" and I guess given the number of new residents we get every year and the fact that 110 degrees will do a number on an older person's health that it's not a bad idea to issue a cautionary note to both educate and inform. However do we need the media coverage like this is something new and unique?

Here's the deal, Phoenix has hot summers. If Phoenix had summers that were as nice as its winters, the real estate prices around here would be like you would find in San Diego. 100+ degree days for 4 months of the year are the price you pay for getting to live here.

Yes 100 degree days are not fun, dry heat or not. 110 degrees is like opening an oven door, however, you expect that when you live here. The good news about 110 degree days are that:

1) It makes the days that are only 103 seem pretty nice by comparison

2) It could be alot worse. 116 or 117 and now you are talking, I just missed the 122 degree day in 1990 when they had to close down the airport because it was too hot to fly planes. Also when the monsoon season comes and the overnight temperature never get below 90 degrees, yeah that's a real gas. Nothing like 92 degrees at 5:00 AM.

Here's the thing though, heat should be a matter of pride. I doubt you see the media saturation about a January day in Fairbanks, Alaska when the temperature get a few degrees below normal. A proper attitude is a stiff upper lip because it's hot for everybody and nobody wants to hear you complain

I think the stories in the paper and TV give the less stoic among us license to publicaly complain. The other day I was at the store buying some tools and a man behind me in the cashier line was on his phone to I guess his wife. I had a pipe wrench and the guy in front of me had a hickory tool handle, to top it off the guy looked like a contractor who spent his days working outside. Anyway cell phone guy spent the entire time in line yapping on how hot it was. Perhaps it was only my impression but the contractor was starting to grip his tool handle like a baseball bat, like bat that could be swung at someone with a cell phone.

There is a certain amount of dignity and dare I say it manliness in sweating in silence.


Monday, June 16, 2008
 
Renewable (Credits)

Arizona Corporation Commissioner Kris Mayes wants to up the bar for the percentage of renewable energy that regulated utilities will be expected to produce. Currently utilities are required by the Commission to produce 15% of their power from renewable sources by 2025; she wants that that 2025 target increased to 25%.

Did I mention she announced this during a speech she gave at Sky Song in Scottsdale? You know that campus built for ASU by the City of Scottsdale? How appropriate, because both that campus and Ms. Mayes' plan cannot exist without a raid on taxpayers' pockets

Speaking at a Sustainability Town Hall at the SkySong innovation center in Scottsdale, Mayes drew applause from the standing-room-only crowd when she said she looked forward to the day when a visitor flying into Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport "will see as many solar panels on the rooftops as swimming pools in the backyards."

I guess anything is possible but even with energy costs through the roof and generous government and utility subsidies, residential solar cells just don't make the cut investment wise. So how's this # of pools= # of rooftop solar arrays magic going to happen?

APS currently obtains about 2 percent of its electric supply from renewable sources, which will increase to 5 percent in 2012 when the 280-megawatt Solana solar thermal power plant is expected to be operating near Gila Bend, she said.

It would be the world's largest solar power plant if in operation today.

She added that APS, Salt River Project and other utilities are expecting to announce a second solar power project of similar size in the near future.

The energy from Solana is projected to be 40% more costly than that from conventional sources. The only reason APS is going to buy the energy from there is because it has to find some way to meet the ACC mandate and because they believe that by the time Solana is operational in 2011 that there will be a carbon cap and trade regime. Even with all of that, Solana will not be built without an extension of the federal tax credit which will be 30% of the overall project. So not only can Solana and other solar plants only be viable with government regulation, but they will raid your pocket twice in the form of both higher energy costs and taxpayer subsidies.

The best line of the article comes from the policy adviser to ACC Commissioner Gary Pearce...

"Why not 45 percent instead of 25 percent?"



Friday, June 13, 2008
 
Hungry, Hungry Gadsby

I live down the street from John McCain's office and drive by it on a daily basis. Protests are a frequent occurrence, usually it has something to do with Iraq or torturing terrorists, I'm sure the other tenants in the building and Tony's Garage across the street are thrilled, but hey it could be worse... the protesters could be naked.

A few weeks ago a certain gent by the name of Blair Gadsby decided to perch himself on the sidewalk out McCain's office and go on a hunger strike in an effort to gain a meeting with McCain to discuss what Gadsby believes was a government plot to blow up the World Trade Center 9/11... conspiracies, cover-ups, it wasn't Al Queda it was the government.... you know the story.

