Education watchdog hopeful for real reform

Could a Frankfort task force actually do something positive for someone other than the politicians? Richard Innes, the Bluegrass Institute's education analyst, sees a glimmer of hope in the one set up to study CATS testing:

"It seems the people appointed to this group are less malleable and a bit more interested in giving this a good “college try” than the department of education anticipated. And, when I found myself in agreement with some of the comments from the Kentucky Education Association president about problems with writing instruction interference from CATS, there may indeed be some hope that what the department wanted to be a low key sort of white-wash might just turn out to be something much better."

Hard not to be skeptical, but we'll see.

This time they have really gone too far

A check of internal personnel records at the Fayette County Detention Center shows that jail employee Rashel Coatney, who was roughed up by a jail administrator and told that she was fired two weeks ago, has essentially been placed on unpaid leave.

This is outrageous because the single mom (and her son who has cancer) can't get any public assistance because she is, technically, not unemployed. So jail administration is jamming this young lady into a box she can't get out of as some kind of sick vendetta against her.

This sorry episode lays bare a sick leave policy at the jail that is being used as a weapon against employees who don't play the kind of games Director Ron Bishop has been playing for years. Fayette county taxpayers will ultimately pay many millions of dollars to clean up the messes Bishop has created in sexual harassment lawsuits, racial discrimination, a class action lawsuit for improper compensation practices, and a federal investigation into inmate abuse and misuse of public property. Mayor Jim Newberry has slept through the whole thing.

As a Jessamine County resident, I can watch and wait with a somewhat detached indifference for the massive lawsuits to keep coming down. They won't cost me a dime.

But I refuse to sit by idly while these "leaders" toy sadistically with innocent children. If you live in Lexington, please call Mayor Jim Newberry at 576-2564 and tell him to stand up for an innocent, hard-working citizen for once instead of for his political cronies at the jail. If he wants to save money, he can get rid of the administrators' taxpayer-provided cars.

Enjoy your gas price increase holiday, Ben

While Rep. Ben Chandler rests up from his hard charge to the left in Washington D.C., House Republicans are making a loud statement for energy independence on Capitol Hill.

Get off the pot, Governor Beshear

Did I mention that Gov. Steve Beshear is "studying" the idea of improving Kentucky's disastrous scholastic assessment program called CATS?

Education Analyst Richard Innes at the Bluegrass Institute has more devastating evidence that the "writing portfolios" we do in our public schools are a waste of time and money.

Here is another dead bill that would have addressed this problem. Oh, and don't forget this one. It's the reason Beshear is "studying."

Time's a wasting, Governor.

What kind of conservative are you?

The Madison County Republican party is hosting an interesting event Thursday, August 7th at 7:00 pm. They are calling it a "Community Forum on Conservatism" and seeking to answer the questions "What does it mean to be a conservative?" and "Has the meaning of conservatism changed over time?"

The panelists are the Bluegrass Institute's Chris Derry, Rep. Lonnie Napier, and WLAP's Leland Conway.

Everyone is invited to the event in Central Bank's Community Room at 350 W. Main Street in Richmond.

What are you trying to say, Governor?

Somehow I missed the press release on this one, but someone might want to ask Gov. Steve Beshear about the single largest corporate giveaway in Kentucky last week.

He gave $1.625 million to a company that makes adult diapers.

Playing by "big government rules"

We're looking at a big battle in 2009 over health insurance reform. The "Harry and Louise" ads from 2004 helped save us from HillaryCare won't cut it this time. Here is a very effective video being used to push government healthcare:

And here is the fifteen year-old stuff that needs to be updated:

It's a shame that we're arguing about whether mindless bureaucrats or mindless corporate hacks should carry the day. Getting the government out of the way and introducing real competition into the marketplace would easily deliver lower prices and better service.

Political imaginations running wild

Some people try to counter the fact that outspoken people like Dan Rather and Katie Couric dominate a mainstream media with a bias toward a statist ideology by claiming implausibly that they actually veer to the right.

Here is another nail in that coffin. Lexington Herald Leader columnist Tom Eblen said this morning, in his description of the Fancy Farm picnic:

"Young Republicans dressed as Arab sheikhs, “thanking” Lunsford for higher oil prices, through some stretch of the political imagination. Young Democrats dressed as characters with the names “Texas Oilman Mitch” and “Bush's Lapdog Mitch.”"

Lunsford hopes to join a party in the Senate that has quashed every effort to expand domestic oil exploration for many years. Joined by a handful of "Republicans" who agreed with them the last few years, they have been able to shut off the domestic spigot unimpeded for decades. Seeking to add one more vote to that sentiment, as Lunsford does, is indeed worthy of appreciation from Arab oil producers.

And that brings us to the next sentence in Eblen's column. How can Lunsford's support for rising oil prices be imaginary when the "Texas Oilman Mitch" character isn't worthy of any kind of derogatory mention?

Another Kentucky education bombshell

Kentucky's faked high school drop-out rates missed another one.

When the Kentucky Department of Education figured out that the American Diploma Project they joined in 2002 was actually a serious effort and not marketing gimmicks and spin, they sat on the back row, put on their dark sunglasses, and went to sleep.

Road trip!

Headed off for my first Fancy Farm. I have the technology to report from there and expect to do so. Please check back.

Here's one rumor for you.

