Cloudy, chilly and windy, and snow expected tonight;

'Yuck' about sums it up. In other news, ran across this the other day on the subject of eminent domain:
A bill that would require agencies to declare unused land surplus after 10 years and offer to resell it to the original owner cleared a House committee Tuesday. House Bill 3053 also would strengthen notification requirements when using eminent domain to seize property.
From what I heard, if the state/county/city seized someone's property under e.d., and didn't use it for ten years, the original owner could buy it back at the same price he was paid for it, and if the government then decides "But we're going to use it now!", they can use e.d. to take it back but have to pay the current market value for the land. Which sounds good to me; if they're going to take land under this power, it needs to be for some use, not just so they have it.


"Yes, we have a lot more money and the schools have improved physically, but, well, test scores still aren't what they should be; maybe we need to work on that." Gee, ya think maybe? This is in the Oklahoma City district, and the article includes such gems as
Nine years ago, when voters approved a $700 million sales tax to renovate or rebuild many of Oklahoma City’s school buildings, a task force also developed a set of recommendations aimed at improving the quality of education that would take place within the buildings.

"We haven’t achieved what we hoped to when this initiative came about in 2001,” said Dave Lopez, chairman of The Foundation for Oklahoma City Public Schools’ board.

The report found the district was "unsatisfactory” or "needed improvement” in 17 areas of improvement that were established in 2001.
...
Among the findings in the report was that the district still needed to improve early learning programs, despite progress that includes 100 percent of students now attending full-day kindergarten.
Uh, maybe all kids don't NEED to be in all-day kindergarten? Huh?
...
The report also noted that 45 curriculum programs are in place throughout the district and that school officials weren’t certain which programs are being used at which schools.

"Many of these programs are important, but there still appears to be an excessively large number — perhaps still subject to the criticism of simply being the ‘flavor of the month,’” the report noted.
Translation: "We're doing all kinds of neat PC crap along with actual 'learning' stuff, but we actually don't know what the hell all we're doing." So maybe some of the people in charge of this mess ought to be fired and someone who'll actually pay attention take over? Huh?
...
And of course, "Poverty!!!" Part of the problem in Oklahoma City is the high level of poverty in the district, with almost 90 percent of Oklahoma City students qualifying for free or reduced lunch, the report noted.
People have pointed out before that kids whose families are nowhere near being in 'poverty' qualify for free lunches; using that to cry "Poverty! We must DO SOMETHING, and this is why things are failing!" is bullshit, and I suspect a step in the process of "We need to take more money from people so we can help them!"

"It’s going to take a lot of us helping the kids to make sure they get what they need out of the classroom, so when they get into the classroom they are ready to learn,” foundation Executive Director Lori Dickinson said.
Isn't that just a freakin' WONDERFUL sentence? I mean, think about that wording; isn't it amazing?

And this wonderful bit from the KTOK story: ...and a sharp jump in the number of students who see English as their second language. Chairman of the committee, Dave Lopez says it's an indication the district faces the same issues as urban school districts in larger cities such as Houston, Dallas and Chicago.
Translation: "Lots of kids of illegal aliens, many of whose parents don't think they should have to learn English." This would actually be an easy fix: English-only classes, learn it or flunk. Anybody think these people have the integrity or balls to do that?

Me neither.

I'll look at other news later, this has downright disturbed my calm.