Electric cars, Obama and education reform, Kansas online records, Proposition K
Could the Volt Jump-Start GM? (Washington Post) The Volt is Chevrolet’s plug-in hybrid, meaning it has no gasoline engine, running solely on electricity. The problem is that the car’s price may be $40,000. My question is where will we get the electricity to charge these cars on calm days if we don’t build more baseline electricity generation capacity?
No Picnic for Me Either (David Brooks in the New York Times) An overview of President Obama’s attitudes towards public schools in America. Can the president successfully challenge the government school lobby and its entrenched interests, those often at odds with the interests of schoolchildren? Brooks doesn’t seem hopeful: “The problem is that as our ability to get data has improved, the education establishment’s ability to evade the consequences of data has improved, too. Most districts don’t use data to reward good teachers. States have watered down their proficiency standards so parents think their own schools are much better than they are.”
Online records convenient, but cost more (Deb Gruver in the Wichita Eagle). Contains an overview of some of the sites in Kansas where you can look at government records. Kansas charges for many records that other states provide at no cost.
State tax change sought (Tim Carpenter in the Topeka Capital-Journal) “It has been denounced by state and county officials and greeted with skepticism by Democratic lawmakers.” That’s Proposition K, of course. I would say that when lobbyists for local governments are worried about their sources of revenue, that’s good for everyone else.
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