
Texas Jeff
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Vice President tells NASA to get to the Moon in 5 years.
Texas Jeff replied to atomheartbevo's topic in Daily Texan
SpaceX Starship Flight 9 may launch in 10 mins or so. Launch window opens shortly. The last two blew up. There is always a small but non-zero chance that Elon will shell Mar-a-Lago with one of these, so tune in and see what happens... Watch on SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-9 Or YouTube -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Hey everyone, don't get caught up in my $300 number. Perhaps it was too high. The point is ... what was the point again? 🙂 The point is the school year is ending and if you want to give your kid's teacher a little gift with a nice note from your kid it will make the teacher's day. About 95% of families do not do this. I do think that most families appreciate their teachers, they just don't think about it with summer coming up. BTW, Prop A last year in Austin ISD raised about $170,000,000 in new taxes. There are about 5500 teachers in Austin ISD. So you say, well, that's about $30,000 per teacher, go get it from that pile! ... not .... The state took a 75% cut and the district used less than half of the rest of the money for teacher raises. About 90% was gone before it made it to teacher raises, and we will pay the Prop A tax every year. It's really a shame, because if we could take that pile and give it to teachers and staff, we could make a big dent in their ability to live in Austin. -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Yes, it would really help retain teachers, which would provide next year's students with more experienced teachers. $2 a day for elementary, a quarter a day for each high school teacher. I know it sounds crazy but it would help. Ideally the leg would be doing this but I've given up on that. Elementary teachers have about 20-22 through 4th grade. Secondary teachers have maybe 180-200, teaching 6 out of 8 classes with about 30-34 kids per class. Give what you want, but I sized my number to give them about 10% more than they get. Any amount is helpful and appreciated. Very few parents give anything, but some give a small amount with a nice note from the kid and it totally makes my wife's day. A lot of teachers today are able to teach because they have a spouse who earns much more money, or they are doing it as a second career and they've already got money from a previous career. Teachers straight out of college without another source of income are getting squeezed. They teach for 3-5 years and find out that they can make a lot more money doing something else ... and if they ever want to buy a house or maybe a new car, they need to move on from teaching. I have seen some really great teachers leave the profession because of money. They want to keep teaching and you would want your kid to have them. But the salary is not enough, so they're gone. -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
I don't see it as trivial nor a gratuity. It would be significant help. It helps keep teachers in the profession. Ideally the state would fund teaching so that teachers could buy groceries, buy a house, establish themselves in a community. They aren't. -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
A quick reminder that this is the last week of school for Austin ISD. A few surrounding districts have already had their last day, but I forgot to post before then. It is OK to give your kid's teacher a gift. HEB gift cards are great, Amazon gift cards are great. No one straight up gives cash, but there's not a rule against it. Lots of kids give small Starbucks gift cards, which is nice for a coffee but it does not bring groceries home. If every elementary kid dropped $300 in gift cards on their teacher, and every kid in middle and high school gave $50 to each teacher, teacher income would rise about 10%. That's not *that* much to give, it's about $1.50 per day. I think most parents would be OK doing this, but folks tend to forget. If you are in the mood to help out a teacher, buy some gift cards or go to your local ATM and make it rain. Also, force your kid to write a nice note to their teachers ... my wife has a folder of them that grows every year. -
BTW, one more thing on Disch-Falk renovations ... here is a side-by-side same scale map of Disch-Falk and Wrigley. Obviously Texas will never need as many seats as the Cubs but you can see what is possible in almost the same footprint.
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not much. The extra land is going to be where the highway is now, and I think the cap will support up to a two story building, but not more than that. The post about IM fields is about right. It could be fields, or parking for Moody or the LBJ library, or planted with trees for tailgating space. Think about things that are currently near the highway that are not buildings, that could be moved to this space. Then repurpose those areas with new buildings. Mostly this will be removing a barrier between the main campus and everything east of 35. So instead of having to cross at the Manor bridge with lots of traffic above and below, a student might ride a bike across a peaceful area from their dorm east of 35 to campus. They will still have to cross the access roads, which will be maybe 6 lanes wide, but these will be new crossings with good facilities for pedestrians and bikers. For baseball and softball, I think UT should work with the city to make Comal closable on game days, between MLK and the road around Disch-Falk. Maybe brick it like speedway. Move the road around D-F a bit north towards the tennis center, which would give them space to do something in the outfield. There is space east of the baseball field between 20th and MLK. Something will eventually go there. At one point I heard they were considering a beach volleyball stadium for that area, but I can't find a source for that. Softball could grow to the east, or even remove 20th street and grow to the south.
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I was impressed with the South African president. He remained cool after the video and talked about how the people in the video did not represent his government's policy and the need to bring voices to the table to discuss differences peacefully. He thanked Trump for the US delivery of technology that is helping them find criminal activity in South Africa. And Trump kept going back to "these are thousands of roadside graves, see the video? Thousands... Here, see these handouts? Death...."
