Finally, watching videos at work is easy

MTV has finally done what YouTube can't, let you watch videos at work.

For your enjoyment: Johnny Cash's God's Gonna Cut You Down

Johnny Cash |MTV Music

School fund-raisers...

Are school fundraisers necessary?

Every year schools across the country find ways to raise money. Our school has sold the Entertaniment books, SmartCards and we are having a Fall Festival. That's three in 10 weeks and we aren't done yet. We'll be selling M&Ms, cookie dough and a fun run in the spring. What's it for? Most goes to expenses associated with running copies. Things like paper, machine maintenance, ink, toner a whole laundry list of things. The money also goes to send teachers to various conferences and trainings during the school year.

I understand that the school needs to raise more money to afford the things we need to do an effective job of teaching, I'm just tired of the paperwork, the crappy prizes and feeling like I'm screwing people when I ask my 4th graders to sell cookie dough for 2-3 times more than it costs at any grocery store.
When the headline on fundraising websites trumpets the amount of profit you are guaranteed, it's hard to feel good about asking parents who aren't doing all that well themselves right now to give more.

I know they won't go away, but I don't have to push my kids to sell anything or remind them if they sell 10 buckets of cookie dough they'll get a stuffed animal.

http://www.school-fundraisers.com/

http://topschoolfundraisers.com/

http://www.easy-fundraising-ideas.com/

The joys of a state takeover

The school district that employs me has been taken over by the state because we continue to fall below the benchmarks set by NCLB. (no this will not be another NCLB bashing, the more we bitch, the more the general public is convinced NCLB is a good thing) The groups that fall below benchmark nationally, African-Americans and Latinos, fall below the mark here as well. The state has repeatedly told the district to direct more state and federal funds to these two groups but...the district decided that the money was better spent on conferences for administrators, more administrative staff, and remodeling central office.
It wasn't that the state didn't give the district several years to correct this problem, they gave us 5 in fact, but the superintendant and school board ignored the threats. The superintendant continued to give everyone, including the local media, the Baghdad Bob, everything is fine, test scores continue to rise and we are reading better, math isn't a problem...Social Studies and Science?...who needs them and besides those scores don't count on NCLB. We'll be fine, nothing to worry about. Those who have friends who are teachers, ignore what they are saying, they don't know anything, they're just teachers, they bitch about everything. (the last part is true, damn people crack a smile)

Fast forward to 2008-2009, the state controls everything. We have to get state approval to buy textbooks, we have to change our reading testing system to one the state approved (DIBELS), and we have more meetings to learn how to document everything. The state continues to assure us that they are going to let us run the district once we meet NCLB benchmarks, and...some in the profession belive them. Come on people, once the state takes over they don't let you have control back. We're in for a long ride and it won't get better.

A break from sports

I have a blog that is almost exclusively sports and now I have decided to write about things other than sports. I have found that many people, some of them are even my friends, don't love sports as much as I do and so to placate them I am going to do what most other bloggers do, write random thoughts about the world. Not another Deadspin or anything like that, I have another job that gets in the way of hardcore blogging but rather a way for me to write my thoughts and keep the last pieces of sanity I have left.