3352

Yeah, for a while after 9/11 there was a semi-permanent checkpoint on I-91 just South of Dartmouth. I’m sure they still do it from time to time,drugs being the chief concern with the opioid epidemic being a big problem around here.

A checkpoint targeting returning college students is some straight up bullshit.

3353

According to a recent Adam Ruins Everything the Border Patrol is free to do their thing anywhere within 100 miles of any border, including oceans and lakes.

3354

McConnell just can’t figure out why the scorpion stung him.

And the kicker quote:

The spokesman for McConnell blamed the delayed military construction projects – a funding decision made by Trump to secure his long-sought-after funding for a border wall – on Democrats.

“Regrettably, Democrat opposition to secure our borders has now led to the potential delay of certain Military Construction projects,” the spokesman added in a statement. “We would not be in this situation if Democrats were serious about protecting our homeland and worked with us to provide the funding needed to secure our borders during our appropriations process.”

Look what you made us do, Democrats! Are you happy now?!

3355

Not only did MItch get stung by scorpion there is also a pretty bad ass Marine going after him.

I think there is very powerful commercial to be made mashing images of kids in cages on the border, with military kids in Ft. Campbell KY, in old overcrowded classrooms.

3356

The conditions she is complaining of “30 to a classroom” and lack of “classroom space”, those are many students in many areas deal with every day whether they are military or not.

And $62m for an elementary school serving 552 kids, anyone else think that sounds expensive. Although I do think it is pretty close to what they cost around here.

3357

We are spending $70 million to renovate an elementary school near me so not really.

It is true there are a lot shitty schools in the country, but they’ve been waiting for more than a decade.
And as crappy as the schools are here, none of ours have students eating lunch in library.

3358

There will be areas in the country that would be lucky if they only had to wait a decade too, but having said that, it really shouldn’t be a race to the bottom. These kids need their school, as many do. What we don’t need is a useless wall designed to please a crazy man in the White House and all his anything that let’s him crow followers.

3359

Agreed.

I just think spending over a million a student to build a school is a little much. I know much of that is for technology, and I also know it is not unusual in today’s world, but damn, that is a lot of money.

3360

In fairness, it’s not like a school only teaches one year of students and then self destructs. Schools persist for decades.

3361

$62 million/552 student= $112,318 that’s a lot closer to $100K per student than a million. If you figure the school would have useful life of 30-40 years that works out to be ~$3k/student/year. I had a friend that was the asst. superintendent of Hawaii’s school building and those numbers while high weren’t particularly out of line, with his budget.

3362

The cost is probably too high, like most military spending. But the solution is to get the cost more in line, not take the money and use it for a dumb wall.

3363

I always sucked in math. :)

But I guess my point is the it is not uncommon for schools to cost $50m to $75M now. How much of that is design and why can’t schools be built cheaper based on a common successful design. Pay the damn architect for the rights and mass produce the buildings. High schools at that price commonly include football stadiums and multiple gyms.

3364

I’m puzzled by why you’re so focused on this. 50M nowadays frankly isn’t much. I highly suspect the architectural plans aren’t a huge part of that. That’s like 1/2 of a F-35, to go towards educating 500+ kids a year for like 20-30 years.

Is the cost of schools the first area of “government waste” that you’re focused on? I suspect even few hardcore Republicans have that in their top 10 list. I’d get if you felt this particular school was really out of whack compared to the average, but that doesn’t seem to be where you’re coming from. You’re just bothered by a school costing 50M, period.

3365

I just mentioned it. I really don’t care if some school district passes a bond measure that leads to a $75m elementary school or high school. But design costs are an important percentage of that when every school is built using a “new” design. Architectural designs for projects like that are not cheap.

My original point was that the description of this school on a military base really wasn’t that much different from schools in neighborhoods all over America. I want all kids to have good schools, but it really did sound like she didn’t know what the average kid versus the average military kid faced.

3366

Serious question. Is having 30 or more students in a single classroom considered unusual today? When I was in grade 1 to 6, 30 was common. Also in JHS. And in HS. We didn’t consider it to be too many.

3367

In California, the average student to teacher ratio for middle school is 21. https://www.publicschoolreview.com/student-teacher-ratio-stats/california/middle

For Kentucky, it’s even lower (probably a lot of rural schools with low ratios), at 14 to 1: https://www.publicschoolreview.com/student-teacher-ratio-stats/kentucky/middle

Now, that student:teacher ratio doesn’t perfectly line up with classrooms because of aides, specialist educators, and the like, but 30:1 does sound high. It’s roughly 23 or 24 in most of my middle-schooler’s classes, here in CA. 25% more is nothing to sneeze at, in terms of crowding.

3368

Not in my area. In fact The state teachers union must not know that based on the ads the run.

And Kentucky is 14-1. Those kids must be doing great, probably speaking two languages by now.

3369

I think unusual isn’t quite the right question. It’s simply not ideal. but that seems to be the least of their problems. Of course my last year in K-12, we didn’t have a cafeteria at all, they tore it down before it fell down but… at least the built it again!

3370

My wife teaches high school English and mentioned earlier today that the sweet spot for kids in their classes is right about 25-30. Less than that and it’s harder to teach as kids aren’t as likely to participate. More than that and it becomes too much to wrangle on a daily basis. Note that this is a great school district so I would imagine the sweet spot changes in lower rated areas.

3371

My understanding is that class size tends to go up as you go up in grades. While 25-30 might be the sweet spot for high school, I suspect it is lower for middle school and even lower for elementary.