BARBWIRE by ANDREW BARBANO Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream

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This week brought red-faced admissions by the local and Gomorrah South education establishments that I've been right all along.

The glowing graduation rate increases that turned superintendents into national superstars have been largely lies. [1]

They didn't like the count, so they changed the scoring.

I'm proud that only the Sparks Tribune had the guts to print the truth.

As usual, kids pay the penalties for perverted pedagogic professionals.

Former Sparks-Reno-Washoe school boss Heath Morrison has a cushy new job in Charlotte, North Carolina.

He was named U.S. superintendent of the year and brought national honors to the local hierarchy.

Like the fast-talking music man he is, traveling salesman Morrison knew when to get outta Dodge.

I proved that his astounding graduation rate rise was not only phony but could not be sustained.

He raced to the land of NASCAR and Jesse Helms just in time to take credit for another unprecedented increase—caused in part because his initial senior class would be the first under weaker requirements passed by the NC legislature years before.

Slick.

Clark County superintendent Dwight Jones hired current local super Pedro Martinez away from Morrison.

Las Vegas grad rates rose like magic.

Jones resigned immediately thereafter.

Slick and sick.

Martinez then completed the game of musical chairs by taking Morrison's job here.

Slicker and sicker.

I warned that the numbers racket would make moonhowlers moan that this proves a causal relationship between gutting school budgets and improving education.

The local chamber of intercourse asserted exactly that.

Slickest and sickest.

The conservative fix for education has always been to privatize it for profit.

That's worked really well for health care and the military, hasn't it?

The High Desert Plantation sits at the bottom of the educational apple barrel.

It's like having a football team that never wins a game so the coaches and players brag about great individual numbers.

Now we know that even those soothing stats are a shuck.

The apple is rotten.

Only the state teachers' union has proposed a remedy and gotten thoroughly trashed for its trouble.

At least they're taking action in the face of cowardly state and local officials.

Their petition to raise $800 million a year with a new business tax is under attack from friends, enemies, house pets and barnyard animals.

Alas and alack, the predictable pervasive fearmongering usually wins with the usual witch-hunting warning: You'll lose your job.

I didn't know there were many jobs left to lose.

The teachers' petition has many flaws but nobody has proposed any alternative.

The day I predicted in 1982 has finally arrived: If you want to raise a family and educate your children, take a cue from the Music Man and move somewhere else.

Nevada loves education. We just refuse to pay for it.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)

WEB EXTRAS...

RENDER UNTO CESAR: Northern Nevada César Chávez Celebration XII happens on the great labor leader's birthday, March 31, 2014.

Commit for tickets and tables now at CesarChavezNevada.com.

I'm planning a TV special about César Chávez's days in Nevada.

Stay tuned.

ANTE INTO THE GAME: Support the new season of Barbwire.TV by putting your money where my mouth is.

PayPal monthly subscription software is now operational at the website.

A thousand thanks to those who already responded.

Keep sending show suggestions.

Current frontrunners include (pardon the pun) wild mustangs as canned goods, education,  i-Guns and gay Olympics with César Chávez in Nevada recently surging.

  Please forward additional ideas or vote on the above.

  I encourage you to donate to the cause at Barbwire.TV/

The medium that shapes public opinion needs at least one refuge where it is not filtered through the distorted green eye shades of prissy corporate accountants for whom profit is the only priority; where self-censorship is the journalist's normal work environment and where all sins of omission are tacitly encouraged and forgiven with the wave of a balance sheet.

This is important.

We've got work to do.

HONOR YOUR DON. Keep sending comments supporting legendary Nevada photographer Don Dondero (1920-2003) for the Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame.

His life's work appeared worldwide, including the Tribune and most probably every newspaper in Nevada.

Enlist in the campaign to install Big Don.

Please send me your memories and endorsements via e-mail or to P.O. Box 10034, Reno NV 89510.

The Barbwire got the late Reno Gazette-Journal columnist Guy Richardson elected in 2012.

