Tyler Cowen writes a very useful article on where the federal government’s $21,671 spending per household (2004) goes – up $3,500 from 2001!
Dan Gillmor has some additional comments relating to the emerging AMT (alternative minimum tax) problem, a subject I discussed some weeks ago.
MPS received $15m teaching quality donation
The Chicago-based Joyce Foundation announced Wednesday that it would provide $15 million over the next three years to support efforts to improve the quality of teaching in low-performing schools in Milwaukee, Chicago and Cleveland.
MMSD Transfer Requests Rejected b/c of Race – WSJ
Dozens of Madison public school students are learning this month that their race can be the sole factor in whether they’re allowed to transfer to another district under the state’s open enrollment law.
The Madison School District said Tuesday it has denied 65 open enrollment requests for next fall because the shift of those students – all of them white – would upset the racial balance at specific schools.
National ID Does Not Equal Greater Security….
Security expert Bruce Schneier writes about the reality of National ID cards:
The potential privacy encroachments of an ID card system are far from minor. And the interruptions and delays caused by incessant ID checks could easily proliferate into a persistent traffic jam in office lobbies and airports and hospital waiting rooms and shopping malls.
But my primary objection isn’t the totalitarian potential of national IDs, nor the likelihood that they’ll create a whole immense new class of social and economic dislocations. Nor is it the opportunities they will create for colossal boondoggles by government contractors. My objection to the national ID card, at least for the purposes of this essay, is much simpler:
It won’t work. It won’t make us more secure.
Worldwide Panorama is up!
Don Bain, Director of the Geographic Computing Facility at UC-Berkeley, has posted The World Wide Panorama. These Quicktime VR scenes, including one from Mineral Point, were shot March 20, 2004 in celebration of the Equinox. Enjoy – there are some extraordinary scenes.
2004 Jefferson Muzzles
The 2004 Jefferson Muzzle awards have just been announced.
Since 1992, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression has celebrated the birth and ideals of its namesake by calling attention to those who in the past year forgot or disregarded Mr. Jefferson’s admonition that freedom of speech “cannot be limited without being lost.”
Announced on or near April 13 — the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson — the Jefferson Muzzles are awarded as a means to draw national attention to abridgments of free speech and press and, at the same time, foster an appreciation for those tenets of the First Amendment. Because the importance and value of free expression extend far beyond the First Amendment’s limit on government censorship, acts of private censorship are not spared consideration for the dubious honor of receiving a Muzzle.
Unfortunately, each year the finalists for the Jefferson Muzzles have emerged from an alarmingly large group of candidates. For each recipient, a dozen could have been substituted. Further, an examination of previous Jefferson Muzzle recipients reveals that the disregard of First Amendment principles is not the byproduct of a particular political outlook but rather that threats to free expression come from all over the political spectrum.
……. This year’s winners.
MPS Voucher Program Achievements
Milwaukee’s voucher program prompted sustainable achievement gains for the city’s public elementary schools, according to a new study by a Harvard economist.
Researcher Caroline Hoxby followed up on a study of three years ago, in which she concluded that the private school choice program pushed the public schools to improve.
In the new study, she adds test score data from two additional years – the 2000-’01 and 2001-’02 school years – and finds that the gains were sustained, although they did not accelerate. The study was published in the Swedish Economic Policy Review.
Saving money on your phone bill: VOIP
David Pogue reviews the latest VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services, which allow you to call anywhere in the United States for as little as $20.55/month (plus your broadband internet connection):.
This development is annoyingly called voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP, which means “calls that use the Internet’s wiring instead of the phone company’s.” When you sign up, you get a little box that goes between your existing telephone and your broadband modem (that is, your cable modem or D.S.L. box, a requirement for most of these services).
At that point you can make unlimited local, regional and long-distance calls anywhere in the United States for a fixed fee of $20 to $40 a month (plus the cost of your broadband Internet service, of course). Overseas calls cost about 3 cents a minute. These figures aren’t subject to inflation by a motley assortment of tacked-on fees, either; voice-over-Internet service is exempt from F.C.C. line charges, state 911 surcharges, number-portability service charges and so on.
Save money, switch! I’ve been using www.packet8.net for some time.
Two alternatives beyond the phone interface: ichat | skype
New proposal would eliminate ?Education? from school district budget
Bizzaro Wisco Column – [Humor]
Filberto Epstein
March 30, 2004
A document released today by the Madison Metropolitan School District
outlines the administration?s proposal to close the district?s $10 million
budget shortfall by eliminating all ?education? activities and focusing on
the district?s core ?child storage? functions. According to Superintendent
Art Rainwater, the increasing cost of ?education? has impaired the
district?s ability to balance its books.
Thanks to Lucy Mathiak for pointing me to this article.
Who Owns What?
Columbia Journalism Review has a very useful tool: Who Owns What? Locally, Wisconsin State Journal owner, Lee Enterprises, owns a myriad of small regional publications, including 50% of Capital Newspapers, an entity shielded from monopoly concerns by the no longer necessary Newspaper Preservation act of 1970.