BARBWIRE by ANDREW BARBANO

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The dead body of evidence is growing: Cutting school budgets increases graduation rates.

Sound too much like the discredited excuses justifying wholesale firings, cutting unemployment insurance and gutting government spending as remedies for recession?

As I predicted last year, it didn't take long before someone assumed cause-and-effect between education cuts and quality improvement.

On the 12 June 2012 edition of Sam Shad's Nevada Newsmakers TV show, local chamber of commerce coach Len Stevens said a lot of people are noticing that our education statistics continue to improve as the budget is slashed.

This week comes news from Washoe school boss Pedro Martinez that despite crippling budgetary mayhem, he will soon announce continued graduation rate improvement, as he did in Gomorrah South when he worked there for a year between Reno-Sparks gigs.

His predecessor/mentor, master statistical manipulator Heath Morrison, just announced a miraculous uptick in his first year ministering to the hicks in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Flaunting maximum chutzpah, he even bragged about his deck-shuffling.

Charlotte Observer education reporter Ann Doss Helms, who spent a week in Nevada researching Morrison's record, wrote that "Morrison introduced a door-to-door campaign to locate the hundreds of students a year who were listed as 'vanished,' along with those who had officially dropped out, and get them into school. If dropouts who are 18 or older enroll in the Washoe Adult High School, they are switched into the 'transfer out' category, which means they're removed from the calculation entirely, counting neither as graduates or dropouts..." (Barbwire 20 May 2012)

Wiping students off the books inflates graduation rates.

Washoe County commissioners new and old seemed charmed and relieved this week that Martinez is providing them with political cover for a school-maintenance tax hike.

Wait.

Cutting the budget for school upkeep should make school buildings fix themselves — if you believe the Alice-in-Wonderland mushroom eaters of latter-day Reaganomics.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE... This Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to noon, a rally will take place in front of Reno's Bruce Thompson Federal Courthouse at S. Virginia and LIberty streets.

(UPDATE —> Event details and photos will be posted at RenoSparksNAACP.org, including how the court building's lawnmower man endangered some of the participants who had written permission to be on the federal sidewalk.)

It will mark the 50th anniversary of the fabled 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.

Organized by Sleeping Car Porters Union President A. Philip Randolph and activist Bayard Rustin, it provided the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the platform to proclaim his legendary call to action.

...THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME: The execution of Trayvon Martin continues to bring to the surface more vitriolic venom from freedom-loving racists and otherwise intelligent people than I have ever experienced in more than three decades of columny.

Jobs and justice remain elusive half a century down the road but hope springs eternal.

HEALTH ADVICE. Remember as you slog through forest fire smog worthy of the seventh circle of Hell: Breathing is voluntary.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.

WEB EXTRAS...

HONOR YOUR DON. Keep sending comments supporting legendary Nevada photographer Don Dondero (1920-2003) for the Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame.

His life's work appeared worldwide, including this newspaper.

Enlist in the campaign to install Big Don.

Please send me your memories and endorsements via e-mail or to P.O. Box 10034, Reno NV 89510.

The Barbwire got the late Reno Gazette-Journal columnist Guy Richardson elected last year.

Let's go for a repeat.

BARBWIRE.TV. Support the return of community TV to these parts.

If last year's elections didn't convince you of the need, the 2013 legislature certainly should have.

Join up. You may donate at ReSurge.TV or contact me.

This is important.

Thank you.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)

____________

Andrew Barbano is a 44-year Nevadan, chair of the Nevada César Chávez Committee, producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, first vice-president and political action chair of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, labor/consumer/civil rights advocate, member of Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO and editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. Check local listings for other Nevada cable systems. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Daily Sparks Tribune since 1988.

Smoking Guns... Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential We Don't Need No Education The continuing Barbwire series ...and more ammo... Bill O'Reilly's Sex Education Letter to the Reno Gazette-Journal / 8-16-2013 Editor, the Gazette-Journal: In his latest column, ("Seize opportunity, not income, to help children," August 4), Bill O'Reilly forgot the first rule of cross-examination: Never ask a question for which you don't already know the answer. "Where is the national campaign to discourage women from having babies out of wedlock?" he pined. "Is the Department of Education doing anything about that? The media? Anyone?" Mr. O'Reilly should seize the opportunity to discover that new-fangled thing called the Internet. Failing that, he might watch more TV, since that's his principal business. The same day his column appeared, a commercial promoting abstinence aired on local network TV channels. The campaign from the Nevada Dept. of Health & Human Services is part of a multi-million-dollar federal grant program. Google at will. Mr. O'Reilly was obviously not aware of the abstinence particulars. Regrettably, neither were his parents when they were young. Andrew Barbano Reno —> This issue is expanded in the Barbwire of 21 August 2014   The Post-Dated Recession: Pay me now or pay me later Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 9-6-2012 Daily Sparks Tribune The Post-dated Recession By Joshua H. Silavent / Daily Sparks Tribune / 5-3-2011 Union decline and rising inequality in two charts by Colin Gordon Economic Policy Institute / 6-5-2012 Used in journalist Mark Robison's extensive Hard Labor: Nevada unions tout role in helping workers, firms, economy (Sunday 2 Sept. 2012 Reno Gazette-Journal, page one, Reno Rebirth section of the print edition). Union men Jim Burrell, Paul McKenzie and Guy Louis Rocha did the movement proud. Not included in the RGJ online edition. WOMEN AND UNIONS — ORPHAN MAJORITIES The Barbwire Labor Day column Reno Gazette-Journal / 9-3-2012 Nevada Press Assn. Better Newspaper Contest HAT TRICK: Barbwire takes first place three years in a row. The winning entries Suing for Schools: The 20-year shuck Expanded from the 2-21-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune Click here to view the show on your desktop RED flags flying low over Sparks Expanded from the 1-10-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune The wrath of self-righteous racism Expanded from the 11-8-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune Government contacts Nev. congressional delegation Nevada Legislature State of Nevada Secretary of State Carson City Clark County City of Las Vegas Douglas County Reno City Council Sparks City Council Washoe County Commission Washoe Registrar of Voters The campaign against forcibly-paid newspaper obituaries And they wonder why the newspaper business is dying?   The Dean's List    The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites. RENO NEWS & REVIEW, 11-9-2006 The 2009 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners Tony the Tiger & the flaky NFL Barbwire / 11-30-2008 Deregulation is never having to say you're sorry Barbwire / 8-3-2008 Nevada: A good place to visit, but do you want to live here? Barbwire / 6-15-2008 The 2008 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners The price of a piece / 6-17-2007 Boxing Pandora /9-23-2007 The Lady in the Red Dress 10-28-2007 1997 Pulitzer Prize entries ...and more ammo yet The life and times of Travus T. Hipp The best who ever was   Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

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Copyright © 1982-2013, 2014 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 44-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee, He is producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and serves as first vice-president, political action chair and webmaster of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.

Barbwire by Barbano moved to Nevada's Daily Sparks Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in them parts ever since.
Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
Tempus fugit.

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