FWCS - All Stick and No Carrot?

In order to save themselves from their own failed budgetary decisions the Fort Wayne Community Schools administration is looking to hammer on teachers in order to get a piece of President Obama’s $4.3 Billion education pie.

But once again their plan is foolish and will only lead to more failing schools. The federal money they are shooting for requires districts to hold teachers accountable for improving student test scores, but instead of incentivizing teachers in failing schools the FWCS administration is looking for scapegoats. Their plan appears to be to take the money, plug their budgetary gaps and beat up on teachers who are working with some of the most challenging students in the district.

As I’ve said before the reason these schools are failing is because the parents are failing. To portray this as some sort of problem with teachers is laughable. Loser parents, in general, raise loser children - that’s just the reality of a vicious sociological cycle that takes a lot more than a teacher or two to fix. And that’s why the administration’s plan is so ridiculous because most of the people who teach in these failing schools are there because they truly want to make a difference.

If you shitcan them who the hell are you going to get to take their place? Do you really think teachers from SWAC are lining up to teach at these schools? The only people you’ll recruit to these positions are those without a solid track record to begin with - many of which will surely flock to surburban openings as soon as they can. Look, I’m not against getting rid of poor teachers but to pretend that you can do that without incentives for quality teachers is foolish…

Stuff Worth Reading

One Local and One National Today:

A-f’in-men…

We Need More Comments Like This At City Council

This is going to be me in 10 years - heh. Seriously, watch the whole video; it may have the best ending to a speech of all time…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA1hyqA6UTY

Indianapolis Takes Six Sigma to its Illogical Conclusion

I’ve been an ardent opponent of Six Sigma and the alleged “savings” it has generated for Fort Wayne. Having said that, the bozos down in Indy have taken it to a whole new level:

Motorists who receive minor parking or traffic tickets in Indianapolis, Indiana are being threatened with fines of up to $2500 if they attempt to take the ticket to court.
[...]
The city made explicit the threat of additional fines for challenging parking tickets in a November 30 press release announcing a deal between Indianapolis and a private firm, T2 Systems, to hand over operations of a parking ticket court to increase municipal income.

“Using Six Sigma process improvement strategies, it is estimated that under this program the city may collect an additional $352,000 to $520,000 in parking citation revenue over the next 12 months,” the city press release stated.

Bilk your citizens for every dime they have by issuing outrageous fines that don’t even remotely serve the public good. Brilliant! Indianapolis is a borderline failed city and is becoming more of a laughingstock by the day.

And just in case you think the outrageous fines are only going to the worst offenders:

Toshinao Ishii received a ticket for driving 63 MPH in a 55 zone in February. Had he paid the ticket without challenge, the fine would have been $150. After Judge Young sided with the police officer in court, Ishii was fined $550. Motorist Matthew Stone was told by his doctors not to wear a seatbelt over his chest as it could damage his cardiac pacemaker. He received a $25 ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. After court officials threatened Stone with a $500 fine, he gave up his intention of challenging the citation. Adam Lenkowsky, who did not receive a ticket, attempted to attend a traffic court proceeding on September 23, 2009. He was barred from the court, despite the state constitutional requirement that court proceedings be open.

Mitch Daniels is slashing expenses to deal with lower revenues

Every politician in this country could learn something from Mitch Daniels.  Each and every time the state revenue forecast decreases Mitch Daniels cuts expenses.  That is what any prudent leader should do; however, a frightening number of political leaders have proven unable to grasp this simple concept.

Consider this statistic; The State of Indiana has 14% FEWER workers today than it had in January of 2005.

That is amazing and it is encouraging.

We should get every government agency in the country to cut their staff by 14%…

Mike Sylvester

President Obama taking on the teachers unions?

President Obama implemented a 4.4 billion dollar program that will distribute money to schools nationwide as long as states link student performance to teacher performance. 

Indiana can get up to 250 million dollars in Federal stimulus money if Indiana changes its rules so that teacher performance is linked to student achievement on standardized test scores. 

This is truly interesting since President Obama’s Race to the Top plan (that spends 4.4 billion dollars) comes from a Democratic President and was approved by a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate. 

The teachers unions have long resisted any attempt to use student achievement to evaluate teacher performance.  The teachers unions have long supported Democrats…

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

As an Indiana taxpayer I certainly want Indiana to get 250 million dollars in Federal stimulus money and so I want to see Indiana link teacher performance to student achievement.

Mike Sylvester

Senator Bunning Blasts Ben Bernanke

I listened to this live and had a good chuckle. You will never see a more thorough lambasting than this during any Senate hearing. This was good stuff. Of course it was followed up by a bunch of worthless softball questions from Senator Bayh:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Raise Less Corn and More Hell

From a famous populist and fellow Wichita native (sort of, she wasn’t born there) Mary Elizabeth Lease:

Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master.

That quote was from a speech given in 1890. The entire speech is pretty short and worth the quick 60 second read. I think I like this speech because I believe it’s how many people feel today. We just don’t have a Mary Elizabeth Lease to provide the fodder - or perhaps we have too many…

We will stand by our homes and stay by our fireside by force if necessary, and we will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the government pays its debts to us. The people are at bay; let the bloodhounds of money who dogged us thus far beware.

It’s Not That Difficult - Just Say No

The city council passed a budget with a 1% increase for city employees after giving approval for some unionized public safety employees to receive raises of 1.5%. the administration brought the union contracts to the council table prior to the budget hearings and I think it’s quite obvious that their strategy was to pass the public safety increase before the budget in order to gain leverage towards getting the full 1.5% for all employees. That’s why you heard arguments like “if we treat non-union employees differently then they will be more likely to unionize.”

It didn’t look like their strategy fully worked but now key councilmembers are considering changing their minds:

The vote could signal a chance for all city employees to recoup the lost half-percentage point raise. Council President Tom Smith, R-1st, said he has begun to reconsider the raises, especially after supporting a $550,000 lifeline to the fledging Public Safety Academy.

“I think that’s something we’re going to have to take a look at,” he said regarding giving all employees a 1.5 percent raise in 2010.

Somebody stop the madness. Of course city employees want more money - who doesn’t? And the majority probably deserve it but the only way to give them more money is to take it from people in the private sector who already make less than their government counterparts and who are facing 11+% unemployment.
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Senator Bayh Supports Bernanke’s Confirmation

In Senator Bayh’s opening statement of Bernanke’s reconfirmation hearing he said that he supports the chairman’s reconfirmation. Basically he said that he supports him because he’s in a position to learn from past mistakes and to clean things up going forward. That might be true if Bernanke actually thought he made any mistakes - he doesn’t. His entire tenure of forecasting, regulation, consumer protection and monetary policy has been a massive failure. Evidently Senator Bayh wants to reward that failure - I’m not surprised given his own history of lousy votes…

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