It's A Great Day

George Will writes today about the dominance of universities by liberal professors. This is something many of us are already recognize. But what many people perhaps are not aware of is that this tide is being fought aggressively at George Mason University due to the efforts of Walter Williams. While he was Chairman of the economics department he amassed probably the greatest free-market team of professors in the nation, which includes the Nobel Prize winners James Buchanan and Vernon Smith.

Dr. Williams has also been active in attracting funders to the school. During GMU's latest fundraising drive the largest donation has come from the Charles G. Koch Foundation which in the past helped found the libertarian groups Citizens for a Sound Economy and The CATO Institute.

PermaLink | 9:33 AM | |

Maureen Dowd's family are Republicans. You must read the email her bother Kevin sent to friends after the election.

PermaLink | 7:48 AM | |

Today's Washington Post editorial, almost certainly written by Colbert King, contrasts sharply with the rosy picture of the charter school facility legislation sponsored by F.O.C.U.S. and Senator Landrieu, and represents my take on this issue. Here's a sample:

Why on earth would Ms. Landrieu arbitrarily take such unilateral action without a word to city officials? Apparently the Louisiana senator, despite her oft-professed respect for local self-determination, is inclined to throw comity and courtesy to the wind and grant the wishes of local charter groups when lobbied directly. The bill, now awaiting presidential signature, still has a problem provision that takes away any discretion by the mayor and D.C. Council on the disposition of future school property, giving charter schools the right of first refusal on any property the school system wants to sell. Yes, it derails the District's service and revenue priorities. But why should the senator and the charter group she serves care? They got their way. Not for long, however. Appropriations Committee members, incorrectly led to believe that the District had accepted the senator's provision, have vowed to undo the damage when they return. They should.

PermaLink | 2:23 AM | |

Lots of charter school news today. Here Sam Dillon and Diana Jean Schemo from the New York Times summarize a study by the Department of Education which demonstrates that traditional public schools are doing better academically compared to charters with similar student populations. The reporters provide an excellent summary of the studies so far:

The study follows several recent efforts to track charter performance, including a report by the American Federation of Teachers, which showed students in charter schools lagging behind their public school peers on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Advocates of charter schools, including Education Secretary Rod Paige, criticized that report for generalizing about charter schools, which offer extremely varied educational programs in states from Massachusetts to Oregon.

Partly in response to the A.F.T. report, a Harvard economics professor, Caroline M. Hoxby, sped up release of a study she had been conducting comparing students in charter schools nationwide with students in the nearest neighborhood school, and with the closest public school with a similar racial makeup.

She found charter students were 4 percent more likely to have mastered reading and 2 percent more likely to have mastered math than students at the neighborhood schools. The proficiency levels increased by one percentage point in each subject when she compared charters to local schools with a similar racial makeup. Dr. Hoxby's strongest findings were in Washington, D.C.

Her report also provoked debate, with charter supporters praising her methods and findings and other researchers, who have tried to replicate her data, criticizing her for excluding some Washington charter schools from her study set and using a lower measure to determine success in charter schools.

Another recent study of charter schools in Washington, where 17 percent of publicly educated students attend charters, found that charters were somewhat more likely to enroll low-income students than regular public schools, less likely to enroll students with limited English, and as likely as traditional schools to enroll disabled students, said Mark Schneider, a political science professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and a co-author. The study was financed by the National Science Foundation.

The new Education Department report found that 43 percent of charter students were from low-income families, compared with 38 percent in regular public schools nationwide. Nine percent of charter students were disabled, compared with 12 percent in regular public schools, it said.

The new report attracted immediate criticism from groups representing charter schools.

I say it is too soon to see real progress regarding test scores with charter schools. But just wait!

PermaLink | 7:27 PM | |

FOCUS D.C. Public Charter School Bulletin

November 23, 2004

Key Charter School Amendments Survive Repeal Effort; Senator Reaffirms
Congressional Role in Promoting School Reform in D.C.