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The regents approved $106 million to cover the cost of UT's caps in December 2024. It will create about 17 acres of new land for UT between 15th and Dean Keaton. The upper deck is going away. The northbound and southbound access roads are moving over close to the Disch-Falk parking garage, about where the northbound IH-35 access road is today. UT will have new surface land where the highway is now and the highway will be below the new surface area.
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They get more than that. School funding is so complicated that it is almost impossible to understand. Austin ISD gets about $13,800 to spend per student *after* recapture, which is about $2000 per student more than peer districts. But their basic allotment is around $6100. They get extra money because of carve outs and special allocations above the basic allotment. And spending per student within Austin ISD varies wildly, depending on the school. LBJ HS spends about $10,000 per student from the general fund and about $21,000 per student from all funds, per year. At LASA HS, a magnet school close to LBJ that used to be part of LBJ, the district spends about $6700 per student from the general fund and about $7900 from all funds, per year. LBJ is a smaller school (which means more money per kids spend on admin and building maintenance) with a harder to educate population, which means more money spent per kid trying to help them succeed. There is no one answer to school funding. You can spend $8000 per year on an A rated school, if you get to pick the population, and you can spend $21,000 per year on an F rated school, if you have a hard to educate group.
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not real: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bondi-springsteen-trump-boss/
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Just got back from DC -- some thoughts for others: You probably don't need a DC Metro pass. Get an electronic SmarTrip card for your phone and add money as needed. Tapping my phone to pay was great. The monuments at night are awesome. Much better than doing them during the day. You can stand in the spot on the Lincoln Memorial where MLK gave the "I have a dream" speech, it's marked. We got timed entry passes for the National Archives when they opened. First pass was at 10:15. You can get in line early. There is a little exhibit when you first get in. If you are one of the first, bypass that and head for the rotunda. We were one of the very first people of the day to see the founding docs and we got a good five minutes to check them out before the hordes caught up to us. You can check out the docs online at the National Archives before you go and it will be easier to spot stuff. Visit your congress person and ask for House and Senate passes. We emailed them and told them we were coming, and they offered to walk us over for a tour. We had booked at Capitol tour for 2pm, but we got there earlier and the person that walked us over got us on an earlier tour. Getting to the House and Senate galleries is a pain, even with the passes. We got to the Senate during a vote and saw about 50 senators walk in and give a Roman thumbs up or down on a vote, which was very cool. We were able to get both House and Senate passes from our rep, which saved me a trip to the Senate side -- but you might ask them before if they have both. You need timed entry passes to the Air and Space Museum. About half of the museum is closed for renovation. Still worth going. We did the American History and Natural History museums right when they opened. Perhaps that was a mistake, because we were there with hundreds of school kids. The school tours flamed out around noon and the crowds seemed to lessen as the day went on. If I had to do it again I would visit in mid-afternoon rather than right at the open. American History was great. All of the computers from my childhood are now in the museum. Natural History was not as great, but the Gems and Minerals section was really cool. The National Museum of the American Indian had the best museum food and coolest building. We went there because we heard the cafe was better than the other choices, and that was true, but we stayed and did the museum too. At a minimum, consider it for lunch if you are choosing a museum cafe. At Ford's Theatre, we had to choose between a tour with a talk and a walk-through tour. We picked the walk-through only, but I feel we missed out by not picking a tour with a talk. We got an unofficial talk because we sat down next to a school group and the group's teacher did about 20 minutes for her class on the events of Lincoln's assassination. It was her time to shine. She had the entire place sitting quietly listening to her. The Southwest terminal at DCA is like the old Robert Mueller airport. It's a dump ... but it was a long walk, a bus shuttle, and then a short Metro ride into town.
