"If you look at the big cities that are really moving educationally, Chicago comes to mind, New York comes to mind, and Washington DC comes to mind," says Duncan. "What do they have in common? Mayoral control. Then you have a city like Los Angeles which frankly has not come to mind in a number of years. Los Angeles is an outlier."Huh?? Only in America could they put an illiterate goon in charge of education. On the other hand...
"Too much of this depends on who the mayor is," says Bryant. "One mayor will be great, but the next mayor could undo the progress. Or, you end up with an autocratic situation like New York where parents honestly feel like they don't know what's going on and all they get is a cotton candy spin machine."Anne Bryant is exec director of the National School Boards Assn. Cotton candy spin machine. Very good.
Both quotes from Lesli Maxwell, 'Education Secretary Leading Chorus Calling for Big City-Hall Role." EdWeek 29(7) 14 Oct 2009.
I've been getting a lot of attempted Spam postings lately, too. Every morning I have to reject one or two.
ReplyDeleteI like it that you're using the image of a rat. I have 8 or 9 different rubber versions that I put on my front porch for Halloween.
Norway rats are the variety that inhabit my neighborhood. The best trapping method I've developed is a rat trap loaded with a piece of bacon which is tied to the bait spot with a thread. I also tie one end of a string onto the trap and the other end to something stationary. I learned I had to do that one morning when I went out and found just a tail in the trap, but no rat to be seen.
I used to use peanut butter, but they got smart about that.
Anyway, greetings from Oakland.