Swiggers wrote:

pacino wrote:domez-vous?

dormez.

(pedantic en francais)

phatj wrote:

Swiggers wrote:

pacino wrote:domez-vous?

dormez.

(pedantic en francais)

Ahem... "pédant"

pacino wrote:he had six months of a 'filibuster-proof' senate.

The Reading School District looks nothing like it did just a year ago. A $43 million deficit this year has resulted in 13 percent fewer teachers on its payroll, and a scramble to fill those gaps. Many furloughed rehires are teaching in unfamiliar fields. For example, Brad Richards, a longtime sixth-grade history veteran, presides over a kindergarten class. The capacity of pre-kindergarten has been cut in half. Because Pennsylvania schools by rule can't fire teachers unless a school is closed or a program is shut down, certain vocational and technology classes simply don't exist anymore. Fewer security guards monitor student brawls and school safety inside the halls, and those who remain operate without the help of police officers, whom the district deemed too expensive to hire from the city.

More students jostle for less space. The intermediate schools and the high school are flooded with extra kids, the refugees of three defunct middle-school "gateways" opened a few years ago.

Similar woes are hitting low-income school districts elsewhere.

Cities in New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania generally feel the worst financial squeeze, according to the Education Law Center's school funding fairness report, because their local funding sources favor wealthier school districts over needier areas -- and because they sometimes spend more money than necessary in affluent suburbs. Taxpayers in poorer areas can only afford smaller school budgets for themselves before state aid kicks in. This is a problem, says the report's co-author Bruce Baker, a Rutgers University education professor, because districts with needier students have to pay a premium to recruit and keep good teachers. They also need additional funds to provide services that help close the gap between disadvantaged students and their better-off peers.

Reading is emblematic of poor cities nationwide, bruised not only by blows to education but also by a dearth of consistent leadership. According to numerous audits, the Reading school system has long been plagued with dysfunction, nepotism and administrative churn. As education reform leaders and unions fight over policies that mandate rigorous teacher evaluations and encourage the growth of charter schools, poor kids are losing out in the most basic of ways -- a situation that embeds them deeper in the cycle of poverty.

At first glance, Reading looks like many other low-income, mid-size American cities: Brightly painted row homes are surrounded by sprawling trees, public buses whiz by, and cop cars are everywhere. But talk to someone active in government, and they'll tell you that the trees don't belong there. In fact, they're major storm risks with branches that get tangled up in power lines, and they only stand because the city is too poor or preoccupied to deal with that particular problem. The knowledgeable also tell you that families as large as 10 sometimes live on one floor of the narrow, 8-foot-wide row homes that line Reading's streets. And that 5,000 of the city's 24,000 residences -- and countless factory buildings -- are unoccupied, untended and left to fester.

Reading is a city of contrasts -- with huge, historic Victorian homes minutes away from homeless shelters and junkies -- and so are its schools. Reading High School, commonly known as "The Castle on the Hill," rises beautifully in the skyline, a reminder of a time when Reading Railroad and the factories supplied by its trains provided residents with more jobs and higher incomes. But only slightly more than half of the students who enter the stunning school these days ever graduate.

pacino wrote:sooooo, his and your solution is to not vote for obama? the supreme court will change this country for years to come if we don't.

also, franken was not seated during his first 100 days

jerseyhoya wrote:

td11 wrote:are they calling the same 800 though? there have been tons of polls presumably

Just back of the envelope math, if there's about a 9% response rate, you'd need to make 9,000 calls to get an 800 person sample. ~8 million people live in VA, ~6 million 18+, ~5 million are registered voters. If there've been 100 polls conducted with 9000 calls made, you're what, somewhere between 15-20% to have gotten a call? Maybe 1 in 3 chances since there are two of you (which matters for pollsters who call cell phones or off RV lists as opposed to doing random digit dialing of landlines).

I think people who are surprised they haven't been called usually haven't thought about the math.

pacino wrote:the reading school district is fucked:

The Reading School District looks nothing like it did just a year ago. A $43 million deficit this year has resulted in 13 percent fewer teachers on its payroll, and a scramble to fill those gaps. Many furloughed rehires are teaching in unfamiliar fields. For example, Brad Richards, a longtime sixth-grade history veteran, presides over a kindergarten class. The capacity of pre-kindergarten has been cut in half. Because Pennsylvania schools by rule can't fire teachers unless a school is closed or a program is shut down, certain vocational and technology classes simply don't exist anymore. Fewer security guards monitor student brawls and school safety inside the halls, and those who remain operate without the help of police officers, whom the district deemed too expensive to hire from the city.

More students jostle for less space. The intermediate schools and the high school are flooded with extra kids, the refugees of three defunct middle-school "gateways" opened a few years ago.

Similar woes are hitting low-income school districts elsewhere.

Cities in New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania generally feel the worst financial squeeze, according to the Education Law Center's school funding fairness report, because their local funding sources favor wealthier school districts over needier areas -- and because they sometimes spend more money than necessary in affluent suburbs. Taxpayers in poorer areas can only afford smaller school budgets for themselves before state aid kicks in. This is a problem, says the report's co-author Bruce Baker, a Rutgers University education professor, because districts with needier students have to pay a premium to recruit and keep good teachers. They also need additional funds to provide services that help close the gap between disadvantaged students and their better-off peers.

Reading is emblematic of poor cities nationwide, bruised not only by blows to education but also by a dearth of consistent leadership. According to numerous audits, the Reading school system has long been plagued with dysfunction, nepotism and administrative churn. As education reform leaders and unions fight over policies that mandate rigorous teacher evaluations and encourage the growth of charter schools, poor kids are losing out in the most basic of ways -- a situation that embeds them deeper in the cycle of poverty.

At first glance, Reading looks like many other low-income, mid-size American cities: Brightly painted row homes are surrounded by sprawling trees, public buses whiz by, and cop cars are everywhere. But talk to someone active in government, and they'll tell you that the trees don't belong there. In fact, they're major storm risks with branches that get tangled up in power lines, and they only stand because the city is too poor or preoccupied to deal with that particular problem. The knowledgeable also tell you that families as large as 10 sometimes live on one floor of the narrow, 8-foot-wide row homes that line Reading's streets. And that 5,000 of the city's 24,000 residences -- and countless factory buildings -- are unoccupied, untended and left to fester.

Reading is a city of contrasts -- with huge, historic Victorian homes minutes away from homeless shelters and junkies -- and so are its schools. Reading High School, commonly known as "The Castle on the Hill," rises beautifully in the skyline, a reminder of a time when Reading Railroad and the factories supplied by its trains provided residents with more jobs and higher incomes. But only slightly more than half of the students who enter the stunning school these days ever graduate.

one of the top 5 school districts in the state is right across the schuylkill river from it, too. please read this entire article. it's heartbreaking. my sister was one of those teachers let go, btw.

mozartpc27 wrote:Because Pennsylvania schools by rule can't fire teachers unless a school is closed or a program is shut down...

swishnicholson wrote:The New Yorker provides what is , to my mind, a balanced and thoughtful argument for the reelection of Obama, that almost entirely echoes my sentiments. This makes me guilty of the laziest type of groupthink, I'm sure, but hey, if it saves me the time and effort of having to articulate my thoughts in my own way I'm all for it.