Now bless Mr. Gadsby's heart. If he wants to go on a hunger strike for a some weird cause he wants to believe in and in the June heat nonetheless, then good for him. I mean after all his own wife is ticked at him, so he's really sacrificing.

The problem is you get what you reward. After fellow conspiracy-theorist Karen Johnson visited Gadsby and wrote a letter to McCain on his behalf then the story was picked up by the media with stories in the paper, TV, and radio. So let's be clear here...

....no matter how wacky your theories are (Gadsby thought the government hired the 9/11 hijackers and that there were explosive pre-positioned in the WTC elevators), if you are willing to make a public spectacle of yourself and can get one other independent person with some pull to back you up then you are going to get some face time with the media. Forget reason, forget exhaustive evidence, as long as you are sincere you will get some P.R. for your cause because after all there really aren't any other stories out there, right?

I wish Mr. Gadsby well, I hope he doesn't ruin his health or his marriage over this but if he started what could be an ongoing freak show in my neighborhood for the next 5 months then I hope he gets a really itchy rash or something


Monday, June 9, 2008
 
Whole Lotta 70's

I have been noticing a definite 70's vibe in the area and not just in a Jimmy Cater sort of way.

I picked up my 12 year old today and like always, he will sit int he back seat and sing some song he just heard. Now it's usually hard to figure out what he's singing, because well he sings like me, but after a while I figured out he was singing "Whole Lotta Love."

So I asked him what he was singing....

"Oh a hot new group all the kids are talking about"

Which group was that?

"Led Zepplin"

Now I try to be a good Dad. but I do have a touch of the cruel and let's face it, he's been a typical middle school snotty know-it-all. He's at the great age when kids start to figure out they are both cooler and way more knowledgeable than their parents. So one day soon, when he's on one of his riffs I'm going to pop his bubble by mentioning that the "hot new group" Led Zepplin he likes so much?

I used to have all their albums....

....on 8-track.

Now if only he would go for Dred Zepplin, then we would have a true father-son moment.


 
The Elephant in the Classroom

If you have a hard time getting to sleep tonight, you may want to read the materials from the School District Redistricting Commission which forms the basis for this Fall's ballot initiative on reorganizing and consolidating Arizona's public school districts.

Wow that's way too much use of the term "districts" in one sentence.

It may be a snooze fest, but it will have a direct impact on many families across the state; it most certainly will have an impact on mine. While the election will be localized to the affected districts with ballot language specific to the given locale, some those that will be affected comprise the Phoenix Union High School District and its feeder schools. The proposal is to combine PUHSD and its 13 feeder districts into one large unified district of over 100,000 students.

I live in the Madison Elementary School District, regarded as one of the better districts in the state and that reputation has had a direct impact on property values in the area. People will move into the area to go to the school(s). It's also a fairly small district with 7 regular schools and a special academy; while at times I complain about the bureaucratic culture at the district office, I know that when push comes to shove I can get in to see the people I need to see. In short, the district is accessible and it's good. We don't have the nonsense you see in other districts such as Roosevelt or not so long ago in Wilson; we don't have the school board shenanigans you see in PUHSD. So why should I change? The fact is that the Phoenix unification plan has to win in every one of the 13 districts to be successful, if one votes no (say Madison) then it goes down to defeat and believe me it will go down to defeat in Madison.

Make no mistake, the Commission's task is massive and I don't envy them for it. Trying to deal with so many critical details such as tax rates, assumption of debt, district boundaries, sheesh. All that work and headache is being driven by two perceived benefits, saving money by spreading district administrative costs across more schools and creating a unified curriculum within the newly unified districts. The Commission believes that to solve those problems, the districts need to get larger.

First will creating larger districts save money on administrative costs, allowing more money to go into the classroom? Administrative costs make sense, to a point. After all the McNeal School District has 37 students; I have no idea what the staffing is down there but I would guess you have at least a principal and a secretary and probably a janitor. After all someone has to run the place and someone need to process the paperwork and someone needs to keep an eye ont he physical plant.

However we aren't talking about common knowledge, we're talking about an enormous effort to overhaul the K-12 system. We need to have some idea whether after we create the 100,000 student monstrosity of the Central Phoenix School District and condemn McNeal to the dust heap will this proposal actually lead to more money in the classroom and more importantly to better student results?

First no one has real numbers about projected savings. Maybe it's out there somewhere but I have read through newspaper articles, reports, and meeting minutes and no one is using a dollar figure to say what we'll save on administrative costs. In fact JLBC is reluctant given the number of possible scenarios involved to even provide an estimate on the overall fiscal impact.

