StickWithANose

There is a predictable pattern emerging in the political life-span of a Secretary of Education that is playing out for Arne Duncan. It goes like this: The president appoints a new Sec. of Education who has achieved “amazing success” in his/ her previous job in a large, urban district and promises that this new Sec. [...]

With public anger over Wall Street at a high and Obama’s approval rating on the economy at a low, it is becoming increasingly clear how the Obama administration is going to try and win some votes for the Democrats in the coming year. The X-mas eve announcement that the feds are lifting the debt ceiling [...]

As his decline in poll numbers becomes increasingly evident, Team Obama appears to be doing some soul searching over its overall economic message, and I do mean message. As this Bloomberg article inadvertently indicates, Team Obama doesn’t see its falling numbers on the economy as a failure of policy but as a failure in messaging [...]

To counter the possible mis-perception that the pessimistic outlook of my recent posts is a reflection of my consumption of a narrow band of information that only re-affirms my own pre-conceived notions [something of which I am critical] I offer this intriguing Bloomberg piece on speculation that 2010 could see significant economic growth. Time will [...]

It would appear as though Obama’s channeling of Uncle Milty’s now infamous Shock Doctrine is coming to fruition. State budgets may be collapsing nation-wide, but Tennessee’s budget forecasts are simply terrible. With Arne Duncan dangling billions in front of state legislatures, the Obama administration is wrestling concessions from states like Tennessee over charter schools and [...]

Thorstein Veblen offers us a reasoned argument for taxing the shit out of the small number of individuals making more than $1 million a year.
Greg Mankiw links a former student courageously trying to protect the rights of Millionares not to pay more taxes here.
Here’s the thing — there are no reputable studies on the [...]

We Americans have this bad habit of compartmentalizing our social problems into neat, isolated categories of thought that systematically destroy the dynamic relations connecting each to the other. Thus, urban education policy is examined and discussed as though the relations between academic achievement and such things as poverty, nutrition, home situation, environmental toxins, etc. are [...]

I’ve discussed at length the relationship between education policy and the looting of the public treasury by private interests, but this dynamic is by no means unique to education. In fact, it may be one of THE defining characteristics of our current form of social organization. One of the most significant gifts bequeathed to the [...]

Even through the fog of a X-mas cold, Stick finds in his bountiful heart a need to share with you all a happy holidays! See you next week…

The structural adjustment programs forced down the throat of debtor nations during the 1990’s were an abysmal failure that amounted to little more than the looting of impoverished economies by the West. Yet, the model is still alive and well today here within the borders of the US of A. The model is quite simple. [...]