Potential POTUS candidates in 2016:
Ben Carson, doctor, possessing huge amounts of common sense, no political experience (like current POTUS).
Hilary Clinton, sham, possessing no amount of common sense, lots of political experience that was used to escape Whitewater, Vince Foster death, Benghazi, and claim residency in NY to reach the Senate, because Arkansans know better..
Sarah Palin, whom, by Obama's record these past six years, apparently has more common sense than originally given credit for
Mitt Romney who apparently can't find work elsewhere.
Donald Trump, who at least has run a corporation of fair size, so he would be knowledgeable about tax code loopholes, hiring independent contractors instead of full-time workers that would deserve benefits and a living wage.

Man, I hope someone else declares

Picking up snippets of POTUS SOTU speech. (I love govt. talk)

Never heard the phrase "living wage jobs" mentioned, just that the unemployment rate is, allegedly, dropping.

Living wage jobs return when we drop the robotics trend and return manufacturing to America. Technology has put so many people out of work it isn't funny. I know that last sentence could spark a healthy debate.

Free community college. Hmm. Kicker to that is the state will have to contribute. Fat chance. They won't contribute to healthcare, which affects far more folks.

Combat in Afghanistan is over, except for those 15k troops we still have there. Pretty sure they aren't handing out candy.

Most of America's problems gathered under one roof last night. The Supreme Court, in bed with Big Business. The House and Senate, stuck with centuries-old operating rules and traditions that bind them from any real substantial change for the better. A President unable to lead. All three branches standing there in front of each other, smiling. Why? 545 people charged with the responsibility of running the affairs for a porous country of 312m, depending on how many illegals entered last night. How hard is this?

The gulf between the lower and upper classes in America probably has never been this wide. Forget the middle class that once tidily supported both, it is gone. Gone. In its place we seem to have a structure in which the rich on Wall St. get richer by buying companies, splitting them up, laying off the employees, and making a killing on the stock prices. The profit from having created nothing but misery for those directly affected, is then placed in off-shore bank accounts, using every available tax loophole on the books. A second set of books NOT for show to the govt is always a good idea, too.

We seem to have a structure whereby the balance of power among our three branches of fed. govt seems to have all but disappeared. Congress refuses to work with the President, who must then cut Executive Orders to get much of anything done; and over at the Court, the Nine Blind Mice are kowtowing to Big Business and rolling back nearly every law passed, that attempted to eliminate Jim Crow. Our schools are more segregated than before. Campaign contribution limits have been removed. In other words, the 3-branch system of checks and balances has failed all of us.

We fix a crumbling infrastructure by: not sending $6B from a supposedly empty U.S. Treasury, to fight Ebola on another continent somewhere. At the same time, our govt found millions for police cameras, though their court-worthiness seems in question; and millions to house thousands of illegals on our military bases. In the meantime, our homeless, our mentally ill, our poor wander the streets looking for food shelter, clothing, hope, opportunity.

In the meantime, our Congress passed last Spring, a comprehensive Farm Bill that, oh by the way, cut $8B from the Food Stamp Program, while continuing an 80 year old program to pay farmers not to grow crops. There is your partial answer to fixing social welfare for you.

In the meantime, you and I are subsidizing Big Oil, farmers both corporate and family, and yes, even Wal-Mart ($7.8B for them alone. Go figure)

In the meantime, Sandy Hook storm survivors are not being given grants from their own govt to re-build what insurance won't cover, but rather are being given loans they cannot afford to begin to pay back. Foreign aid to countries who hate us cotinues, however.

Schools continue to lay off staff, yet remain bulky in overhead depts. On this side of the river, Il has 862 school districts. That is an avg of somewhere in the vicinity of $80k annual salary for each superintendent, plus secretaries, asst. supts. and their secretaries, their office buildings, parking lots, fences, office supplies, cars, computers, software, etc. Here in Clinton Co., there are 12 such districts, for just, count 'em, 20 schools. One of those 12 districts is bemoaning laying off staff, but refuses to consdier consolidation down to say, 4 districts. The savings of the 8 supts'. positions alone would be about $640k annually. But, nope, no one wants to change the status quo. Around here, a citizen's group is going to try for the fourth time this coming Spring, to raise local taxes instead. Amazing.