The Auditor General's report notes that the last time large sums of money came free for instruction, after the passing of Prop 301 and the receipt of Indian gaming monies, the percentage of funds dedicated to the classroom held steady instead of increasing by the predicted percentage point. To the AG's report the Commission can have no answer, after all of they can do is propose new districts that they hope will save money, they can not direct how those new districts will actually spend that new-found money.

I'm willing to bet that the new districts will actually spend more money in the classroom, but not through any improvement in instruction but rather through boosting costs. High school teachers tend to be paid on a different and usually higher scale than elementary school teachers, so what happens when both sets of employees need to be paid off a single pay scale? The number that came from PUHSD alone is that such equalization across the new unified district would cost $54 million. In fact the Commission has suggested legislation which would equalize the funding formula in order to affect pay of elementary and high school teachers. In terms of Career Ladder programs, JLBC predicts an impact upwards of $40 million.

So when it comes to administrative cost savings, we have no idea what the dollar impact will be but we do have an idea that redrawing district maps would cost tens of millions of new dollars in teacher salaries. We know there is a hope and a prayer that districts will take any such administrative costs savings and plow it back into instruction, but recent history suggests otherwise.

What about the of the feature, that of curriculum? Well this post is too long already so I'll leave it to another day except to say ask this...

Are there disconnects between how well elementary schools have prepared incoming high school students and the expectations of those high schools? Is the solution to create huge unified districts, with the commensurate large bureaucracies, to establish an equal curriculum? Have such institutions ever, in their pursuit of equality, delivered excellence?


Friday, June 6, 2008
 
Blogger Fest

After a fine suggestion by the Exurban boys, Vox is putting together the next blogger fest to be held July 11, 3:00 PM, at the Four Peaks Brewery in Tempe.

Come and meet not just me, but importantly Vox, John McJunkin, and of course the world famous lads from the Exurban League.


Wednesday, June 4, 2008
 
Calling the Ghost of Lee Atwater

Special Agent Johnny Utah had a good post on how Obama, damaged though he is from the past few months, is still competitive for the general election.

The problem with the damaging revelations about Obama was that they happened several months too early. The man who talks of the"essential decency of the American people" but then tries to explains that those who have been embittered in middle America tend to "cling to guns or religion..." forgetting that America has one of the highest rates of church attendance and gun ownership in the world. The man who offers himself as the vessel of racial redemption for America spends 20 years in the pews of Trinity. The man who promotes himself as the standard-bearer for “a new kind of politics” lives in a fabulous house thanks in part to the good works of Chicago fixer Tony Rezko.

Tell me, if John McCain was exposed to be as big of a hypocrite as Obama would he would still be the presumptive nominee for his party? The good news is that with all this shearing away of Obama's stance as a new politician that at least he can fall back on his experience and accomplishments.

Again, why this man is going to be the Democratic nominee?

The good news for Obama is that the next few months, the time between sewing up the nomination and the party's convention, has always been a time for a candidate to reinvent himself. After the long slog of appealing to the party base, the candidate can start running toward the political middle. Expect to see the policy positions to be fine-tuned for the wider electorate.

Okay then what to do about all of that past personal history and present gaffes that got in the way of his campaign themes? Not only is that stuff on tape, but Pfleger and Wright are still running around and Rezko is on trial, who knows what will pop up on the news over the next few months. Also Obama when is off the teleprompter, he has the tendency to say things like he had already campaigned in 57 states. Hmmmm...

The good news is that the country is on an anti-Republican binge not seen since Watergate, so just by his party affiliation Obama gets a nice boost. Second, the Democrats have an outside chance of capturing 60 seats in the Senate, given the squishiness of some Republican senators getting to 58 this November will probably get them a de facto 60; so if the whole Hillary Clinton rebellion can be quietened the Dems are going to be motivated.

Third, the man has been given cover from the media. Don't think so? The spin on Wright between the first revelations up until the moment of the Rev's remarks at the National Press Club was that the quotes were taken out of context from a few sermons. No one in the national media bothered to find that context either through digging up past Wright speeches or sermons, writings, or interviewing the thousands of present and past Trinity congregants. Coverage of the Rezko trial has been intermittent, but give the NY Times some credit because at least they send an actual reporter to file an occasional story and not just rely on wire service reports. No one has bothered to try and explain how someone who made his political bones in the South Side of Chicago can run a platform of "hope", "change", and a "new type of politics."