UPDATE: I think I can sum up the meaningful political discourse from the whole day in one sentence. This fall's Congressional races are about gas prices.

Today was fun. Gov. Beshear did better than I thought he would. Neither Mitch McConnell nor Bruce Lunsford drew any blood. Heather Ryan and Todd Hollenbach did pretty well also. Secretary of State Trey Grayson had the best line of the day when he talked about Gov. Beshear studying another potential policy move and the Frankfort press going down to Grayson's office to see how it was working out in practice.

Problems reading blogs this morning?

For some reason, Site Meter is causing a bunch of blogs to not be readable in Internet Explorer. The fix appears to be simply to remove Site Meter from the site. You won't see the problem if you use Fire Fox, but anyone still on Internet Explorer will.

If you have a blog or know someone who does -- and you can't open it in IE, that's the way to repair the problem. Spread the word.

Or ask your Congressman to sponsor the 2008 Blogger Hit Counter Bailout, Subsidy, And Nationalization Act. That could help, too.

Do you give a hoot about the McCain campaign?

I just got a call from Paul Farhi, a Washington Post reporter, who is writing a story about Sen. John McCain's online outreach program. He was curious about what he said was a rewards system for readers of the McCain site who post McCain talking points onto various sites on the internet.

I know the McCain site has me featured on there as one of the "other" blogs, but I didn't know anything about this.

Is that interesting? Well, no. But the fact that there is very little interesting about the McCain campaign and the guy is running even in the polls with Emperor Barack Obama is, in fact, noteworthy.

Just keep not being Barack Obama, there, Senator McCain.

Changing the world one YouTube at a time

I got off the airplane in Washington D.C. Wednesday morning and rushed over to the Americans for Tax Reform office for a couple of meetings. There I got dragged into a room and was told to talk for 45 seconds about something that should be on the Republican party's national platform. (The very nice young lady who took the video might have mentioned that my tie wasn't straight.)

If you haven't done this yet, you can go on here with your two cents.

Giving the welfare state one more chance to work

Sen. Barack Obama is proposing to raise taxes on oil companies to fund a $1000 "energy rebate." The energy rebate will spur demand and lead to higher prices at exactly the wrong time. This would necessitate President Obama, one supposes, to raise taxes further to provide further relief.

And around and around we go.

You want something to be afraid of?

Be afraid of this.

One more thing about the economy

Louisville blogger Jake Payne raises some key points in his missive about the economy yesterday:

First, the "Republican meme" is that the economy is bad and that it is the Democrats' fault. That works out pretty well because the Dems say it is the GOP. Partisan rancor is fun!

But they are both wrong. The economy is, as recently as a month ago, still growing. We are so far from going to hell in a handbasket -- as far as the economy goes -- that it isn't even funny. But Republicans in general aren't fighting the mainstream media sales pitch on this, they are just trying to reach a point of political advantage. And maybe that will work.

But if we are going to hold reasonable discussions, we need to be straight about what the facts are. The economy isn't the problem; government involvement in the economy is the problem. If you say you are worried about your ability to survive in this economy and yet you pay to watch television, pay to eat out as restaurants and eat popcorn at movies, spend money you don't have running up credit card balances and driving around in fancy cars instead of saving for retirement, you aren't worried about the economy but are instead counting on a government bailout.

That's the bad plan here.

We have a lot of economic freedom in this country and that works very well. It works so well, in fact, that we risk blowing the whole thing because we have been able to afford so much government nonsense for so long.

Just as we should get rid of some of the luxuries listed above in the name of belt-tightening, we should trim back the government we can't afford before it is too late.

Bill Clinton promises a night to remember

Couldn't resist showing this email I just got from the Hillary Clinton isn't running for President (until 2012) campaign:

Spend less, spend better, have more

Keeping anyone from a family, business, or government afloat in tough budget times involves managing fixed and variable revenue streams and liabilities. As people drive less and make other changes to better manage personal budgets, though, public officials looking at dwindling road funds struggle to understand what they are going to have to do to get our fiscal heads back above water.

In much the same way individuals cut back on entertainment and eating out, governments are going to have to spend less money filling the pockets of people who could do better taking care of themselves if they weren't so heavily incentivized to remain dependent.

In other words, we would have more money to build and maintain roads if we didn't waste so much providing health insurance to middle-class families who should be expected to get it on their own.

And putting government spending online so taxpayers can share in the decision-making is the best way to improve the quality of these necessary prioritization discussions.

Bad news for nation of whiners

The Great Depression of 2008 not only has not materialized, but we aren't even in a recession.

I bring this up to point out that the people who are moaning and complaining about how horrible everthing is really need to check their bearings. You remember the old Frank Sinatra song where he sings "if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere?" It's corollary might be this: if you can't make it in an expanding economy, it probably isn't the government's fault.

Mayor Newberry, sell the cars and save the kid

Sources with the City of Lexington report Mayor Jim "fire them if their kids get cancer" Newberry is still waffling about whether to do the right thing and give Rashel Coatney her job back.

A commenter on this post spelled out details of an alleged deal that Ms. Coatney is supposed to have gotten.

Newberry has been extraordinarily worthless is dealing with matters at the jail during his term. Forcing this young woman to compromise with the wolves at the facility is wrong on many levels.

He needs to step up now. Sell the cars your jail administrators are driving around in, Mayor Newberry, and do right by Rashel Coatney.