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| Source: DesignYourWay.net |
Rich Miller’s column from two Sundays ago, shared via Capitol Fax, pulls back the curtain on what effective governing actually requires — and why Governor JB Pritzker’s handling of the Chicago Bears stadium situation raises legitimate concerns.
Pritzker might want to take his own advice https://t.co/etQVjweabq
— Capitol Fax (@capitolfax) June 22, 2026
Education innovator Graham Frey, known for his work with Primer micro-schools and previously Alpha School, appeared on a recent Dad Saves America episode titled “Falling Behind” Is Public School Propaganda. In a wide-ranging discussion, Frey challenges conventional thinking about what schools should prioritize—including the common goal of producing "well-rounded" students.
Frey poses a key question for parents evaluating educational options (around the 1hr 30 min mark): "Do I want them to be really well-rounded? Do I want them to be specialized?"
This isn't a blanket rejection of breadth, but a call to make intentional choices rather than defaulting to the idea that every child must excel equally across academics, sports, arts, extracurriculars, and more.
George Ryan served as the Governor of Illinois from 1999 to 2003. There was a Republican dynasty from 1977 to 2003 which included Governors Jim Thompson, Jim Edgar, and finally Ryan. That dynasty ended upon the election of Democrat Rod Blagojevich as IL Governor.
George Ryan I recall was the last effective governor Illinois had. There was significant infrastructure investment during his term and one infrastructure project involved the rehab of the Douglas branch of the CTA L (back then it was part of the CTA Blue Line, today it's the Pink Line). His infrastructure program was called Illinois First.
He's primarily known for commuting all death sentences in the state after at first placing a moratorium on death sentences. He had been demonized for this by death penalty advocates and they cite his political problems as a result of what was going on during his tenure as IL Secretary of State.
You might remember license for bribes you can read more about it here. This scandal led to his downfall (that is is one term as Governor) and ultimately his status as a convicted felon. Sentenced to six and a half years in federal prison in 2006, he was released from federal custody in 2013.
His wife preceded him in death and Gov. Ryan showed little regret in his decisions regarding the death penalty. However, many still view his moves on that issue as more politically motivated.
For the record, while I do consider myself right of center (or conservative) I'm against the death penalty. I'm in favor of justice, and hard for me to justify the death penalty when it's not always applied in the most just way. And certainly that some people may not be guilty of the crime for which they will be put to death. Also I don't find the application of the death penalty very humane.
I would say regardless of what motivated his decisions on this issue, I think he did the right thing in hindsight. Almost a decade after Gov. Ryan had left the Illinois Governorship, the state abolished the death penalty. And a later Republican Governor - the ineffective Bruce Rauner - had proposed reinstating the death penalty and that failed.
To make a comparison while I may not like the progressive politics of J.B. Pritzker, I would give him credit for being an effective IL Governor. What both men have in common is that they both are interested in governing more than anything. That's what this great state needs.
Gov. Ryan died on May 2, 2025, he was 91.
I'm sorry to say I was slow to share with you news of the death of Gov. Jim Thompson who died in 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. He was Illinois' longest serving governor from 1977 to 1991.
Also we have Gov. Thompson's immediate successor, Jim Edgar who is currently fighting cancer. Having seen someone I was very close to deal with this, I feel for Edgar. He was another one who was truly an effective IL Governor serving from 1991 to 1999. I hope he defeats that dreadful disease.
[VIDEO] A few clips of HBO host Bill Maher discussing the value of a college degree and then Jeremy Boering who runs the website The Daily Wire discusses further the value of a college education.
Is a degree necessary for your success? If you want to be successful in your life what does it really take? ANd can you learn those things in a classroom?
Well I'm not personally saying college is a scam. I'd say a college degree isn't valuable if everyone has one. I think expanding the opportunity for everyone to get a degree hasn't been beneficial and this is probably why you're seeing pieces and commentaries such as these.
Found out about this via Instapundit. Remember a while ago NYC wanted to end their elite programs in the name of racial/ethnic equity. It seems they had done something similar in San Francisco instead of grades and test scores admission to an elite school was determined by a lottery.
