by 3rd Way
If those that militantly strive to keep Christ in Christmas are as devoted to their cause as they claim to be they should leave the use of the bastardized word “Christmas” to us heathens and return to "Christ's Mass", the original Christian name for the celebration.
Showing posts with label McIllheran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label McIllheran. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
McIlheran Watch: Spot the flaws in choice logic
by folkbum
Yesterday, there was some conversation around on the Milwaukee Parental Choice (the "voucher") Program. Milwaukee legislator Fred Kessler's been circulating a proposal to change mostly funding aspects of the program. (Some details are in this article explaining that Kessler's being stood up in a meeting with Governor Doyle.)
My BFF Patrick McIlheran weighed in on Kessler's proposal here. Unsurprisingly, he opposes it. But McIlheran engages in some twisted logic in defense of the voucher program. Early in his post you have this (my emphasis):
Further down in McIlheran's post, though, is this (again, my emphasis):
Instead, it's the cost of students with additional needs--special education students, in particular--who drive up the cost of an average MPS student. And as we learned last week, MPS's superintendent is expecting as many as 25% of all high school students will be special education eligible within a few years. That number is certainly not helped by voucher schools who refuse to provide services (Hey! We can't make them bankrupt themselves!) forcing parents back into MPS where, under threat of lawsuits and the federal hammer, we have to spend two, three, sometimes ten times what it costs to teach a regular-education student. In other words, MPS is required to "bankrupt itself" to teach these kids!
So there's your choice logic: We can't make these voucher schools take expensive-to-teach students, because they don't have the money. And, hey, look at that, vouchers are a bargain! McIlheran is trying to have it both ways with a heads I win-tails you lose argument. It's a deal stacked against MPS.
Yesterday, there was some conversation around on the Milwaukee Parental Choice (the "voucher") Program. Milwaukee legislator Fred Kessler's been circulating a proposal to change mostly funding aspects of the program. (Some details are in this article explaining that Kessler's being stood up in a meeting with Governor Doyle.)
My BFF Patrick McIlheran weighed in on Kessler's proposal here. Unsurprisingly, he opposes it. But McIlheran engages in some twisted logic in defense of the voucher program. Early in his post you have this (my emphasis):
If I'm deciphering Kessler's prose correctly, he's saying that if a choice school takes in a kid and his younger brother is, say, autistic, the choice school has to take the autistic younger brother. Well: Choice schools already must accept "special needs" children [. . .] but they're not required to bankrupt themselves in doing so.If I'm deciphering McIlheran's prose correctly--and given that's he's made this same set of arguments before, I think I am--he's arguing that voucher schools shouldn't have to spend a lot of money to offer services to special needs students. Indeed, they do not have to provide any services under state law.
Further down in McIlheran's post, though, is this (again, my emphasis):
Oh, and if the program does get killed, some of those 7,000 children will end up in MPS--where per-pupil costs to taxpayers total something like $10,000.He's not wrong about the extra cost of an average MPS student. But as I have demonstrated before, the per-pupil cost of a regular-education student in MPS is not significantly greater than the value of a voucher awarded to a choice participant, even factoring in our union teachers and state and federal mandates.
Instead, it's the cost of students with additional needs--special education students, in particular--who drive up the cost of an average MPS student. And as we learned last week, MPS's superintendent is expecting as many as 25% of all high school students will be special education eligible within a few years. That number is certainly not helped by voucher schools who refuse to provide services (Hey! We can't make them bankrupt themselves!) forcing parents back into MPS where, under threat of lawsuits and the federal hammer, we have to spend two, three, sometimes ten times what it costs to teach a regular-education student. In other words, MPS is required to "bankrupt itself" to teach these kids!
So there's your choice logic: We can't make these voucher schools take expensive-to-teach students, because they don't have the money. And, hey, look at that, vouchers are a bargain! McIlheran is trying to have it both ways with a heads I win-tails you lose argument. It's a deal stacked against MPS.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Ninnie State
By Keith Schmitz
Even though smoking is bad for your health, the Journal Sentinel attacks our intellectual health and insists on running the sullen optimist Patrick McIlheran in every nook and cranny they can find.
In today's journey to wonderland Paddy Mac has perceived that pressure is being brought to bear on public smoking. All around the world places that would seem to be habitable to smoking thanks to their edge -- Ireland, Italy and now France and soon close to home Illinois -- are telling their residents smoke 'em if you got 'em but not in public. Even places they admire such as Singapore for their punishment by caning has told people to stub them out in public. Like all primal life forms McIllheran becomes tedious when he is cornered.