I taught in AZ for the last 10 of my 20 years in that state. Property taxes there are roughly a fourth of what they are in IL. Teacher salaries are abysmal, teacher turnover rate is high, and student achievement is low. AZ schools have also had state funds withheld and re-directed elsewhere, for years. Their most recent example was in their news last week, when it was revealed the statehouse folks found over $800k to spend on new furnishings.

Fix the infrastructure? Fund schools properly? Better government? All possible. Without citizen involvement and state and national leadership consisting of mostly common sense, nothing will change. We all will sit here next Dec shaking our heads at the year just concluded, bemoaning the facts that nothing changed, nothing improved.

Just my opinion, of course.

Maybe the "false narrative" that blacks don't care about black on black crime, is because we have yet to see, as a nation, blacks march through their own neighborhoods protesting such killings. We have yet to see blacks burn down and loot their own neigbhorhoods over such killings. We have yet to see black families and black ministers and black councils and black groups and black national alleged leaders decry black on black killings.

But, let a a white cop do his job, and the entire nation erupts, over some 170 cities' worth of some really stupid demonstrations. In these demonstrations, people used the Hands Up symbol, which never happened. They to a group, have claimed that only Black Lives Matter. The Ministerial Alliance has been strangely absolutely quiet on the latest death, and others. The hypocrisy is LOUD, very LOUD.

We have yet to see an improvement in: black families staying together and providing positive role models for their children. We have yet to see an improvement in high school graduation rates for young blacks. We have yet to see a drop in the teen-age pregnancy rate among young blacks. We have yet to hear the NAACP come out and say that they are for ALL people, not just the antiquated "colored". We're all colored.

Before you keep squawking, bear all of the above in mind, please. Of course, people of all colors commit horrific atrocities. We are the most vile, dangerous, murderous species on the entire planet. That isn't about to change.

You see, -----, all lives do matter. We've lost at least two generations of youth, mostly inner city black, to illegal drugs, gangs, and abhorrent violence. It clearly isn't going to fix itself. But the voices from these communities most affected, don't seem to appear until a black dies at the hands of a white. No, you're right. We don't get it. Never will.

(my response, to a lady who posted the following on the St Louis Post Dispatch newspaper site, 12-27-14:  Most crime is committed intraracially. Most Whites kill Whites, most Asians kill Asians. I am Black and have a huge problem with violence, period. Not sure why this false narrative that Black people don't care about Black on Black crime is being pushed. Your logic would lead me to believe that you're not concerned about mass shootings because White people still continue to perpetrate those crimes at a rate that surpasses any other group. Why don't White's do anything about that? You're no more responsible for those criminals or their actions than I am for criminals that share the same skin pigment as myself. .)

Among the excellent, succinct posts and commentaries appearing on these pages since August, was the one referring to the rights of blacks having only been established in America, roughly since 1865, and more like 1965. Change and adjustment takes time. I think referring to "my relative was a slave" today, is nothing but a crutch. However, it does take a generation or three for families and cultures to re-establish themselves. I think blacks in America have done remarkably well, overcome a great deal of nonsense and hate, to contribute to the American fabric, to build lives and communities.

The use of illegal drugs-scourge seems to plague inner city blacks harder and more thoroughly than anywhere else. I am not naive enough to think that such use is confined to inner city, darker-shade folks. White and suburban drug use is probably more rampant. Not too many white people standing on a frozen street corner slinging, however. That appears to be relegated to the black community for some reason. Maybe I am all wrong and am just repeating a stereotype here.