Via California Globe:
With the sting of a February recall election that saw three of its members bounced from its ranks fresh in their memories, the San Francisco Unified District Board of Education has voted to drop a 2-year-old lottery system to gain entrance into the elite Lowell School. By a slim 4-3 vote, the school will return to a merit-based applications process that uses grades, tests, and essays as criteria for acceptance. The system will go into place for the Freshman class entering in the Fall of 2023
Lowell High School of San Francisco, once considered one of the more prestigious and highest performing public schools in the nation, found itself again in the cross hairs of the ongoing debate regarding the use of merit-based criteria to gain entrance into its esteemed halls. With this latest School Board decision, the debate is hardly over. Lawsuits are expected and there will no doubt be continued posturing from those prioritizing Diversity and Inclusion over attracting the best and brightest of students irrespective of race or ethnicity.
In October of 2020, the San Francisco School Board voted to change its competitive admissions process for Lowell from one based upon grades, test scores and essays to one that was mostly based on a lottery system. At that time, the Board cited difficulty in securing sufficient letter grades and test scores given the ongoing pandemic as the cause for the change. Just a few short months later in February of 2021, the Board rammed through a proposal by a 5-2 vote to make the lottery system permanent. The majority cited “pervasive systemic racism” and a lack of diversity for its decision to make the lottery admissions process permanent.
See there! You see systemic racism and diversity & inclusion in this article. When using those terms ask yourself what they really mean? Of course the article continues in trying to get more Blacks and "Latinx" students in their ranks resulted in less white and especially Asian students. And that means parents of the Asian students realize they're being targeted.
Rising crime in many of America's major cities and the downgrade of the education system should be concerning for those who care about the health of our urban areas.
BTW, I really wanted to use a far more "reputable" source such as an article from the SF Chronicle to further discuss this, however, I had encountered a paywall. I could guess that this article might say something much different than the above article I excerpted. Perhaps sooner than later I can eventually read this article when perhaps after some time it will be available to the public.
This is for those of you who are parents who probably want their child to enroll in a selective enrollment school. Some changes are coming, I won't say much because I have no children so really I have no dog in this. Perhaps someone out there has their own thoughts.
WBEZ:
Chicago Public Schools is poised to make a significant change to the admissions process for its coveted test-in elementary and high schools in an attempt to award more seats to low-income students.
In one of his first major moves as CEO, Pedro Martinez is proposing that the school district drop part of the current system that awards 30% of the seats at these schools — including for the nearly 16,000 students at 11 selective enrollment high schools — strictly based on a student’s seventh grade marks and test scores. This would almost certainly open up more seats to a more diverse student population and make it more difficult for students from the city’s upper-income neighborhoods to get in.
It is a move some have long advocated for, especially as the student population in some of the most coveted schools, including some of the top schools in the state, have become more affluent, white and Asian.
Most of the seats at these selective schools — 70% — are divided among four groups of students based on the socioeconomic characteristics of where they live. Students earn a score out of 900 based on their grades and test scores and then compete for seats against students in their same socioeconomic group.
Here's more:
Officials say they want to make the process more equitable. They are proposing either getting rid of the rank order set aside or reserving more spots for students for lower-income communities.
This would be the most significant change to the admission process since 2009, when CPS was forced by the courts to drop race as one factor in admission. Instead, it began weighing a student’s socioeconomic status, in large part as a proxy for race.
This new change would make the admissions process more fair, rather than having it tip in favor of students from middle- to upper middle class communities, said Lauren Sartain, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an an affiliated researcher at the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research.
[VIDEO] Well I shared a video about the Great Lakes which includes Lake Michigan. Now a news story about Chicago's shoreline along Lake Michigan. To start with there is a concern with regards to rising water levels on the lake and gov't efforts for the shoreline. Here's the story from WTTW's Chicago Tonight.
In the fifth grade and yes I'm going back to the 1990s here the least we got were booklets about puberty. About how our children's bodies develop into adult bodies. The books were somewhat graphic although we didn't get much in the "birds and the bees" talk in school.
But to hand out condoms starting in the fifth grade? There is a time to beginning really talking to young people about sex sooner or later young men and young women will begin to get together and date and then some. It's all about how you go about it and I don't believe fifth grade is the correct time to introduce condoms. Well I wonder who set this CPS policy.
When Chicago Public Schools fully reopen late next month for the first time since the start of the pandemic, students will be returning to schools stocked with hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, masks, forehead thermometers and air purifiers.
But nearly every CPS school will also have items that experts say will keep students healthy and safe regardless of the status of the pandemic: menstruation products and condoms.
Both will be provided as the result of a new policy passed by the CPS Board of Education in December. A similar action that will require all schools in Illinois provide menstruation products generated far more attention this spring when it was passed by state lawmakers in Springfield.
