Tzimmes and borscht.
Presidents’ Day. No School. The temperature is dropping and will be in the single digits by tonight. Time for a big bowl of something warm. Tzimmes? Or borscht?
Back door prayer law.
Last year we were looking for the Illinois legislature, which is controlled by the Democrats, to address the school funding issue. Fat chance.
Emil Jones, the President of the state Senate and Michael Madigan, the Boss of the House, ignored almost everybody. The state’s schools ended up with bubkes.
But these fools did have time to pass a back door school prayer law, mandating a daily moment of silence in every public school. The law was immediately challenged in court. More importantly, most school districts in the state have ignored it, waiting until the courts come up with a final ruling. But it hasn’t kept the Springfield bunch from chattering more about it, while hundreds of school districts continue to teach kids with chump change.
Dropping names.
I’m not a big name dropper. I try not to be too easily impressed. I don’t read US or People. I catch up on the celebrity news in the teachers’ lounge from a first grade teacher in my building. She’s young and single and I live vicariously through her.
But I did enjoy meeting Jon Scieszka at a party at the Boat House in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park last summer. Scieszka wrote The Stinky Cheese Man. It was just a quick brush with fame, actually. We small-talked for about ten minutes and he certainly wouldn’t remember me. I admit, I was impressed. Susan Ohanian reports that Scieszka has been appointed by the Library of Congress as a kind of poet laureate for children’s literature and will travel around the country meeting with kids.
That’s great.
OK. I admit Rotherham was funny. (Update: OK. He’s not.)
From today’s Eduwonk:
Most troubling sign that the market may really be in a serious downturn that has the experts paying attention? The number of emails I get about policy and education issues from Whitney Tilson has declined precipitously in the first quarter of ‘08…
It would really be funny if it were true about Ed Sector funders.
Update: In a more recent post, Rotherham goes after Eduwonkette. Her crime? She posted a question about the role of wonker orgs, their interlocking funding sources, board members, and hidden as well as open agendas.
His response? Nothing about the substance of Eduwonk’s issue. Just some juvenile name calling. Rotherham is another one, along with his buddy, Joe Williams, who needs a time out.
