"Education" My Big, Broad, White Butt

Gotta go! There's a surplus rifle match in nearly-beautiful nearby Taylorville today, and I'm going to give my K31 a workout if I can find the range.

In the meantime, read this and weep for the future of our nation. You know, public education gets blamed for a lot of things in this country, sometimes fairly, sometimes not. But when your system works this well, how can you expect people to bother about being fair to you when there's a problem? How could anyone not blame us first for all the ills of society when our solution to everything seems to be to demand twice the money for solutions that have been proven to be making the problem worse?

Lest anyone think I'm exaggerating, here's the short version: two years ago, Illinois legislative Democrats made a deal with the Governor to get their "educational grants" up to $20,000 rubber-stamped by the IL State Board of Ed. If one of these legislators sponsors a recipient, ISBE sends out the money. With me so far?
The vast majority of the money went to campaign lackeys and ward heelers, and the Tribune found back then that many weren't running any education program of any kind. They were just pocketing the bri . . . uh, money. This year, they looked again, and found out it was worse. The solution?
Next year we're doubling the amount of money available for the grants.

(H/T to Second City Cop for this one.)

That's how education works in Illinois. Succeed and we'll assume you cheated. Fail, lie, cheat, make the problem worse than it was before you came on the scene, and we'll double your budget.