Under intense pressure from the Williams Administration and the Board of
Education, which sought repeal of the surplus property and other amendments
passed just last month by the Congress [Bulletin, November 1, 2004], Senator
Mary Landrieu (D-LA) has agreed to a number of changes to the amendments.
The Senator, however, has held firm on the most important of the surplus
property amendments, citing in a letter to the administration Congress�s
"long and established legislative history" regarding charter school
facilities and chiding the administration for failing to effectively address
the charter schools' facilities needs.

Under the revised amendments, which should become law this week, charter
schools still are guaranteed a "right of first offer" on all current and
future surplus school properties. This phrase replaces the "first
preference" language in the pre-amendment law. Even more significant, the
Congress refused to reinstate a provision of the pre-amendment law that
enabled the administration to ignore the charter school preference whenever
it could make more money by disposing of a surplus building to a non-charter
school buyer.

However, surplus schools that already have been purchased, leased,
transferred, or become subject to an exclusive rights agreement or a
disposition resolution submitted to the Council prior to December 1 are
exempted by the revised legislation from the right of first offer
requirement. The exemption presumably is designed to cover the Randall
School building, which the administration plans to sell to the Corcoran
Museum, and the Franklin School building, which is rumored to be close to
commercial disposition. The exemption evidently also is intended to apply
to the Nichols Avenue School building, disposition of which to Thurgood
Marshall PCS was being held up by the administration even though TMA had
taken possession of the building and begun renovations.

In addition to surplus property, the right of first offer also applies to
excess space in school buildings currently operated by DCPS. According to
the 21st Century School Fund, a D.C. non-profit, DCPS now controls nearly 6
million square feet of space it no longer needs to house its students (DCPS
unofficial enrollment has fallen below 60,000 students this school year).
Yet the BOE continues to hang on to all of its 150+ buildings, rarely
sharing space with charter schools and stalling for months on accepting a
staff-proposed policy on space sharing that took over a year to develop.

Another very important amendment preserved by Senator Landrieu gives
converting schools the right to lease their DCPS school buildings for a
renewable term of at least 25 years. Prior law was silent as to whether
converting schools could stay in their buildings. Another amendment that
would have made it easier to convert DCPS schools to charter schools,
however, was struck under pressure from the Board of Education. This
amendment would have reduced from two thirds to 51% the percentage of
teachers who must approve a conversion.

In her letter responding to the administration�s request that she repeal all
of the amendments, Senator Landrieu discussed Congress�s efforts over the
last several years to get the administration to take action on the charter
school facilities crisis by making more surplus buildings available to the
charter schools. According to the Senator, this history demonstrates that
"despite there being a clear and compelling need for facilities for use by
the rapidly expanding charter school movement in D.C. and an even clearer
legal requirement that they be given preference...when disposing of surplus
property," few buildings have been made available to the charter schools by
the administration. "[W]e are simply not on track to meet the needs for
infrastructure by emergent charter schools" she added.

Responding to the administration�s argument that its treatment of the public
charter schools should be a purely local matter, the Senator expressed
agreement that education is "primarily a local function." But, citing
Congress�s investment in District charter schools of $43 million over the
last three years, much of it to help the charter schools acquire and finance
facilities, the Senator promised a continuing role for the federal
government in District school reform. "We would not be fulfilling our
responsibility to the taxpayers if we were to continue to allocate federal
funds for [charter school facilities] purposes without also addressing the
obvious and well-documented barriers that may prevent these funds from being
well spent."

The administration promised in August to permit charter schools to bid on
five additional surplus buildings in October, but did not release the
request for bids because it claimed that the pending congressional
legislation required that the process be delayed. Now that the dispute over
the legislation has been resolved it is anticipated that the charter schools
will be able to bid on the five buildings in the reasonably near future.

