Sunday, June 1, 2014

6-1-14 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION:







School Choice Is UnAmerican
When I was busy listing reasons that conservatives should be opposed to school choice, I missed a biggy.School choice is taxation without representation.When some cranky old fart (crankier and older than I am, anyway) wants to complain about having to pay taxes for schools when his kids aren't even IN school any more, I have a standard answer. Schools are not a service for parents. The people who


School Choice Does Not Reduce the Cost of Education
Neal McClusky at the Cato Institute tweeted that I was wrong in my recent assertion that a school choice system costs more than a single public system. I asked him for an example of a place with a choice system that had lowered the cost of schooling, and he referred me to a couple of articles, the most thorough of which is a 2005 paper from Cato, "Saving Money and Improving Education: How Sch


Democrats: "We Suck Less Than That Other Guy"

Every election and primary cycle brings the same question back around-- do we support the lesser of two evils, or throw support to a non-viable third party candidate? This used to qualify as not-really-a-question. In 2012, lots of Democrats were super-unhappy with Obama's first term. Teachers were already being pretty open about feeling that Obama had implemented education policies that George Bus


5-31-14 Curmudgucation Week
CURMUDGUCATION:Welcome to Common Core HospitalNurse Duncan: Welcome to Common Core Hospital. How may I assist you?Chris: My name's Chris Wobble. I was just in a car accident. My arms seems to be broken in about three places.Nurse Duncan: All righty, then. We just need to do some assessments here to see what shape you're in. As a major health care provider, your health data determines our success r