Home > Thinking Right > Archives > 2008 > August > 05 > Entry

School needs bold blueprint, not formula fiddling

By Jim Wooten | Tuesday, August 5, 2008, 07:48 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Governors one after another have tinkered with public education inputs and funding formulas, promising all the while to succeed where their predecessors had failed. Had those approaches worked —- more inputs and revised formulas recommended by blue ribbon commissions —- schools would be fixed by now.

They aren’t.

It’s the model that’s broken, not the funding formulas.

Across the country industries beset by new marketplace dynamics —- industries that include newspapers, health care providers and all others, automobiles among them, that compete globally —- are frantically at work reinventing their business models.

Education’s marketplace changed decades ago. The best hope now is to stop fighting the marketplace and, instead, let competition work. Give parents choice —- and the means to exercise it. Improve public schools, yes. But don’t keep children prisoners until the system is perfected.

The realization is dawning across Georgia that the parents who determine where children get medical care, what they eat, wear and watch on TV, should be able to determine how they are educated, too. Two separate polls released last week, one of voters in metro Atlanta and the other of voters throughout Georgia, unsurprisingly reflect a developing consensus. The metro Atlanta poll of 600 voters, conducted in late June by Public Opinion Strategies, found that 69 percent of those surveyed favor vouchers for children in failing public schools.

A statewide poll of 400 voters, conducted about the same time by Majority Opinion Research, reveals 66 percent support for vouchers for the parents of those children and 68 percent support for parents of all children. An important consideration for those who responded, no doubt, is that there be no new costs to taxpayers.

Support is strong among all groups: male, female, black, white, Democrat, Republican, Independent.

The most interesting aspect of last week’s school choice conference sponsored by the Atlanta-based Georgia Public Policy Foundation in celebration of the 96th birthday of Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, father of the choice movement, was actually not the poll. It merely confirmed what has been obvious in recent years: Support grows for parental choice.

The interesting aspect was a policy speech by state Sen. Eric Johnson (R-Savannah), a likely candidate for lieutenant governor in 2010, when the current occupant of that office, Casey Cagle, departs to run for governor. The speech reflects a vision of a vital government function: assisting parents in educating their children.

The speech is important because it spells out in unusual detail a plan for revamping public education. The blueprint has these seven elements:

  • Full funding. Determine what it should cost to produce an educated child and how that cost should be shared by parents and state and local governments. “It should be a simple formula,” he said. “There should be no excuses.”

  • Let the money follow the child. Public or private.

  • Entice more people into teaching. Use alternative certification to attract second-career professionals. “And pay them based on degrees, experience and placement, with significant bonuses for improved outcomes.”

  • Maintain discipline. Let teachers remove those who disrupt learning for others. Back them in court, if necessary.

  • Measure outcomes. “Design a reasonable and transparent method to measure success.”

  • Provide public school choice. Children are assigned to neighborhood schools, but parents can move them to any other school “so long as they provide transportation and the student and parent sign a contract agreeing to attend class, study hard and behave.” Violate the contract and the student goes back to the neighborhood school. Local systems either buy trailers or fix bad schools.

  • Vouchers equal to the taxes spent on education should be given to every child to attend any private school that will accept them.

Dramatic. Bold. Visionary.

Not more of the same old inputs or formula-tinkering. A new model.

It’s the kind of marketplace thinking Georgia needs.

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Comments

By AJC/DNC Management

August 5, 2008 8:08 AM | Link to this

Check it out, for the next several weeks the liberals in Congress will whine and moan about the Republicans being tools of the “Big Oil” companies, they will blubber about drilling “not producing a drop of oil for ten years,” they will go off on gigantic crying jags about “trying to save the planet” and then they will come back from vacation, if not sooner, and vote yes for drilling the very first chance they get, to a man, save for one or two dimwitocrat kooks from the hardcore green weenie districts.

Hahahahaha, bozos.

Anybody wanna bet that I’m wrong?

Under thee bus with you, environmental terrorists.

Buh-bye, suckers.

~~~~~

Something even the dimwitocrats cannot ignore:

When President George W. Bush eliminated the executive moratorium on offshore drilling a month ago, effectively launching the drill, drill, drill offensive, oil was close to $150 a barrel. Since then, the barrel price has dropped to nearly $120 as futures-market traders anticipate a major shift in federal drilling policy.

Christianity has a place in China-Urinal/Jihad

Yeah, under the steam roller, where the libs would like to put it in America.

Factory makes Bibles, walking a fine line between nation’s limits, openness.

The libs made themselves right at home in China, I see, going around to see all the persecuted believers and then writing goon propaganda articles on how “good” the government is to it’s citizens.

China is, after all, socialist, so the pinkos don’t have to spend anytime researching the government, it is already modeled after the dimwitocrat party.

~~~~~

Homeowners may pay for state budget woes- Property taxes could go up as Georgia’s possible $1.6 billion shortfall spurs counties to make up for lost funds, blah, blah, blah.-Doom and Gloom/DNC

The Doom and Gloom/AJC knows that state gov is in far better condition then dimwitocrat led Atl city gov, which isn’t a good situation to have in an election season, so look for many propaganda stories to scare up a crisis in state gov, crisis that the Urinal full well knows will never come to pass.

~~~~~

On behalf of our beloved allies in the Middle East, thee Urinal/Jihad is pleased to announce thee following blessed news, allah be praised:

Iran announced Monday that it has tested a new weapon capable of sinking ships nearly 200 miles away, and it reiterated threats to close a strategic waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf if attacked.-Urinal/Jihad

They even sent us a cartoon of it flying through thee air.

~~~~~

The never ending battle against American prosperity and national security marches on:

Clear the air: Coal not a healthy investment-Bobby McClendon is president of the Early County-based “Friends of the Chattahoochee,” a nonprofit citizens group.-Urinal/PMS

Do tell us, toadies, what does coal burning have to do with the Chattahoochee?

~~~~~

Bill Clinton: ‘I never made a racist comment’-Urinal/DNC

I never had sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky

~~~~~

This kind of thing happens again and again to the Drive-Bys. So insulated and isolated are they from America and average Americans they are utterly unable to see the world through a non-Drive-By lens. To watch Matthews work the crowd at a White House Correspondents dinner is to see a Drive-By capo in his natural habitat. To think they really understand what’s going on in the lives of the constituents of, say, those 200 Pennsylvania city leaders Matthews spoke to over breakfast in Gettysburg is something else again.

~~~~~

THAT’S ABOUT THE BEST we can expect from the 60s Generation, a cohort that preached — and I do mean preached — the gospel of no heaven, no borders, no possessions, and all the nonsense a former Beatle catalogued in that puerile and vacuous Hippie anthem “Imagine.” Of course, not one of the boomers really believed that twaddle, but it was cool to pretend. Some are pretending still; to do otherwise would be to admit that your whole life was a sham.

Godless heathens trying to create their own heaven and then having faith in it.

Insane, isn’t it?

Aging boomers, like Rob Reiner, must have been terribly disappointed when finally they got an authentic liberal, pot-smoking, sax-playing, Yale lawyer in the White House and, instead of changing the world, or the country, or even the federal government, he spent his term chasing interns around the Oval Office and hiding from his wife.

