CURMUDGUCATION: OK: “Let’s Deport Students”

Posted on by Jeffrey L "Jeff" Salisbury

CURMUDGUCATIONThe slightly-cranky voice navigating the world of educational “reform” while trying to still pursue the mission of providing quality education.

Source: CURMUDGUCATION: OK: “Let’s Deport Students”

OK: “Let’s Deport Students”

There’s a lot to unpack in the news from Oklahoma’s GOP legislators, but let’s just skip straight to the most awful. From this special caucus of conservatives, looking for ways to close a budget hole:

The caucus said there are 82,000 non-English speaking students in the state.

“Identify them and then turn them over to ICE to see if they truly are citizens, and do we really have to educate non-citizens?” [Rep. Mike] Ritze asked.

The caucus thinks that could save $60 million.

 

OK: Have you ever noticed that our state looks like a clumsy hatchet?

What the hell? I mean, what the absolute you-have-got-to-be-freaking-kidding-me hell??!! Let’s profile possible undocumented immigrants based strictly on what their primary language is??!!

The rest of their proposal only seems less stupid because the target-non-English-speakers sets the stupid bar so very high. But there’s still a lot of stupid here.

The 22-member platform caucus has also decided they can save $328 million by eliminating “all non-essential, non-instructional employees in higher education.” So… what? All administration? Can the janitors. Make the students cook and serve their own meals? What exactly do they think this third-of-a-billion dollar unnecessary payroll consists of?

They also want to cut the film tax credit, because encouraging the film industry to take its jobs and money elsewhere is smart financing.

Oh, and swag! No more slapping a government logo on pens to hand out to folks who could, you know, provide their own damn logo-less pens. $39 million savings right there.

The caucus asked the new station not to reveal every detail of their plan because they’re still negotiating with legislative leadership. If legislative leadership has any molecule of sense at all, they are negotiating by saying things like “Wouldn’t you guys like to go sit in the cornet with these little balls? See how shiny they are?”

If Oklahoma keeps their swag, I might suggest some new slogans like “Oklahoma– striving to be as ignorant and hateful as North Carolina” or just “Oklahoma– speak English or get the hell out.”

Posted by at Thursday, May 11, 2017

Privatized prison food vendor employee caught having sex with an inmate. Again. And serving rotting food. Again. | Eclectablog

Posted on by Jeffrey L "Jeff" Salisbury

 Eclectablog has posted a new item, ‘Privatized prison food vendor employee caught having sex with an inmate. Again. And serving rotting food. Again.’, at Eclectablog

You may view the latest post at
http://www.eclectablog.com/2017/05/privatized-prison-food-vendor-employee-caught-having-sex-with-an-inmate-again-and-serving-rotting-food-again.html

 

Source: Privatized prison food vendor employee caught having sex with an inmate. Again. And serving rotting food. Again. | Eclectablog

Flint residents face losing their homes for not paying (poisoned) water bills in #FlintWaterCrisis | Eclectablog

Posted on by Jeffrey L "Jeff" Salisbury

 Eclectablog has posted a new item, ‘Flint residents face losing their homes for not paying (poisoned) water bills in #FlintWaterCrisis’, at Eclectablog

You may view the latest post at
http://www.eclectablog.com/2017/05/flint-residents-face-losing-their-homes-for-not-paying-poisoned-water-bills-in-flintwatercrisis.html

Source: Flint residents face losing their homes for not paying (poisoned) water bills in #FlintWaterCrisis | Eclectablog

CURMUDGUCATION: HUD, Carson and Choice

Posted on by Jeffrey L "Jeff" Salisbury

CURMUDGUCATIONThe slightly-cranky voice navigating the world of educational “reform” while trying to still pursue the mission of providing quality education.

HUD, Carson and Choice

Slate’s Henry Grabar has a great piece today about Ben Carson and his clueless already-disproven theories about low-income housing. The piece is worth a full read on its own, and it has nothing to do with education– except that it is yet another lesson in how a market actually works, with huge implications for the kind of choice system that Betsy DeVos and Beloved Leader have in mind. So I’m going to give you the quick-and-dirty synopsis of the article, and then I’ll make the education connection.

The compassionate thing would be NOT to feed the 5000. Go forth and let my people know they’re on their own.

Carson has taken to saying that public housing should not be comfortable. Literally. As was reported in the New York Times:

Compassion, Mr. Carson explained in an interview, means not giving people “a comfortable setting that would make somebody want to say: ‘I’ll just stay here. They will take care of me.’ ” 

This, Grabar points out, is ironic because it was the philosophy behind “the nation’s mid-century public housing debacle.” Poorly constructed, often segregated, badly managed, and rapidly deteriorating was made unappealing enough that only people who had no other conceivable choice would pick them.

But folks working in the government housing biz realized almost immediately that holding onto higher-income tenants added “to fiscal and social stability.” Modern government housing is supposed to be comfortable, because that’s how you get a mix of incomes and “socioeconomic integration.” Planners now value stability, so getting the tenants to move out is not the goal, Steady churn, it turns out, is not very helpful. Not housing that chases people away, but housing that builds a stable community. And this evolution has involved not just government policy, but the subsidies and investments from non-government actors.

Meanwhile, the costs of living in private housing have climbed steadily for years. The idea of chasing government housing tenants out into public housing doesn’t work because in some cities, there is no readily available affordable housing.

Government housing, in short, runs up against the same problem as health care and education– you can open it to the market, but the market hates losers. The market does not want to provide choices to poor people because it’s really hard to make money from poor people. To make money from poor people, you have to provide minimal services– the bare uncomfortable minimum. The result is not satisfactory for anybody. So when we apply these ideas to health care or education, what we get are a bunch of non-wealthy folks who are blocked out of the market because they have access, but not the financial resources to exercise that access.

If only there were a way to have someone like, say, the government, provide the service to all citizens at a level of quality beyond what the poor could finance for themselves, in part by creating a system that didn’t have to make sure that there was enough money left over to create profit. If only there were system that provided education, housing and health care by some principal other than, “If you’re poor, you deserve bupkus. If you don’t like it, then stop being poor.”

If only.

Posted by at Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Source: CURMUDGUCATION: HUD, Carson and Choice