School fights

St Paul teachers have threatened to strike because of unsafe working conditions caused by violence from students ST. PAUL, Minn. – Have the taxpayers of St. Paul spent nearly $3 million over the past five years to bring chaos and danger to their schools and students? Apparently so. In 2010, the St. Paul school district began a contractual relationship with the Pacific Educational Group, a San Francisco-based organization that tries to help public schools deal with achievement and disciplinary issues involving black students. PEG packages and sells the concept of victimization, for a very high price. Since these programs have started, the number of suspensions have dropped and other types of discipline have been softened. The result is that students who get into trouble are kept in school and incidences of fighting have increased. Here is what the group hired by the school district PEG believes. According to PEG, white culture is based on “white individualism” or “white traits” like “rugged individualism,” “adherence to rigid time schedules,” “plan(ning) for the future,” and the idea that “hard work is the key to success.” The minority cultures, according to PEG, value “color group collectivism.” This entails “fostering interdependence” and group success, shared property, learning through social relationships, and making life choices based on “what will be best for the family” or the group.

More on schools

Thankfully, I was wrong about the student who hit the teacher and he will be expelled. St. Paul Schools Superintendent Valeria Silva said in a letter sent to teachers Wednesday that a student was expelled from the district Tuesday. It would be the first time since Nov. 2009 that the school board has voted to expel a student, a district spokeswoman confirmed. This is some info from police records. Choi said that the juvenile case was the 27th to be presented to his office this year under a gross misdemeanor statute that protects school officials from being assaulted or harmed. He said that the cases have almost doubled in the past year, and also represent a 60 percent increase over the previous five-year average. These people are at a loss to explain what is going on but it could be that students have figured out that the chances of being expelled are very low. Here is a result of a story from 2013 about the Twin City schools. Nearly 14 percent of African American students in the district were suspended last year, according to district data obtained by MPR News. That compares to just 2 percent of white students. This was very disturbing so the district decided to take steps to reduce the racial discrepancies. Here is a quote from the schools attorney. “We cannot and will not tolerate this type of behavior in any of our schools.” That should take care of the problem.

Gun control

The issue of gun control comes to the forefront each time there is a shooting incident but nothing much ever happens. As a boy I had a shotgun and enjoyed the times I went hunting for rabbits, squirrels and quail and so I have nothing against guns but I am against the misuse of guns. Most agree that it is too late to ban guns even if it were possible since there are an estimate 300 million guns in the country. To try and confiscate those would be an impossible task. In order to get a better picture of the situation, imagine that there was no second amendment and there were no guns in the country. They were banned from day one. Anyone found with a gun would under arrest and charged with a felony. Would this eliminate the problem? Well, we have similar situations that we deal with on a regular basis. Drugs like heroin, cocaine and meth are and have been illegal for many years, yet the country is over flowing with these illegal substances. I would guess that if all guns were illegal, the criminals would still have guns. We could have a war on guns just like the war on drugs but it would likely not eliminate the problem of criminals having guns. The net result is that talking about gun control allows the people in power to appear to be doing something but in reality it just permits them to avoid looking at other solutions and when all the dust settles, nothing changes.

Cities

A famous quote says, power corrupts and this has proven to be true. One of the early examples was the Church of Rome and today we see what has happened to big cities which have operated under one party control for all too long. The liberals who lead these cities, combined with the power of unions have slowly and methodically corrupted the system. The recent revelations about the police are just the latest manifestation of this downward spiral. Chicago is the poster boy for this mess and gang violence combined with underfunded pension plans, the performance spread between white and students of color, the herding of low income people into the reservation type projects represents the latest in a string of crises. The Mayor recently announced the largest tax increase in the city’s history under the misguided concept that spending more money will solve the problem. This tax and spend policy is going on in big cities around the country and it will not change until there is a change in the leadership and that is not likely. The citizens of these cities, the majority of who are low wage minorities, have been convinced that the local government will take care of them, despite years of not doing so. It is even reflected in national polls that show that our black citizens roundly support President Obama even though things have gotten worse for them. While mostly white middle and upper income people have been benefiting from the recent job growth, those living in the inner cities have lost ground. Their unemployment is more than twice the national rate and their families have been torn apart.

Highway bill

Gasoline consumption has held steady or slightly declined over the past 20 years but the federal tax has remained the same at 18 cents per gallon resulting in a shortfall. Total miles driven, has declined and gas mileage has improved. The costs associated with road construction and repair, have risen but gas tax revenues have held steady. The shortfall has been around 16 billion dollars per year but the bill that is about to be passed will allow 300 billion over the next 5 years which should be enough to cover the shortfall and have some left over for new construction. This will be a boon to local economies around the country since most of the construction goes to local contractors. The gas tax has been criticized in the past for spending on things like highway beautification and transportation museums but this has amounted to less than ten percent of the funds. States who had on average added another 30 cent per gallon tax, often misuse the money more so than the federal government. For example Texas spends 25% of its gas tax money on schools. This was a bi-partisan agreement and shows the congress can work.

Rich giving

Back in 2010 a group of billionaires led by Gates and Buffet got together and formed a club of people who were willing to give away at least half of their wealth. This group, which now numbers more than 100, was recently joined by Face Book’s Mark Zuckerberg. He agreed to give away 99% of his 45 billion in stock and while I admire this, keep in mind that this still leaves him with 450 million dollars. This group has so far pledged over 500 billion to charity. This is certainly not their last two copper coins but it is something to be admired.

Coal and such

The President spoke today at the climate change meeting in Paris and said that the cost of solar has come down over the past ten years. Power from fossil fuel cost about $100 per megawatt-hour and solar has come down from $500 to $200. What he didn’t say was the solar represented 0.4% of total power in 1997 and it remains at 0.4% today. One of the main reasons the cost is lower is that government subsidies helped pay for the installation of solar panels and once installed the maintenance cost is low. The President then conflated the lower carbon dioxide emissions over the past years as having something to do with solar but this is not true. The most important change has been switching power plants from coal to natural gas and this was done primarily for economic reasons. The rapid increase in domestic natural gas production in the U.S. over the past 5 years has led to a rapid transformation of how electricity is produced. Coal has lost its perch as the undisputed champion of power generation, falling from 50-plus percent of total electricity generation to around 35 percent. Natural gas has grown from only 15 percent of total generation in 2005 to 30 percent in 2012. The lower cost of operating power plants comes from the increase in the availability of natural gas due to fracking and the lower labor cost at the plant associated with switching to natural gas. A report by the American Action Forum found that under the Obama administration coal mines shed 3,702 jobs from 2008 to 2013 and power plants shed 39,684 jobs. While natural gas was replacing coal in US power plants, coal exports increased from 40 million tons in 2003 to 125 million tons in 2014. While this coal is still being used the jobs have transferred from the US to Asia. This kind of activity is what labor unions claim is the uneven playing field with which American workers must contend. Jobs are being moved to China and so is the coal. The reasoning that this is reducing carbon dioxide emissions is flawed and these union people understand that.