Andanh.com

Over the past two decades, improving education usually meant big dollar signs. Rolls-Royce reforms such as class-size reduction and prekindergarten initiatives have cruised through legislatures with the promise of improving student outcomes. However, given current state budget constraints, would-be champions of such popular reforms will have to park their plans or find some way to defer the costs.

There is an upside to a slowdown in these pricey programs. States will at least be able to avoid the buyers' remorse they must feel after spending billions in the past two decades on ineffective education initiatives.

The American Legislative Exchange Council's 14th annual Report Card on American Education high-beams these state efforts to buy their way out of K-12 underperformance. The report shows how state spending on education has increased 54 percent in constant dollars since the mid-1980s.

The result of this investment is an overall class-size reduction of 15 percent but little change in achievement outcomes. A whopping 71 percent of eighth-graders are still performing below proficiency in reading, and 69 percent are performing below proficiency in math.

Fortunately, there's a better way to reform education. Buy a Honda, or at least the education-reform equivalent of a Honda -- school choice. Reforms such as school choice improve educational outcomes without breaking the bank.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has been making a whole lot of calls these days. The topic: protecting her veto of an expansion of a western Kansas coal plant.

A lot is on the line for the two-term Democrat. If a Democrat wins the White House this year, you don't want your resume to show a fresh drubbing. The $3.6 billion coal plant has received media attention nationwide.

And there's her standing within Kansas. It is, after all, the premier issue of the legislative session.

Winning gets exchanged for clout, the standard currency in any state capitol. Losing puts your career in the same position as the dollar -- devalued.

Her public standing appears almost as solid as ever. In a mid-March survey conducted by SurveyUSA, Kansans by 61 to 33 percent approved of the job she was doing.

The following are some reader comments about Barack Obama's statement that some small-town residents are "bitter" about the economy and cling to such things as religion and guns. To read more comments or to join the discussion, visit WE Blog at http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog.

Obama is an elitist snob. There is no way he can wiggle out of this one. Even Obama says, now that he was caught, that this was a poor choice of words on his part. Actually, Obama's words show us exactly who Obama is: a man who looks down, with contempt, on most of the country that he wishes to lead.

I know a lot of Kansans, Democrat and Republican, who are bitter and angry about Bush's misbegotten war, Bush's recession and Bush's misfeasance, nonfeasance and malfeasance in office.

Obama has a complete misunderstanding of small-town USA and what people really value. It could be he has heard the hate and frustration of black Americans one too many times in church, and tried to apply the same to white America.

Pretty funny to watch the wing nuts pile on, given the internecine war in the Republican Party between the big money city folks and the rural, religious base.

Here's the dirty secret: Behind the scenes, President Bush and some environmentalists have been on the same side of Congress' long-running debate over a new farm bill. I just hope they keep their odd alliance. This proposal remains as out of sync with our times as plowing with mule teams.

This is a big week when it comes to legislators finally producing a five-year farm bill. By week's end, congressional negotiators are supposed to finish their policies or extend the existing ones for 12 months.

Washington, including the president and environmentalists, easily could let that deadline drive the debate and feel pressure to cut a deal.

Normally I'm open to half-loaves, but not this time. Bush should not back off his veto threat, and his environmentalist allies shouldn't capitulate. Compromising around this proposal misses the larger point. And that is: There's no way this farm bill makes sense in today's world.

For instance, why are we giving about $40 billion in subsidies to grow corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton and rice now? It's a time when:

They wanted to be famous. Of all the troubling aspects of the Lakeland, Fla., tale of thuggery and brutality that recently has made national headlines, that's arguably the most appalling. Not that there isn't plenty more here to disgust any observer with a conscience.

It's disgusting, for instance, that on March 30, 16-year-old Victoria Lindsay allegedly was lured to a home where six girls ambushed her while two boys kept watch. Disgusting that the half-hour attack, recorded on video, shows her taking head shots and kicks while covering up, making no attempt to defend herself. Disgusting that one of the girls yells that there are only 17 seconds of video capacity left, so "make it good." Disgusting that police say the girls show no remorse, one wondering in jail if she'd have to miss cheerleading practice, one giggling at her bail hearing. Disgusting that some parents have attempted to make excuses for their little miscreants; it happened because Lindsay was trash-talking online, one mother said.

Disgusting, all around.

From where I sit, though, the capper, the piece de resistance, the brown rat on the garbage barge, is this: These girls beat Lindsay up and recorded it so they could post it on YouTube. They wanted fame. Or, at least, their generation's version thereof.

It's a funny thing, fame. Used to be, we perceived a difference between it and notoriety. Now they seem to have melded in the public mind, to have become all of a piece so that it no longer matters what one is known for, so long as one is known.