PermaLink | 7:21 PM | |

Last evening F.O.C.U.S. and the D.C. Charter School Alliance co-hosted a discussion with new D.C. school Superintendent Clifford Janey. There were about 30 representatives from the City's 42 charter schools sitting around a table, where for about an hour and a half Dr. Janey fielded questions from the group. I represented WEDJ PCS.

I have to say I was impressed on a personal level with Dr. Janey. His goal seemed to be to soften the divide between charters and traditional D.C. schools. Most of the comments, not unexpectedly, centered around how charters could be brought into the decision making process regarding policies that effect all schools. For example, my understanding is that one issue which is still up in the air is which standardized test will be used in the spring to access student progress. Dr. Janey said that the selection is about two to four weeks away and it was clear to me from what the participants said that he favors the Stanford-9.

It turns out that the Superintendent runs a monthly leadership meeting centered around sharing best practices for obtaining specific results. This gathering has involved almost exclusively representatives from traditional schools but Dr. Janey made it quite clear that charter schools should attend. In fact, others stated that charters have been invited since August of this year but have not been showing up. There was general agreeement from almost everyone that they were unaware of these sessions and a action plan was developed for improving communication about them.

Of course, facilities is the main obstacle for charter schools and many people brought it up. Some asked Dr. Janey to mandate that schools search for ways to incorporate charters into their buildings if extra space exists. The Superintendent was direct in saying that this was not his style and that the most important first step in working together was to improve the relationship between charters and the public school system. He said once progress has been made in this area then other goals of this group would be possible to achieve.

As I sat there listening to a frank and open conversation with these education leaders I felt a strange uneasiness. Everyone was trying to be polite and professional in an effort to begin our working together on a high note. But I was frustrated. We have an educational crises in our nation's capital and I could not detect one person, especially the Superintendent, being passionate about their mission. So finally, I had the opportunity to ask the final question of the evening.

I said that the charter school movement was about much more than providing competition to traditional schools so that students would have alternative choices for their education. The aim, I stated, was also to improve traditional schools through pressures of the market-place. So I asked him how he felt personally when a parent told him that they were putting their kids on a bus or the subway because the neighborhood school was not meeting their expectations for teaching their children. He refused to answer and called my question "rhetorical."

So I guess this exchange summarizes my impression of the meeting and the man. He is extremely nice and makes others feel immediately at ease. Once the event was over the Superintend spent considerable time just hanging out and speaking with people on an individual basis. Someone said they were from Boston as he apparently is, and he used a four letter word to comment on the high price of purchasing parking spaces in the City. He joked with me about my question.

But it was no joke. I was looking for a clue that he would have the courage and fortitude to be able to shake up a system that is fundamentally dysfunctional. I didn't find it.

PermaLink | 4:29 AM | |

Here's an extremely complimentary article about Rob Paige's tenure as Secretary of Education by Chester Finn, Jr., President of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. From the column:

What he was, however - what he is - is a dedicated educator of children, and a crusader for better opportunities for the poorest and neediest among them. A black man who rose from the humblest start in Jim Crow's Mississippi - a product of segregated schools - he became a teacher, coach, administrator, counselor, dean, school-board member, and, in time, the reforming superintendent of the largest school system in Texas.

I met Mr. Paige two years ago when I helped arrange him to speak at the Cesar Chavez Public Charter High School for Public Policy as part of C-Span's Student's and Leaders Program. After a short presentation the students in attendance were permitted to ask questions. The first one was "What does it mean to you to be the first African American Secretary of Education?" His answer - "Its not relevant."

PermaLink | 7:34 AM | |

Important art news on the weekend that the Museum of Modern Art re-opens in Manhattan. It seems that the service station that was the inspiration for Edward Hopper's painting "Gas" burned down recently and is going to be re-created in its original form.



You pass the gas station when you travel through Truro on Cape Cod on the way to Provincetown. Our family stopped there 3 years ago on our last family vacation in Chatham. It had completely fallen apart, no one was around, and the only thing it was used for was as a location for purchasing firewood.