Under the CPS policy, schools that teach fifth grade and up must maintain a condom availability program as part of an expanded vision of sexual health education. That means all but a dozen, which enroll only younger grades, of the more than 600 CPS schools will have condoms.The idea was years in the making and, though it may come with some controversy, was what many experts agreed was a step in the right direction for student health, CPS’ top doctor Kenneth Fox said in an interview last week. Until now, principals have had massive leeway to use their own discretion on sex-related education and resources.
“Young people have the right to accurate and clear information to make healthy decisions,” said Fox, a pediatrician of 30 years. “And they need access to resources to protect their health and the health of others as they act on those decisions.”
Later in this article:
“Essentially what we want to do is make condoms available to students for if and when they think they need them,” he said. “ … When you don’t have those protections and don’t make those resources available then bad stuff happens to young people. You have elevated risks of sexually transmitted infections, of unintended pregnancies, and that’s very preventable stuff.”
So 5th graders might need condoms?
So do young people know how to read? Do they know how to do math? How are they doing in the classroom because unfortunately we're taking care of them outside of it evidently.
I suppose the question ask when you read this article is why is that number so low? Why aren't Black students being admitted to NYC's elite public high schools? The article notes the effects of the pandemic because Blacks were disproportionately affected by this pandemic as many families are keeping their kids out of school.
[VIDEO] The argument here is whether or not colleges should dispense with the SAT or ACT in order to provide for an ethnically diverse student body. There are cases out there involving the discrimination of Asian students from getting admitted and attending some of America's more elite universities.
One interesting fact noted high school GPA and test scores help to determine college success. More so than just relying on tests or GPA.
On diversity. Well I think it's OK to insure that students of a variety of backgrounds can get into the colleges of their choice. I'm not only talking race or ethnicity, let's include economic background which is something we do need to discuss as tuition continues to go up. Either way you can accept a student who won't be successful in some colleges or you can reject a student who isn't likely to be successful in some colleges. When you reject that student they can go somewhere so that they can be successful, and perhaps more affordable also.
[VIDEO] When I was at Harlan I saw an article it was possibly in the Chicago Sun-Times or perhaps another lesser known newspaper, however, I saw in that article that in another high school in the city - possibly somewhere on the north and west sides if I recall - showed me something unusual. I thought it was a scandal at the time that this high school's valedictorian and salutatorian GPA didn't even break 3.0 they were still within the 2.0 range and if I recall correctly may not have even reached 2.5....
Now in this case dude isn't at a 1.0 and he didn't half want to come to class. Mother had no real idea where he was in school. And this is a systemic problem students aren't learning, they're not coming to class. In a school over 400 students only two were proficient in Math and English. Perhaps at that Chicago high school long ago this was the same situation.
I reiterate what I said over a month ago about plans by NYC's public schools to eventually eliminate their top programs for the best students. These are what public education needs to fulfill their mission, and as for these other schools that aren't able to do the job something has to be done with them. The idea of compulsory education isn't going away soon, but it makes no sense to have our young people sent to schools where they're woefully unprepared for the real world.
Anthony Brian Logan will get very upset at the school and the mother of this child that's failing at school and he really can't contain his temper.
I found this article back in December and it's a bit mind boggling, but just shows the state of public policy right now:
Ending selective admissions for top performing public middle schools in New York will disadvantage the city's brightest and highest achieving students as well as those who are not academically gifted.
New York had 1.1 million public school students, though that number has now shrunk to 900,000 or so, and they are not all academically gifted. Most of the kids who have left the public school system since the pandemic are from low-income families. Those who are not academically gifted, or even who are not academically driven, are not stupid, bad, or in need of having all the super smart kids descend on their classes.
De Blasio and the United Federation of Teachers believe that because the diversity at the top performing middle and high schools does not reflect the ethnic and racial makeup of the city, there's something wrong with these schools. Instead of being pleased that the city is able to serve the most academically gifted students with free, world-class educations, de Blasio and the UFT think they need to destroy those programs and replace them with, well, nothing.
As Eliza Schapiro wrote in The New York Times, "In doing this, Mr. de Blasio is essentially piloting an experiment that, if deemed successful, could permanently end the city's academically selective middle schools, which tend to be much whiter than the district overall." Most of the city's top achieving students, however, are Asian.
The gifted kids will remain in their neighbourhood zoned schools as the admissions standards for middle schools are put on hold. Those top schools will now admit kids based on a lottery. Sheer chance will decide which kids end up in the schools with the most academically rigorous pace.
