http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2013/02/15/top-of-the-morning Comments On: Top of the morning — new library, abortion, schools, rails to trails by Max Brantley en-us Copyright 2013 Arkansas Times. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, Arkansas Times readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact Arkansas Times. robert@arktimes.com (Arkansas Times Webmaster) Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:01 -0500 Mon, 20 May 2013 15:30:00 -0500 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
In Palestine you have kids being raised to believe that car bombers are heroes if they are killing Jews. I wish we all loved one another. I have always been taught to respect a person's character and not to consider the color of a person's skin. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech summed that up best and I wish people would take the time to read that short speech more. Maybe we do agree about this.
Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 22:52:45 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by couldn't be better]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 17:53:05 -0600 Arkansas Times
Doesn't matter whether they are a selective, or monochromatic, religious or secular.

Would it be that devastation for high schools.
Posted by mudturtle]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 15:54:42 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Whoscrumdown]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 15:32:03 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Infamous Amos]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 13:47:58 -0600 Arkansas Times
http://blogs.barrons.com/stockstowatchtoda…
Posted by radical centrist]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 13:41:45 -0600 Arkansas Times
Your point about the religious element is a very complicated one to many people. However, I don't think it is possible to give an education unless it is value based. The real question is whose values will it be based on? That is why it is so wise to give the money to the parents and let them decide for themselves. By the way is there a problem today with giving money to families to send their children to religious colleges now? Why would highschools be different than colleges?
Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 13:20:54 -0600 Arkansas Times
Gly, most people in rural areas don't have small kids in school but yet they vote at the highest level in any district. iF you want something to fail, make it cost seniors without any benefit to them. It is easy when the GOP is hating on Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and talking about cuts and running costs up with co-pays. Why should they vote to LOWER their standard of living since in this state, over half of the retirees on Social Security live ONLY on Social Security and see how well you can do in a rural area on less than $800 a month (I think the real number is in the $600 range-minus Medicare).
Posted by couldn't be better]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 12:29:05 -0600 Arkansas Times
Or we could start reusing those abandoned rail lines as - rail lines.

I like the Frisco trail in Fayetteville and the High Line in New York. Excellent use of abandoned rail lines. But we better stop to think before dismantling every old rail line. The time will come when we wish we had kept more of those rail corridors for rail transport, which we'll have to start rebuilding soon or continue the decline toward becoming a third world nation.
Posted by TM]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 11:47:45 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Sound Policy]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 11:27:31 -0600 Arkansas Times
School choice in a rural area gives the parents more leverage against the school administration if the parents are unhappy with how the school is being run. Suppose that a large group of the parents in a district hate how the school is being run and a large majority of the voters in the district are more or less happy with it. With districts assigned geographically, and school administrators elected democratically, the administrators can ignore the upset parents and not worry about loosing their jobs. If the parents want something different, they will have to move or start their own private school. Both of those options are very expensive.

Some form of school choice opens cheaper options for the parents. They can get together and shuttle their kids to the next county or start a charter school. If the parents were to do that, it would mean a drop in funding for school, and likely that some of the teachers and administrators would lose their jobs.

The parents don't actually have to go through with the change. As long as they can make a credible threat, they can influence the school administrators.
Posted by Gylippus]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 11:09:59 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by 70%er]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 11:05:49 -0600 Arkansas Times
That's not really what I'm asking. I'm asking from the perspective of parents/children in those areas. Allowing "school choice" does not benefit someone who doesn't live within a distance that makes attending any other school feasible. This kind of change is only going to apply in urban and suburban areas of state. Meaning you have to have plans in place to address the racial disparities, lest the federal government quickly become involved again.

"2. Kids with special needs now have more attention and money spent on them now."

They do, but there are also economies of scale at work when you're talking about a public school system. It is never going to cost as much to educate the 100th special-needs student in a district as it will the first few, because long-term costs have already been addressed and the size of the district allows for more cost-effective measures. To assume that the same money the state pays for a special-needs student's education is going to be the same as what it will cost a private school is illogical. If the private schools realize this, they have no incentive to accept special-needs children, absent additional tax breaks or other revenues. And you can't ask the students' families to make up any shortfall, due to the requirement under IDEA that all students receive a "free and adequate" education.

