Let's just buy the News Journal a big, fuzzy 1970s style pimp hat ...

... for today's "article" about the Markell education budget.

What I think must really have happened is that some unpaid intern moved a piece from the editorial page to news section by mistake. That's the nicest construction I can put on this rehash of things we already knew about the Governor's education budget dressed up as the "news" of a $31 million "increase."

Let's see, part of that $31 million "increase: is the $2 million Charter School Slush Fund.

Over half of it is a pair of increases that he is required by law to make:

The largest portion of that growth comes from $8.8 million to fully fund schools based on the increased enrollment and $8.5 million for “step increases” for school employees, gradual pay raises teachers get as they gain experience and education.

The state is required to fully fund both programs, so Markell and the Legislature would have to rewrite the law to make changes

Another section looks like it means $3.2 million in additional funding to the schools, but is really some unknown figure less than that, which DE DOE gets to hand out as pure patronage:

Finally, the proposal includes $3.2 million to provide some help to all state agencies, including education, that are taking hits because of sequestration, a set of mandatory across-the-board budget cuts imposed by Congress earlier this year.

The Department of Education is working to figure out how much it will receive and how it will distribute that money. District officials say the money won’t be enough to ease all their sequestration pain, but it will help.

So let's get this straight: Governor Markell is claiming credit for a $31 million increase in education spending when

1. $17.3 million was mandated by State law
2. $2 million only goes to charter schools while school districts are cutting positions
3. $3.2 million is not really going to education, but maybe a fraction of it, and we really don't know but they included it anyway, and this is investigative reporting News Journal style.

That means that for the most part we're back to giving Indian River full-day kindergarten, funding a couple of minor pieces of leftovers, and ... purchasing new computers to report scores on required standardized tests.

All of which has been known for weeks, even months, but is presented today by the state's captive newspaper (like we have captive insurance companies) doing its bit to counter the growing perception that Governor Jack Markell is simply the worst governor in modern Delaware history.

The only reason I keep my subscription is because I am constantly amazed to see, day by day, the level of pro-administration pimping the paper will sink toward next.

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Comment Rescue (?) and child-related gun violence in Delaware

In my post about the idiotic over-reaction to a New Jersey 10-year-old posing with his new squirrel rifle , Dana Garrett left me this response: One waits, apparently in vain, for you to post the annual rates of children who either shoot themselves or someone else with a gun. But then you Libertarians are notoriously ambivalent to and silent about data and facts and would rather talk abstract principles and fear monger (like the government will confiscate your guns). It doesn't require any degree of subtlety to see why you are data and fact adverse. The facts indicate we have a crisis with gun violence and accidents in the USA, and Libertarians offer nothing credible to address it. Lives, even the lives of children, get sacrificed to the fetishism of liberty. That's intellectual cowardice. OK, Dana, let's talk facts. According to the Children's Defense Fund , which is itself only querying the CDCP data base, fewer than 10 children/teens were killed per year in Delaw

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?

New Warfare: I started my posts with a discussion.....

.....on Unrestricted warfare . The US Air force Institute for National Security Studies have developed a reasonable systems approach to deter non-state violent actors who they label as NSVA's. It is an exceptionally important report if we want to deter violent extremism and other potential violent actors that could threaten this nation and its security. It is THE report our political officials should be listening to to shape policy so that we do not become excessive in using force against those who do not agree with policy and dispute it with reason and normal non-violent civil disobedience. This report, should be carefully read by everyone really concerned with protecting civil liberties while deterring violent terrorism and I recommend if you are a professional you send your recommendations via e-mail at the link above so that either 1.) additional safeguards to civil liberties are included, or 2.) additional viable strategies can be used. Finally, one can only hope that politici

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