Sucker punch
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32 Grahampton Lane took a hit to its price today and dropped down to $2.595 million. That’s an …. “aggressive” price for a building lot these days, one that the town values at $1.6, but better than the $3.250 it was asking yesterday.
But the real puzzlement about this land is why the owners paid $3.590 for it in 2016, after it had sold for “just” $3.050 in 2013. Property values have fallen since 2013, not risen, so why did they pay $500,000 more? Beats me. So far, it’s proven to be a million-dollar mistake, and the pain continues.
Well that saves the state the expense of trying him
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Fotis Dulos has killed himself.
Did he pose a threat to the Clintons?
UPDATE: Apparently he’s still breathing, alas. While updating that information, I’ve also substituted a picture sent in by a reader — same photo, better caption.
UPDATE II: FWIW was able to sneak into the prison hospital ward and add this toe tag:
The taxpayers will thank you
Compassionate conservatism
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Food fight at Belmont High
I’ve long argued (since college, in fact) that liberals are the heartless ones in addressing society’s problems because they espouse policies that harm the very people they claim to want to help. From rent control to bans on the gig economy to, say, public education. Here’s how they’re doing in the latter:
Liberal cities are destroying schools
This report by Chris Stewart of Brightbeam is a blockbuster. It is titled: “The Secret Shame: How America’s Most Progressive Cities Betray Their Commitment to Educational Opportunity For All.” Stewart is a liberal activist from Minnesota who undertook to find out why the Twin Cities’ left-wing public schools have some of the country’s worst achievement gaps between white and minority (black and Indian) students.
Stewart compared achievement by race in a number of cities that he classified as progressive or conservative. The results didn’t surprise me, but they shocked Stewart. Conservative cities (as ranked by political scientists used as a reference for the study) consistently did a better job of closing student achievement gaps–sometimes, to zero–than progressive cities.
The Brightbeam study does not attempt to explain the causation that its numbers clearly reveal, but calls on those who run progressive school districts to rethink their assumptions. Bacon’s Rebellion offers some obvious possibilities:
* Agency. By blaming racism and discrimination for the woes afflicting minority communities, progressives deprive minority students of agency — the sense that they control their own destinies and that their efforts will make a difference. If minority students see themselves as victims of systemic racism, why bother working hard and “acting white”?
* Discipline. Progressives have implemented “social justice” approaches to school and classroom discipline on the grounds that suspensions and other punishments disproportionately affect minorities. The resulting breakdown in classroom discipline has the perverse effect of disproportionately harming the minority students whose classes are being disrupted.
* Lower standards. As an offshoot of the “self esteem” movement, progressive educators don’t want to damage the self-esteem of minority students. Accordingly, they have lower expectations and set lower standards for minorities to offset the advantages that white students have from “white privilege.”
The most positive outcome of the Brightbeam study, so far, is this op-ed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune by local liberal activist Nekima Levy Armstrong, titled “Research shows progressive places, like Minneapolis, have the worst achievement gaps.” Armstrong describes the findings of the Brightbeam study:
The brightbeam report shows that progressive cities like Minneapolis do worse — and, surprisingly, conservative cities do better — when it comes to educating students of color. According to the report, conservative cities have gaps in math and reading that are on average 15 and 13 percentage points smaller than those in progressive cities.
***
Researchers also controlled for other factors that could potentially explain different educational outcomes, including poverty rates, population size, per-pupil spending and private school attendance rates. Surprisingly, none of these other variables made a difference in predicting the size of the opportunity gap.What mattered most was whether the city was conservative or progressive.
In three of the most conservative cities — Anaheim, Fort Worth and Virginia Beach, researchers found that leaders have either closed or eliminated opportunity gaps in either reading, math or high school graduation rates.
Meanwhile, in our own “progressive” city of Minneapolis, the report showed that the shameful gap in math achievement between black and white students in K-12 is 53 percentage points, while the gap in math between brown and white students is 45 points.
Similarly, in reading, the gap between black and white Minneapolis students is 53, while the gap between brown and white students is 47.
Liberals are notorious for caring about good intentions–especially when those supposedly good intentions fatten their own bank accounts–rather than results. But Armstrong’s conclusion seems sincere:
The data should cause us to wonder how it is possible that cities like Minneapolis, known for prosperity and progressive values, could continue to fail our most vulnerable children so miserably within the public-school system.
When progressive leaders fail to act with a sense of urgency in addressing these highly disturbing gaps, it sends the signal that the system and its leaders are comfortable with the status quo.
Parents and concerned citizens must become empowered to place demands on our public education system to make the changes that are necessary to produce positive learning outcomes. We must use our outrage and frustration as fuel to be persistent in challenging the status quo and holding our elected officials accountable for addressing these disgraceful gaps within our public education system.
Closing prices reported
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91 Sawmill
91 Sawmill Lane, $1.950 million. Purchased for $2.675 in 2005, it started on the market this time in September 2016 at $3.125.
12 Bailiwick
12 Bailiwick Road, $1.750 million. $2.025 paid in 2003, and after substantial improvements were made, put back up for sale in September 2016 at $3 million. You can’t always get what you want.
The winner in this crop might be 6 Wyngate Road, which closed Friday at $1.715. The sellers paid $2.195 for it in 2009.
Interesting the choices that are made when it's one's own money at stake
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Union of Concerned Scientists weigh in on botany
“The grass fields can be used only about 15 to 20 hours a week, while the synthetic surface can sustain far more activity, according to GCD’s lawyer Bruce Cohen,” and of course he’s right, but there’s a large pressure group of anti-vaccer types here in Greenwich and other toney Gold Coast towns to rip out artificial turf and replace it with all-natural, pesticide-laced, foaming fescue. Difference? GCD parents pay out of their own pockets, the latter group of “concerned parents” intends that others pony up.
Speaking of anti-vaccers, where are their protests that “Big Pharma” is rushing to develop a vaccine for the Kung Flu epidemic supposedly coming our way? And, assuming such a vaccine is created, will they allow their children to take it, or will they rely on the traditional preventative of ground-up bat wings and leechee nuts?
Some problems solve themselves.
Expensive change of mind
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271 Valley Road, Cos Cob, asking $2.950, is under contract after 130 days. Owners bought it for $3.150 on October 18 2018, and a change of circumstances led to them putting it back up for sale a year later on October 16 2019. They initially asked $3.395, but if they get close to this final asking price they’re doing well; it’s always expensive to resell a house almost immediately after purchase.
In today’s Greenwich market; LA’s probably a different story.
Bottom story of the day
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No, the other Frank
Kobe Bryant, daughter and seven others die in helicopter crash and the Washington Post is on the story within minutes
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Published while rescuers were still counting the bodies to determine how many had died. I’m sure Bryant’s wife and surviving daughters and the family members of the other victims are in the WaPo editors’ “thoughts and prayers” — there just wasn’t space to express their sympathy
While we're at it, might as well round up our politicians, media shills, and little Greta, too
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Nice little world you got here; it’d be a shame if something happened to it #sendmoneyalgore
Couple charged in billion-dollar solar energy Ponzi scheme
A Martinez couple who was operating a seemingly legitimate business selling solar generators pleaded guilty Friday to various charges stemming from a Ponzi scheme that netted them $1 billion in fraudulent income — affording them an extremely lavish lifestyle.