~~~~~

On April the 10, 1975, President Ford made an impassioned plea to a Joint Session of the Congress to give the funds for aid we had promised South Vietnam in the Paris Peace Accords of January 27, 1973. The (dimwitocrat led) Congress refused. One week after President Ford’s rejected plea, Cambodia fell, and before the end of the month South Vietnam fell. Shortly after that I asked former President Nixon what he would have done had he still been president with the imminent surrender of Cambodia and South Vietnam while Congress denied the funds to prevent those surrenders. He answered, “I would have bombed the blazes out of Hanoi and Haiphong.” Then he added, “I would have been impeached but so what? We would have saved millions of Southeast Asian lives.” In short, presidents are commanders in chief.

By Bud Wiser

August 5, 2008 8:09 AM | Link to this

Anyone that read about the total corruption in the Clayton school system, the hiring of friends and relatives no less, are not surprised by this. What do you expect out of low level public educated minorities when they get into a position of power? Following the Democrat blueprint of class and wealth envy, they try to bilk the taxpayers (re. - whitey) out of their confiscated by the government income.

Well, well, well. To look at the other news, we have this. It appears that in the latest Rasmussen Poll that John McCain is leading the socialist Hussein Obama by a single percentage point. This is not to be aglow over a one point lead, but to point out that Hussein had a 10 point lead in the same poll just over two weeks ago.

It appears that America is slowly but surely starting to discover what a disaster this socialist could be, and the polls are just starting to reflect that. In lieu of Obama’s not-so-subtle playing of the race card against McCain, the prospective voters are starting to make themselves be heard. Like a trickle of water that slowly seeps from a crack in the dike (a perfect metaphor for Mrs G and Co. BTW), the flow shall continue to increase little by little, until it becomes a real old fashioned gully washer. The spinsters from the left will try to plug it any way they can. I can foresee that the smear campaign from the left will now go full throttle, but it is too late. His little toads like those that inhabit this site on a regular basis will be screaming and foaming at the mouth, hurling vile baseless insults at anyone who does not march in lockstep with them to the drumbeat of the DNC. They are pathetic, but deserve no pity, they have chosen their own path.

As I predicted weeks ago, the stench of liberalism has been loosed by the Dimmwitocrats upon our country, and America doesn’t like what it smells. As your far left ‘champions’ of the past…Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore…this one has been ferreted out and will follow their similar pathway to losing. They always are their own worst enemies, their egomaniacal (though none as over the top as Hussein Obama) nature making its way to the front pages.

Ah yes, sanity is returning to the universe. I look forward to my Fall hunting trip now more so than ever! August 5, 2008, the beginning of the end for the socialist Hussein. You read it here first. His spiral into the cellar has just begun.

And I am laughing my a$$ off at you stupid liberals again! You people must have some kind of death wish to support the socialist Hussein. You never learn.

But then again, you are Dimwittocrats, it is your nature.

By BFKaJ

August 5, 2008 8:13 AM | Link to this

Good morning all. One could quibble with elements of Sen. Johnson’s proposal, but I would rather expend my energies supporting the thrust of his analysis, which mostly makes sense to me. The suggestions seem to me to be well founded, and generally enhance freedom and constrain government, so I am philosophically in line with Sen. Johnson.

I yield the balance of my babble to Glenn (if he still posts here – a couple of our bloggers sound much like him) and MidSouth Philosopher and @@, all of whom have specific acquaintance with the daily problems of government schools, and all of whom have some sense of the reforms necessary. I am unlikely to return to the blog today unless the moonbats start posting nonsense about Iraq and neocons, or until some economic illiterate says “drilling will not lower prices.”

By Mrs. Godzilla

August 5, 2008 8:14 AM | Link to this

First a look ate the surveyers….

“”Public Opinion Strategies (POS) describes itself as a “Republican polling firm”. [1] It has offices in Virginia, Colorado and California.

“IRI’s annual reports for 2003 and 2004 include among their lists of volunters a significant number of Republican pollsters, consultants, strategists, public opinion researchers, and campaign website designers, some of whom have come under fire for unethical practices.

“For example, Rob Autry and Gene Ulm are with Public Opinion Strategies, the largest Republican polling firm. POS was responsible for the “Harry and Louise” ad in the early 90’s that scuttled Clinton’s health insurance proposals. In 2001, it was charged with violating Virginia’s polling disclosure laws, and it has also been accused of using push polls to influence elections.”“

From Source Watch

NY Post, Fox News touted flawed GOP poll to claim “America Says Let’s Win [Iraq] War”

By BFKaJ

August 5, 2008 8:22 AM | Link to this

Dear Mrs. Godzilla @ 8:14, that did not take long. A quick trip down memory lane: By jbmlaw April 25, 2007 12:00 PM | Link to this “We found that out from our brothers who fought the Americans in Somalia. They did not see it as a power worthy of any mention. It was the big propaganda that the United State used to terrify people before fighting them. Our brothers, who were here in Afghanistan, also tried the Americans. God gave them and the mujahidin success in Somalia and the United States pull out, trailing disappointment, defeat, and failure behind it. It achieved nothing. It left quicker than people had imagined.” (Full Text Of Interview With Al-Qaeda Leader Osama Bin Laden, 10/21/01) I believe that this war is lost…. I believe myself that the secretary of state (and) secretary of defense know this war is lost. - Harry Reid, 4/18/07 By jbmlaw April 25, 2007 12:03 PM | Link to this “In his speech Monday, Mr. Reid claimed that “nothing has changed” since the surge began taking effect in February. It’s true that the car bombings and U.S. casualties continue, and may increase. But such an enemy counterattack was to be expected, aimed as it is directly at the Democrats in Washington. The real test of the surge is whether it can secure enough of the population to win their cooperation and gradually create fewer safe havens for the terrorists.” WSJ, April 25, 2007.