I think I know this much. If I was a young black person old enough to be aware of my surroundings, I think I would take a look at what happens, and most importantly, what has been happening, in black inner-city communities across our country. What we see are common threads: public housing projects that will never be properly maintained because renting residents have no reason to care about their units, or the areas around them; antiquated public school funding based upon property values. Crumbling inner-cities and their neighborhoods have less value = less property tax extracted = less to put into schools. Just the walk to and from school is dangerous in too many communities.

You're asking me how to break this cycle. Well, we can't put it all on any one group. We are all in this together, this business of living our lives, and we had better wake up and accept that fact. Funding for public schools must change radically. The basic organizational structure of those schools must change as well. We are, 171 years or so into public education, still using the one-size-fits-all approach: i.e,, if you are 7 years old you belong in 2nd grade, etc. Public schools rarely differentiate by student capabilities, in other words.

We abhor a 5' tall 9 year old in 2nd grade, because that's where he or she is academically, just as we are reluctant to put 4'6" 8 year olds in junior high school, although they might be ready academically. Instead of making these adjustments, we plod along with the status quo and wonder why Johnny and Jeannie went off to college without being able to read and or write a clear sentence, or worse, didn't bother to graduate high school.

But I think the biggest effort has to come from the home. Fix the family, fix the school.

It is very difficult to change one's lifestyle. If one was beaten as a child, one will beat his or her own. If one's father or mother didn't stick around after birth, then the grown child probably won't, either. If one spouse beat the other, that also will repeat itself. So, the answers aren't easy.

I have few answers, I guess. I am pretty sure that joining street gangs under what must be enormous pressure, carrying a loaded unregistered gun or weapon of any kind instead of a library card, staying out at all hours, quitting various endeavors, being easily led, aren't the answers. Former street gang members will tell any youngster they can get to actually listen, just how worthless gangs are. Until home lives improve, kids who want to feel loved and accepted somewhere, will continue to join, mis-interpreting acceptance.

Legal guardians need to know where their children are at all times, where they are going, with whom, for how long, and set times for their return, not ask when they will be back. Above all else, education is the key to advancement, one day at a time. And that, brings us right back into the Circle of Poverty, doesn't it? 

Carrying, pointing, using guns definitely is not the answer. All Lives Matter.

Awfully tough to be black in America these days.

White police choke a black man, Eric Garner, to death in NYC, on camera, using an against-policy chokehold, justified.

A white CA CHP officer pounds a black woman bloody on a roadside: she files suit, he loses his job.

A SC white officer stops a black man for no seatbelt use, then shoots him after asking for his license when the man starts to reach into his car: man injured, cop on his way to jail, probably.

A  Louisiana black man, hands cuffed behind him in the back seat of a patrol car, has his death ruled a suicide by gunshot to front of  his chest,

A black man exits his NYC apartment and is shot down for no reason by a white officer with gun drawn looking for a burnt out light bulb, Charges may be pending.

A black man shopping in an OH store spins a empty gun he picked from its retail display and leans on it while making a phone call, and is shot by white officers, justified.

A 12 year old black boy in Cleveland waves a toy gun and ignores officer commands, and is shot dead, justified.

A Milwaukee black man asleep on a park bench is checked out by two police officers, determined not to be a problem. Third officer eventually checks his voicemail, hears the complaint, rousts the guy and in the ensuing battle pumps FOURTEEN bullets in to the citizen.

A Ferguson, MO black man may or may not have been egged on by the request of a white officer to get out of the middle of the street. A struggle ensues for some reason. The young man, found to have marijuana in his system and the suspect in an assault and robbery minutes earlier, ignores all commands of the officer, apparently, and is gunned down. Not tasered. Not maced. Justified.

In 2007 the Supreme Court reversed school integration laws in placed since 1954, with “Parents…vs. Seattle…” and “ Meredith vs. Jefferson Co…..”.

In the Sunday 23 Nov 2014 issue of the New York Times, I counted exactly two pictures of blacks in all the advertisements.

