
Texas Jeff
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Everything posted by Texas Jeff
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The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
I think we will gradually head to a two-tier school system. Some will take the $10k, add their own $10k, and go to a very nice school with no hard to educate kids. Everyone else that has something in their way, like not being able to come up with the extra $10k or having a disability, will go to what remains of the public system. -
The last time I was car shopping, I got in the Model 3 ready to love it and got out 10 seconds later because it sucked. No turn signal ... you had to push buttons on the steering wheel instead. A giant touchscreen for everything. The interior felt cheap. Perhaps the younger folks enjoy doing everything through a screen and pushing buttons to turn but it was not for me. My wife liked the Mach-E and we almost went down that road. It sucked less than the Tesla. How hard is to make a car with a reasonably nice interior with just a few knobs and dials instead of a giant monitor?
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The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
It's not just local property values declining. They are also choosing to spend $52 million more this year than originally planned, which is increasing their deficit, because the deficit is the difference between what they spend and what comes in. The deficit honestly doesn't matter that much ... because it is so large. They are lawn darting towards having no money in reserve. They have a board policy that says that they need to keep 20% of spending in reserve each year to help them get through the fall, help them pay teachers before taxes start getting paid in January. They are on track to drop below that amount sometime around the end of this year and spend the entire fund balance by the end of next year. They have to hope for more money from the Leg and/or get serious about significant cuts. They are being very transparent about it. All of the numbers are online. They are having lots of open discussions about it but they are not making enough cuts to balance the budget. -
George Bush replaced Ann Richards as our governor 30 years ago. Since then we have had exactly three governors. Bush used the office to run for president. Perry inherited the office from Bush and then wouldn't leave. When Perry finally left, Abbott got 91% of the primary vote and of course as a Republican he was able to beat Wendy Davis in 2015. It's been ten years since then. Abbott can probably win again if he wants and continue to serve until 2032 or beyond. In the 30 years prior to 1995, Texas had six governors. They used to serve reasonable terms and then bring in some other person. Fresh ideas. Now we have little kings that stay too long.
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The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
BTW, I am no fan of vouchers ... but I have some thoughts on this. I think exactly what you say will happen, but it will mostly benefit "easy-to-educate" kids ... mostly wealthier kids without disabilities. People think Austin ISD gets about $6160 per kid, which is about the standard allotment. I knew they got more money than that, because of bond expenditures, title 1, and so on, but I was really surprised when their efficiency report revealed that they received $13,802 in revenue per student in the 2022-23 school year. That number is after recapture. In 2023-24, before recapture was paid, they collected over $25,000 per student. The amount of money they spend per student varies widely throughout the district. Easy-to-educate kids get less and hard-to-educate kids get more, which makes sense. In your scenario, the "easy-to-educate" school would see an increase in funding. The "hard-to-educate" school would see a drop. Vouchers are going to attract the "easy-to-educate" kids, who will see an increase in their school funding and have the ability to add to that advantage via additional private tuition. Austin ISD received $2000 more revenue per student in 2022-23 than their peer districts, but paid a lower base salary to teachers, paid less to administrators, and paid the superintendent less than their peer districts. I am a fan of Austin ISD but I don't think they are efficiently using what they have. -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Some numbers on what is being proposed, more info at the Texas Tribune: The Texas Senate is planning to spend $1 billion at first on vouchers. Homeschool kids get $2000 each. Non-homeschool kids sign up for $10,000 each, or $11,500 if they are disabled. So, even if the homeschool kids are not included in the $1 billion and no disabled kids sign up, the plan is limited to 100,000 kids. Texas today has about 350,000 kids in private schools. Any student can sign up to get the money, but 80% goes to kids under 500% of the poverty level, which is $156,000 for a family of four. The rest are entered into a lottery if there is any money left. However, the legislative budget board has said that costs will grow in future years. Voucher costs will jump from $1 billion in FY 2027 to almost $3 billion in FY 2028 and $3.7 billion by FY 2030. Of course, those numbers are beyond the current biennium, but it's easy to see how this expense could take off in future years. -
The Leopards Eating Faces and Unlubed Dildo of Consequences Thread
Texas Jeff replied to Horn Dog's topic in Cloak Room
trump is talking about the US owning Gaza. -
He did not launch it. The FAA published guidelines trying to recruit more people with targeted disabilities in Feb 2013. He kept it going in his first administration. Elon has recently been compiling about the FAA DEI policy. I suspect that Trump had no idea that FAA DEI existed and didn't care that this was going on during his first term. But now Elon has Trump's ear, so we are all talking about it. Some reading: https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/01/15/faa-dei-initiatives/ https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/us/trump-dei-plane-crash-fact-check.html From The NY Times article, on the effectiveness of these efforts: and
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American Airlines flight 5342 (CRJ) collides with Army UH-60 at DCA.
