Overcrowded/obsolete schools.....

Drive by Carrolltowne Elementary school and you’ll see a line of “temporary” classrooms… AKA trailers next to the building… The trailers have been there for years… even after a recent expansion project that added classrooms for Kindergarten.

This article posted in the sun highlights some of the long, recurring problems at the school…..

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/carroll/bal-ca.carrolltowne25mar25,0,6053806.story?coll=bal-local-carroll

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“Commissioner Michael D. Zimmer, whose daughter attends Carrolltowne Elementary, said the expensive renovation project is not a priority. But he wants to build security doors to internally lock down the school's open suites, in case of an intruder or fire. "This was an educational fad 30 years ago, so we have to deal with it," Zimmer said. "But the doors, or lack thereof, give me heartburn."

"You don't see open-space classrooms being built anymore, and it's with good reason. We need to fix those classrooms still in existence."

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Open classrooms… it was a FAD in the early-mid 80’s when I was in elementary school. In fact, most elementary schools in my area where converted from “Open Classrooms” to standard/traditional (with walls) while I was in 3^rd and 4^th grade. Is Carroll County so behind the time that it has taken us 20 years to move beyond this failed experiment??

We must do better…..

U.S. Heading For Financial Trouble?

A recent story on 60 minutes scares the hell out of me...

"I would argue that the most serious threat to the United States is not someone hiding in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan but our own fiscal irresponsibility,"

"What’s going on right now is we’re spending more money than we make…we’re charging it to credit card…and expecting our grandchildren to pay for it. And that’s absolutely outrageous,"

"If nothing changes, the federal government's not gonna be able to do much more than pay interest on the mounting debt and some entitlement benefits. It won't have money left for anything else – national defense, homeland security, education, you name it,"

Mr Walker is an expert in this field and the majority of leaders and politicans on both sides of the aisle accept his findings....
David Walker's Bio: Wikipedia Link

Similar story on ABC
Another similar story from Newsmax.com
From BBCNEWS

We must pull our heads out of the sand and face these issues... it is unfathomable that we are mortgaging our children's futures... what will they say about us 50 years from now when they look back at our time......

Efficiency of the US Economy

Interesting graph..

Energy intensity is a measure of the energy efficiency of a nation's economy. It is calculated as units of energy per unit of GDP.

What surprised me was how close the US and China are...