Missoulapolis

I’ve been meaning to post on Alex Apostle’s “Graduation Matters” campaign for some time but kept dithering. Essentially, it bothers me every time I read a hack blurb like this:

Graduation Matters was officially launched on Jan. 19 – halfway through the school year – but had become well-known as an initiative long before the school year started.

When Apostle was first hired two years ago, he informed the district’s principals that he would make reducing the dropout rate at MCPS a top priority.

His message was simple: Every student who enters MCPS will get a diploma.

“We believe that every parent who drops their kid off for the first time in kindergarten or first grade is thinking about the day they graduate,” said Apostle.

This smacks of social promotion.  And I know at least one who was socially promoted when he should have failed to graduation due to flunking a math course. All he had to do is keep is butt in the seat, and they passed him.   No remediation, no catch-up or hustle of any kind was required.

What are they learning? Does it really help matters to just pass them on with a diploma?   Social promotion is nothing new in Missoula. The new “outreach” going on here, apparently, is trying to catch up with the knucklehead dropouts to tell them, Dude, you don’t have to deal with it! We’ll pass you! Just come back!

So the schools  just kick the problem down the road – to UM, Vo-Tech, or some hapless employer to fix.    What students are “learning” is that they don’t really  need to engage with the subject at hand.

Party on.

I love it when Ace gets wound up (sanitized).

You know, for the left’s constant blather about “The Other” (an idea with merit, I think), they sure the hell are oblivious to their constant Otherizing of others, aren’t they? You’d think that people who never shut the **** up about Otherizing the Otherish Others would once in a while realize, “Hey, you know what? I think I’m indulging in a little Class-A Otherification here myself.”

Not a chance.

So I upgraded Wordpress thinking that was the problem, and now the Akismet spam program isn’t working.   Service at my hosting site WebHost4Life is still undependable since its server migration.   I did not renew and service will stop in August.   Don’t know if I’ll go ahead with my wordpress.com site yet.

It’s been fun.

Heh, Derbyshire on a rant.

This missionary ideal has utterly corrupted American education. Where, after all, are the benighted heathens to be found? At the bottom of the ability scale, that’s where. So all our efforts in public education are tilted towards “helping the disadvantaged.” Unintelligent, unmotivated students are showered with resources, while those who will benefit most from teaching are neglected.

That, at any rate, is the missionary ideal. The notion of “giftedness” is blurred and diluted down to nothing (current official ed-theory doctrine is that all students are gifted – I have not made that up) while heroic efforts, and boxcar-loads of cash, are devoted to instilling bookishness in the un-bookish…

Lots of bon mots in this piece.  Modest proposal:  Any student who says “How will I ever use this [math, science, English, etc] in real life?” should be sent for CNA training.   Then they can take care of us baby boomers, in real life.

To a military family I once knew:  Thank you.

So Campaign Practices has finally caught up with Holly Raser, who used to my my Democratic state representative (HD 98). When she termed out she went after the OPI slot (what else is a teacher to do?)

Commissioner Dennis Unsworth said Friday that Raser had registered the most campaign finance violations of any candidate “in recent memory.”

If all the violations stand, Raser, a teacher, could face a maximum fine of $54,500, or $500 per violation, he said. Or she could be fined three times the value of the illegal contributions and expenditures, which would be far greater…

Unsworth determined that Raser broke the law when accepting an $11,000 loan from her stepfather, Robert Moore, and a $5,000 loan from her sister, Vicki Thornton, after each gave her $250, the maximum donations allowed by an individual.

Raser amended her report to say the $16,000 in loans from her stepfather and sister should have been listed as a personal contribution from herself.

Raser was cited for failing to deposit 82 campaign donations, totaling nearly $21,000, into her campaign bank account within the required five days after receiving them. The delays in depositing them ranged from two weeks to more than three months in a couple of instances.

She violated the law in another instance by failing to disclose six contributions totaling $5,861.

Raser also failed to report 18 expenditures totaling $5,892, as required by law.

Yeah, reporting’s a bitch, ain’t it?   While other candidates busted their asses to track every penny and cross every T,  she never broke a sweat.  And asking for money is so demeaning, so just ask the fam and characterize it as a loan.  Well done.  And I’m sure the problems started with just her statewide campaign, and not her prior HD 98 runs.

Right.

For your viewing pleasure.

So, how was the convention?

I couldn’t go.

The runoff has overtopped the new berm they built to contain Lower Grant Creek (aka Dougherty Ditch) so the bull trout won’t get lost, or something.  LOL.  Oh wait, that means Jensen will be out to “fix” it again.   There must be some stimulus money left, yes?