EPL update
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I hadn't checked my fantasy league team for quite a while. I didn't have time to make all the changes I would have liked and got caught with a team that had 3 players out injured. Not a real effective way to make points in a fantasy league. It looks like all my players are healthy now, but I am languishing in 1111th place out of 1709 active players. I guess I won't be winning that trip to England this year...

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, January 28 2004 11:40:11 PM

Silly Season is upon us
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Well, we are now well into what I have regularly called "Silly Season."

No, I'm not referring to the primary elections and caucuses, although that would also qualify. The Kansas Legislature is in session. The session has been open for 16 days, and by law, can only run 90 days (although a special session can be called in an emergency).

For the first time in a few years, no one is making noises about reducing funding for corrections. This scares me, because we've sort of been on the chopping block for the last few years and have managed to squeak by each year. This year we seem to have support from the beginning. But lurking out there is a lawsuit filed by some school districts challenging the state's school finance formula. In December a judge ruled that the formula was unconstitutional and also added (in a fine display of judicial activism) that the state should be spending an additional $1 billion on school finance each year.

One report I saw said that if we fund everything this year at the same rate as we did last year, we will be something like $850 million in the red from the start. I don't think the legislature can raise $850 million in new taxes, let alone the extra billion, and so my paranoia begins. The money is going to have to be cut from somewhere else and community programs are "somewhere else." In the end, I don't expect corrections to get hit too hard, but this is always a nervous time for us. I normally spend quite a bit of time each day reviewing testimony and the news reports from the Topeka Capitol Journal, but this year, the bloody weasels have made the legislative report section a pay site. So I'm having to go a bit further afield for my news.

So far, nothing too substantive seems to have come out of Topeka, but that is typical for this early in the session. Still, I'm doing a lot more newspaper reading than I normally do (other than at this time of year) so my other projects, including finishing the essay on how I got to my current political views, are mostly on hold.

Strangely enough, Howard over at The Smedley Drafts, has written a short piece on the cognitive dissonance experienced when one realizes one no longer fits the label one has worn comfortably in the past.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, January 28 2004 10:26:58 PM

Because we don't want anyone's feelings to be hurt...
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Apparently they have done away with posting the Honor Roll in Nashville. From the Washington Post:

The school honor roll, a time-honored system for rewarding A students, has become an apparent source of embarrassment for some underachievers.

As a result, all Nashville schools have stopped posting honor rolls, and some are also considering a ban on hanging good work in the hallways -- on the advice of school lawyers.

After a few parents complained that their children might be ridiculed for not making the list, lawyers for the Nashville school system warned that state privacy laws forbid releasing any academic information, good or bad, without permission. (emphasis mine)

For God's sake, we wouldn't want little Johnny to feel bad about not getting good grades because he doesn't have time for studying due to the time demands created by the pursuit of drugs, alcohol, and getting laid. I understand that educational theory says we don't want to lose students, we don't want them to disengage and that we must bend over backwards to keep from alienating students. I'm sorry, this is wrong. We need more competition in schools, not less. Children who grow up thinking the world is a happy cooperative place are in for a traumatic awakening when confronted by the real world when they start looking for a job. The sad thing is that instead of encouraging healthy competition, we leave our kids stunned and demoralized when they realize they can't compete because they don't have the tools or skills necessary to do so. And the people involved want to eliminate competition altogether. From the same article:

...Others think it might be a good idea to get rid of the honor roll altogether, as Principal Steven Baum did at Julia Green Elementary in Nashville.

"The rationale was, if there are some children that always make it and others that always don't make it, there is a very subtle message that was sent," he said. "I also understand right to privacy is the legal issue for the new century."

Baum thinks spelling bees and other publicly graded events are leftovers from the days of ranking and sorting students.

"I discourage competitive games at school," he said. "They just don't fit my worldview of what a school should be."

By all means, our children's ability to compete in the marketplace ought to be decided by whether or not it fits with some grade school principal's worldview.

I get real testy about this sort of thing. Having listened to my parents talk about all the horror stories (from a teacher's perspective) about parents who insist that their little Johnny is a genius who can do no wrong and could never be disruptive or difficult or obnoxious or just not too bright (the kind of people who complain about little Johnny not making the Honor Roll) I always tried to be supportive of my daughter's teachers when she was in school. I tried not to interfere, because when I did try to help with homework, I found that what was being taught and the manner of presentation didn't fit with how I remembered it, so rather than make things worse, I just stayed out of it.

My daughter now has a High School Diploma. She is intelligent, creative and has, I think, some potential as a writer of fiction. Unfortunately, she wouldn't know a punctuation mark if it bit her on the butt. This is just one of the ways I think she was betrayed by the education system. Mind you, I don't put the entire blame on the school. I knew something wasn't quite right, and I let myself be lulled to sleep by "authority."

I don't know where this rant was going, and I seem to have lost my train of thought, so maybe I should just quit and come back to this later.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Sunday, January 25 2004 03:21:13 PM