Editing history
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Instapundit: THINK OF THEM AS DEMOCRATIC PARTY OPERATIVES WITHOUT CONSCIENCE OR INTELLECT AND YOU WON’T GO FAR WRONG
Like naming a street in the poorest part of town Martin Luther King Boulevard, and then leaving
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It does nothing to address the poverty itself, but it shows “we care”
San Francisco cancels Washington, Lincoln, and its own state’s senator, Diane Feinstein
George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson were among a list of historical figures whose names will be removed from San Francisco’s public schools following a 6-1 vote by the school board Tuesday, according to multiple reports.
The presidents were among a long list of men and women whose namesake schools will soon be renamed. Others on the list include Francis Scott Key, who wrote the words to the national anthem, former presidents William McKinley, James Garfield, James Monroe, and Herbert Hoover, Revolutionary War hero Paul Revere and author Robert Louis Stevenson, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Replacing signage at the 44 schools will cost more than $400,000, according to the Courthouse News. The price tag could also go up to around $1 million for schools to get new activity uniforms, repaint gymnasium floors, etc., according to the Chronicle. The district is facing a budget deficit.
While the board focused on renaming the schools in the Tuesday meeting, it did not discuss reopening schools from coronavirus shutdowns.
In the case of Roosevelt Middle School, it wasn’t clear if the board knew which former President Roosevelt it was named for, but decided to have it removed anyway.
Board member Mark Sanchez, however, called the decision a "moral message."
Like the rest of the state, San Francisco has failed its black students for decades.
San Francisco, a progressive enclave and beacon for technological innovation, has the worst black student achievement of any county in California. Only 19 percent of black students passed the state test in reading, compared to 31 percent of black students statewide. The problem in San Francisco may be severe, but it’s not unique. Huge gaps between black kids’ scores and those of their white peers have existed in California for decades.
Parents from San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood gathered around school cafeteria tables and listened as administrators delivered a hopeful message: Their children, who all attend Charles R. Drew Preparatory Academy, one of the city’s few schools serving mostly black students, were already on track to do better on next year’s state tests.
But the staff didn’t tell the parents about this year’s results, even though the recent meeting had been billed as a forum to discuss the scores, which the state published online several weeks ago. Those results present a much different picture. Nine out of 10 black students at the school had failed reading and math exams.
“Really? That’s surprising,” said parent Ashley Wysinger, 31, when a reporter shared the results with her afterward.
What’s in a name? An excuse for failure.
He's right, of course, he's just got the wrong branch
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Cuomo blames Whu Han Flu deaths, second-highest in the country, on “incompetent government”
No, Andy, the federal government didn’t force infected old folks into your state’s nursing homes, you did. Trump didn’t urge your residents to visit Chinatown and ride the subways, you did.
So screw you.
Wait'll next year — or maybe 2023; we’ll let you know
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Union Head Michael Mulgrew:
“I want schools to be open in September. But there is a lot that has to happen before we can make that call,” the union big said.
There are around 75,000 teachers assigned to city public-school classrooms. Current in-person teachers were given priority to get the shots after the city reopened some pre-K to fifth-grade schools for classroom learning earlier this month.
So the union intends to keep the schools closed at least until September (!) And how serious are the teachers about giving up their paid vacations, ever? This serious:
Mulgrew told The Post that of those 75,000 teachers, only 20,000 have even requested appointments thus far.
Mulgrew stressed that there is no magic teacher vaccination rate that will trigger the reopening of the nation’s largest school system.
He said citywide COVID-19 indicators — and vaccination rates — will determine when classrooms greet kids full-time once again.
New York City’s deadbeats aren’t alone, of course. The largest teachers union in LA County has vowed that its members won’t allow schools to reopen until their “social justice” demands are met. Those demands include defunding the police, a “wealth tax”, Medicare for all, and abolishing charter schools. And higher pay, of course. Estimated time table for all that? Five, ten, fifteen years.?(Chicago’s teachers, by the way, are making the same demands.)
