Your Tax Dollars at Work

Today's local media has some strangely conflicting information in it. On one hand you have this article, outlining how two kindergarten classes only a few miles apart have very much disparate outcomes based on how involved parents are, how much pre-school a child has and how many books a child is exposed to and owns. All well and good. We've read a lot of the studies and each of these things contributes immensely to a child's being able to succeed in school.

Then, you hop over to the Channel 7 website and find this article about teaching public school 5th graders ballroom dancing. Waltzes, Cha-Cha and Tango. OK, so we guess that all of these 5th graders are acing their tests? Everyone can read at a 5th grade level? Math scores looking up? Because if they aren't succeeding at a 5th grade level, ballroom dancing certainly isn't going to keep them from dropping out of school in a few years. Ballroom dancing isn't going to get them a job. In fact, this sounds suspiciously like a WASTE OF MY DAMN TAX MONEY AGAIN! Quick, someone find out which alderman or mayoral aide owns a struggling dance studio that just landed this contract.

The only upside to this whole thing is that we might finally see a real combination dance off and knife fight between the latin kings and the two-six or maybe the gd's and the vice lords, just like in West Side Story.