Advice: "Be Grateful For The Chance To Be Lost"

Five Feet of Fury linked "Best Alternative To Grad School" by Penelope Trunk. Excerpt:

...the thing that is pushing me over the edge with graduate school is that people who are thinking straight about schooling are not even considering graduate school. These people are debating if college is a rip off (here's a great discussion in New York magazine with James Altucher, a venture capitalist in NYC) And people are even debating if high school is useless (here's a great blog by Lisa Nielsen who is with the NYC Department of Education). And anyway, I'm losing interest in the debate about grad school because I'm convinced that the future belongs to home schoolers because they are self-learners.

A legislator recognized me on a downtown street yesterday. We were headed in the same direction for a ways and she asked what I thought of the last session, and specifically of education-related bills. I answered that I had not expected much from this session, and the session met my expectations. I was disappointed but not surprised that the legislature passed on the opportunity to expand homeschoolers' options. In testimony, HSTA representatives opposed bills that would have allowed homeschoolers to participate in extracurricular activities and most legislators voted as the HSTA instructed. You can measure how much the outlook of the average legislator must change before the legislature will address the State government's financial situation that they raided dedicated funds like the hurricane relief fund to address the budget deficit. A more accommodating attitude toward homeschoolers would reduce demands on the government's overstretched resources.

Thomas Sowell on "Education"

If education is an investment, then the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's K-PhD school system is Enron. State "investment" in education makes as much sense as "industrial policy", the 50's era fad for State direction of investment in heavy manufacturing. Here's Thomas Sowell on "The Education Mantra".

No Way To Run A Railroad

GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt (Reuters, 2011-05-05): "Even though I believe in global warming and I believe in the science ... it just took on a connotation that was too elitist; it was too precious and it let opponents think that if you had a green initiative, you didn't care about jobs. I'm a businessman. That's all I care about, is jobs."

Whatever happened to Cornelius ("The public be damned. I am working for my stockholders") Vanderbilt?

A CEO who cares only about jobs runs a charity, not a business. The same goes for politicians who, in the interest of current recipients of tax subsidies (such as State employees), subsidize inefficient providers of public goods (such as government-operated schools) at the expense of taxpayers, recipients of those services (such as students), and current and potential employees of alternative providers (such as private school teachers).

Meanwhile, from the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice comes this news:...
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels Signs Historic Voucher Bill into Law

Thursday, May 05, 2011
Milton and Rose Friedman’s vision of school choice for all takes one step closer to reality
INDIANAPOLIS, IN — The Foundation for Educational Choice today praised Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels for signing the nation’s largest voucher program into law. The School Scholarship Act (House Bill 1003) creates a school voucher program that has the broadest eligibility of any voucher program in the nation.

“This is truly a historic day for Indiana’s children,” said Robert Enlow, President and CEO of the Foundation for Educational Choice. “Gov. Daniels’ signature today puts Indiana at the top of the class for educational choice. Moreover, this sends an important message to families across the country: meaningful education reform is possible. We should never give up fighting for access to high-quality educational options for every child, regardless of family income or where they live.”