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I just got back from a week in DC and rode the Metro everywhere I went. I would not have ridden it if it did not go to the airport and required me to wait in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue in the rain. We have the same problem here with the heat. Also, DCA was built either by a crazy person or by a committee. Here's my non-negotiables for an Austin transit system: The initial system should connect: * the airport * the convention center * downtown and the capitol complex * Guad/The Drag/West Campus * DKR/UT PAC/Moody/Disch Falk -- a stop near where the UT police station is today * something near the long center * branch out from there once you have the basics covered All stations should be protected from the climate. Either go underground like the DC Metro/BART/Seattle Link or go up with the gondola idea. No one should have to wait in the heat standing in the middle of car traffic. No one should have to wait at a station for more than 10 minutes before they can start their trip. Maybe a little longer at the ends of the system but the core system should be every 5 minutes or better. People should feel safe riding the system. The cars and the stations should be clean and in good repair. Fares should be affordable to all. All stations outside of the core stations above should be located in an area that is willing to accept tall buildings with office/retail/housing, at least in the 1/4 mile around the station. Domain, you're in. Circle C, you're out. These neighborhoods should be required to reserve the ground floor for retail. West Campus, you're tall but your ground floor retail sucks. These neighborhoods need some reasonably priced parking garages mixed in with the tall buildings, at least for the next 25 years. Maybe you live in Brentwood but you can drive and park in a dense new neighborhood where the DPS property now is and park and ride from there. Eventually Waymo is going to get you that last mile. The system should be designed like DC's Metro and BART, where lines come in from the burbs and then double up in the central core, so that trains run very frequently in the central city. Project Connect's original proposal did much of this, but Project Connect as it is today is not going to accomplish this. They dangled pretty pictures of downtown tunnels and folks getting on the system at the airport in front of voters, and folks bought in. Then they bait and switched down to a system that is going to end up like San Jose's VTA. We should re-vote, and if people still want the proposed system at the proposed tax cost, then we should do it. Otherwise we should think again. We have a Red Line that costs about $50 in tax dollars per ride. A pathetic tiny two car train every 30 minutes. The same crew that brought you that is going to bring you an underutilized train system. Is Cap Metro being introspective at all on the value of providing this service at this price? Or willing to change? No they are not. They just keep plugging ahead with Plan A even at a tremendous cost to the taxpayer.
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Also, Hamilton warned us about this, but he used big words that are hard for us to understand: An avaricious man, who might happen to fill the office, looking forward to a time when he must at all events yield up the emoluments he enjoyed, would feel a propensity, not easy to be resisted by such a man, to make the best use of the opportunity he enjoyed while it lasted, and might not scruple to have recourse to the most corrupt expedients to make the harvest as abundant as it was transitory; though the same man, probably, with a different prospect before him, might content himself with the regular perquisites of his situation, and might even be unwilling to risk the consequences of an abuse of his opportunities. His avarice might be a guard upon his avarice. Add to this that the same man might be vain or ambitious, as well as avaricious. And if he could expect to prolong his honors by his good conduct, he might hesitate to sacrifice his appetite for them to his appetite for gain. But with the prospect before him of approaching an inevitable annihilation, his avarice would be likely to get the victory over his caution, his vanity, or his ambition.
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Trump's gift makes no sense except as a way for a foreign government to buy influence over him. A summary: The Air Force already is under contract to buy two 747-8 aircraft. They were built around 2015 and have been undergoing modifications to make the Air Force One's since 2020. This process is evidently taking a long time because everyone who works on the modification has to have a high security clearance. The new delivery date is one plane in 2027, one n 2028, which admittedly is a long time to modify a plane. The new plane would either have to be modified to met the AF1 spec or not. This modifications, as we have learned, take a long time. Trump can't just step on the plane and call it AF1. Or ... he can and just ignore the security requirements of the nation. So either he takes the gift and flys in a luxurious new plane that was literally designed for royalty, but gives up everything AF1 is supposed to do other than basic transportation. Or he sends the plane in for retrofitting and he'll get it back around 2032. Or he takes the gift, updates the livery to his personal preference, flys in it a few times to make it "his" AF1 like a game-worn jersey, then parks it until he is out of office and now he has a free jet fit for a king. Somehow merely having a personal yet aging 747 that will go wherever in the world you want to go, when you want to go, followed by cargo planes with your limo and helicopters, fully stocked with the McDonald's menu, is not enough for the man.
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Entered service in 1990 and there are two of them.
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My theory: Trump does not buy stuff. Most of our leaders don't. If they want a hamburger they ask an aide and a hamburger appears. Trump does know what he thinks his net worth is, and higher is better. So, to Trump, having more money is the goal since he does nothing to get the stuff he actually uses. Rounds of golf, transportation on a private 747, food, clothing, shelter. He gets what he wants not by trading money for goods, but by asking someone else to make them appear. If the person fails to make the goods appear, they are fired, which he enjoys doing, and he has a person that will make a new person appear who will attempt to make the goods he wants appear. And if they don't, he will fire them too, which he enjoys doing. Along with many of our leaders, he is disconnected from the experience of the average American.
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Can they hit?
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Look at the example of Mendez MS here in Austin. Before COVID, they had an enrollment around 600-650 across three grades. And they did poorly on the STAAR. They were failing like Burnet/Webb/Dobie but a few years earlier. Austin ISD partnered with T-STEM Texas and then Third Future, who now runs the school as a charter. Teacher compensation is higher than other AISD schools. Enrollment has sunk to around 200 students in two grades. They have plans to expand back to 6-8. But, the school's academic rating has risen from an F to a B. The Third Future school has tests scores going up ... but are they rising because of what the charter operator is doing or have they simply moved kids that would struggle in their model to different schools? Why are so many kids that live in that zone choosing another school? The school has a capacity of 1,229. Even with a 6th grade expansion, the school will be 900 kids short of full. Long term, it's not efficient to have a bunch of middle schools with 300 kids and a bunch with three or four times as many.
