schoolboard

Does anybody remember back in the late 80s when we had those BIG satellite dishes that you had to aim from one satellite to another for different stations? We had a chipped card and got some physical mailing every month with a huge code we had to type into the receiver from the remote to receive encrypted signals for that month. A huge pain, but as a bored kid in Nebraska I gladly did it! Anybody know more about that newsletter and how they did it?

Double plus to the wetland issue. I'm a pretty lefty environmentalist guy, but after building a house and having a wife on city council for a small town, I've realized that the Clean Water Act was essentially a huge government taking of land. Virtually every ditch is now considered a Wetland if you apply the rules literally, which puts it under the Army Corps of Engineers Wetlands guidance. States are federally required to develop regulations around this. Our town has to file for wetlands permits to MOW the ditches.

Imagine any project from the past that would go through anything wet: national highway system, national parks trails, Appalachian trail. None could be built today.

When I lived there we called Gristedes "Grosstedes" and Gourmet Garage "Greedy Garage"... 125th street Fairway made up for it but it was Hell getting through there ...

Matt Risinger. My hero, although would love him to do more of an "amazing quality on a budget price" diversion.

I'm a board member of a school district, and I have to say I was shocked at the resistance to trying new methods of learning from both the administration and educators in our districts. Flat out statements that "kids can't learn from computers," while not universal, were common. Resistance to change is enormous. Combine this with the education industrial complex that has built up around traditional schools, and getting anything done is very very hard.

So I would have a view that there was likely some bumpy implementation, that there were some grumpy parents, and the teachers were more than happy to have the rebellion established. Don't underestimate a passive-aggressive implementation approach as an attempt to scuttle the whole thing. (I had a teacher for my son when common core was established, who literally told all the parents "my job now is just to hand out worksheets every day." And that's what she did. Even though that was obviously not the intent of common core.)

So yes -- poor implementation in an environment that easily rolls small snowballs into avalanches that hit the NYT.