You can see the painting, of course, at MOMA.

PermaLink | 6:57 AM | |

Well I think its obvious why Sowell Chan, the ex-education reporter for the Washington Post, went over to the New York Times. Here's what he's writing about now.

PermaLink | 11:00 AM | |

That's the position I was elected to at last night's meeting of the Board of Directors of the William E. Doar, Jr. Public Charter School. Quite an honor.

PermaLink | 5:16 AM | |

My first encounter with liberalism's confusion over choice occurred five years ago. I was sitting at a lunch event for the Cesar Chavez Public Charter High School for Public Policy and I started talking to those around me about my hope that school vouchers would be implemented in Washington, D.C. All of those sitting in my vicinity immediately disagreed with this point of view. They based their opinion on an argument I have heard expressed many times by the opposition. They said that vouchers will not be successful because citizens of the nation's capital would never have the ability or knowledge to make good decisions about where to send their kids to school. So here were gathered supporters of an institution that families and students must choose to attend, explaining to me that school choice is doomed to failure.

Two nights ago this contradiction came up again. I was talking to a black staff member of the WEDJ Public Charter School about the recent Presidential election. I told her that the Democratic Party was taking her race for granted. I said that if I could talk to blacks collectively I would urge them to support Republicans for the sole reason of gaining the ability to invest some of their social security funds in a private account. The current system, I explained, is especially unfair to people of her color because their life expectancy is shorter than that of whites, and therefore as a whole they do not receive retirement payments for as long a period. Private accounts, I assured her, would partially alleviate this disparity by providing funds which could be passed down from one generation to the next.

In response I was hit with the same reaction I experienced in the cafeteria of Cesar Chavez in 1999. "I'm not in favor of social security privatization," she replied, "because the public could never make intelligent choices about how to invest their money."

And yet if you ask those around my lunch table or the WEDJ employee about the subject of abortion, then the script becomes flipped. These same individuals would defend to their last days on earth the right of a woman to determine whether to terminate a pregnancy. So when it comes to the most important decision a person can make, one of life or death, then liberals suddenly find that humans are rational beings. But when it comes to issues which are slightly less consequential, then the dignity to make up one's mind must be turned over to those who know best.

I am of course not the only one to notice this hypocrisy. George Will writes about it in the November 22, 2004 issue of Newsweek Magazine (I'm sorry, I could not find a link to the column). He concludes:

As the American public has become more educated, American intellectuals have become more disparaging of the public's intellectual incapacities and more shortcomings. In 1940, more than half of the U.S. population had only an eight-grade education, or less. Now that 85 percent are high-school graduates, 53 percent have some college education and 27 percent are college graduates, it is an article of faith among the progressive intelligentsia that the public is becoming increasingly obtuse, bigoted and superstitious.

There was a time-say, from the early 1930s to the mind-1960s, the period of the Democratic Party's ascendancy-when progressives thought their job was to increase the material well-being of ordinary Americans. It is not mere coincidence that the Democratic Party's strength has waned as its intellectuals' disapproval of ordinary Americans has waxed.

PermaLink | 4:47 AM | |

One of my predictions came true. Now let's see what happens at the Defense Department.

PermaLink | 8:30 AM | |

The enlarged and completely renovated building is being described as perfectly unifying architecture, art, and the city of New York. It could not have received a better review then the one written today by Nicolai Ouroussoff of the New York Times. Here's a sample:

The building, which reopens on Saturday, may disappoint those who believe the museum's role should be as much about propelling the culture forward as about preserving our collective memory. This is not the child of Alfred H. Barr Jr., the founding director who famously envisioned the Modern movement as a torpedo advancing relentlessly toward the future. Its focus, instead, is a conservative view of the past: the building's clean lines and delicately floating planes are shaped by the assumption that Modernity remains our central cultural experience. The galleries, stacked one on top of the other like so many epochs, reinforce a hierarchical approach to history that will bolster the Modern's image as a ruthless arbiter of taste.

