I whipped my last letter together in about 10 minutes before I went to my daughter’s soccer practice, and after reviewing it, I made some errors.  Where ever I wrote BOS (Board of Supervisors), I meant the School Board.  The BOS appears to be listening to the will of the people which is why there is discussion of a rate cut.  I have no confidence in the school board, superintendent, or the downtown administration.  By the way, I’m more than willing to pay more for school if there is accountability.  There is no accountability here, just speculation and excuses with no data.

That being said, for the last few days we’ve been receiving these emails about supporting what I consider, ridiculous spending.  I wasn’t trying to start some deep discussion or controversy over the subject, I was just curious if there were other recipients that disagreed as I did.  Most times when there is discussion about school spending, it doesn’t get my attention.  This one did.  Doesn’t mean I’m wrong or right, just that I disagree.  And if you’re going to send political email to my house, and you’re welcome to, if I disagree, I’m going to let you know.

So my message was quickly written and I need to clarify a few things.  Recognizing that we have so many of our local teacher and administrators on this distribution list, I wanted to say that even though I think this spending is out of control and needs to be reigned in, I don’t think the problem is at the school level.  Living with my wife, I don’t think too much of No Child Left Behind, but I don’t believe it’s the budget buster that is being portrayed here.  I think the problem is all down town.  I think we need more information on what goes on down town, who works down town, and what they do.  It’s my opinion that this is where the waste is, but if anyone can get this information, please share it.  How many failing teacher and administrators have they created new positions for down town?  How much does the county spend on bringing in some specialist contractors to tell or teachers the new metho d they will be using to teach our kids?

I believe (and I admittedly don’t have the information because it’s not available) if we eliminated 50-70% of the people downtown, and allowed our teachers to teach, we would have smarter kids, a better environmental, and fiscally responsible education.  To have the increases that we are having, something is wrong, and it’s not happening at the school level.

The other thing that bothered me is the intentionally misleading data that we have seen in these emails  Then there’s the, I’m not sure what you would call it…..shakedown?  They always say if they don’t get the money they want, they will have to cut teachers.  It’s always the teachers that must go first.  In reality, they have plenty of fat to trim down town and other places, but instead they throw this emotional blackmail at the parents.

I looked at the data again.  It was a 63% increase in school budget from 2000 to 2007 with a 2% growth.  I’m not saying anyone is not informed on their decisions.  I just think that kind of increase is absurd, and NCLB and 2% growth doesn’t explain it.  All I’m saying is we need to stop giving this irresponsible school board and superintendent a rubber stamp to whatever they want.  I want a better explanation.  I think we should call them on it.

By the way, none of this gets me angry and as far as the growth goes, I have participated in that process too, speaking at the Old Trail Planning Commission meeting, working on the Crozet Park Board etc..

My apologies to the superb teachers, administrators (local) and employees if I offended you.  It was not my intention.  Nor was it my intention to enflame anyone.  I just wanted to see if anyone else was thinking the way I was.  And you’re right Patty, I don’t need to sign the petition.  I’ll just write directly to my supervisor.

ed note: The above is courtesy of Brian Campbell. This type of discussion is part of the reason that this blog was started. Please feel free to contribute to the conversation or submit stories candidly, not everything will be published, but please do contribute. Accountability and transparency qualify as “good things.” The more discussion and oversight by the citizens, the better.

Technorati Tags: crozet

watched Snakes on Plane with our two gracious hosts until the wee hours

sipped delicious coffee in the sunshine by a pool, reading the Dallas Morning News

demonstrated great improvement in my disc-golfing skills, this being my second go-round

waded into a muddy creek to retrieve a disc, errantly thrown into the river in spite of the aforementioned improvement

stepped barefoot into a pile of fire ants

In a desperate attempt to avoid doing research for my paper outline due Tuesday for Antitrust, I’ve finally put up all my Spring Break pictures in the photo gallery!  Enjoy.