And the new administration is there to help them extend their frolic and detour. Yesterday, Biden’s Chief of Staff Ron Klain sided with the teachers unions and said schools shouldn’t reopen until they’re “safe” which, he says, means new air conditioning systems, more teachers, smaller classes and, naturally, lots more federal money. Timetable for rebuilding all our schools? About the same as achieving social justice and equality (of results) for all. Despite studies involving hundreds of thousands of students and teachers in 46 states concluding that schools K-12 are a “minimal source of infection” — far less than 1% — Klain insists that the unions aren’t overruling science, they’re just being careful. Uh-huh.
And those same unions are set to destroy all our schools. Biden’s nominee for undersecretary of Education, San Diego’s teachers’ union head Cindy Martin, is coming to Washington after years spent running San Diego Central Elementary School, which has an 80% failure rate on standardized tests of math, and English, results that decline for every year spent in her school.* She’ll soon be in charge of overseeing and duplicating those same results for all the nation’s children.
San Diego’s abysmal schools are not unique: inner-city schools across the country show the same 80-90% failure rate. So whether those teachers return to school or stay at home gnawing Nachos, their students will still fail.
Also yesterday Susan Rice, Biden’s Director of National Policy, claimed that “science says” that eliminating racial inequality in the U.S. will produce $5 trillion in economic growth in just the next five years. That’s a preposterous claim in the first place, but continuing an educational system with a product failure rate of 80-90% will ensure that it will never be achieved — ever.
It doesn’t help that Biden’s on track to destroy a million good jobs, jobs held by workers of all races, by abolishing the fossil fuel industry, but that’s another story.
* San Diego Central Elementary
Wait til the teachers' unions hear about this one. They'll be out for years (at full pay).
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Sweet Jesus
“Scientists”: we may not be able to return to normal until we’ve vaccinated our pets.
Not the Bee comments, “At this point, we might as well just put wheels on those goalposts.”
Pending sale in Lucas Point, Old Greenwich
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35 West Way
35 West Way, $6,999,500. The owners paid $4.640 in 2017, and it looks as though they redid the kitchen and baths. Presumably, they did more than that, but in this market,, and waterfront, who knows?
I’ll add that Lucas Point is my favorite neighborhood in Old Greenwich, and possibly the town. It’s a self-contained micro-community, with no traffic, friendly neighbors, and enjoys its own small boatyard for winter storage, its own private beach and of course, Tod’s Point is just a stroll away. I don’t whether they still do, but folks there used to walk to town, the school, and the train, and it’s certainly an easy bicycle ride to those same places.
Many of the residents come when they’re young, raise families here and stay even after the children have grown and moved out (at least that’s the hoped-for result of graduation). So it’s not surprising that house values are strong.
(I will also add a general observation that as the former owner of waterfront property, I’m always astonished to see homeowners buy new toilets and countertops while neglecting the seawall that keeps those amenities from vanishing beneath the waves. But that’s just me.)
Old listing, Old Mill, new contract
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70 Old Mill, currently asking $4.695 million, sans pool, reports a contract. Its owners paid $6.4 for it when it was new in 2006, and have had it on the market for the past three years, beginning at $5.425.
It’s cruel to say so, but this same, cookie-cutter design can be found all over Greenwich, which is not a bad thing, so long as you don’t come home late one night after a long evening at the club and enter the wrong house.
And look what’s emerged from the central stagers’ warehouse!
the orange
the chair
and even an ironic reference to the zebra
Six Agents, Ten Price Cuts, and Fifteen Years Later, It's Still With Us
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41 Alpine Road, priced at $21 million when it began its quest for new ownership in 2006, can be yours today for just $8.995. The current owner decamped for Florida ages ago, but houses are harder to move. From what I can tell, the owner was 72 when he decided he no longer wanted to live here, and he’s 87 now. Despite its “magnificent views of Putnam Lake”, this could not realistically be described as a liquid asset.