Winona's Big Orange Bevo

Avg. pig has a litter of 8 piglets and all 12 survive.

Arbeit Macht Frei Did I get that right?

username checks out

Here's a fun game for long road trips. Just fill in the blank and let the guffaws ensue! *Warning: not to be played while driving near cliffs.

Trump has crapped all over the principles of the government that we have held up as a standard for the rest of the world and that's what your disappointed about? WTF?!?!

for reference

Comrade Karl Hungus and Lyndsey Graham in "Dr. Jizzago"

One of these things, is not like the other...

Duty, Honor, Country

Troof!

DOJ policy not to indict president. He did his work and handed off to congress but doubt he expected the AG to run interference for the president.

He did. He acted like the Marine/DOJ by the book guy he is. He had faith in the system to do right and then Barr.

I like that term, "I don't recall". Gonna have to start using it with the wife.

Well his name is Josh.

Well, this is what they call gluten in the Huckabee/Sanders household.

Launched one of those after lunch from tube #2.

"And the gentleman draws a STUPID" "I'd like to double down!"

Didn't you see that little card in his fedora that said "Press"?

I'm well aware of his simplistic outlook. I just thought, strictly in terms of the quality of education, that his posting of the article (which I assumed he supported) was spot on in that judging education by test scores is disingenuous the same way the U.S. is compared to China.

Gary Johnson is the Marty Cherry of Quarterbacks.