The RIAA and MPAA (recording industry and motion picture industry groups) have published lists of schools that have the most students who violate copyright protection laws. I’m thrilled not to see UVa on either list!

Oddly, the RIAA expects the schools to help them deliver paperwork to the students on their list and so far, a number of schools have told the RIAA that they don’t have time to take on the extra administrative work.

The RIAA list
The MPAA list

Krogie one day after his rescue

A month into the program, Krogie was very much a part of the household, terrorizing his much larger, older brothers; either one of whom could have easily crushed him with one blow but for the fact that they are both complete sissies. After about 10 days of terror, Scamper finally caught on. He started to realize that this roughhousing routine was only a game, played with zealous affection by his new little brother, Krogie. They’ve been buddies ever since and Wrestlemania is still a common favorite for both.

The most vocal animal I’ve ever had, I have regular conversations with him. He can always be counted on to give me his opinion on anything. Most any object in Krogie’s path often becomes his toy (pen, eyedrops, chapstick, paper towel, etc.) He still loves Smelly Face. I can feed him any kind of food and he gobbles it down gratefully. To show his affection, he licks me on the chin, then bites it.

This is a book that’s been out for a couple of years, and I’ve just recently picked it up to read. I’m glad I did, because it’s a page-turning, action-filled story. Set 6,000 years ago, Torak is alone in the world after his father was attacked by a demon-possessed bear. His father’s dying instruction to Torak is to go to the Mountain of the World Spirit, which is the only hope to defeat the demon. Torak has no idea how to get there, but his father assures him that his “guide” will find him. The guide turns out to be an orphaned wolf cub, and the two learn how to communicate with one another as they begin their journey. But when Torak and the cub are captured by the Raven Clan, he realizes that the journey will involve a lot more challenges than just finding enough food to stay alive. This is the first book in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series, which continues with Spirit Walker and Soul Eater. Have you read this book? Let me know what you think by adding a comment!

April:

6th - Revolutionary Comedy - A comedy show to benefit the Shelter For Help in Emergency at Revolutionary Soup (108 Second St. SW) - Admission is $10 and doors open at 8pm. Go heckle my friend Erik!

14th - SARA Gala - Silent auction, music, and such to benefit the Sexual Assault Resource Agency at the Old Live Arts building. Tickets are $65/person. Info and tickets can be purchased at the SARA office at the corner of Little High Street and 11th Street across from Martha Jeff, or by calling 434-295-7273.

Hope to see you at one of these great and helpful events:) - A

Yesterday the mail brought a rejection slip from Sycamore Review. I was a bit surprised that there wasn’t any personalization on the slip since I sent them five of my strongest poems.

For those of you who watched "The Office" last night, you may have seen this.  If not, here you go...

Lots of great shots of Old Trail.  It was about a year ago when they started filming - amazing to see the changes that have taken place in Old Trail between then and now.

This week I found the FormTestHelper plugin by Jason Garber. It both enhances and simplifies form testing in Rails functional and integration tests. The great thing is the FormTestHelper tests the form, not just the submission of the form data. For example, if you try to set a form element that doesn’t exist, an error is thrown.

Here’s my first pass at using FormTestHelper:

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assertions = proc do |response|
  assert_response(response)
  assert(exhibit = assigns(:exhibit), 
   "Should have assigned :exhibit")
  assert(exhibit.errors.empty?, 
   "@exhibit should not have errors: #{exhibit.errors.inspect}")
end

exhibit_count = Exhibit.count
get(:new)
assertions.call(:success)

submit_form(‘new_exhibit‘) do |f|
  f.exhibit.title = "New Exhibit"
  f.exhibit.exhibit_type_id = 1
  f.exhibit.license_id = 1
  f.exhibit.annotation = "Exhibit notes."
end

assert_equal(exhibit_count += 1, Exhibit.count )
assertions.call(:redirect)
assert_redirected_to(edit_exhibit_path(assigns(:exhibit)))
assert(flash[:notice])