Informed And Dangerous

It's ... what?... almost 1 a.m. and I just stumbled on the DISD board meeting story. It's difficult to read something like this and not wonder where we're going with sanctions. 

I wanted to start the blog again. But then I got to thinking that everything had to be perfect. And, tricked by that thought, I hadn't started writing again. But now I am.

I was talking to an unnamed lobbyist the other day -- I suppose he must be the wealthiest one among us out in the audience at the various hearings and such, although I haven't asked! -- and we were talking about the School Formerly Known as Johnston. (Symbol High)

You must know, if you know me, how I feel about Johnston High. This is one of my Big Three. By Big Three, I mean those three things that I view most passionately: Johnston; Big C and the Agency; and Other Reporters, either good or bad. If they're bad, I insult the work. If they're good,  I am miserable I didn't get there first. And better.

The ultra top-secret TSTA staff blog, Gravity and Waggery, has been revealed to me, and I must say I have to agree with the latest post on Speaker of the House Craddick.

As Richard writes in his post the subject of Junior Tuesday:

TSTA endorsed candidates who support Tom Craddick and candidates who don't because our endorsements were based on the candidates' votes on education issues. I wrote this in response to the question I seemed to be getting most often from just about everyone who is answering the political pundits' favorite question about Texas House races: Was Tom Craddick the reason candidates won or lost on election night?

I see something different - something probably far too simple for the political pundits and professional class of political operatives - that Tom Craddick was essentially irrelevant on election night.

I had the same thoughts. Are we crazy? naive? As far as I could tell, long-time incumbents had the advantage last Tuesday, and as Richard explains, those who didn't usually had a problem: Haggerty faced a lack of Democratic crossover. Macias lost by about the same edge he won last time. Latham's seat flipped again against a popular mayor.

And, of course, Van Arsdale lives in Sen. Dan Patrick's district, and woe be to anyone who crosses a Senator who is a conservative talk show host who owns his own radio station. That's a bloc vote out there.

As for me, I remember the video street survey that the Star-Telegram did, passing around pictures of David Dewhurst, Rick Perry and Tom Craddick. Did anyone on the street know them? Nope. They might know their money, of course, but most did not know them.

And Pat Hardy? Dodged a bullet, I think. I don't know that Pat would say that. I guess I would quote my own story, but you have to pay to read me. Here is the Star-Telegram's story. Almost 100,000 votes in that race. In the Republican primary. Those numbers are comparable to the 2000 Republican primary, which was GWB's first run at president. 

Katie Ford is the new editor of Texas School Business.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing what she can do. Katie was my section editor at the Austin Business Journal in part of my past. She's been TSB's managing editor since 2005.

I'm not into the fairy tale-sugar gumdrop-dollop of sweetness sort of press Texas School Business has become and probably has been for the last 54 years. I mean, this is a publication managed by the best "happy news" types of the TSPRA. 

Then again, I do like to try out the questions on Cy-Fair's "Are you smarter than a Cy-Fair third grader?" So far, I've done pretty well on the questions.

Dallas Alliance AFT held a press conference on Friday morning to discuss the union's dissatisfaction with the way House Bill 1 reconstitutes schools.

Of course, a lot of blame was thrown around: the kids who don't care; the parents who don't get involved; the Legislature that won't fix it; and Craddick Craddick Craddick.

Craddick is a way, I think of saying that the current Republican administration has one thought: Public schools are bad, and the only way to fix them is vouchers.

And I guess I could stp right there. If I only say those two things, you'd figure I'm about to write one more rehash about how No Child Left Behind is bad. Or good.

Aimee Bolender describes the sanctions under HB 1 as "backdoor vouchers." It's just one more way to strip schools from the public school system without guaranteeing solutions.

 

Actually, the phone is not ringing. It's closer to 5 a.m., and I just walked into the house after spending the evening at the television station, posting election stuff.

I don't know if you were tracking results. On Debate Night, I spent a lot of time being obnoxious on Jenny's blog. Tonight was a lot more serious. I had a lot more races. I had candidates to call.  I really hadn't been by the station to set anything up with them.

Above: Clinton and Obama talk about the fact I didn't get any sleep on Tuesday night. In this picture, Barack is suggesting I get a real big raise. Hillary is more concerned with national defense.

But how could you see Barack Obama drawing crowds in the thousands to Town Lake and Reunion Arena and every other venue in the state and still see him lose the state?

The simple answer that I was told was that Hispanics showed up and African-Americans did not. I haven't seen the numbers out of the races to confirm that. Although we wondered aloud in the newsroom tonight, Candra and I, how you can get the stars any more aligned to motivate African-Americans. You've got an eloquent African-American man with a populist message and a huge following and plenty of publicity... and you don't go vote?

I have to say, from the beginning, I've always thought that we had a farce of a campaign down here in Texas. I had conversations with a number of Dem operatives here ...

While all the local media were salivating over the huge rallies and thousands of people, I was thinking that these two candidates just didn't act serious enough. Now, I'm going to have a counter view on this theory of mine, but my theory was that we had the candidates here, but they just weren't saying much about Texas.

They talked... but never in specifics. They reached out to me, but not with a great deal of creativity. They sent surrogates and actors, but they didn't seem ready to dig into any real thought about the particulars of what is going on in Texas.

I guess I thought this was best illustrated by a luncheon I attended hosted by Obama. He sent a surrogate -- an economist -- to talk Obama talk. And so the first question out of the shoot is from a local Realtor. He wants to know what Obama's plan was for Texas on the foreclosure market, and specifically the fact that while the rest of the country is going bust, Austin is still generating a housing market.

So while Hillary is proposing a freeze on loans, and Obama is talking about a big bailout pool aimed at those in trouble, there is nothing in either plan that addresses an Austin. And I guess it just struck me that this economist -- and I hate to generalize him to be the entire campaign -- just wasn't prepared for variables like Texas.

Here is Salon's take on the Clinton ad.




On the other hand, my reaction would be, "Was it an iPhone?"

Jason over at Mental Floss just posted a post in honor of National Grammar Day, which I think could only make the conservative faction of our SBOE happy. In fact, I'm pretty sure there are a number of SBOE members who would like to see every day be Grammar Day.

So, uh, a shout out to those guys!

I just got a note from Alexander about a shout out to my blog, and I have to say I panicked. I was trying to grab some lunch before I go down to the television station to start blogging about the election... and I haven't put content up in ... hours.

That doesn't mean that I don't have anything to say. On the contrary, it has been meetings practically every day, from Spellings on Friday to The Council on Monday. And we have SBEC on Friday, where it appears they're going to argue whether we need standards at all for teacher training.

Because, of course, teaching is not a skill; it's just a gift like, say, a Yalie in your classroom for two years as a generous public gift or Obama's oratory abilities as he exhorts us to get to the caucuses on Tuesday night. (What is the plural of caucuses? Cauci?)

But let me talk about the teacher incentive pay article in EdWeek. I don't want to miss that one because it is our study that is referenced in the story.