Sausage Links, blame-game edition

David Goldstein at Horse's Ass says everyone has missed the boat about the latest mess surrounding the "top-two" primary. The Seattle Times blamed the parties. The parties blamed the state. Others blamed the lawyers. Goldstein, however, says the person to blame for what could be the "most monumental legal fuck up in state history — one which puts the legitimacy of our entire 2008 election in jeopardy" — is state Attorney General Rob McKenna.

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Teach both sides of the flat Earth!

It's really quite simple: A lot of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

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Sausage Links, media-bashing edition

Lefty blogger David Goldstein at Horse's Ass has been battering the local media lately. Yesterday, he unleashed on Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Chris McGann for his coverage of Gov. Chris Gregoire's now infamous state gambling compact. Today he asks Crosscut's Ted Van Dyk to apologize to Gregoire for his own coverage of Casino-gate. ...

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Orchids and onions for a new week

First, orchids:

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Polimedia lunch links

Ruby Chow remembered: Brad Wong outlines the contributions from the life of a local political icon. ...

Elite opinion on Obama: Jamieson, Sims and Locke, Horsey, Westneat. ...

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Lost in the blind alley of busing

The impetus for desegregation came from commendable civil rights-era reform attempts, but school busing to achieve ethnically diverse classrooms has largely failed. Understanding desegregation's history may shed light on what we can do right in the future.

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Love the warrior but hate the war, and other weekend ruminations

Also: Whom to blame for gas prices, kudos for the schools supe, Sound Transit's latest audit, and polygamy's free pass.

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Fast times and loads of fun, despite expensive gas

Photo story: Drag racing today is a AAA-sanctioned activity for high school students — on a track, without alcohol, and with plenty of supervision. But high-priced fuel takes a toll.

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Evolution of a think tank

A journalist comes of age with Bruce Chapman, watching him launch Seattle's Discovery Institute and the intelligent design movement.

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Wondering about the WASL

As my children finish up their last week of WASL testing, along with students all over Washington state, I'm left with the question, "What's it all for anyway?" In search of an answer, I found some great Web sites that explain the importance of the WASL and what's in it for schools and parents.

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Washington schools report card: A way to grade your child's school

Ever wonder how school in Seattle compare with other school districts in the state of Washington? Maybe you'd like to know how Seattle schools compare to each other. How do Seattle's schools measure up to schools in the burbs?

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Washington's higher ed priority: posh dorms

Officials at Washington State University announced last week that the school plans to build new dorms. On the face of it, the initiative seems long overdue: The school hasn't built dorms in 37 years. However, the $26 million dollar residence hall adds only 229 beds, at a cost of $113,537 per bed. The residence hall is part of a larger plan to upscale the dorm experience.

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Good news wrapped in a conundrum at Rainier Beach High School

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The Seattle Times on Monday's front page wanted to know if Rainier Beach High School is headed, finally, for a renaissance — or at least a rediscovery by southeast Seattle families. The school is rapidly pushing WASL scores up for its primarily African American students. And, as Emily Hefter reported, African-American students at Rainier Beach are making WASL progress faster than African Americans enrolled in any of the district's other high schools. This is truly good news. RBHS is closing the achievement gap.

But that may turn out to be a real conundrum for Seattle Public Schools and the School Board as administrators and elected officials set out to make changes in the district's outdated assignment plan.

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Critics cut to the core of our curriculum

When it comes to problems with our schools, there’s a lot more insight in Robert Jamieson’s Thursday column than in the school district’s curriculum audit by consultants Phi Delta Kappa International, summarized elsewhere in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s local section by Jessica Blanchard.

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Seattle has a distinct and remarkable tech ecosystem

In response to Margaret O'Mara's article about Silicon Valley and Seattle, let's agree that everybody understands that we must build upon our advantages and preserve our distinctiveness, as she proposes. Including John Markoff of The New York Times, who spends a lot of time both in Seattle and in Silicon Valley, and knows each region well. Let's be sure not to caricature what he said. He simply observed that Seattle is exhibiting some of the entrepreneurial success of Silicon Valley; he described some of the evidence and explored some of the reasons. (By the way, it's worth noting that he wrote a much longer piece — it got whacked severely at the last minute due to a layout change, relegating much of his work and many of his insights to the bit bucket.) We have managed to develop a tech ecosystem here — a feat that has eluded many other regions of the nation. It's distinctly our own, and it's pretty remarkable.

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Bad combination: tax breaks and Eyman initiatives

The standard complaint from those who think Washington state spends too little on public services, (roads, transit, universities, schools, etc.) is to blame it on Tim Eyman and his initiatives imposing tax limits. That's true, but there's another villain: giving away surpluses through tax breaks. Bill Virgin outlines some of them in a valuable column in today's P-I

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Katrina and lessons learned

What can Portland teach New Orleans? And what might the Big Easy pass on to the Rose City? According to a guest article in the Oregonian, plenty.

Chris Beck, a former Realtor and Oregon state representative, now a post-Katrina urban-rebuilding consultant, has spent much of the past year in New Orleans as the rebuilding process inches ahead. It’s not surprising that Portland’s strengths — healthy development, involved citizenry — would be traits Beck would like to see exported to New Orleans.

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Why voters expelled the Seattle School Board class of 2003

Riding in on overreaction to a financial crisis, these reformers were so wrapped up in their various political agendas that they lost sight of the basics of educating kids. They paid a price in this week's election.

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Ballot measures update: I-960 and R-4204

After a day on post-election clean-up, I can provide a couple of updates on two of Washington's statewide ballot measures.

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We're spending too much on fancy school buildings

Seattle is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to renovate schools — and they need renovating. But the resulting extravagance seems out of scale given the basic challenges today of simply educating kids.

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