Hey, I enjoy an occasional cigar and I own a shisha pipe I brought back from Egypt, both of which are rather relaxing to puff on at home. But like all responsible adults I recognize smoking is an obtrusive act.
Why should a condition of employment be that someone's clothes reek from tobacco or worse, their lungs are exposed to carcinogens? For that matter why should other customers have to put up with this as well?
Unlike the letter printed in this morning's paper printed above Paddy Mac's smirky head, which expresses the opinion that people aren't really for these bans? Well, sorry Eva, people do want these bans.
There is the problem. As usual in the radcon fantasy world empirical research about the harmful effects of smoking along with polls showing support for bans are ignored or mocked. The world, however, pretty much agress with this but do not ever use this argument with conservatives. It somehow emboldens them.
As usual they summon up their philosophical nothings -- "if you don't like working in a bar that allows smoking go somewhere else," or "it's a business' right to run their operation the way it wants" or the favorite -- "nanny state." All of which in so many words translate into "we don't give a crap about people."
The question is why do they persist in resisting a law that is common sense? They talk about their rights but what about the rights of others to snort non-lethal air?
It's probably more partisan than that because for them, that is usually what it comes down to. Take your pick. After all, tobacco companies dump a lot of money into Republican coffers.
Or it could be like a lot of other causes for their opposition. Democrats are for responding to climate change or limiting access of everyone to guns so to prevent them from having these or other victories, they are agin it. They are so worried about protecting their way of life, whatever that is, that giving an inch is not in the program.
The ironic thing is this crowd is way too visceral with their hierarchy of needs rarely getting beyond the second level, so in this and many of their arguments they definitely gild the lily.
But visceral they are and they bluster on despite what the public really wants and what science proves to be an imperative, explaining why Wisconsin has changed from being the progressive state to where we are now -- the regressive state.
Even though smoking is bad for your health, the Journal Sentinel attacks our intellectual health and insists on running the sullen optimist Patrick McIlheran in every nook and cranny they can find.
In today's journey to wonderland Paddy Mac has perceived that pressure is being brought to bear on public smoking. All around the world places that would seem to be habitable to smoking thanks to their edge -- Ireland, Italy and now France and soon close to home Illinois -- are telling their residents smoke 'em if you got 'em but not in public. Even places they admire such as Singapore for their punishment by caning has told people to stub them out in public. Like all primal life forms McIllheran becomes tedious when he is cornered.
Hey, I enjoy an occasional cigar and I own a shisha pipe I brought back from Egypt, both of which are rather relaxing to puff on at home. But like all responsible adults I recognize smoking is an obtrusive act.
Why should a condition of employment be that someone's clothes reek from tobacco or worse, their lungs are exposed to carcinogens? For that matter why should other customers have to put up with this as well?
Unlike the letter printed in this morning's paper printed above Paddy Mac's smirky head, which expresses the opinion that people aren't really for these bans? Well, sorry Eva, people do want these bans.
There is the problem. As usual in the radcon fantasy world empirical research about the harmful effects of smoking along with polls showing support for bans are ignored or mocked. The world, however, pretty much agress with this but do not ever use this argument with conservatives. It somehow emboldens them.
As usual they summon up their philosophical nothings -- "if you don't like working in a bar that allows smoking go somewhere else," or "it's a business' right to run their operation the way it wants" or the favorite -- "nanny state." All of which in so many words translate into "we don't give a crap about people."
The question is why do they persist in resisting a law that is common sense? They talk about their rights but what about the rights of others to snort non-lethal air?
It's probably more partisan than that because for them, that is usually what it comes down to. Take your pick. After all, tobacco companies dump a lot of money into Republican coffers.
Or it could be like a lot of other causes for their opposition. Democrats are for responding to climate change or limiting access of everyone to guns so to prevent them from having these or other victories, they are agin it. They are so worried about protecting their way of life, whatever that is, that giving an inch is not in the program.
The ironic thing is this crowd is way too visceral with their hierarchy of needs rarely getting beyond the second level, so in this and many of their arguments they definitely gild the lily.
But visceral they are and they bluster on despite what the public really wants and what science proves to be an imperative, explaining why Wisconsin has changed from being the progressive state to where we are now -- the regressive state.
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