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They are going with a restart approach, with a charter safety valve. The schools are going to be restarted over the summer, with new administration. They are going to use something like the ACE model (Accelerating Campus Excellence). This will be their fifth year of possible F's in a row and they need a D to pause closure and a C to clear it for five years. They are going to test the students at the middle of the year and see how it is going. If it is not going well, they are going to seek an 1882 partnership with a charter school provider so that they can avoid getting the fifth F. They have to initiate this change by mid-Dec if needed, so the students have very little time to show progress in the fall. The ACE model does include hefty stipends, so it will cost an additional $1.7 million per year, per school, to implement. The district already has a deficit over $100 million per year. At their current spending rate, they will begin to violate their board policy of having 20% of costs in reserve this summer and will have no reserves by the summer of 2026. They have a lot of schools that are 1-2 years behind these three in getting their fifth F in a row, so they may have additional schools in the same situation by the 2026-27 school year.
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Conclave 2025: All of the Smoke, None of the Brisket
Texas Jeff replied to GopherRock's topic in Daily Texan
Father Guido Sarducci chimes in with his thoughts and analysis: -
I've been paying attention to the last few Austin ISD bonds and various other bonds, and I can say that funding for sports improvements generally tops the list, followed by funding for fine arts. There is also a lot of money in there for basic maintenance and AISD is way behind in just maintaining what they've got. During the 2022 bond process, the team was divided into groups like athletics, fine arts, transportation, and academics. Everyone had nebulous goals except for athletics, and they had super specific goals like 18 scoreboards, 50 basketball goals, etc. The Hays bonds passed, which is great for them, and they include money for artificial turf at all middle schools and money for an outdoor covered sports "pavilion" at all high schools. A pavilion is an artificial turf field covered by a shade structure, like an indoor practice facility but without the walls. It's shaded but not air conditioned. Sports and fine arts spending, middle school to high school. They are also building a brand new high school. The Dripping Springs bonds passed, which is great for them, and they include a brand new high school. If you look at the plans for the school, you can see how much of the footprint of a modern high school is used for sports and fine arts. They have an "academic wing" and "CTE space" for the basics, and add to it baseball, softball, football/soccer that will someday be a stadium, two football/soccer/band turf practice fields, a band practice pad, (which is an overflow parking lot for the stadium used mostly by the band), competition and practice gyms, tennis courts and a performing arts center. The DS school is very typical of a new build high school. The academic footprint is small and sports/fine arts takes up a ton of space on the campus. Lake Travis is building one with even more amenities. Del Valle is building one. Hays is building one and they just built M&G Johnson which is similar. Austin ISD has not spent as much on sports and fine arts over the years, and I think the lack of spending has contributed to their decline. Surrounding districts did it and their campuses are much more attractive. Families get a cheaper house and better buildings. I wish it were more attractive to lead with academic spending, but I don't think it is.
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I planted some new oaks a few years ago and used a tree gator to get them through the first few seasons. wrap it around the tree, fill, wait ... fill, wait ... fill, wait ... eventually the tree is OK without extra water.
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It's hard to imagine higher costs than paying $7 billion for 10 miles of surface track that duplicate existing bus lines, connecting 15 stations, of which two are Travis Heights and Yellow Jacket and will yield almost no daily riders. Very few people are going to want to go wait in the median of a street for a train in mid-July. IMHO build what you can of a subway and start to create a ribbon of density through the city. We only have a few north/south streets as it is and almost no east/west. Our local leadership has no vision. The Red Line has been open for 15 years and it is attracting 1800 rides per day, which means about 900 people. Is anyone talking about shutting it down because it is just sucking transit dollars for little value? No way ... it's now pitched as prime soccer parking. The Red Line goes through undeveloped land that could be dense, transit-oriented, double tracked, exactly what the transit folks want. But there is no vision. The two Austin traffic -related positive changes since the 1980s are COVID/WFH and Waymo. WFH is on the decline but Waymo is growing. Waymo isn't going to get rid of cars but it is going to reduce parked cars and lead to fewer accidents. Waymo is going to eventually take the CapMetro market everywhere except for the few core lines in the heart of the city that have reasonable ridership.
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Sounds like from the meeting that no students from Dobie, Webb, or Burnet are now being considered to move to Lamar, Murchison or elsewhere. The admin presented two plans, one involves a campus restart with a possible charter school option, and the other involves going directly to the charter school option. They don't have to choose the same plan for all three campuses.
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