For those of you who don’t teach at Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) or, as is the case with myself, aren’t married to someone who teaches there, then you are likely unaware of the crippling requirement that MPS imposes on its staff and the damage that it does to its students. If you are employed by MPS, you must live within the city of Milwaukee. Not Milwaukee County, mind you, but the city itself. There are, of course, a handful of nice areas to live in, but to restrict where someone is or is not allowed to live simply because you are their employer is unjust.

The reasons behind the requirement, when it was instituted in the late 70’s, seemed at the time to make sense. If teachers live in the communities that they teach in, they will send their kids to schools in the city and will therefore better relate to the schools, helping the community as a whole. After 30 years, however, one can easily see that teachers tend to live on the outskirts of the city in a few select neighborhoods, often not anywhere near the school at which they teach and many teachers send their kids to private schools, not community schools.

The socioeconomic failure of the residency requirement might not be enough to justify its repeal, but the drastic limiting of the job pool is. At any given time, there are 500+ vacant teaching positions throughout the district. Without opening up applications to teachers who already own homes outside the city and don’t want to sell or who are otherwise unwilling to move in to the city, there is simply no way to fill the open positions. There are certainly tons of excellent teachers throughout the district, but for the schools to tell themselves that they don’t frequently end up hiring bad-eggs simply because they need to fill positions that they have too few applicants for is a lie and, most important of all, is unfair to the students. For every low-quality teacher that the city is forced to hire out of desperation there are plenty of teachers currently working – or unemployed – in the surrounding areas who would jump at the chance to get the job if it didn’t mean selling their home and moving to the city. If the purpose of the residency requirement is to benefit the students to build a better future for the city, then which is more important: Hiring anyone who applies because there are too few applicants or having an abundance of applicants, even if they might have to commute, and being picky with who you choose to teach the city’s youth.

There are two ways in which Milwaukee’s teacher residency requirement can be repealed:

• Legislatively, the state senate and assembly can pass a bill which would make it illegal. This has been unsuccessful many times before, but is nonetheless being tried again this year with Assembly Bill 89 and Senate Bill 54. I encourage you to contact your representatives and tell them to support those bills.
• The teachers’ union also has the power to undo the requirement through collective bargaining. Both the MTEA and WEAC support a repeal of the requirement, but it falls below things like salary and benefits when it comes to contract negotiations and ends up being tossed in the pot as a bargaining chip.

Regardless of which how it is done away with, the residency requirement is antiquated and needs to be repealed.

If you haven’t seen this yet, you should. He makes nerds everywhere proud. It’s long, but you’ll be laughing the whole time.

Dear Dick,

There’s been a lot of talk about you lately in the MSM. They can’t seem to stop talking about you because, frankly, you won’t stop talking. Since leaving the office of the Vice President of the United States, you’ve made more public appearances and done more interviews with the media than I can ever recall you doing while in-office. Liberals and conservatives rarely agree on much, but the talking heads that represent both sides of the spectrum have come together as of late, albeit for different reasons, in one loud voice telling you to go away. The Republicans want you silenced because every time your snarl appears on network television, it hurts them. The liberals want you silenced because they’re sick of you. Me? I want you to keep talking. Do more interviews, press releases, YouTube videos, talk show appearances, or whatever else you can to make your presence known. I can’t seem to tell if you’re intentionally trying to tear your party in two or if you sincerely think you’re helping, but regardless of your true intentions, it is entertaining to finally see the party that crippled our nation struggle to stay intact. So please, Dick, I’m begging you, don’t listen to the yelling. Continue doing what you do best: leading your party towards disaster.

Ok, so not completely smoke-free, but as of July 5, 2010, all bars, restaurants, and workplaces in the state of Wisconsin will be non-smoking. Governor Doyle signed the measure in to law earlier today, saying, “It’s time for every person in Wisconsin to breathe freely at restaurants, taverns, and workplaces across the state. A smoke-free Wisconsin will save money in health care costs, improve public health and save lives.” Having lived in Minneapolis when this was passed in Hennepen County, I look forward to once again going in to Restaurants and not being asked “smoking or non” and being able to go out to drink without reeking of smoke.

