(h/t Scarce)
Newt Gingrich loves to be the tough guy in the room, spouting off bizarre and dissonant policy suggestions in the name of toughening up Americans with some vague promise of self-made American-ness at the core of his thought process. Well, not really, but that's how he portrays himself. He tries to come off as some sort of out-of-the-box thinker but falls flat on the mean streak he always seems to let come out.

During a talk he gave at Harvard University this week, he said this, via The Politico:

The comment came in response to an undergrad's question about income equality during his talk at Harvard's Kennedy School.

"This is something that no liberal wants to deal with," Gingrich said. "Core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization against children in the poorest neighborhoods, crippling them by putting them in schools that fail has done more to create income inequality in the United States than any other single policy. It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid.

"You say to somebody, you shouldn't go to work before you're what, 14, 16 years of age, fine. You're totally poor. You're in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I've tried for years to have a very simple model," he said. "Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they'd begin the process of rising."

He added, "You go out and talk to people, as I do, you go out and talk to people who are really successful in one generation. They all started their first job between nine and 14 years of age. They all were either selling newspapers, going door to door, they were doing something, they were washing cars."

Never does Newt consider what happens to those "unionized janitors" if they were to be terminated in favor of paying a child a pittance to clean their school at the expense of their homework, I assume.

The richest part of the Newt/GOP mean streak is that so many of them made their fortunes being pond scum after leaving Congress or their government jobs. Here's a guy who never held a legitimate job in his life, who lives off the largesse of corporate and small business donors who pay for everything from his Tiffany's bill to his private jets, and he has the nerve to suggest that if only kids would be school janitors for a couple of bucks an hour there would be less income equality. Because the adult janitors who are paid whatever they're paid (union or otherwise) would then do what? Stand on the street and beg?

When does someone stand up and remind Newt that right now in this country there are 5 applicants for every job available and those applicants include college graduates?

But Newt promises more exciting ideas:

The former House Speaker acknowledged that it was an unconventional pitch, saying, "You're going to see from me extraordinarily radical proposals to fundamentally change the culture of poverty in America and give people a chance to rise very rapidly."

Oh, happy day.

File this in your notebook under "in case you didn't believe prejudice and bigotry lives on" here in the United States. I won't even try to summarize this. I'll just give it to you straight:

Kymberly Wimberly, 18, got only a single B in her 4 years at McGehee Secondary School, and loaded up on Honors and Advanced Placement classes. She had the highest G.P.A. and says the school's refusal to let her be sole valedictorian was part of a pattern of discrimination against black students.

Wimberly says that despite earning the highest G.P.A. of the Class of 2011, and being informed of it by a school counselor, "school administrators and personnel treated two other white students as heir[s] apparent to the valedictorian and salutatorian spots."

Wimberly's mother is the school's "certified media specialist." She says in the federal discrimination complaint that after her daughter had been told she would be valedictorian, the mother heard "in the copy room that same day, other school personnel expressed concern that Wimberly's status as valedictorian might cause a 'big mess.'"

McGehee Secondary School is predominantly white, and 46 percent African-American, according to the complaint. Bratton says that the day after she heard the "big mess" comment, McGehee Principal Darrell Thompson, a defendant, told her "that he decided to name a white student as co-valedictorian," although the white student had a lower G.P.A.

I guess the school authorities found it uppity that someone who had the highest GPA in the school would actually expect to have the valedictorian honor bestowed on her.

I think I'll set a Google Alert for this one...and hope for an appropriately punitive outcome.

Kelley Williams-Bolar, the mom sentenced to jail for sending her children to an adjacent school district, is now out of jail, but her story is far from over. In the NPR interview above, she talks about why she sent her children where she did, and why she believed she was entitled. Her father is a homeowner in the Copley-Fairlawn School District (which means he is also a taxpayer). Look at the timeline of how events unfolded, as laid out in this interview:

• 2006 - Williams-Bolar's home is robbed and trashed.
• September, 2006 - Williams-Bolar enrolls her daughters in the Copley-Fairlawn schools using her father's address. To comply with district requirements, she applies for a grandparents' Power of Attorney, which the district has told her will meet the requirements for her daughters to attend school in their district.
• June, 2008 - The court denies the grandparent's Power of Attorney because the biological father of the girls did not sign off on it.
• June, 2008 - At the end of the school year, Williams-Bolar withdraws her daughters from the Copley-Fairlawn school district.
• December, 2010 - Charges are brought against her by the District Attorney, and in January, 2011 she is prosecuted for Grand Theft.

Here are a couple of uncontested facts:

1. While the girls were enrolled in the Copley-Fairlawn School District, Williams-Bolar was operating on the belief that she had complied with residency requirements by getting the required grandparent's Power of Attorney.
2. When that Power of Attorney was denied by the court, Williams-Bolar withdrew her children from the district.
3. Williams-Bolar's children did stay at their grandfather's house. That's not in dispute. The only question is what their legal residence was for purposes of school attendance.

Here's another fact: The prosecutor in this case is dead-determined to nail Williams-Bolar and her father to the wall for this. What's interesting to me is to watch how they do it. After seeing the rolling wave of public outcry to her prosecution, the Summit County DA's office actually published a FAQ about the case on their official website. Among other things, there are multiple references to "her fraud".

And then there's this: This same prosecutor released taped telephone conversations Williams-Bolar had with family and friends while in jail. There was only one reason to release these snippets, which are helpfully excerpted at Ohio.com, and that is to make Williams-Bolar appear to be a money-grubbing grifter who was always in it for the publicity and possibility of a movie deal.

Evidently the prosecutor doesn't understand the concept of dealing with adversity through humor. Or telling the whole story. Some telephone calls have been withheld, supposedly to use against her father when they prosecute him. Who wants to bet there won't be any phone calls from jail used in that trial? Ten bucks, right now.

There is a bit of good news to tell: The superintendent of Akron schools says she can come back to her job as a teacher's aide. Whether or not she'll ever have a chance to be a teacher? Well, that's something else entirely. In the meantime, the felony charges against her father will proceed.

Contrast the crusade against Williams-Bolar with another Ohio family, the Ebners

Mark Ebner is a resident of Columbus, Ohio. He owns a home in that area valued at more than $1 million, but he rented an apartment in the Bexley school district and says that is where his children live. His wife lives in the big house, according to Mr. Bexley; he and the boys live in the 3-bedroom apartment in the Bexley school district.

The district was suspicious, so they hired someone to tail him, just like the Copley-Fairlawn district did to Williams-Bolar. Here's what the investigator discovered:

The investigator hired by the district watched the apartment and the house 14 times in April and May. His report to the district said he saw Ebner come or go on occasion but never Julian. The investigator concluded that Ebner and his family spent most of their time at the house, not the apartment.

Continue reading »

It might be accidental, but there's no question that a student brought a gun to school, put it in his backpack, and now two students are in the hospital after being injured by gunshots.

Via KTLA-Los Angeles:

A Gardena High School student brought a gun to the campus in a backpack Tuesday, and the weapon discharged -- possibly accidentally -- injuring two students.

Despite earlier reports of three shooting victims, a Los Angeles Unified School District spokesman said only two students were shot.

"Our indication is that a student took a gun to school in a backpack, and that that student had dropped the backpack and consequently the gun discharged," LAUSD spokesman Robert Alaniz told KABC. "We're not quite sure how both the students were injured, but we do know we have two injured students transported to the hospital.''

Police said the weapon was recovered, and the student was arrested shortly before noon in a classroom that was filled with students and one teacher.

Evidently the student dropped the backpack and the gun went off, hitting two students, and the hits weren't just a grazing shot, either.

Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Jamie Moore told the Associated Press that two victims have been transported, one in serious and one in critical condition.

As the parent of a high school student and a human being, I cannot tell you how angry it makes me that any student would bring a gun to school and put my child in danger for what? For WHAT? What possible reason would ANY student have for putting a gun in his backpack before he left for school.

Enough. Guns serve one purpose: to kill. They have no business in our schools, our supermarkets, our malls, or anywhere else.

There's something so terribly wrong about this:

Oxford High School, a school in Calhoun County, Ala., prom dress codes are strictly enforced. Some say too strictly. This year, the Anniston Star reports that 25 students were disciplined for violating the prom dress code. The strangest part of the story, though, is that the students were allowed to stay at the prom, but the following week, they had to choose the option of receiving corporal punishment (by paddling) or a three-day suspension.

Keep in mind, these are seniors in high school. While I wouldn't be wearing the dress in the video, I wouldn't view it as too short or too low cut for a prom, but that's almost beside the point.

Dress code or not, if any school principal laid a finger on my high school daughter -- or a paddle, for that matter -- I would yank her out of that school so fast heads would spin. Yes, I know they get around it by saying there's a choice for a 3-day suspension, but I also know that a 3-day suspension can really screw up grades and standing records, especially in one's senior year. My high school sophomore daughter would be mortified at being punished for what she chose to wear to a school dance.