There’s a too-long history of such nonsense. I find it fascinating, and sad, that even with a black leader in the WH, we are tracking backwards, violently, as a nation. We must ask why.

As a retired teacher I have been following the District 12 funding issue articles with interest. I have done some research that may shine another light on the picture.

My sources were the US Census, the US Dept. of Ed., the Il Dept. of Ed., local school and district web sites, and Wikipedia. Some data provided by these agencies is 2-4 years old. I examined just the top ten states by population, because IL ranks fifth at about 12.8m. It is third in the number of public school districts, with a whopping 863, behind only CA and TX, and serves just over 2m students, ranking it fifth. It is fourth in the number of public schools, with 3,862. Its high school graduation rate, an abysmal 84% puts it behind only TX.  Its required number of instructional days is second lowest at 176, ahead of only MI, and way behind NY, at 190.

863 school districts! Think about that. Most probably have a superintendent position, and most likely an office and a staff, including associate supts. These districts need personnel benefit packages including retirement; lawyers; insurance coverage; possibly separate buildings that need HVAC, equipment, parking, fences, maintenance; contracts, and other needs.

Focusing within Clinton Co. we find 12 districts for just 20 public schools!  The vast majority of these districts consist of just one school. This might be the real financial drain on state resources. I did not visit each district office, but I believe (and hope) many of these folks in charge have offices within a school of their district. The lowest salary I could find was $74k, and the highest was $115k.

No one should ever complain without having their own recommendations. Here are mine.  One: consolidating to four districts eliminates eight supt. positions at, say, an average salary of about $80k, for an instant savings of $640k. That can be put back directly into classrooms.  The four districts could be: District A: Albers, one school/175 students; Aviston, 1/389; Bartelso, 1/142; Breese ESD, 2/634 = 5/1340.  District B: Carlyle with its three schools.  District C: Central USD, 1/594; Damiansville, 1/117; Germantown, 1/273; N. Womac, 1/117; St. Rose, 1/170; Willow Grove, 1/172, = 5/1271; and District D: Wesclin, 6/1369.  The precise make-up is not important. It’s eight fewer districts, and that much less overhead, and fewer school boards, to fund and manage.  Fewer districts should mean, as an incentive, that money “saved” can be given to schools within the counties that consolidate, not to a general state fund.

Two: consolidate Special Ed. classes at one school within each new district. Three: move away from expensively-lighted Friday night football games to Saturday afternoons, giving teams another practice day and cutting that light bill. Four: eliminate junior high traveling sports teams. Instituting mandatory intramural sports through 8th grade at least, would benefit the entire student body, pun intended. Five: unless mandated by state law, school bus service is a necessary luxury. Families can pay for their students’ five round trips per week for 36 weeks. $360 for 360 trips seems appropriate to cover driver, gas oil, maintenance, etc. If 700 students in one 1300-student district ride, that is $252k in gross revenue. For four districts that is $1,008,000. Or, eliminate the busses and that pesky parking problem. Or, sell advertising to put on their sides. Six: eliminate school libraries, their expensive inventory and space, and have all students use the local library more. Seven: eliminate nurses. Teach staff to handle CPR, asthma attacks, and band-aids. Eight: incorporate solar power in new school design.  Nine: increase the number of instructional days by getting off the ancient agricultural-based calendar and going to year-round schools.  Forty-two weeks of school and 10 weeks off, or something around 210 instructional days. Alternatively, switch to block scheduling for more instructional time. Graduation dates can still align with college starting dates.

It is an international world. On that scale, American education is failing its youth. For 2012, the latest data, the tri-annual Program for International Standard Assessment (PISA) results show the top seven nations/cities to be Asian, including Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Macao, all part of China. That would be the same China that owns the majority of our nation’s debt. The next four nations on the list are in Europe.  Where does America rank in this system that assesses 15 yr-olds every three years? In Math, we are 30th. In Science, we are 23rd. In Reading, we are 20th. None of these numbers, according to PISA, have changed since 2003. My wild guess is that Asian schools don’t have big sports programs. The clear cultural difference is that they value education. We do not.