I have my own proposal for a leaner more responsive public school system. Sadly it means probably closing schools and/or layoffs because a more leaner system is necessary.
The way I see it I see in the news here in Chicago locally that we're still trying to figure out what to do with those school buildings that are now closed. In Englewood they're discussing turning one school into a residential space. In my opinion just because you close a school doesn't mean it won't be a school anymore especially if another organization other than CPS can come in and adequately operate it.
Another thing I would propose is that it doesn't make sense for CPS to close down their top performing schools or programs. These are what should make CPS look good, and fulfills the image of what we want to see public education do. And public schools right now are getting a bad rap for a number of issues in addition to whether or not the children are being adequately educated for example.
They reason why Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed down a number of elementary schools on the south and west sides in 2013 is because many of them were under-utilized. Can we afford to keep open schools that not only aren't performing but barely have students within their walls? The system we had was built for a city of a different time when the economy was doing great and parents had a lot of kids. However in 2021 I also recognize parents have more options as far as where they sent their children.
So my idea probably won't be popular with the educators and probably some parents. I'm sure parents are concerned about where their children go to school. Back in the 1990s my mother was concerned about where I went to high school when it was that time. She didn't want me to go to school halfway across the city even if it was possibly a better school. She'd rather the safety of myself staying in the neighborhood going to school everyday. I'm sure someone's parent has the same idea even now.
I'm sure many good parents with these coronavirus lockdowns are looking into alternatives since it seems CPS is surely but slowly crawling back to some semblance of normal even now. I mention this because there is an agreement between CPS and the teacher's union to go back to the schools. I would imagine if I was in school now, I would miss the social interactions with my peers for example.
I know I wrote a lot here, but that's what this blog is here for. We can discuss the article and we can discuss what's going on currently as far as basically any topic, though certainly public education specifically.
"Is this the end of college as we know it?"
The actual article linked is to the Wall Street Journal and unfortunately it's behind a paywall at least Instapundit did a brief excerpt:
Rachael Wittern earned straight As in high school, a partial scholarship to college and then a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. She is now 33 years old, lives in Tampa, earns $94,000 a year as a psychologist and says her education wasn’t worth the cost. She carries $300,000 in student debt.
Dr. Wittern’s 37-year-old husband worked in a warehouse for several years before becoming an apprentice electrician. He expects to earn comparable money when he’s finished—minus the debt. When and if they have children, Dr. Wittern says her advice will be to follow her husband’s path and avoid a four-year degree.
. . .
For more than a century, a four-year college degree was a blue-chip credential and a steppingstone to the American dream. For many millennials and now Gen Z, it has become an albatross around their necks.
Millennials are the most educated generation in the nation’s history, but they are broke compared with their predecessors. So why would they direct their children to take the same path?
“They probably won’t,” says John Thelin, a historian of higher education and professor at the University of Kentucky.
I definitely won't, I don't have children but if I have some money to save for their college I'll help. Of course if their parents are paying their tuition that ideally should limit their options. Also I wouldn't want my children to be burdened with debt, I'd counsel them away from that.
Move beyond the slogans to focus on what works https://t.co/NRihRoTupc— Rich Miller (@capitolfax) June 29, 2020
More of this, please https://t.co/URqKUP5m5Y— Rich Miller (@capitolfax) January 16, 2020
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| cps.edu |
“I’m not satisfied,” Jackson said of the district’s performance. “I like the incremental growth, but we need to see exponential growth, particularly among our African-American male and Latino male students, if we’re going to meet the goals we’ve outlined in our vision.”RELATED: Does public education ruin Black boys?
Her comments followed a stirring 20-minute speech Thursday afternoon to a gathering of business and civic leaders organized by the City Club of Chicago. In the speech, Jackson highlighted district investments in new programs and curriculum at neighborhood schools, a renewed focus on early career and college credentials, commitments to hiring more school support staff, and universal Pre-K expansion as ways to “level the playing field.”
Asked after the speech about the specific approaches the district is taking to close racial and gender disparities in graduation rates, Jackson said new attention to what students are being taught would be key.
“I think in order to get to the 90 percent graduation rate that we’ve outlined in our vision, we have to have strong curriculum and academic programs in our schools, which is why we’re making a commitment around more IB and STEM programs, and a quality curriculum in every school,” she said. “I think by coupling the social emotional support with academic support, we’re going to get there.”