Texas Jeff replied to UnivTex34's topic in Daily Texan
A 200 ft ceiling is pretty crazy. The UT tower is 300 ft high. Can you imagine flying a giant helicopter at night, wearing night vision goggles, less than 200 ft off a river that looks like a dark spot below, with bridges, cables and whatnot possibly in your way? -
My daughter needed a renewal just before Christmas. We made an appointment for the UT office on Nueces as soon as we could -- which was the next morning. Walked in with paperwork filled out. No wait because we had an appointment. Walked out 15 minutes later with an estimated delivery date of mid-February. The new passport arrived Jan 10th. Thanks Biden! BTW they don't take credit cards ... bring your checkbook or a money order if you have to go in. Most adults can renew online and pay via credit card, but not if you are in person.
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This is a problem with Lady Bird Lake aka Town Lake. Lake Travis is controlled by the LCRA. Longhorn Dam impounds Lady Bird Lake and is maintained by the City of Austin. LCRA is who you want to own your dam, if you care about your dam functioning well. Longhorn Dam (at the east end of downtown) has had problems in the past and has gotten stuck open and closed. It probably needs to be replaced. When the dam is stuck open, the lake drains. When it’s stuck closed, the SRV statue takes a swim.
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2026 CFP National Championship Date Announced
Texas Jeff replied to BurntOrange&White's topic in Football
UT starts their long session in 2027 on Jan 11th. So the championship game will be held two weeks into that spring semester. CFP needs to conclude football season before the spring semester starts at most schools or commit to spending the money to fly everyone involved to playoff games. At Texas, Longhorn Band and cheer and the other student orgs get to go to these games, which is a fantastic opportunity for the students ... but they are being bussed to these games, which takes an extra day or two before and after the games. It was hard for the students to do this for the SEC championship during fall finals week, but they did it. It would be difficult for them to be bussed to Atlanta at the end of the fall semester and then miss chunks of the spring semester if Texas was still playing. -
The open was great and my wife and I loved "Bungee Fitness", which I have now discovered is a real thing. I'd be willing to bet that the bungee fitness people have record sign-up's next week.
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I work with a lot of South Asians in tech, and the women among them are carefully reading this part and worrying about their kids. Are their kids, born in the USA, citizens, they ask? These are women who left their home country with an education, came to this country, got an advanced degree, and are helping to make the tech that allows Trump to speak to us with his thumbs. Some got married and had kids here in the US while they were headed down the H1-B path. Now they are asking me for details about the 14th amendment and what it means and how to check on what it means and what it will mean in the future and if their kids are US citizens are not. And I'm like, well hey, we used to have people that owned other people and then we had a war and after that some folks didn't want people that didn't look like them them to be citizens so we wrote this 14th thing and then some folks still came up with corner cases to prevent people born here from being citizens so we had to work that out in the courts and we all thought we were good until MONDAY! I'm not exactly sounding a reassuring tone.
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How exactly would this work?
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I've been thinking about what a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico and what it would do to the auto industry. The price of new and used cars is going to rise, along with the price of parts. New cars will be plentiful, but pricy. If half of the US automotive stuff is made outside the US and half is made inside, it's reasonable to think we may see a 12-13% rise in prices. Today, the average US car costs around $48,000, so we could see average car prices approaching $54,000 by the end of the year because of tariffs.
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They have moved on to coverage of an indoor parade.
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Ah, it's here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815
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I looked, and didn't see it, although maybe this isn't the correct text: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521/text However I am not a lawyer so perhaps it's in there in some way I don't understand.