So despite the missteps, he has advantages. The trick is to use the next few months of hopefully political down time and do a shake-out; nuance his policy platforms especially on foreign policy, go to Iraq and embrace the success of the troops, get tighter control over his comments, and make the skeletons from his past (Ayers/Wright/Rezko) Obama cannot eliminate the past months of video tape but he can make them old news, make them irrelevant by cutting down on his mistakes and flooding a friendly media with updated campaign themes.

If he can do that, then he turns the past few months of weakness into a strength because he will force the Republicans to fight up hill. For the Republicans to gain traction, they will have to go negative; paint Obama as inexperienced, his policy stances extreme, and his past associates as radical. However if Obama doesn't provide any new fodder during the two months between the Convention and Election Day, then I think those attacks will fail because the Republicans will have to rely on what the media will term "old news."

I know that is asking alot in a day and age where even your private campaign fund raisers can be recorded on the sly and put on the Internet within the same day. However I fear that the dynamics of the race are such that there is no way for McCain to succeed, he can only get elected if Obama continues to fail


Sunday, June 1, 2008
 
A Deal Faust Could Love

An op-ed piece in today's East Valley Trib reminds me of a question I used to ask people at social functions when I learn they work in public education. First though the article from the president of the Kyrene Elementary School District governing board:

I think everyone agrees with Rep. Mark Anderson, R-Mesa, and the research that shows that children benefit from a well-rounded education... Children also benefit from quality health care and early childhood programs, very small class sizes, reasonable pay for retention of and excellent staff development for teachers, and many other research-based programs....

Hold on wait for it.

.... Micromanagement of public education by the collective wisdom of state legislators has had decidedly mixed results, at best. They have given us the AIMS test, state standards, the school facilities board, the ELL debacle and some of the most miserly funding formulas in the nation, which they rarely completely, fully fund, even when we don’t have a budget deficit.

Now I'm a cynical old gent and to my miserly eyes, the above argument sounds like the classic buck-passing. It's not the school districts fault that your children aren't getting a great education, it's you the voters fault for sending those people to the state Legislature who on one hand micromanage us and on the other fail to give us the resources we need.

I've heard this argument since recess was still part of my school schedule. By now I tend to ignore the AIMS and standards aspect of the micromanagement argument and tend to think that "research-based" programs equals whatever the folks at the ASU College of Ed have cooked up, in other words a never-ending money pit. However I'm a reasonable man and I like to cut to the quick.

When I meet people who are in public education, I can always get them to dominate the discussion by asking them about "funding" and "micromanagement." However I then offer a deal, hypothetically of course, as an administrator of a school district that goes from kindergarten to the 12th grade:

1) Allow them to design a perfect classroom- resources, computers and software, class size, whatever is within reason

2) Allow them to design the perfect support system for lower class students in terms of health care, breakfast and lunch programs, after school tutoring, free trips to the circus... it's their wish list

3) Allow them to develop the perfect teacher support package in terms of total compensation, training, autonomy....

With the above 3 points, I eliminate their concerns regarding funding and micromanagement. Whatever it takes to get those issues off the board. In return they need to provide binding standards regarding the ability of a graduating high school senior to operate within our society. In other words I offer you x what are you prepared to offer me in terms of y. I'm flexible on when those standards will take effect, say when next year's incoming kindergarteners graduate from high school. That's 13 years to work the bugs out and I'm willing to wait and this after all hypothetical.

What do I mean by binding? Well first there are no slipping standards like with AIMS; no watering down the test scores after you find too many kids are failing, no more bonus points because the kids showed up for tutoring sessions.

It's also binding in a second dimension. I will offer you the administrator and all the teachers your fondest wishes in terms of autonomy and funding, 13 years to develop and run the perfect school system, your so called professional heaven on earth. If after all of that your school still cannot make the pre-agreed standards I will shut down the school fire all the teachers and administrators and none of you can work in public education ever again.

Sound drastic? Well sure but I met many people, in all sorts of professions, who talk a good game about how they could do this or that if only they had the freedom or the resources. What I'm doing here is setting up educators as entrepreneurs to pursue their vision and I'm not giving them 3 to 5 years to show some black on the bottom line but rather 13 years. I'll give them the rope they have been hollering for and let's see what they can do with it. If they cannot do it within 13 years then they need to find a new profession and we need to radically change what we're doing in public education.

How many people have taken me on my hypothetical offer? Not one. They hemmed, they hawed, or they acted like I was from Mars.

I was saddened by that, but not surprised.