The status quo no longer makes sense nor is affordable. Nor do bond sales, property tax increases, or waiting for our legislature to increase funding. The answer to budget problems is to cut spending, not increase it, nor continue to waste it. The US spends about $115k per student. It would seem prudent to spend our tax dollars teaching our students, not administering around them.





















Having been repeatedly told no on the request for higher property taxes, it makes little sense to keep asking one’s neighbors to pay more. Illinois has the second highest property tax rate in the country.  Clinton Co. is ranked 27th among 102 Il counties for its median property tax rate, and 48th  for its median property tax rate as a percentage of home value. Why on Earth would we want to tax ourselves more? Now, next Spring, next Fall, or ever? The answer is not more taxes, and more spending. The problem is not with Breeze voters, nor with the dedicated school board.

As Mr. Doug Schulte has pointed (his letter here on Oct 23), the problem is in Springfield, where Kyle McCarter and his peers have a lot of explaining to do.  When you write your employee, ask him about these numbers, found in a NY Times article dated 10/22/14 entitled Illinois Subsidies: Il sales tax refunds, exemptions and other sales tax discounts: $874m; corporate income tax credit, rebate, or reductions: $452m; personal income tax credit: $11.9m. Further in the same article we find these numbers: incentives totaling $433m in Agriculture; $207m in Manufacturing; $109m in Retail. Cutting all these amounts in half comes to $1.043B that could be applied to education and or the pension deficit. Ask Kyle, your employee.

Just as the legislature dictated reducing regional education offices from 44 to 35 across the state, it would seem that consolidating from 12 districts to four in Clinton Co. would release an awful lot of taxpayer money back into the overall system. Consolidating 102 state counties, and 863 school districts would save funds as well. Interestingly, Saturday afternoon football games were played without a problem. Safer travel in warmer weather, and cheaper without turning on the lights. Such simple adjustments, and the closing of expensive school libraries and using town libraries, and eliminating junior high traveling sports programs, will save dollars, too.

I think the perception is that there isn’t enough money to go around. This is not true at all.  I believe as Mr. Schulte does, that concerned citizens should do some basic research. Try these topics: USDA and the Farm Bill; E.Q.I.P.; Wetland Reserves Program; and Wastebook. In Afghanistan, the U.S. to date has spent $7.6B to combat the opium trade. Yet, 2013 produced a record crop, while 2014’s crop is projected to surpass it. Now that is waste.

The farm subsidy program is a FDR dinosaur that has morphed into a federal boondoggle of gigantic proportions. The federal five-year farm bill passed this year was for $956B.  Farm industry lobbyists succeeded in protecting their own. It’s virtually impossible for farmers to lose money. (farmers nationally are recording record profits).

Ask your Washington D.C. employees Mark Kirk and Dick Durbin about tax code loopholes that allow Wal-Mart and other companies, and their CEOs, to receive enormous subsidies. Such companies refuse to pay living wages and/or offer affordable healthcare plans, forcing their employees to feed off the rest of us. If you don’t like what you find, ask Mark and Dick why.  I don’t make this stuff up.

Did you know that on the last day of the 2013 legislative session, Springfield voted approval for another Chicago airport, and another Chicago playpen for spoiled athletes? Grasp that, while you absorb their funding cuts to education.
Kyle provided this information in his recent (Nov 6) article in this paper. Ask him why.

School boards and superintendents have their hands tied when it comes to funding issues. The problem is partially in Washington, partially in Springfield, and mostly with we citizens failing to tell our employees (representatives) what we want them to do. They work for us.

I am not sure which is worse, blindly voting for a school tax because it’s for  “the kids”, or ignoring what is going on in Springfield and Washington, which is a form of endorsement, just like re-electing Dick was.

I am not against education, or my govt. I am for doing both more efficiently and effectively, at all levels, at less cost and waste, and no new, higher taxes.