By Just Nasty and Mean

August 5, 2008 8:23 AM | Link to this

G’Mornin Jim, et al,

I agree that vouchers are a way, over the long term, to weed out the weak-sisters in the education system.

However, we seem to consistently be tinkering with the money aspects of the problems with education instead of the crux of the problem. The Washington D.C. school system, spending twice the national average per student as the rest of the nation—without result—- has proved time and again the problem is NOT money.

The problem is the heavy weight of bureaucrats in the school system. Either you have useless overhead producing NOTHING for the student, OR you have an over-involved, meddling, un-practical bureaucrat deciding the details of WHAT and HOW the teacher is to teach. They are TOO INVOLVED in the minutia of what goes on in the classroom.

We also have a cultural problem with discipline. The administration needs to back up the teachers—to the hilt—in disciplining students. If the students—or the parents—sense ANY weakness in enforcing the rules, they will exploit it and cause chaos for all. The school systems—all too often—“cave” when confronted.

And finally, under the “NO Child Left Behind” laws, we have turned many schools into institutions for the disables, many of whom will NEVER learn to understand-much less say—their own name. Taxpayers spend a wildly disproportionate amount on these special ed students. IT IS RIDICULOUS how much we spend on these kids compared to the average. Wouldn’t it make more sense to spend this money to help a kid learn geometry instead of dedicating an inordinate amount of money on dedicated nurses, interpretors, and specialized services for these cases.

Don’t get me wrong, special ed kids deserve EXACTLY the same amount of taxpayer funds and the next kid—-BUT NOTHING MORE!

By BFKaJ

August 5, 2008 8:33 AM | Link to this

“Very well-known representatives of your society, such as George Kennan, say: We cannot apply moral criteria to politics. Thus we mix good and evil, right and wrong and make space for the absolute triumph of absolute Evil in the world. On the contrary, only moral criteria can help the West against communism’s well-planned world strategy. There are no other criteria… .

“In spite of the abundance of information, or maybe because of it, the West has difficulties in understanding reality such as it is. There have been naive predictions by some American experts who believed that Angola would become the Soviet Union’s Vietnam or that Cuban expeditions in Africa would best be stopped by special U.S. courtesy to Cuba. Kennan’s advice to his own country — to begin unilateral disarmament — belongs to the same category. If you only knew how the youngest of the Moscow Old Square officials laugh at your political wizards! As to Fidel Castro, he frankly scorns the United States, sending his troops to distant adventures from his country right next to yours.

“However, the most cruel mistake occurred with the failure to understand the Vietnam war. Some people sincerely wanted all wars to stop just as soon as possible; others believed that there should be room for national, or communist, self-determination in Vietnam, or in Cambodia, as we see today with particular clarity. But members of the U.S. antiwar movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility today? Or do they prefer not to hear? The American Intelligentsia lost its [nerve] and as a consequence thereof danger has come much closer to the United States. But there is no awareness of this. Your shortsighted politicians who signed the hasty Vietnam capitulation seemingly gave America a carefree breathing pause; however, a hundredfold Vietnam now looms over you. That small Vietnam had been a warning and an occasion to mobilize the nation’s courage. But if a full-fledged America suffered a real defeat from a small communist half-country, how can the West hope to stand firm in the future?” Alexander Solzhenitsyn speaking at Harvard in 1978

By Scrappy

August 5, 2008 8:36 AM | Link to this

Major problem with the voucher system is the increase in Traffic problems. Having a parent provide the transportation, which is further away, only adds to the already disgusting mess we call a commute.

By Bad S Mitten

August 5, 2008 8:38 AM | Link to this

Andy, I asked you to leave the following mark to make it easy to scroll past your usual off-topic Republican whining and moaning:

EOF EOF EOF EOF EOF EOF EOF EOF EOF EOF

Instead, you decide to mark it, again, like a dog. I’ve never heard a Democrat whine and moan and cry about every little thing as much as you. I know that you did not like my choice of markings but you did not have to resort to staining the screen. After all, you did agree to mark the end of your dribble with your own special test pattern just one short day ago. I’ve attached your message below in case you have forgotten it already:

By AJC/DNC Management

August 4, 2008 10:02 AM | Link to this

IT has been a tough year for the high priests of global warming in the US. First, NASA had to correct its earlier claim that the hottest year on record in the contiguous US had been 1998, which seemed to prove that global warming was on the march. It was actually 1934. Then it turned out the world’s oceans have been growing steadily cooler, not hotter, since 2003. Meanwhile, the winter of 2007 was the coldest in the US in decades, after Al Gore warned us that we were about to see the end of winter as we know it.

Fear and ignorance, Hume concludes, are the true source of superstition. They lead a blind and terrified public to embrace any practice, however absurd or frivolous, which either folly or knavery recommends.

The knaves today, of course, are the would-be high priests of the global warming orthodoxy, with former US vice-president Gore as their supreme pontiff.

*GFY Polly GFY Polly GFY Polly GFY Polly GFY Polly *

That work?

By Mrs. Godzilla

August 5, 2008 8:40 AM | Link to this

BFJaj…..and your point would be?

POS (no pun intended) is a right wing polling firm and you respond with memories of war.

Got disconnect?

By BFKaJ

August 5, 2008 8:43 AM | Link to this

“The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles,” Solzhenitsyn warned in his acceptance speech for the 1970 Nobel literature prize. I wonder how Solzhenitsym would have viewed discussions with Iran, a small country that presents no risk to the US, without preconditions?

Solzhenitsyn warned of “an atmosphere of moral mediocrity, paralyzing man’s noblest impulses,” and a “tilt of freedom in the direction of evil … evidently born primarily out of a humanistic and benevolent concept according to which there is no evil inherent to human nature.” His own prison-camp experience after World War II told him evil was all too real and had to be confronted.

By BFKaJ

August 5, 2008 8:47 AM | Link to this

Dear Mrs. Godzilla @ 8:40, I always suspected a squirrel, flattened by a steam roller, would ask, “… and your point would be.” We don’t expect the squirrel to understand.

By Mrs. Godzilla

August 5, 2008 8:48 AM | Link to this

McCain also criticized Congress for adjourning for a five-week recess without approving a new energy plan. “Tell em’ to come back and get to work,” McCain said, yelling into the microphone. “When I’m president of the United States, I’m not going to let them go on vacation

As of today, Obama has missed slightly fewer than 40 percent of his Senate votes since the beginning of 2007, while Clinton’s absentee rate is just under 30 percent.