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On the TikTok thing ... I am going to try to apply some logic to this situation which I am honestly hesitant to do, but here goes. TikTok is going dark because we have A LAW against it. We also have the first amendment, but set that aside like the Supremes just did. TikTok, as of tomorrow, is not legal in the United States. The law specifically calls out ByteDance and TikTok. The law gives the President the power to both designate new apps as "foreign adversary controlled" and determine that a foreign adversary controlled app is no longer controlled by a foreign adversary. The Supreme Court has just determined that this law is constitutional. Trump is taking an oath on Monday to faithfully execute the office of President. Part of the job description as stated in the Constitution is to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Where does he get the 90 day thing? We are a nation of laws. We have a law banning TikTok that goes in to effect on Sunday, our highest court has said it's constitutional, and we have a new guy on Monday that is responsible for executing the laws. He should not get to take an oath in the morning to do his job and then later in the day pick and choose which laws are OK and which should be suspended for 90 days. I'm not in favor of the TikTok ban but it's the current law of the land and he's the guy responsible for enforcing it, whether he likes it or not.
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The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Brentwood was below the flight path for the old airport, which kept families with children away. Once the airport closed, Brentwood was close to downtown with no airport noise and lots of old houses. I’m not familiar with the neighborhood, but I would guess that a lot of the old houses got knocked down and replaced with new. The removal of the airport traffic plus a modernized school led to a generation of kids in the neighborhood, which helped to fill the schools. Can it last? The demographic projections show a stable population for at least ten years, so I would say yes, but there is a chance that empty nesters won’t leave and the neighborhood will gradually see fewer new kids. The McCallum vertical is going through a wave caused by the airport closing and being redeveloped. Eventually it will fade but not yet. -
Well this may shock you but Trump has at times been both for and against the ban. For it because we don’t want China have our info and against it because it’s a great platform that many people love to use so who the heck would want to ban it?
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Most kids join band in 6th grade. There are two major times when kids quit .... one at the end of the first year of middle school and one at the end of middle school. Our high school band director said that if he could get them on to the bus to their first football game, they were going to graduate high school still in band. Marching band takes a lot of time and effort but it's super social. Each section has a unique personality and the kids become "clarinets" or "flutes" or "trumpets" and it's amazing how the personalities of the kids start to fit their instrument. If your kid has already tried violin and liked it, I would suspect your kid has a pretty good ear. Clarinet should be a good transition. If your kid tries it but discovers they would really prefer something else or to learn multiple instruments, let them try. We had lots of kids in our program that played different instruments in multiple bands. As others have said, work with your band director to find a private teacher that your kid likes, or seek other clarinet parents and ask who they liked, so your kid can find a person they enjoy working with. Your kid may have a lesson once every one or two weeks. Music is supposed to be fun and enjoyable, not a death march, so if the kid hits a rough spot, let them have the experience and try not to pressure them. Once your kid has an instrument, a band director, is in a band program, maybe has a private teacher and some band friends, everything else should just happen from there. You shouldn't have to provide much guidance. Find out where your local music store is so that you can buy a box of reeds or get something fixed. If your kid sticks with clarinet and gets good, think about buying a reasonably good instrument for them sometime in high school. Kids start on rental instruments through a music store or the school, but if the kid really gets into it then your private teacher or band director can guide you to a better instrument once you are sure the kid wants to stick with it. Some instruments like tuba or percussion don't lend themselves to individually owned instruments. Lots of bands go on trips. Send your kid if you can. If you go along as a chaperone, help out while staying away from your kid. They want you to be involved but magically disappear when they are hanging out with their friends. Get involved with the band boosters. Even if you are not a musical person, you have some talent that the band boosters need, particularly in a marching band. Accounting, designing t-shirts, selling merch, building stuff, painting, driving trucks, unloading trucks, loading trucks, unloading trucks, loading trucks, unloading trucks, loading trucks, unloading trucks, serving pizza, making videos, whatever. They always need volunteers. Show up, do a job you know how to do or ask for one you don't, and keep a reasonable distance from your kid.
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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
T-9 minutes to go on spacex.com -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Eanes closed an elementary school this week. I can’t believe Westlake is out of money and/or short on students, but there it is… I never realized that Eanes had two elementaries that were next door neighbors, like you can walk from one to another across a parking lot. Valley View Elementary, the school they closed, served mostly the Cuernavaca neighborhood even though it was miles away from the community.
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