Actually, Jake … contrary to popular belief, nobody finds these monstrosities to be a relief, regardless of who is doing it.

Cursed be the first to celebrate this as an issue, although I’m certain that if it were someone that used to work for Tom Delay, there would already be 20 comments by now.

Muschany’s bill is a one liner, prohibiting closing any road that carries more than 7,000 cars a day for more than 60 days. With a handful of exceptions, there isn’t a single traffic count on a state road within St. Louis County that doesn’t exceed that. Apparently Muschany believes that he knows better than engineers how to best complete road construction projects. I’d never say that Missouri is a leader in efficient completion of road projects, but banging MoDOT over the head with a legislative blunt instrument like this will make matters worse.

I promise you that I never take joy or find “relief” when a democrat is caught apparently planning a sexual tryst with a 13 year old boy. It sickens me and it would sicken me if he were D, R, I, white, black, Martian, etc. It is downright sickening and no one should be trying to point fingers at the democrat party for this individuals behavior.

Having said that, where are Garrison, Shecky, German, Timbo, to weigh in on the Norman Hsu situation. Hsu used a ponzii scheme(see Social Security) to rob people and give the money to Hillary and other Dems. I seem to recall our aforementioned friends have gone on and on about Abramhoff, but are suprisingly quiet regarding Hsu. Come on fellas, you too Garrison, speak up and tell us what are the difference in Hsu and Abramhoff.

Amazed, Martians?

Do you know something the rest of us don’t?

Sometimes I feel as if our leaders are indeed martians. I can find any other reason why else they would so out of touch with reality.

I have to admit having seen a picture of an alien morph into James Carville, then back to an alien again.

Skeptical as I am, I gotta tell you, it almost made a believer out of me!

Certainly explains a lot …

I now have to ask if the dems are going to start screaming “voter disenfranchisement” over Rep. Davis’ bill like they did over the voter ID bill.

Jeff Smith should keep his nose out of education. It may be his “passion” but he is uninformed and incompetent when it comes to the issue. First should the state really be telling individual school districts how their students should dress? Second, uniforms don’t work. Dr. David L. Brunsma and Kerry A. Rockquemore’s study “The Effects of Student Uniforms on Attendance, Behavior Problems, Substance Use, and Academic Achievement” published in The Journal of Education Research (Volume 92, Number 1, Sept./Oct. 1998, pp. 53-62) concluded “A negative effect of uniforms on student academic achievement was found.” and “Our findings show that students who were forced to wear uniforms actually performed several points lower on standardized tests.” Moreover, the Supreme Court in Tinker, suggested that requiring such uniforms is probably unconstitutional. Maybe Jeff should stick to something he knows, like how to sneak into a casino.
His Confluence Academy is also a dismal failure when it comes to student achievement. Confluence’s students continue to underperform the St. Louis Public School students. That is right. They skim the most motivated students and parents and then help them to do worse.
Fortunately his bill has no chance of passing. It is amazing how low an opinion people on both sides of the aisle have of him. Jeff’s ego is so large that he has no clue though.

In the Know - The single study you cite does find a negative effect of uniforms. But a more comprehensive review of studies (link below) finds a mixture of results, with some schools reporting strong positive effects, others reporting negative or no effect at all.

http://web1.msue.msu.edu/msue/programs/cyf/public_html/cindy/Revisedrevoflit.htm

I don’t know about the effectiveness of uniforms but I do agree that it should be a local decision - not one coming from the state. (I doubt that uniforms would make much of a difference though.)
My concern is with cost. Are we expecting these families to go out and purchase uniforms for their school age children? I am sure that is not a problem in Smith’s Ladue, but in case he hasn’t noticed, many families with kids in the St. Luis public schools are struggling. Spending $100 per child to buy three or four sets of uniforms every year is not really an option for many public school families. The public schools are also pretty strapped so I am not sure having them spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on it is the best use of the schools’ resources.
It doesn’t seem well thought out but more of a publicity stunt.