But the museum essentially abandoned its claim on the future decades ago. That role will have to be picked up by another generation and another museum. For now, we should applaud the Modern for what it is: a monument to 20th-century values, a precisely calibrated architectural frame whose emotional energy springs from the art it houses. It is one of the most exquisite works of architecture to rise in this city in at least a generation.

PermaLink | 3:25 AM | |

My wife and I bumped into Ted Olsen while shopping in Sutton Place Gourmet in Reston yesterday (the grocery store chain has been renamed Balducci's.) He was until recently the U.S. Solicitor General who successfully argued Bush v. Gore before the Supreme Court and the Zelman case which upheld using school vouchers to attend parochial schools, and whose wife Barbara died on 9/11/01 on the plane that hit the Pentagon. I introduced myself, shook his hand, told him how much I respect him, and then asked if he was going to move to the Supreme Court. He said yes.

Not really. He said he was happy were he was. We then both laughed. I guess we thought it was funny that I was putting him on the spot after just meeting him as I did.

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Thinking of sharing your intimate relationships on your blog? Not such a good idea says Heather Hunter in today's New York Times. Miss Hunter is the author of the blog This Fish Needs a Bicycle.

PermaLink | 9:47 AM | |

The Washington Post editors this morning expose the achievement gap between black and white students in Fairfax County, Virginia. The difference in performance on the Standards of Learning examinations is particularly disturbing because this 10% of the student body is not scoring as high as minority students in other parts of the state, even those with predominantly black student populations.

Of course, the reason for this is that since the Fairfax County school system is the 12th largest system in the nation it will tend to go with educational fads instead of focusing on teaching the basics when it comes to math and reading. This failure to teach to the test is especially harmful for underprivileged and immigrant students who will start off behind the affluent white families of Northern Virginia.

PermaLink | 8:27 AM | |

When I was in graduate school at George Mason University I learned to appreciate the views of James Q. Wilson. We do not have the opportunity to read him often these days so when he writes on current events, as he did today in the Wall Street Journal On-line it is worth our time. Here is an exert:

The pollsters do no provide much information because they usually gather too few responses to permit observers to cross-tabulate data into all of the relevant categories. What is the vote likely to be in Ohio among gun-owning union members who attend church but who have just lost their jobs and think the U.S. should spend less time fighting wars? Or how will business people vote if they have received a tax cut, think our invasion of Iraq is not going well, and oppose abortion?

PermaLink | 8:14 AM | |

I'm excited about the new prospects for peace in the middle east and I'm glad that Scott Peterson received the verdict that he deserved.

However, I'm shocked that Rod Paige has resigned. He is such a great defender of school choice and his personal story of achievement is so inspiring that I hate to see him go. But now I understand what is going on.

President Bush is a solid supporter of those he has solicited for key posts. But as soon as they become controversial and partisan he starts looking for a replacement. I'm convinced that this is what happened regarding John Ashcroft and Ron Paige. You remember that Mr. Paige referred to the National Teachers Association as a terrorist group. If my reasoning is correct Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell will also leave. Let's see if I'm correct.

PermaLink | 10:54 PM | |

The D.C. Education blog has a follow-up to that fantastic new law engineered by F.O.C.U.S. to rip off the D.C. government. Remember you heard it first here.

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In my continuing desire to provide assistance to the underdog I must say that the Democrats are approaching the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to be attorney general using the completely wrong approach. From today's Washington Post story, Dan Eggen writes:

Democrats and Republicans alike predicted a relatively easy confirmation for Gonzales, who came to Washington after serving as a Bush aide and as a state Supreme Court justice in Texas.

But wait. It appears that Mr. Gonzales was at least one of the architects behind this country's breach of basic human rights regarding our treatment of war prisoners here and in Cuba, actions which were later struck down by the Supreme Court. According to Mr. Eggen:

In one January 2002 draft memo, Gonzales argued that the war on terrorism made the Geneva Conventions' limitations on treatment of enemy prisoners 'obsolete' and 'renders quaint some of its provisions.'

