The Tennessean has the 2004 Tennessee Report Card on public schools.
A few interesting factoids:

–Nearly half of the state’s 911,735 public school students live at or below the federal poverty line. The percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals has gone up in recent years and hit 49.9% last year.
–About 55% of all core academic classes are currently being taught by a ”highly qualified” teacher, a detail added to the Report Cards this year. That’s a licensed teacher with a bachelor’s degree and expertise in the subject he or she teaches. All core classes � which include English, science, math, foreign language, social studies and the arts � must be taught by highly qualified teachers by the end of the 2005-06 year.
–State and local dollars made up nearly 89% of school budgets last year. Of that amount, the state paid slightly more than 45%. The remaining amount came from the federal government.

It doesn’t reflect too well on your state when half the public school students live below the poverty line.

TV stations are not airing Saving Private Ryan because of the FCC:

Many ABC affiliates around the country have announced that they won’t take part in the network’s Veterans Day airing of Saving Private Ryan, saying the acclaimed film’s violence and language could draw sanctions from the Federal Communications Commission.
. . .
In a statement on WSB-TV’s Web site, the Atlanta station’s vice president and general manager, Greg Stone, cited a March ruling in which the FCC said an expletive uttered by rock star Bono during NBC’s live airing of the 2003 Golden Globe Awards was both indecent and profane.
The agency made it clear then that virtually any use of the F-word � which is used repeatedly in Saving Private Ryan� was inappropriate for over-the-air radio and television.
The Bono case “reversed years of prior policy that the context of language matters,” Stone said. He added that broadcasters could not get any clarification from the FCC on whether the movie violates the standard.

It would be bad enough if the FCC simply banned the broadcast of profane language. But , if possible, the FCC has done something even worse by making the rules so murky that broadcasters don’t even know what they are allowed to air. Government agencies are supposed to promulgate clear policies so people know if their conduct is lawful. The broadcast decency standards are now a confusing mess. Nice going, FCC.
Oh, then there’s this:

[Ray] Cole [president of Citadel Communications] cited recent FCC actions and last week’s re-election of President Bush as reasons for replacing Saving Private Ryan on Thursday with a music program and the TV movie Return to Mayberry.
“We’re just coming off an election where moral issues were cited as a reason by people voting one way or another and, in my opinion, the commissioners are fearful of the new Congress,” Cole said.

Great. Thanks to message sent by supposed “values” voters, TV broadcasters are now afraid of airing programs which illustrate the deadly consequences of the war policies these same “values” voters support.
Yes, isn’t it great that our courageous leader doesn’t have any inhibitions in launching a war on the other side of the globe? Just don’t show us what such a war actually does. How about a rebroadcast of Return to Mayberry to help us celebrate the American victory in Fallujah?

The “war on terror” strikes again:

Warren County officials, facing scrutiny of their decision to lock down the administration building on election night, say they were responding to a terrorist threat that ranked a “10” on a scale of 1 to 10.
The information, which Commissioner Pat South said was previously deemed confidential, is coming out a week after the public was barred from viewing the Warren County vote count. The Ohio Secretary of State’s office doesn’t know of any other county in the state to impose such a restriction.
County officials initially said they feared that having reporters and photographers present could interfere with the ballot counting. They subsequently cited homeland security concerns.
. . .
County officials locked down the administration building on Justice Drive after the polls there had closed. Officials say having both a polling place and the board of elections in one location increased security concerns.
“It wasn’t international terrorism that we were in fear of; it was more domestic terrorism,” South said Tuesday. “I much prefer sitting here today telling you why we did implement security rather than why we didn’t.”
County board of elections officials had compiled a list of people who were approved for after-hours access, but that list didn’t include reporters.
It also didn’t include an approved ballot-count watcher.

That’s weird, isn’t it? Who would think Warren County, Ohio, would be a high-risk terrorist target?
Apparently not the FBI:

Officials at the FBI, which oversees anti-terrorism activities in southern Ohio, said they received no information about a terror threat in Warren County.
“The FBI did not notify anyone in Warren County of any specific terrorist threat to Warren County before Election Day,” FBI spokesman Michael Brooks said.
A spokeswoman for Ohio’s top homeland security official, Public Safety Director Ken Morckel, knew of no heightened terror warning for either Warren County or any other Greater Cincinnati community on election night.

So now government officials need only cite bogus terrorism threats in order to dodge transparency and public accountability? Lame.
Props to The Cincinnati Enquirer and Countdown with Keith Olbermann for reporting this story. Most of the media has gone to sleep regarding Election Day irregularities.

So which news network was first with the surprise news that Yasser Arafat had died?
MSNBC was out with its “FLASH NEWS” at least a minute or two before the others. I noticed CNN coming on next with its “BREAKING NEWS,” however, Fox News Channel came on nearly at the same time with a “FOX NEWS ALERT.”
I’ve noticed that MSNBC is frequently first in reporting something new. Either they’re quick on the draw or they have a less cumbersome confirmation process than the other two.

. . . speaks child disicpline and “God’s people’ hater.”