But McCain has topped both candidates, missing a staggering 58 percent of his votes during the 110th Congress, according to the Washington Post’s congressional votes database.

To put this in perspective, McCain has now missed more votes than Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota, who suffered a brain hemorrhage in December 2006 and was unable to return to the Senate until fall of last year. McCain has now missed nine votes more than Johnson.

Got incongruity?

By Mrs. Godzilla

August 5, 2008 8:56 AM | Link to this

BFKaJ

OH! MY! You are so witty! And gracious! Mr. Sunshine this morning!

Again? Your point?

I am not afraid to admit that I see no connection between my 8:14 and your 8:22. Are you afraid to point it out?

Please enlighten me.

Enlighten all of us!

Oh please share your wisdom!

(Gee whiz, some folks are sooooo touchy!)

By Bad S Mitten

August 5, 2008 8:57 AM | Link to this

I see that economic illiterate, jbwhatever, is up to his usual ranting today. He’s such a child. Run off and play with your toy like a good boy. And remember to inflate your ego a little more while you are at it. You’ll be sure to get better mileage out of that hot air that you run on. Just insert hose and inflate yourself to about 150 psig. Don’t forget to use that McCain pressure gage to check yourself. You don’t want to get an overly swelled head. The end result would be, well, messy.

By RW-(the original)

August 5, 2008 9:01 AM | Link to this

Anybody that puts their hopes and dreams in government, especially when it comes to letting the government have control of their children’s education should watch this video.

Was America’s Mother-in-Law trying to do an Abbot and Costello routine?

By Ga Values

August 5, 2008 9:02 AM | Link to this

I as an outsider have actually tried to improve Public Schools.. 1. A company I owned adopted an Atlanta all black middle school. At the time I had 5 Morehouse Men working for me & planned to use them as mentors. Since they all came from upper middle income families they related to the students even worse than I did. Every improvement we tried to make in the school was opposed by the central office & after 2 years of trying we gave up. I know several small business in Atlanta who have had the same problem. 2.After seeing test scores in my local school system, I tried again but this time the goal was to get accurate information to the school board for decision making. After 6 months I gave up, their books & systems were so bad they could only be fixed by replacing the accounting systems & staff. That was not going to happen because the school superintendent wanted to control the data gavin to the school board… If I was going to start fixing the school system, my first step would be to fire 1/2 of the administration, all they do is make work for the teachers & waste money.

By Corey

August 5, 2008 9:07 AM | Link to this

Ther is no such thing as a failing school. We have failing communities and complacent parents that prodeuce students who don’t value learning. Often in these communities education is an after- thought, and bling is the priority. Take kids from, let’s say Gwinnett and place them in Atlanta schools, and Atlanta schools will be referred to as good schools. Likewise, take kids from Atlanta and place them in Gwinnett schools, and the schools will be considered bad schools. We fail to realize that the performance of the students contributes to a school’s overall ranking. Colleges that recruit the brightest students are considered great colleges. Let’s stop using the phrase failing schools and start referring to the students, parents and communities as failing. A teacher with a class of A students is not a great teacher. That teacher is blessed to have high achievers. A great teacher is a teacher who takes a class of C and D students and bring the majority of them up to A and B students.

By Ga Values

August 5, 2008 9:12 AM | Link to this

After my adventures in working with public education, I exercised my own school voucher program & sent only child to privite school. The state of Georgia is spending enough money for ALL childeren to get a 1st class education but most is just being wasted. The AJC should do a few stories on the Augusta School System to see what a real mess can be made.

By Copyleft

August 5, 2008 9:17 AM | Link to this

Wooten is right—it’s time to turn the cornerstones of our democracy over to the FREE MARKET! After all, if a child is born to poor parents who can only afford a poor-quality education, he has only himself to blame. He should’ve been born to upper-class folks who could provide him with a better education in the marketplace.

Remember, people are poor by CHOICE, and their kids should suffer for it! Money = virtue; it’s right there in the Constitution!

By Rednecik Convert

August 5, 2008 9:20 AM | Link to this

Well, I’m with this guy that wants to let parents decide where to send their kids to school. If we had that, the poor parents that send their kids to good Christian private schools would get a break. And the dummies could stay in public schools. After awhile, we could keep taking money away from public schools till they just vamoosed. We could go back to the way God intended. If God wanted you to have a education you would be borned with a little diploma in your hand.

I ain’t much for education. Everybody knows I didn’t make it out of the 5th grade. Danged multiplying tables. But if we are going to have education it ought to be run like WalMart. Just run the kids thru the front door and when they come out they are all smart and such. We just waste too much money on the dummies that need all the special programs. I say kick them out and teach them how to sweep floors. Keep the smart ones that understand NASCAR and such and run them thru the mill. At the end they get a diploma and we are done with them. GA will have the smartest kids in the world.

Anyhow, somebody has to do something to help the parents that are paying 15,000 bucks a year so their kids will learn the Bible and about Noah and such. They can’t hardly make the payments on the fambly Lexus with that kind of outlay. So let’s go back to good Republican values. Give the kids with money a fine education and kick the rest of the trash out of school. Whatever you do, don’t raise my taxes.

Have a good day everybody.

By SaveOurRepublic

August 5, 2008 9:20 AM | Link to this

There’s no one definitive answer/solution, but the fact remains that government schools (controlled by the Globalist Elite funded NEA) are failing (largely by design). In order to subvert America’s “Superpower” status and diminish us to a 3rd world nation (for quicker implementation of the North American Union/SPP & ultimately a One World Government), the Elite has long targeted educational standards & curriculum. Government schools have watered down standards, distorted or censored the teaching of history and implemented a socialist agenda. It’s indeed part of the larger picture, and the symptoms in government schools prove that. The bar continues to be lowered.

In addition to “Crapitol sHill’s” lack of passing school vouchers, we also see the incessant hostility towards home schooling. At every turn the NEA lobby tries to minimize the legitimacy & effectiveness of home schooling. The NEA enjoys having the “market cornered”, and school choice (vouchers, home schooling) are a direct threat to that control. Like so many supposedly “powerful” DC lobby groups, the Globalist Elite controls/funds the NEA, and thus their agenda continues onwards and (likewise) American educational standards continue downwards!

http://www.newswithviews.com

By Bad S Mitten

August 5, 2008 9:24 AM | Link to this

Ga Values, the Republican mantra since they took office has been for less government but all they have given us is more government, year after year. Even with the economy going down, the Republicans moan and groan about their loss of revenues and how they are going to get more from the taxpayers when they should be looking at cutting their exorbitant spending. Even our local (county-level) Republicans were moaning and groaning about the big increase in health insurance costs for themselves while the taxpayers, rightfully, should be the ones moaning about not even having the luxury of health insurance. That’s a real-life example of the fallacy of so-called Republican “leadership” — they put themselves above their constituency. They are a disgrace.

By george hussein washington

August 5, 2008 9:27 AM | Link to this

Cut my property taxes….stop taxing me to pay for substandard schools, lazy teachers, and stupid students….no more free public education paid for by ME….

By Wxyz

August 5, 2008 9:33 AM | Link to this

If that’s no child left behind then no child left behind is an-a*. (paper chase, 1978)

We flame trolls the old fashioned way. We BURN them.

By Wilton Walton

August 5, 2008 9:43 AM | Link to this

You’re dead-on right, Jim! Public education is too important to our country to let it become just another bureacracy. There just HAS to be a measure of accountability. If students are given a legitimate choice, you’ll see just how quickly the entrenched school systems will change for the better. It’ll work. Congratulations on the column.

By Matilda

August 5, 2008 9:43 AM | Link to this

I think SaveOurRepublic is HALF right. Government schools have been encouraged to fail, “largely by design,” but not by the mysterious socialist elite he blames. Schools and the profession of teaching have been consistently under-funded and under-respected for decades. Without respect and pay, “standards” naturally decline. Note how the right-wingers consistently tout the good old days, then in the next breath, sneer at the “liberal elite” for being, um… what’s the word? EDUCATED. And for thinking critically and analyzing data instead of drinking in what they’re told and regurgitating it to others. The NCLB initiative is all about testing, and of course, paying test companies (Neil Bush, anyone?) to “help” our students “achieve.” Except that repitition and regurgitation are not achievement.

Learning to think critically and solve problems as they arise is achievement derided as “liberal thinking” by those who’d prefer the ignorant stay ignorant, blame whom they’re instructed to blame, and vote as they’re told. By withholding funding, attention, and respect from the institutions of public education, they can then turn around and say, “SEE? Told you it doesn’t work!” Who’s more ignorant of math, science, geography, language, and critical thinking than the average American high-school dropout, or c-student graduate? “Do what you’re told, people, because you don’t have the first clue.” This isn’t socialism; ignorance and fear form the foundation for fascism, enhanced by the idea that only a few really deserve, or are capable of providing, quality education. A truly educated populace wouldn’t stand for it.

By Off Topic

August 5, 2008 9:44 AM | Link to this

Troll this, liberal wingnut moonbat troll trash…

Yesterday some fecal-brained liberal moonbat neo-comm (that’s a mild way of saying SH!T FOR BRAINED LIBERAL DEMOCRAT) claimed that if Conservatives had their way, they wouldn’t spend or give a single dime away in this nation. Question:

Why are you fecal-brained liberal moonbat neo-comms such consistent PATHOLOGICAL LIARS???

Read it at weep, lying sacks of feces.

By T

August 5, 2008 9:47 AM | Link to this

By Copyleft

Lol, thanks for the morning laugh. Don’t forget that it is also their fault if they have learning disabilities.

Voucher programs might have been a good idea made into a bad one. Maybe if it took good students out of poor schools, it would cause these schools to rethink their way of educating students.
That being said high achieving students can come out of poor preforming schools. As By Corey stated the problem lies in the hands of noncommited parents and communities. Throw a lot of money at something without accurate checks and balances and corruption will thrive.

By RW-(the original)

August 5, 2008 9:47 AM | Link to this

Mrs G.,

Using the argument that people educated in government schools voted to keep educating people in government schools, like your carpetbagger link, is actually a good argument to end government schooling.

By Dennis

August 5, 2008 9:52 AM | Link to this

Mr. Wooten writes, “Full funding. Determine what it should cost to produce an educated child and how that cost should be shared by parents and state and local governments. “It should be a simple formula,” he said. “There should be no excuses.”

Mr. Wooten, it has already been determined FOR YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS that this country/state is not going to dig down into its pockets and pay for what it wants.

Your, yourself, have blamed “sorry teachers” for the state of public education.

But if you really want to “fully fund” public education, be forewarned that there will be no tax breaks for the already rich nor the corporations.

You write, ““And pay [teachers] based on degrees, experience and placement, with significant bonuses for improved outcomes.”

Teachers are already paid on degrees and experience. Having read some of your previous rants what you mean by “placement” is that math and science teachers ought to be paid more than other teachers.

That all depends on where your values are, Mr. Wooten.

For example, I think history is just as important as math or science. In fact, if we would teach the real history of the U.S. empire, the American people would be demonstrating in the streets against their own corporate controlled government

(It’s another subject, but isn’t that why George W. Bush has implemented the ideas of John W. Poindexter so much - because our corporate controlled government fears the American people)?

As to the bonuses for improvement, I’ve asked you before, if a teacher with gifted students raises the student test scores by fifteen points, and the teacher with retarded students raises their test scores by seven points, who gets the bonus?

You write, “Maintain discipline. Let teachers remove those who disrupt learning for others. Back them in court, if necessary.”

Where have you been, Mr. Wooten? “Sorry teachers” have been screaming for better discipline for years! And if you remove these bad behaving kids, what are you going to do with them? And the courts don’t want or have time to fool with these “cases”.

What is the main purpose of schools, Mr. Wooten,

1) to turn out students for the purpose of conforming and serving society, or,

2) to turn out students who are capable of not conforming and able to think outside of the box?

It’s sad, Mr. Wooten, but those of you who have visions of improving education only see that improvement as a means of increasing profits for corporations.

For you folks, the “fine arts” in public education are a waste of money.

What you, the politicians, the corporations want is social conformity.

And you do not want to see or consider the students as individuals with differing abilities.

(I’m going to be nice, today, Mr. Wooten, and leave off my usual closing).

By Mrs. Godzilla

August 5, 2008 9:52 AM | Link to this

BRAVO MATILDA

By BFKaJ

August 5, 2008 9:58 AM | Link to this

Dear Mrs. Squirrel @ 8:56, “I am unlikely to return to the blog today unless the moonbats start posting nonsense about Iraq.” “NY Post, Fox News touted flawed GOP poll to claim “America Says Let’s Win [Iraq] War” “Memory lane” thereafter reminded us of the al Qaeda strategy and why we call the democrats “useful idiots.” We follow that with the Solzhenitsyn quotes to help our leftist friends connect the dots.

By On Topic

August 5, 2008 10:00 AM | Link to this

Look at Andy rant Off Topic. Isn’t he a hoot and so cute when his veins bulge like that. Try not to blow a gasket too early. Give a hoot — don’t pollute.

By six/foot/six

August 5, 2008 10:00 AM | Link to this

@ Bud Wiser August 5, 2008 8:09 AM

Corruption is rampant across the board my friend, for every instance you can point out of blacks in elected offices doing corrupt things I can give you three examples of whites to your one for a counterpoint. As far as the left-wing smear campaign going into full throttle, why its due time because the GOP has already started their smear campaign about two weeks ago, and McLovens jump in the polls I would attribute to the recent ads the McMassah aka McLoven aka McCain camp put out recently. Obama has not really unleashed his hounds as of yet (although I think he should) and point out to the world the glaring shortcomings of McCain. But that would be lowering himself to McCain’s level because as we all know McCain has no stance on the issues; his whole campaign is relied upon trying to undercut Obama using subliminal smear ads, outright lies, and playing on “you peoples” deepest innermost primordial fears. Even “you people” don’t like McCain, you’re not voting for McCain because even you can see the flaws in that ugly little shell of a man, you’re really just voting against Obama more than anything. One poll came out and it had McCain in the lead (barely) and you and the whole staff of Fox News are about to throw a ticker tape parade down Broadway, while we have a full three months of campaigning left to do and I cant wait until the one-on-one debates start when we can see the two standing side by side and America will see McCain for the flip flopping, non-eloquent, ugly little troll he is who has no real stance on any issues, just the inverse to whatever Obama says.

@Corey August 5, 2008 9:07 AM

Before you talk about anyone’s failing schools/ students/ communities you should take a look in the mirror and ask yourself how in the heck do you misspell a measly two syllable word (it’s PRODUCE you inbred yokel) and in the same breath talk about communities that don’t value learning. I see from the grammatical errors in your post the community you grew up in didn’t value learning either. Your probably didn’t go to school past the 8th grade just like the rest of these moonshine drinking, NASCAR watching, inbred rednecks in this state.

By zeke

August 5, 2008 10:05 AM | Link to this

Bold, visonary and accurate! We also need to pattern our schools after the Japanese system. Children go to school from 8AM until 5PM six days a week! They are put into a culture, or, mindset that educating themselves is their job, their duty, their responsibility! Strict discipline must be enforced in every classroom and at every school, no caveates, no exceptions and no ability of parents to sue to keep little thug Johnny or Judy in school! The next thing is the areas of study and courses. I have a friend from Japan who came here for college. I asked him if he and his wife had any children. He said no, but, when they do they are moving back to Japan. Why I asked? The schools he said. He was amazed at college here that science subjects that students thought were so hard and so difficult, HE STUDIED IN MIDDLE SCHOOL! THAT IS OUR PROBLEM WITH EDUCATION! WE DO NOT CHALLENGE STUDENTS TO DO THEIR BEST, ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO COULD BE RATED AS GIFTED AND TALENTED ACADEMICALLY! INSTEAD OUR SYSTEM PRMOTES THE IDEA OF ALL BEING THE SAME, DOWNGRADING TO THE LESS TALENTED INSTEAD OF UPGRADING TO THE MORE TALENTED! FOR THIS WE CAN THANK THE TEACHERS UNIONS AND THEIR COUNTERPARTS IN GOVERNMENT! THIS ALL NEEDS TO CHANGE!!

By Mrs. Godzilla

August 5, 2008 10:08 AM | Link to this

BFKaJ

Thank you for your kind response!

By BFKaJ

August 5, 2008 10:10 AM | Link to this

Dear Mrs. Squirrel @ 8:56, “NY Post, Fox News touted flawed GOP poll to claim “America Says Let’s Win [Iraq] War” I am unlikely to return to the blog today unless the moonbats start posting nonsense about Iraq. Memory lane thereafter reminded us of the al Qaeda strategy and why we call the democrats “useful idiots.”

Dear Mitten @ 8:57, since you recounted all of the silly democrat arguments on oil in a single post I will not have to remind everyone how insistently foolish the leftists remain.

Dear Ga Values @ 9:02, I admire your wisdom, born from adverse experience. Henceforth I will include you in my list of education reformers (heretofore only Glenn, @@, and MidSouth) to whose judgment I yield.

Dear Corey @ 9:07, wow, tough love there. I think you are spot on. Our younger son, genius that he was, languished amidst mediocrity until we relocated to Duluth. There, challenged intellectually by the best and brightest of his generation, and with guidance of a few really good teachers, he blossomed. You are right to affirm – ready for the punch line? - that sometimes it helps to have a village.

By hillbilly ragger

August 5, 2008 10:12 AM | Link to this

Shorter Jim:

“I attended this wingnut conference over the weekend and finally got around to posting something about it. No links to the studies I heard about, nor is there a transcript of this speech I thought was so great, but trust me, these people know what they’re talking about!”

By WFC

August 5, 2008 10:14 AM | Link to this

Most of the comments on this blog make me cringe for the future of democracy.

By GeraldBall

August 5, 2008 10:14 AM | Link to this

This is absurd right wing propaganda. School choice already exists, OK? It is called PRIVATE SCHOOL. Most private schools cost no more than daycare, which means that most people can afford them if they are willing to give up the his and her SUV and the 1000 extra square feet in their home that they don’t need. And guess what? The more people put their kids in private schools the cheaper they become! Now of course, there are a lot of truly needy people out there - folks on public assistance as well as the working poor - but since most private schools are CHRISTIAN anyway, well the Christians in this nation could actually start doing what Jesus Christ preached and raise the money required to cover the educational costs for the poor. For so - called conservatives to be advocating THE GOVERNMENT to facilitate lifestyle choices that people are perfectly capable of making their on their own actually greatly increases the effect that government has on people’s lives, and makes our society more dependent on it. Instead of waiting on the government to provide school choice, which A) the government has no interest in doing and B) if they did, the government would simply offer most people (all but the upperclass who quite frankly don’t need public schools or any other government services to begin with) a bunch of “choices” that range from bad to worse. Why? Because wherever government money goes, regulations are sure to follow.

But the biggest scam is Wooten’s claiming that vouchers constitutes real education reform. Please. We will still be stuck with the same system based on a 180 day calendar (because children were needed to work on farms during the summer!) that was designed to produce semi - skilled workers for the early 20th century economy; a long bygone culture where fellow would get the wife, the factory job, and the house that he would keep for 40 years not long after graduating high school. What few “advances” that have been made since then have mostly been failed experiments with Marxism (including the reforms of the very influential but seldom discussed John Dewey) and things designed to serve the interests of the exceedingly tiny percentage of the population that attends a competitive or selective college.

As a matter of fact, that is probably the biggest problem with public schools right now: its politics are driven not by the need to provide a solid education to the largest possible amount of people, but rather the whole system is held captive by a tiny percentage of high income people who believe that it is the job of the state to facilitate their child’s admittance into Georgia Tech or Duke. It is appalling that a school district brags about the FEW DOZEN kids that they send a year to Ivy League schools when HUNDREDS of products of that same system are functionally illiterate! Now I am not blaming the schools and teachers for the failures of parents and students who do not value education or discipline, but if we are going to be spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer money on our public schools a year, the focus should be on functional literacy and vocational training for the many, not prepping Biff and Buffy for Harvard and Princeton, or for that matter Emory and Agnes Scott. If you want all of these AP courses, magnet programs, state of the art laboratories, and athletics facilities (seriously lots of public schools are better equipped THAN MANY COLLEGES) then go to a private school and get it. As it is, we have a totally insane situation where within the same metro area one school will have a movie studio and sound stage for its drama/theatre department AND indoor practice facilities for the tennis/golf/gymnastics/swim teams and another school will have broken windows, lead paint, asbestos, textbook shortages, and semi - literate teachers.

Real school reform should focus on A) changing the model from one designed to educate the America of the 1930s and B) moving the political focus on the 3% that will get into a selective university to the 70% that won’t go to college at all! Unfortunately, neither party or the alleged “conservative” or “liberal” political movements behind them will advocate that sort of real change. Why? Because both have ideological and political motivations for keeping things just as they are! That is why real change is going to have to come from people standing up and voting with their feet.

By Preston

August 5, 2008 10:21 AM | Link to this

Every child has the God given right to be educated. When a parent has to make a choice to send their child to a private school rather than a public school, simply because the public schools are failing our children, our society and our country, that is a problem. I agree with school vouchers and this is an initiative that needs to be placed on the ballot. Let the public decide and not the egotistical school officials who would rather save their hefty salaries than save our children.

By Concerned Citizen

August 5, 2008 10:22 AM | Link to this

By Corey August 5, 2008 9:07 AM A great teacher is a teacher who takes a class of C and D students and bring the majority of them up to A and B

Corey, common sense is not allowed on this blog.

By BFKaJ

August 5, 2008 10:23 AM | Link to this

Dear Mrs. Godzilla @ 10:08, I owe you an apology. Through the magic of cut and paste, and due to my negligent editing and review, my magnanimous words of kindness for you turned into a public insult. You were supposed to read, “Blog on, the challenge is our purpose here.” For the insult, I apologize.

By RW-(the original)

August 5, 2008 10:30 AM | Link to this

Oddly, although Obama’s proposal shows he recognizes the impact of supply on prices, he remains hesitant about lifting the congressional ban on off-shore drilling. Credit Obama for moving slightly away from the hard-line no drilling position of the Democratic congressional leadership by saying he’d consider “limited” coastal drilling if it were packaged with big increases in government subsidies for alternative energy development.

But at the same time, he proposed taking away any incentive oil companies would have to expand drilling and increase supplies by pushing a windfall tax on Big Oil’s profits to fund the $1,000 rebate checks.

Perhaps the senator is hoping the checks will make Americans forget, as he apparently has, about what happened when Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter played the price and profit limiting game the 1970s.

As the pay-off for oil exploration dwindled, so did oil supplies, driving up fuel prices and creating long lines at the pump. There’s no reason to think Obama would be any more successful in executing this dubious redistribution strategy.

His plan also would give the state-owned oil companies in places like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela a huge advantage over domestic companies, since they’d be beyond the reach of Obama’s profits grab.

Polly,

If you copy and paste the above to yourself it will no longer be in italics.

By Mrs. Godzilla

August 5, 2008 10:30 AM | Link to this

RW…

Perhaps we should have a look at some of McCains “good buddies” as you put it!

How about that Keating 5 Bunch?

Let’s not forget Rick Renzi?

Oh, my Tom Delay?

(Not to mention Cheney, Bush, Ashcroft, Gonzales, Rumsfeld, et al)

John Hagee?

Jack Abramoff?

Rod Parsley?

Tom Loeffler?

Charlie Black?

Doug Davenport?

Doug Goodyear?

“Foreclosure” Phil Gramm?

Terry Nelson?

Trent Lott?

Ken Blackwell?

Richard Quinn?

Bob Perry?

Richard Land?

The Wyly Brothers?

By Mrs. Godzilla

August 5, 2008 10:32 AM | Link to this

BFKaJ

Apology accepted!

Thank you!

By gafarmer

August 5, 2008 10:40 AM | Link to this

Zeke@10:05 is correct, kids need to be challenged. They enjoy it. Ever watch a six year old try to program a cell phone? Ever watch a two year old try to read the comics?

Most kids are expected to be average by their parents, just need to pass. The parents who expect their kids to excell and plant a desire to learn at an early age, 2 or 3 not 6 or 7, are most often rewarded with “exceptional” children.

By Mrs. Godzilla

August 5, 2008 10:46 AM | Link to this

RW

Thanks for quoting the Detroit News OP ED Page…..wonder who wrote it and what their area of expertise is?

Here’s Paul Krugman’s (Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton)take on the Obama plan:

“Now that’s more like it — a hard-hitting political speech with a solid policy proposal behind it. “

Short and to the point!

There is a nifty little website

econ4obama

might be worth your while to take a peak!

By Concerned Citizen

August 5, 2008 10:48 AM | Link to this

By WFC August 5, 2008 10:14 AM | Link to this Most of the comments on this blog make me cringe for the future of democracy.

Bravo! Most (not all) posters on this blog leave nothing to the imagination regarding their upbringing.