What message does paddling send to students, anyway? I don't see a deterrent effect when 25 kids are cited and punished for clothes their parents let them wear to a formal occasion despite the long-standing paddling policy. It just seems...bizarre.

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Congressional Democrats decided they didn't have the months it would take to renegotiate the aid formulas, which resulted in some real disparities between districts:

RANDOLPH, Utah — Dale Lamborn, the superintendent of a somewhat threadbare rural school district, feels the pain of Utah’s economic crisis every day as he tinkers with his shrinking budget, struggling to avoid laying off teachers or cutting classes like welding or calculus.

Just across the border in Wyoming, a state awash in oil and gas money, James Bailey runs a wealthier district. It has a new elementary school and gives every child an Apple laptop.

But under the Obama administration’s education stimulus package, Mr. Lamborn, who needs every penny he can get, will receive hundreds of dollars less per student than will Dr. Bailey, who says he does not need the extra money.

“For us, this is just a windfall,” Dr. Bailey said.

In pouring rivers of cash into states and school districts, Washington is using a tangle of well-worn federal formulas, some of which benefit states that spend more per pupil, while others help states with large concentrations of poor students or simply channel money based on population. Combined, the formulas seem to take little account of who needs the money most.

As a result, some districts that are well off will find themselves swimming in cash, while some that are struggling may get too little to avoid cutbacks.

I always wanted to be fluent in another language. I studied Spanish in school, passed my HS Regents exam back in the day, but never got it down. I never learned Italian because of the racism that my grandparents faced when they came to the US in 1915. Studying a new language in school actually helps a person "think" better as far as I'm concerned. Maybe that's why right wingers hate Obama's idea so much.

Predictably, right-wingers flew into a rage at Obama's un-American call for better language skills. For example, John McCormack at the Weakly Standard labeled language education as snobbery and elitism. John Derbyshire called Obama's suggestion "idiotic" because "not many human beings can learn another language", as his own failures prove. He combines that with characteristic condescension:

In fact, below some cutoff point, which I'd guess at around minus one standard deviation in IQ (that would encompass sixteen percent of the population), education beyond the three R's is a waste of time, and foreign-language instruction a total waste of time.

What, my good pal John Derbyshire had a tough time learning another language? Well, that's not surprising. And since most Europeans speak many languages, are they just smarter? I don't think so. It's because all the countries do so much business together and are so close in proximity that it makes sense all around.

(h/t David Stephenson) In many communities in Africa, children can't attend school without a school uniform and are even chased away if they try to go to school without a uniform. Often girls don't get the opportunity to attend school that boys get, without support from outside organizations. Read more at The Girl Effect dot org.

Open thread below.

Long-time readers know that I take a certain amount of pleasure in mocking Florida, where I was born and raised. There’s just something … unique about it.

Take, for example, a Tampa-area school firing a substitute teacher for doing a magic trick for his students.

The telephone call that spelled the end of Jim Piculas’ career as a substitute teacher in Pasco County came on a January day about a week after he performed the disappearing-toothpick trick for a group of rapt middle school students.

Pat Sinclair, who oversees substitute teachers in the Pasco County School District, was on the phone. She told Piculas there had been a complaint about his performance at Rushe Middle School in Land O’ Lakes.

He asked what she meant. “She said, ‘You’ve been accused of wizardry,’” Piculas said.

He said the statement seemed bizarre to him, like something out of Harry Potter.

Piculas said he replied, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He said he also told Sinclair, “It’s not black magic. It’s a toothpick.”

Oh sure, it’s a toothpick today. But what about tomorrow? What will we tell parents when a substitute teacher starts trying to do spells? Or shows kids pictures of Willow from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”? Or accidentally turns someone into a newt? Hmm?

As Piculas — who, as far as I know, is not a warlock — explained it, he got a call after doing his trick from the head of supervisor of substitute teachers. “He says, ‘Jim, we have a huge issue, you can’t take any more assignments you need to come in right away,’” Piculas said.

The disappearing tooth pick was, apparently, the “huge issue,” and led to the disappearing job.

Schoolhouse Rock defines a generation: this morning my third grade son had a school program, during which the students recited the Preamble to the US Constitution. Practically the entire audience of forty-something suburban parents suppressed both giggles and the urge to sing the version above, some more successfully than others.

Open thread below...