Re: #3. If the private schools are taking a disproportionate number of "regular" students, relative to the number of special-needs students that they accept, you skew the per-student spending of the public schools and, worse, because you can't cut programs for special-needs under IDEA, you leave traditional students in the public schools facing a situation where non-IDEA-related programs will have to be cut to make up shortfalls in funding. If they stay in those schools, their education suffers; if they leave, the problem is exacerbated for the students who don't, and the public schools slowly become an educational system for special-needs and students who can't afford private schools even with a voucher. This becomes a problem under Ark. Const. Art. 14, sec. 1, which requires that "the State shall ever maintain a general, suitable and efficient system of free public schools."

"4. Racism is not an issue for any private schools in Little Rock that I know of and I challenge to name one where it is. (I have close friends involved with almost all of them and they all welcome all racial minorities.) They could reject troubled kids but many private schools have programs that work with kids like that and have religious programs that reach out to them."

Dealing with this answer in two parts:

First, re: racism. Pulaski Academy was started in 1971 for white people who didn't like busing. Busing, of course, was designed to integrate the public school system in a way that the traditionally segregated neighborhoods could not. To quote the late Father Tribou, the private schools of Little Rock founded after 1958 were conceived in sin. While the mission and actions of the private schools may not be overtly racist today, nothing I have seen in Arkansas suggests to me that the parents of students already at these private schools would happily welcome a large influx of minority students. Speculation on my part? Yes. But it's not far-fetched.

Second, re: religion. You've brushed upon another problem with school choice. While the Supreme Court has said that vouchers used to pay for religious private schools are ok, as long as the vouchers go through the parents (and certain criteria are met), that was a 5-4 decision from a more conservative court (2002), meaning it's questionable whether that holds up. Even if you assume it does, PA is the only non-sectarian college prep private school in the state, so you've basically created a system where a parent who doesn't want their child to be exposed to religious instruction is forced to stay in the public schools that you have already admitted are failing (and under this program would fail more rapidly).

"5. Money is not an issue under a voucher plan because of the cost savings that private schools will bring."

The Washington D.C. example doesn't hold here. Arkansas spends $10,757 per student.

You also missed my point. If a FAMILY can't afford the additional costs of private school (uniforms, transportation to and from the school, etc.), then cost savings to the state are irrelevant. You still leave the very poor in the public schools if they can't afford the additional costs of the private school. (That the very poor in urban school districts are disproportionately black is a concern, obviously.)
Posted by Infamous Amos]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 10:33:47 -0600 Arkansas Times
Turns out St. Malachy (12th Century) predicted the next Pope will be the last.

Of course, he was Irish. So, probably slurring his prophecies.

And of course, again, everybody's suddenly slamming his prophecies for one reason or other. (Though not ragging on the carbon dated Shroud of Turin, wink, wink.)

But these are Catholics. So, not to be trusted, Time has proved.

A black Pope from Ghana? After what Obama's been through? Last Pope's a Black Pope? Really?

Chicken entrails, I'm pretty sure, are the flock's sole hope here.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/14/s…
Posted by Norma Bates]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 10:11:54 -0600 Arkansas Times 2. Kids with special needs now have more attention and money spent on them now, why would that change. I assume vouchers for these kids would include more money.
3. Answered in #2.
4. Racism is not an issue for any private schools in Little Rock that I know of and I challenge to name one where it is. (I have close friends involved with almost all of them and they all welcome all racial minorities.) They could reject troubled kids but many private schools have programs that work with kids like that and have religious programs that reach out to them.
5. Money is not an issue under a voucher plan because of the cost savings that private schools will bring. Washington DC is an extreme example where public schools are spending $29,000 per kid when private schools there can educate a kid for around $10,000.
Thanks for the questions. You have a good handle on the challenges of educating children. I wonder if you have been close to this issue personally because it sounds like you have. I salute you and others on this blog that have given so much time and love to help kids learn. Like you I really am sad about the inner city kids not getting a better opportunity to climb the education and economic ladder up.
Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 09:55:37 -0600 Arkansas Times
Explain to me the following:

1. How would school choice be practical for someone living in rural Arkansas?

2. How do you deal with private schools' being able to deny acceptance of children who are more costly to educate due to special needs or other limitation?

