Coming Up For Air

A few quick links before I get back to grading.

One post in the works is some response to yesterday's John Higgens' charter schools check-in piece. Quick take: A little disappointing in that it rehashes the existential argument about charter schools. Look, they are here to stay. Let's start talking about how to make them accountable and raise the quality.

The most important blog post over the past few days is this Blue Bexley piece about Gov. Strickland insisting on Nativity scenes in state parks. He raises points about both church/state relations and what he calls "meta-awareness of politics" that are worth pondering a long while. And by the way, this Rambling from Roland offers a pretty good primer on the two sides staked out in the church/state debate.

If you happened to read my item in Catalyst about newly-minted DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee looking for authority to fire staff at will, rest assured the debate isn't over. EdBizBuzz has the best coverage.

Swift & Changeable has been offering essay topics on No Child Left Behind reauthorization. Snark aside, the posts offer some fascinating behind-the-scenes info suggesting that nobody is particularly anxious to take up the legislation.

We pretty much can't go a week without some newspaper mentioning that Gov. Strickland hasn't offered a school funding reform plan yet. What I know is that he's meeting with pretty much everyone -- ed community, business community, party leaders. What I guess is that he won't propose anything in the run up to an election year, especially given the very real possibility that he could have a friendly Ohio House when the smoke clears.

I'm up for Carnival of Politics this week. Since the aforementioned grades are due Tuesday, don't look for it before Wednesday night. Remember that it is not by invitation only. Anyone can send in Ohio politics-related posts. Do so and you will 1) get on the blogroll and 2) be added to reminders list. Send up to three posts to ohiopolcarnival[at]gmail[dot]com.

Those Chief Source guys have headed out to New Hampshire to do some Obama volunteering and take the temperature. They've been posting along the way, just click through and scroll down.

Finally, there are fuzzy areas in what is plagiarism and what is not. But if you lift entire paragraphs from a source, put them under your name and don't acknowledge the source anywhere, that's not a fuzzy area. That's plagiarism, plain and simple. Anyone considering taking a class from me in the future would do well to remember that. So, for that matter, would Watchdevil (Cf here.)

And back down again I go.