By Bad S Mitten

August 5, 2008 10:48 AM | Link to this

Dear jbwhatever,

Someone needs to fill the role of providing a retort of equivalent educational value to those sweet nothings that you so love to provide to your Republican fans. After all, it’s not like responding in kind to your dribble requires effort and I certainly would not waste my true talents on one with such obvious shortcomings. Indeed, you are simply one of many little toys that I keep around until you no longer provide a chuckle. Now, go ahead and “make my day” by saying something “smart”. I’ll be waiting. Just kidding. I won’t really be waiting for THAT moment — life’s too short. I know that waiting for that something “smart” is analogous to waiting for the computer program to spit out the exact value for Pi.

There. Now do you start to “see’, by example, how to provide at least a seemingly intellectual retort. Your turn. Try again.

By Just Nasty and Mean

August 5, 2008 10:52 AM | Link to this

I don’t owe special needs kids—-or the stupid ones—any more than the bright and motivated ones.

If you want to know the truth, I don’t owe anybody anything (other than my father/mother) but since we are STUCK with this system, EVERY KID should receive the EXACT same amount of taxpayer funds.

If the standard school curriculum doesn’t provide what is needed for your special requirements (autistic, dumb, brain damaged, discipline, ROTC, jock sniffer, whatever), then take your voucher and GO SOMEWHERE ELSE (transportation at YOUR OWN EXPENSE!).

By Ich bin ein Beginner

August 5, 2008 10:56 AM | Link to this

“Krugman was one of many economists to serve as a consultant for an advisory board for Enron; he did this in 1999…”

Just what we need: An economist from Enron supplied by Obama.

By Mrs. Godzilla

August 5, 2008 11:03 AM | Link to this

RW

I’M SHOCKED AND APPALLED!

High School and College Student listens to a COMMIE!!!! OH NO!!! HIDE THE CHILDREN!!!! HIDE OUR WOMEN!!!

TRYING TO UNDERSTAND other peoples opinions! TREASON!

Y’all are just too funny.

By RW-(the original)

August 5, 2008 11:04 AM | Link to this

Enron’s own Paul Krugman?

Good golly Miss Molly

By Bad S Mitten

August 5, 2008 11:08 AM | Link to this

That’s a cool attitude you’ve got there, Just Nasty and Mean. Did those feelings get started as a result of some bully in the Georgia school system picking on you in grade school. His name wasn’t jbwhatever, was it. You should not have held in those feelings for so long. You’ve really blown a gasket, much like Off Topic did earlier. By the way, how do you feel about advanced placement and similar programs. All of those kids that are not be adequately challenged or that have already demonstrated an advanced capability are taking up resources that could be better applied to something of more value like grade-school football scholarships.

By Mrs. Godzilla

August 5, 2008 11:14 AM | Link to this

RW

Why not go back to McCains energy policy?

Now that is funny!

How about we talk about McCain’s support for the Bush tax cuts?

That’s got Americans rolling in the aisles!

How about talking about McCains pompous, arrogant claim the he “knows how to win wars” - the funny part there is that he kept it a secret in both wars he’s famous for!!

That makes everybody guffaw!

How ‘bout that promise to balance the budget in his first term!

Economist are whooping it up over that!!!!

OH I FORGOT - RW, you have stated repeatedly that you would never vote for John McCain…..so you’re just playing around anyway….you don’t have a dog in this fight….unless you have been lying?

Naw, not you!

By RW-(the original)

August 5, 2008 11:16 AM | Link to this

Mrs. G.,

Why do you suppose Obambi only listed him as Frank when he extolled the virtues of his communist mentor in his first autobiography?

For that matter, how arrogant is someone that just turned 47 and already has two autobiographies?

By Wxyz

August 5, 2008 11:17 AM | Link to this

Hey Everybody! The only way I could keep RW and corporal glennduhng from being read by anyone but themselves and their p-hole trolls was to make sure they kept using italics. And they fell for it! What a couple of fall guys, what a couple of maroons!! Bwa!

Hey, Duhng, stop using italics, moron, I cant read them. I’m a FABB4Eyes, you know, fat aging baby boomer with glasses, hey, that’s as close as I’m getting to the beatles. None of us can read your comments, which I’m sure are great and advance the discussion.

Seems a shame. (snickle, mmmphhhh)

By AmVet

August 5, 2008 11:18 AM | Link to this

Mrs. G,

Joe McCarthy is still very alive and well in the Republican Party…

By Mrs. Godzilla

August 5, 2008 11:21 AM | Link to this

“”Krugman is bemoaning the shenanigans, and not the structure which enabled Enron to hide them. After all, there are many investment banks out there who make quite a lot of money doing what Enron did: trading energy. The fact that they’re out there doing that helps to make the energy market more efficient, and benefits society. What Krugman is bemoaning is the fact that Enron used its political connections to push through various bits of legislation designed to give it an advantage over the banks. Enron, uniquely among energy traders, was pretty much exempt from regulatory oversight. That’s what caused the shenanigans, not Enron’s “post-corporate free-wheeling e-economy.”

Just like charities, companies suffer if they’re not held accountable for their actions. Enron hid lots of nasty balance-sheet nuclear waste where Wall Street couldn’t see it, and saw its stock soar as a consequence. Give me “hundreds of casually dressed men and women staring at computer screens and barking into telephones” any day: just ensure that I know when they’re making money and when they’re losing it.

For the ironic thing about Enron was that it wan’t the off-balance-sheet losses which brought it down. Those were large, but still relatively small in relation to the size of the company as a whole. What caused the collapse of Enron was that no one would trade with it any more when the losses were made public. No trading entity can make money unless it has rock-solid counterparty risk, and when Enron’s secretiveness came to light, no one had any faith in that any more. It wasn’t a loss of money which killed Enron, it was a loss of trust.”“

Yep Krugman was on an advisory board at Enron in 1999…..

wanna show me where it says the enron gailure was his fault?

did he hold a gun to Ken Lay or Skillings head?

most likely not…..

OH WAIT…. DO WE REALLY WANT TO TALK ABOUT ENRON…..FORECLOSURE PHIL GRAMM AND JOHN McCAIN?

By Wxyz

August 5, 2008 11:21 AM | Link to this

I wonder if Skip Caray is interviewing Lou Gehrig in heaven right now? Having Skip around for so many years makes me feel like the luckiest fan (fan fan) on the face (face face) of the earth (earth earth).

By Mrs. Godzilla

August 5, 2008 11:23 AM | Link to this

RW….

To answer your question, I don’t know. I suspect it was to allow wingnutia to spin fantasies….

Just what is it that “arrogant” is code for?