Recently, the MSM has caught on to what has apparently become a popular idea among a few not so wise Texan elected officials: Seceding from the United States. First, Texas Governor Rick Perry rallied the sheep at one of the teabagging rallies last week, eventually leading to chants of “Secede!”. Then, because he isn’t quite sick of being an Internet meme, Ron Paul decided to defend Governor Perry’s statements, calling secession “very much American“.

Texas has long attempted to be quite independent from the rest of the States, already seceding once in 1861 to join the Confederacy. The recent uproar of a movement to secede again, however, is nothing more than misplaced anger at a lost election due primarily to eight years of a truly epic failure of Republican policies.

Now, you might be wondering where I stand on this issue, being from a state no where close to Texas. If you aren’t wondering that, too bad, I’m telling you anyways. Lets beat them to the punch and help the Government make back some of the cash it’s spent recently by selling Texas back to Mexico. We profit, they get to wash their hands of us and, best of all, we no longer have to deal with Texan politicians.

Today, as you are probably aware, is the day that Barack Obama took the oath of office and became the 44th President of the United States of America. Many of us have been waiting for this day since George W. Bush first took this oath in 2001, yet no one imagined this would be such a historic occasion. Some are in awe because Barack Obama is now the first black President. Some are in awe because this was their first election and their candidate won or, like myself, the first time the candidate they voted for actually took the oath of office. Many are just happy to watch the 43rd president leave. Still more are simply excited to see Democracy in action and the hope for change that Obama inspires. For whatever reason today is exciting to you, it is now the dawn of a new era in Washington. Whether Barack Obama does everything he promises or even only a fraction of it, one thing is certain: He won’t be worse than George W. Bush.

So I present to you the best picture I’ve seen on the news and Internet thus far today: The new President, Vice President, and their wives waving away the previous President as he takes off in Marine One to go back to Texas.

As I’ve previously discussed, the MSM has for some reason decided to label every single political scandal – however big or small – with the suffix ‘gate’. Finally, after an onslaught of “insertscandalhere”gates over the last few years, we’ve finally found one that the media has decided not to label with this suffix. So without further ado, I would like to formally thank Rod Blagojevich for having a last name that is so hard to pronounce that the media hasn’t tacked “-gate” on to the end of it. They seem to be having a hard enough time pronouncing his last name, that “Blagojevichgate” is apparently just too many syllables.

Unless you’ve been living inside of a cave with poor tv reception or perhaps under a rock, you’re probably aware that tomorrow is election day in the United States. Any and all issues that could possibly be discussed have been thoroughly dissected by the candidates, the media, and the blogosphere. Therefore, unless you’re still squeezed in to that increasingly small piece of the pie chart labeled “undecided” (and are therefore likely also categorized as a moron, racist, ignorant, or all of the above), it’s time for you to go out and vote. If you are still undecided at this point, after what seems to have been the longest election campaign ever, you might be better off staying home so that whichever candidate wins, you can still say “it’s not my fault, I didn’t vote for him!” when you disagree with future policy changes. Obviously I’m hoping you vote for Barack Obama, but because this is a democracy, it is important that whoever you support, be it Barack Obama, John McCain, or even if you plan on writing in Optimus Prime, your vote matters. That isn’t to say this isn’t a flawed and corruptible system, as demonstrated in the 2000 election, but when more voices are heard it is harder to corrupt the process.

So whatever you have to do tomorrow, find time to go to your local polling place and vote. If you still aren’t sure where you vote, the following website will help: VoteForChange.com

I got home today to a rather unpleasant message on my answering machine. I looked around and hadn’t seen it online yet, so I recorded it and now it’s online for all to hear. Sorry about the crappy quality, it’s recorded from my answering machine’s crappy speaker to my laptop’s crappy mic.

You might not know this, because it hasn’t yet officially aired, but today’s Meet The Press, currently taping and airing in less than an hour, will be big. MSNBC, CNN, and most other major news sources are already reporting that Colin Powell has officially endorsed Barack Obama. It’s uncertain exactly what this will mean in the polls and how it will effect the race, but this certainly isn’t a good omen for John McCain. To say this is the final nail in the coffin is probably premature and Barack Obama supporters shouldn’t get cocky (as Obama has been saying himself in his stump speeches), but this is a huge bonus to his campaign, especially at such a late date.

Here’s the clip from Meet The Press: