StickWithANose

This is no longer national news, so TVA is back to humming along with business as usual. Shocker. Looks like those air monitors they’ve installed in Roane county are what folks in the sound reproduction business would refer to as decorative microphones… Fancy looking gadgets designed to make folks feel better while actually doing very [...]

Despite being the accepted doctrine of both political parties, the evidence that reforms designed to increase ’school choice’ is little more than a vehicle for the perpetuation of elite privilege in schooling continues to mount.
The tax credit law, signed by Gov. Fife Symington in 1997, is touted as a tool to make private education more [...]

Posted without comment…

Although this article is framed in that all too familiar lazy journalistic style of the evil unions vs. sincere reformers, it does stumble upon an uncomfortable truth about the Obama administration.
To the surprise of many educators who campaigned last year for change in the White House, the Obama administration’s first recipe for school reform relies [...]

If the last ten years have taught you anything, it is that the out-sourcing of vital national responsibilities to the private sector creates an incentive structure for private actors to wring every bit of capital possible from public coffers for sub-standard work, and it sets the stage for all manner of speculative schemes backed by [...]

I’m late getting to this video, but it is worth your time if you have yet to see it. The major point of the video is the scary symmetry between McCarthy’s rhetoric and the new class of conserva-bot pundits, and it makes this point quite well. However, there is something else that jumped out at [...]

Under the weather this week… posting and all things related to “work” are hereby sidelined. In the meantime…

Amidst all of the sound and fury of political debates, it is easy to overlook the concrete forces at work in our society. Listening to teabaggers exhale a steady stream of empty signifiers about “out of control spending” and “fascistic socialism” can make anyone even remotely tethered to reality lose faith in the democratic system. [...]

Speaking of crazy trains, the institution that passes for a state board of education in Texas continues to squabble over the state’s history textbooks. As I’ve pointed out previously, what happens in Texas is important for everybody. Because Texas is such a large state, textbook publishers ensure that their texts are compatible with Texas’ curricular [...]

The crazy train returns to Washington this weekend for the annual Value Voters Summit. Here is a list of the sessions on tap:
“Speechless - Silencing The Christians”
“Thugocracy - Fighting the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy”
“Defunding Planned Parenthood”
“Activism and Conservatism: Fit to a Tea (Party)”
“The Threat of Illegal Immigration”
“Obamacare: Rationing Your Life Away”
“Marriage: Why It’s Worth Defending [...]