3. If you don't deal with #2, how do you expect the public schools that are required to accept those special-needs students to comply with IDEA in light of the Forest Grove decision.

4. Related to #2, do you propose to still let private schools make decisions on who they will admit, even when space is available. If so, how do you propose to get around the blatant racism that underlies many of the private/charter schools?

5. What good is school choice, even if covered by a voucher, for a family that can't afford the peripheral costs of attending a private school?
Posted by Infamous Amos]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 08:44:57 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by ozarkrazo]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 08:41:51 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by ozarkrazo]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 08:37:39 -0600 Arkansas Times
I wonder if Justin Harris or Jason Rapert care.

The recessive gene for Tay-Sachs is more prevalent in those populations. Babies born with the disease appear normal for the first 6 months. Then the deterioration begins. They die by age 4. By then they are blind, deaf, unable to swallow, paralyzed.

There is so much hubris in presuming to know the will of God. There is so much hubris in trying to force that presumption on other people who may have a very different idea of God's will.

A stunted moral sense paired with a denial of science can lead to that hubris.

How do they "know"? I assume the bible tells them so. I stopped believing in the literalness of the bible at about the same age I stopped believing in Santa and the tooth fairy.
Posted by the outlier]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 08:27:26 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by the outlier]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 08:12:39 -0600 Arkansas Times
Book learning won't save us from the UN. Books do nothing against tyranny. There is a reason that the constitution of the United States includes a well-armed militia and leaves out educating children.
Posted by I_AM_THE_NRA]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 07:52:32 -0600 Arkansas Times
BEST comment I've seen in a while! Thanks Max!
Posted by spunkrat]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 07:50:40 -0600 Arkansas Times
Atlanta is big enough to absorb its (and Georgia's) Christian fundamentalists and still prosper economically: its progressives outnumber the local Taliban significantly enough to build enough of a veneer of 21st Century forward-thinking to attract capital and major investors.

Not The Rock. Not The Natural State.

There, one is reminded of the inevitable results of religious fundamentalism taking power anywhere. Witness the Middle East. See "Argo" to revisit Tehran in the days of the Ayatollah, whose grip hasn't relaxed to this day. Then recall it was the West's doomed attempt to impose secularism on an old fundamentalist religious culture that led to everything in the first place.

NOW, 50 years later, Iran wants to catch up and be respected technologically and economically. But all it can offer are bullying threats of destruction against its perceived "enemies."

If the Middle East weren't sitting on all that oil, the entire region would have starved and suicide-bombed itself to extinction long ago.

Arkansas isn't atop that kind of wealth. It can't even afford to repair its roads.

Since the elections, Arkansas's power-and-political brokers have apparently gone all-in with the slogan, "Still Bringing Up the Rear after 180 Years," worshiping the triumph of ugly "traditional values" over modernity in The Rock as in Tehran, Searcy as in Syria.

Speaking of the NYT, Paul Krugman, as usual, succinctly assesses Marco Rubio as the GOP's "savior" (as Time dubbed the right's Great Beige Hope).

"What we learned Tuesday [from Rubio's response to President Obama's SOTU address], however, was that zombie economic ideas have eaten his brain."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/opinion/…

Zombie ideas.

The vicious right-wing fundamentalist Christian GOP-sponsored tragedy that's overtaking Arkansas is suicide-bombing completely of its own making.

Nationally, jaws drop at the onslaught of disbelief about Arkansas that swirls in news cycles, adding to the state's increasingly precipitous reputation (HOW many documentaries about WM3 last year?).

Finally, outsiders' stunned surprise devolves into shrugs.

Until frankly, Scarlett, the rest of us don't give a damn.
Posted by Norma Bates]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 07:47:27 -0600 Arkansas Times
How good have the public schools been doing keeping down costs? Lindsey Burke of the Heritage Foundation noted:

The Friedman report, authored by Ben Scafidi, PhD, takes an even longer look, demonstrating that since 1950, public school enrollment has increased 96 percent, while the number of teachers has increased 252 percent and the number of non-teaching personnel (administrators and other staff) has increased an astonishing 702 percent. “Put differently,” Scafidi notes, “the rise in non-teaching staff was more than seven times faster than the increase in students”
http://thedailyhatch.org/2013/02/15/schola…
Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2013 07:39:24 -0600 Arkansas Times