And more:

His office also played a role in an August 2002 memo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel advising that torturing alleged al Qaeda terrorists in captivity abroad "may be justified" and that international laws against torture 'may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations' conducted in the U.S. war on terrorism.

So when Mr. Gonzales gets confirmed by the Senate we will have as the U.S.'s chief law enforcement officer the man whose policies led to the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

John Kerry said in his campaign that he would have fought the war on terror differently. By strongly opposing the nomination of Mr. Gonzales the Democrats could demonstrate that this statement has meaning.

PermaLink | 11:05 AM | |

Her column two days after the election was insightful, personal, and powerful. This one may be even better.

PermaLink | 6:13 AM | |

Maria Glod lets my day begin with a terrific start by again demonstrating the power of school choice. Please Republicans don't change this aspect of the law.

PermaLink | 2:43 AM | |

Despite the fact that the Supreme Court ruled that this country cannot simply put human beings away in cages and throw away the key, Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and John Mintz say that a federal district judge had to step in again to say that the Bush Administration was still not providing due process to these prisoners.

PermaLink | 6:26 AM | |

Jay Mathews reports on student test score gains in reading and math at schools turned over to private companies. He also observes that under this "diverse provider" model these institutions avoid the problem associated with charters in that they don't have to search for a facility because they have taken over an existing public school.

PermaLink | 6:23 AM | |

E.J. Dionne agrees with my conclusions regarding the 2004 Presidential election. Please take a look at his analysis and then my original post.

PermaLink | 3:31 AM | |

I like the writing of David Brooks as you can tell by the number of times I have referenced him on my blog. But he is off the mark in crediting a poor marketing strategy with must be lower than expected sales of his most recent book. I tried reading Bobos in Paradise and while I found the first fifty pages cute, after that it became simply a repetitive regurgitation of generalities that most of us already appreciate.

PermaLink | 3:22 AM | |

Based upon my experience in working on several dysfunctional political campaigns for Republican candidates, I wondered how the Bush team could have been so perfectly organized to get out the evangelical vote in key precincts across the United States. It turn out they weren't.

PermaLink | 5:20 AM | |

Sorry to keep blogging today but that's what this movement is all about isn't it? Anyway I found an article which perfectly illustrates the lack of understanding by the Democrats regarding values in this last election. From Michael Kinsley's column in today's Washington Post:

It's true that people on my side of the divide want to live in a society where women are free to choose abortion and where gay relationships have full civil equality with straight ones. And you want to live in a society where the opposite is true. These are some of those conflicting values everyone is talking about. But at least my values -- as deplorable as I'm sure they are -- don't involve any direct imposition on you. We don't want to force you to have an abortion or to marry someone of the same gender, whereas you do want to close out those possibilities for us. Which is more arrogant?

Well this is exactly the arrogance that makes conservative people mad. They think homosexuality is wrong so they don't believe in gay marriage because then they would have to accept the legitimacy of this way of life. Another example. Michael Kinsley might say that it is OK to have television shows were people go around half undressed or use bad language because people who don't like it can change the channel. But conservatives worry about the influence of these types of shows on our overall culture and more specifically about their kids finding these programs on their own and somehow thinking this behavior is appropriate. The democrats will not make real progress until they understand it.

PermaLink | 1:21 PM | |

The democrats are in shock! I have never seen a group of people who are so out of touch with reality. Whether it was Paul Begala, E.J. Dionne, or Maureen Dowd, each had the "deer in the headlights" look that shows they don't have one bit of understanding regarding the nature of the American electorate.

On the Sunday news programs there was a general really dumb assessment by liberals that the President now needs to modify his positions in order to govern more to the middle. Sorry. Karl Rove made it quite clear that Mr. Bush follows the old fashion belief that a candidate should do in office what he promised during the campaign.


The most ridiculous comment came from Mr. Begala's comment on C-span's Washington Journal. He said that he had formed his liberal think tank Center for American Progress to turn this country away from the values of the religious right. Please keep thinking this way. It will allow the Republicans to win a few more elections.

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Looking forward to watching all the news shows this morning. Let's see whose analysis is the most off base. I'll report back.

PermaLink | 7:52 AM | |

I have recommended Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged to hundreds of people since I first read these books after graduating high school. The major criticism of these works from those who actually took my advice is that the author unfairly and unquestionably chastises people and their behaviors as immoral.

How ironic these comments now seem in reference to the 2004 Presidential election. It is obvious to me that it is on the basis of morality that this election was decided. But please don't get me wrong. I am not talking about the beliefs of Christian evangelicals. Despite what you may have heard it was not the religious right who won this election for Mr. Bush. People who classify themselves as conservatives outnumber liberals by over 12% in this country yet the President won by 3. So what happened?

I contend that people reacted to the strong leadership of George Bush mostly centered around the Iraq war and terrorism. We sensed that we would not be as safe as we are now with John Kerry in office and we respect the President when he says that you may not agree with me but you know where I stand and what I am going to do.

The leadership issue revolved around much more then the war. Mr. Bush brought up Iraq as often as he could so that he could differentiate his position from that of his opponent. But in a brilliant political move, he also raised the subject to demonstrate that the various views John Kerry expressed on Iraq made him untrustworthy, indecisive, and inconsistent. The discussion helped convince the electorate that if you vote for John Kerry you do not really know what he will do in office.

In all the analyses I have read so far about the election the person who actually gets it right is Mark Penn, a democratic pollster. Writing about the morals question in today's Washington Post he states:

So while liberals and conservatives can be motivated and brought to the polls in increasing numbers, the real battle at the end of the day is for the more moderate voters who this year slipped away to the Republicans, on the basis not of gun control and gay marriage but of security and secular values such as trust and standing up for your beliefs. They are the core of any winning national coalition and at the heart of our national values.

These are exactly the morals Ayn Rand wrote so passionately about.

PermaLink | 7:10 AM | |

for E.J. Dionne. he he.

PermaLink | 5:08 AM | |

This election season started with Peggy Noonan taking a leave of absence from writing her column for the Wall Street Journal to work on the Bush campaign. Her reflections on the Tuesday's results are enlightening.

PermaLink | 6:27 AM | |

No one is a greater supporter of charter schools then me but this is an extremely bad law that interferes with D.C.'s self-rule and the free market. It was introduced by someone who tried to kill school vouchers for nation's capital.

PermaLink | 6:22 AM | |

Take a look at the Drudge Report which is claiming that thousands of votes were found on voting machines BEFORE THE POLLS OPENED.

PermaLink | 7:47 AM | |

No Matter What Happens, Relax

By George F. Will

During tonight's tumult of election returns, remember:

If, for the fourth consecutive election, neither candidate wins a popular vote majority, relax. There were four consecutive such elections from 1880 to 1892. In 1876 a candidate (Samuel Tilden) got 51 percent -- and lost (to Rutherford Hayes). Six elections since World War II produced plurality presidents -- 1948, 1960, 1968, 1992, 1996, 2000. Woodrow Wilson was consequential although he won his first term with just 41.8 percent and his second with 49.2 percent.

If today's election produces vast consequences from slender margins, relax. This is not unusual. In 1916 a switch of 1,771 votes in California would have enabled Charles Evans Hughes to rescue the nation from President Wilson. In 1948 a switch of 30,262 votes in California, Illinois, Ohio and Nevada would have replaced President Harry Truman with Tom Dewey. In 1968 a switch of 53,034 votes in New Jersey, New Hampshire and Missouri would have denied Richard Nixon an electoral vote majority and, because George Wallace won 46 electoral votes, the House probably would have awarded the presidency to Hubert Humphrey. In 1976 a switch of 9,246 votes in Ohio and Hawaii would have enabled President Gerald Ford to beat Jimmy Carter with 270 electoral votes -- but 1.5 million fewer popular votes than Carter had.

If George W. Bush loses, relax. Turbulence is normal. Since 1900, not including Bush, there have been 18 presidents, of whom only five served a full eight years or more. Only 11 of the 42 presidents before Bush served two consecutive terms. Between 1837 and Wilson, only Grant served two consecutive terms. If Bush wins, this will be what the poet William Carlos Williams called "the rare occurrence of the expected." All the winners of elections after 1960 will have been from the Sunbelt -- Georgia, Arkansas, Texas, Southern California.

This is the first wartime election since 1972, when the president presiding over a divisive war trounced an antiwar candidate in 49 states. In wartime 1968, the nation narrowly decided to change the party holding the presidency. In 1944 the commander in chief won a fourth term, but with only 53 percent of the vote, and in 1864 the president might have lost if Atlanta had not been captured before the election.

Watch Nevada. Even though in 1864 it had only one-fifth the population required for statehood, it was admitted to the Union to give an embattled wartime president three extra electoral votes. Bush could lose Nevada's five votes because of his decision -- wise but unpopular -- to proceed with the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

Watch Maine's 2nd Congressional District. Maine, like Nebraska, allocates an electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district. Kerry will win Maine, but Bush could win the 2nd. Watch Ohio. If Bush carries the state hit hardest by job losses, can we retire the canard that Americans "vote their pocketbooks''? Many issues often trump banal calculations of short-term material well-being.

So watch the black vote. If, as several pre-election polls suggested, Bush doubles the 9 percent of African American votes he won in 2000, it will be partly because efforts were made, especially on black radio, to use Bush's stance on same-sex marriage to appeal to the black community's cultural conservatism.

In 2002 Bush became the second president since the Civil War whose party increased its House and Senate seats in the middle of his first term -- although a switch of just 82,763 votes out of 75.7 million votes cast would have given Democrats control of the House and Senate. If today Republicans again gain seats, this strength will beget strength: It will trigger the retirement of some congressional Democrats disheartened by the prospect of protracted minority status.

If Democrat Brad Carson defeats Republican Tom Coburn for Oklahoma's open Senate seat while Bush is carrying the state by, say, 30 points, this remarkable ticket-splitting might lead, mercifully, to abandonment of the blue state-red state dichotomy. Concerning which, if Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle is reelected in South Dakota, a great anomaly will continue: four Democratic senators from the two Dakotas, where Bush's 2000 victories were by an average of 25 percent.

Perhaps this will reconcile liberals to the fact that 16 percent of Americans elect half the Senate. Of course, some egalitarians will continue to consider the Constitution's provision regarding the composition of the Senate an unconstitutional violation of the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection of the laws.

� 2004 The Washington Post Company
Tuesday, November 2, 2004; Page A21

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Here's the latest from Robert Cane over at F.O.C.U.S. It looks like at least in Washington, D.C. there is a true educational marketplace:

Charter School Enrollment Grows 16%; DCPS loses 2,100

Preliminary enrollment figures released by the District's two chartering
boards show an increase of 2,189 students over last year's audited
enrollment -- a growth rate of 16% -- for a total of 15,841. Meanwhile,
enrollment in DCPS schools shrank to 58,924, a decrease from the 2003-04
audited numbers of more than 2,100 students, or 4%. Based on the
preliminary numbers, the public charter schools now enroll 21% of public
school students in the District. Another 2,674 DCPS special education
students attend private schools or public schools outside the District.

Audited enrollment numbers -- usually lower than the preliminary numbers --
will not be available until January.

Friends of Choice in Urban Schools
1530 16th Street, NW #104
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 387-0405 phone
(202) 667-3798 fax
www.focusdc.org

PermaLink | 4:37 PM | |