The point being, I suppose, is that unionized teachers stand as a thin chalk-stained line keeping Wisconsin from descending into the dystopian non-union educational hellscape of Texas. Interesting, if it wasn't complete bullshit. As a son of Iowa, I'm no stranger to bragging about my home state's ranking on various standardized test. Like Wisconsin we Iowans usually rank near the top of the heap on average ACT/SAT scores. We are usually joined there by Minnesota, Nebraska, and the various Dakotas; Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire... ... beginning to see a pattern? Perhaps because a state's "average ACT/SAT" is, for all intents and purposes, a proxy for the percent of white people who live there. In fact, the lion's share of state-to-state variance in test scores is accounted for by differences in ethnic composition. Minority students - regardless of state residence - tend to score lower than white students on standardized test, and the higher the proportion of minority students in a state the lower its overall test scores tend to be. Please note: this has nothing to do with innate ability or aptitude. Quite to the contrary, I believe the test gap between minority students and white students can be attributed to differences in socioeconomic status. And poverty. And yes, racism. And yes, family structure. Whatever combination of reasons, the gap exists, and it's mathematical sophistry to compare the combined average test scores in a state like Wisconsin (4% black, 4% Hispanic) with a state like Texas (12% black, 30% Hispanic). So how to compare educational achievement between two states with such dissimilar populations? In data analysis this is usually done by treating ethnicity as a "covariate." A very simple way to do this is by comparing educational achievement between states within the same ethnic group. In other words, do black students perform better in Wisconsin than Texas? Do Hispanic students perform better in Wisconsin or Texas? White students? If Wisconsin's kids consistently beat their Texas counterparts, after controlling for ethnicity, then there's a strong case that maybe Texas schools ought to become a union shop. Luckily, there is data to answer this question via the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The NAEP is an annual standardized test given to 4th and 8th graders around the country to measure proficiency in math, science, and reading. Participation is fairly universal; if you've had a 4th or 8th grader in the last few years, you're probably familiar with it. Results are compiled on the NAEP website, broken down by grade, state, subject and ethnicity. So how does brokeass, dumbass, redneck Texas stack up against progressive unionized Wisconsin? 2009 4th Grade Math White students: Texas 254, Wisconsin 250 (national average 248) Black students: Texas 231, Wisconsin 217 (national 222) Hispanic students: Texas 233, Wisconsin 228 (national 227) 2009 8th Grade Math White students: Texas 301, Wisconsin 294 (national 294) Black students: Texas 272, Wisconsin 254 (national 260) Hispanic students: Texas 277, Wisconsin 268 (national 260) 2009 4th Grade Reading White students: Texas 232, Wisconsin 227 (national 229) Black students: Texas 213, Wisconsin 192 (national 204) Hispanic students: Texas 210, Wisconsin 202 (national 204) 2009 8th Grade Reading White students: Texas 273, Wisconsin 271 (national 271) Black students: Texas 249, Wisconsin 238 (national 245) Hispanic students: Texas 251, Wisconsin 250 (national 248) 2009 4th Grade Science White students: Texas 168, Wisconsin 164 (national 162) Black students: Texas 139, Wisconsin 121 (national 127) Hispanic students: Wisconsin 138, Texas 136 (national 130) 2009 8th Grade Science White students: Texas 167, Wisconsin 165 (national 161) Black students: Texas 133, Wisconsin 120 (national 125) Hispanic students: Texas 141, Wisconsin 134 (national 131) To recap: white students in Texas perform better than white students in Wisconsin, black students in Texas perform better than black students in Wisconsin, Hispanic students in Texas perform better than Hispanic students in Wisconsin. In 18 separate ethnicity-controlled comparisons, the only one where Wisconsin students performed better than their peers in Texas was 4th grade science for Hispanic students (statistically insignificant), and this was reversed by 8th grade. Further, Texas students exceeded the national average for their ethnic cohort in all 18 comparisons; Wisconsinites were below the national average in 8, above average in 8. Perhaps the most striking thing in these numbers is the within-state gap between white and minority students. Not only did white Texas students outperform white Wisconsin students, the gap between white students and minority students in Texas was much less than the gap between white and minority students in Wisconsin. In other words, students are better off in Texas schools than in Wisconsin schools - especially minority students. Conclusion: instead of chanting slogans in Madison, maybe it's time for Wisconsin teachers to take refresher lessons from their non-union counterparts in the Lone Star State. ****Update: a few emails complaining that I focused on NAEP 4th and 8th graders, and didn't address Krugman's "point" about Texas dropout rates. I would note that "average state dropout rate" (non-controlled for ethnicity) is as uninformative as "average state ACT/SAT." Some research suggests Hispanic students, for example, tend to have higher dropout rates than black students despite performing marginally better on standardized tests. But still, the level of Texas dropout rate claimed by Krugman (38%+) is rather disturbing, and it does seem rather odd that somewhere between 8th and 12th grade Texas students are attacked by an epidemic of stupidity. So I decided to investigate. Mr. Krugman (please note - I don't call anyone "Doctor" unless they can write me a prescription for drugs) doesn't mention where he gets his dropout statistic from. I suspect a database somewhere in his lower intestine. So I endeavored to find most detailed / recent / comprehensive state-by-state dropout table, which appears to be this 2006-7 report from the National Center for Education Statistics. Event Dropout Rates for 9th-12th graders during 2006-7 school year: White students: Texas 1.9%, Wisconsin 1.2% (national average 3.0%) Black students: Texas 5.8%, Wisconsin 7.8% (national 6.8%) Hispanic students: Texas 5.6%, Wisconsin 5.2% (national 6.5%) I know the Sack has said some pretty disagreeable things, but I don't understand the pile on about racism concerning this view. It clearly states the problems are with socio-economic and racism. As a brown teacher, I agree with this. Could education be better? Of course. But we have to try to fix all the problems kids come to school with before you expect us to perform miracles in the classroom. It's like comparing my test scores (some gen ed, heavy 504/sped and esl) to my fellow teacher who gets all gen ed and GT kids. She's Wisconsin and I'm Texas.

Stupid libtards! Trump's a certified genius! He's gonna invest all our money and pay off the debt, build the wall and have enough left over to gold leaf the White House! 5D Chess!!!

That's like saying we should question our children playing with matches as the house burns down. Let's put out the fire first and then whoop their asses.