Vote YES! on April 8!!!

[Telly Savalas]

There are some signs around 75th and Holmes placed by a group named Freedom, Inc. encouraging us to vote yes on April 8. While the color scheme and design of the sign were quite eye-catching, I must say that it'd be more effective if it mentioned which of the 3 ballot referendums we're supposed to be voting yes on.

Even worse than the Vote Yes on Whatever crowd is the vote Yes on 3 crowd. Yeah, cigarette smoking is fucking disgusting. But you know what's even more disgusting? The fact that KCMO's school district has a 45% graduation rate. If I had the time, resources, and money to tackle a local issue, it'd be education, because it's crippling the city on so many fronts. Lamentably, I don't have the time, money, or political infrastructure to do this. Therefore we're stuck with folks who seem to think that being exposed to a little second hand smoke from the other side of the restaurant an hour every few weeks is a higher priority than the rotting foundations of Kansas City's socioeconomic system.

Then to top it off, the Wednesday Sun has an interview with Clay Chastain, who opposes renewing the bus tax. What the fuck is this guy's problem? HEY ASSHOLE! YOU DON'T EVEN PAY THE SALES TAX BECAUSE YOU LIVE IN VIRGINIA NOT KANSAS CITY, SO WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU COMPLAINING ABOUT?!?!? He gripes about buses siphoning money from light rail. How fucking hard is it to grasp the simple notion that light rail is useless without a bus system to feed it? A very large percentage of people who use public transportation in KC don't live anywhere near the proposed light rail lines. How the fuck does it help the thousands of people who live on the East side and can't afford cars to strip them of their only means of transportation in the vague hope that 10 years from now they'll start building shiny streetcars 8 miles from their home? But this isn't about the people of Kansas City, is it, Clay? This is about you and your bigass fucking ego and you're little dream of sipping a $6 latte while you purposelessly ride on your little choo-choo during one of your too frequent visits to this city. I'd love to see a light rail system at some point in Kansas City, but if you think that destroying the bus system will bring us one step closer, then you're stoned out of your mind.



:rant:

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. About that dropout rate

Here's how they figure it - they count the freshman and then 3 years later they count the seniors. That's it. They don't take into account kids moving and enrolling in a different school, kids transferring to charter schools or kids transferring to private schools.

At Lincoln, if kids don't keep their grades up, they are forced to transfer to another high school in the district. The district also changes its attendance boundaries nearly every year, forcing kids to change schools.

It's a joke.

Do we have a dropout problem? Yes. But we do not know how many kids actually drop out because the state and feds don't make school districts keep that data. They go by the enrollment figures.

And you know that every state in the country has a different method for counting kids enrolled in school? In Kansas, they count how many kids are in school on one day in September and use that figure to report daily attendance for the entire year. In Missouri, they take attendance every day and report that number to the state.

Do you believe for one minute that 99% of the kids in Blue Valley graduate from high school?

Remember the Houston Miracle? That's how we got No Child Left Behind and the Houston supt as Sec of Education. He's the idiot who called teachers terrorists. And his miracle in Houston has been exposed as exaggerated in the least and most likely fraudulent.

If we were really concerned about the dropout rate in this country, we would stop allowing kids to drop out. It's not that hard. Raise the dropout age to 18 and presto! no more dropout problem.

Move along. Nothing to see here. It's like chicken little where the sky wasn't really falling. :)

[chat_noir]

2. RECYLE THOSE SIGNS!!

They will be trashed after the April 8 election, so grab them and recyle for November elections.

Recycle: remove the signboard from the metal hanger, reverse it and secure it with staples or tape. Paint your anti-McCain/anti-war messages on the blank sides.

PM me for questions, suggestions, etc.

Thanks!






above graphic courtesy of http://beachblogger.net/