Let's double down.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)

____________
Andrew Barbano is a 45-year Nevadan, chair of the Nevada César Chávez Committee, producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, first vice-president and political action chair of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, labor/consumer/civil rights advocate, member of Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO and editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. Check local listings for other Nevada cable systems. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

Smoking Guns... Guilty as charged 1. "'About 60 percent is about data and better record keeping, but that means 40 percent of the rate is truly about kids,' (Nevada Superintendent of Public Instruction Dale) Erquiaga said. "It's better record keeping that the Washoe County School District did a few years ago when it saw big jumps in rates, School Superintendent Pedro Martinez said. Washoe County's jump from a 56 percent graduation rate in 2009 to 70 percent in 2011 was due in part to better accounting. Martinez said the baseline from which Washoe should be measured started in 2012, when the district was at a 69 percent grad rate.... [Emphasis added.] "Martinez said he credits Clark County Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky for being upfront about some of the gains were because of data cleanup. [Emphasis added.] "He said it's something that Washoe didn't do as well, which confused the community." [Editor's note: That would include everybody but Sparks Tribune Barbwire readers.] —McAndrew, Siobhan;State Graduation rate increases by 7 percent; Reno Gazette-Journal 1-28-2014, page 6A. We Don't Need No Education The continuing Barbwire series ...and more ammo.. Nevada Day Required Reading The Lady in the Red Dress The Barbwire's classic Nevada Day column written in 1983 The compleat history of the Silver State in 500 words SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? Sparks Tribune 10-31-2013 and previously Barbano on the Barbwire plots new TV season Barbwire Special Web Edition / 10-21-2013 Barbwire: Nevada not really a state No, we were not Battle Born in Kenya Top 10 reasons Nevada lives in the 19th Century Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-17-2013 Sparks Tribune Low-income penalty: Nevada socks it to the working poor BARBANO: Nevada is one big company town Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 10-10-2013 State of Health National health care comes up against a very sick state. WHAT'S IN IT FOR US? Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 10-10-2013 USA at crossroads: New Deal or new Confederacy? Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-10-2013 Sparks Tribune UPDATE—>Bill Moyers: Shutdown is simply secession by other means ...and more ammo yet The Post-Dated Recession: Pay me now or pay me later Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 9-6-2012 Daily Sparks Tribune The Post-dated Recession By Joshua H. Silavent / Daily Sparks Tribune / 5-3-2011 Union decline and rising inequality in two charts by Colin Gordon Economic Policy Institute / 6-5-2012 Used in journalist Mark Robison's extensive Hard Labor: Nevada unions tout role in helping workers, firms, economy (Sunday 2 Sept. 2012 Reno Gazette-Journal, page one, Reno Rebirth section of the print edition). Union men Jim Burrell, Paul McKenzie and Guy Louis Rocha did the movement proud. Not included in the RGJ online edition. WOMEN AND UNIONS — ORPHAN MAJORITIES The Barbwire Labor Day column Reno Gazette-Journal / 9-3-2012 Nevada Press Assn. Better Newspaper Contest HAT TRICK: Barbwire takes first place three years in a row. The winning entries Suing for Schools: The 20-year shuck Expanded from the 2-21-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune Click here to view the show on your desktop RED flags flying low over Sparks Expanded from the 1-10-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune The wrath of self-righteous racism Expanded from the 11-8-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune Government contacts Nev. congressional delegation Nevada Legislature State of Nevada Secretary of State Carson City Clark County City of Las Vegas Douglas County Reno City Council Sparks City Council Washoe County Commission Washoe Registrar of Voters The campaign against forcibly-paid newspaper obituaries And they wonder why the newspaper business is dying?   The Dean's List    The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites. RENO NEWS & REVIEW, 11-9-2006 The 2009 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners Tony the Tiger & the flaky NFL Barbwire / 11-30-2008 Deregulation is never having to say you're sorry Barbwire / 8-3-2008 Nevada: A good place to visit, but do you want to live here? Barbwire / 6-15-2008 The 2008 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners The price of a piece / 6-17-2007 Boxing Pandora /9-23-2007 The Lady in the Red Dress 10-28-2007 1997 Pulitzer Prize entries The life and times of Travus T. Hipp The best who ever was

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Copyright © 1982-2014 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 45-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee, He is producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and serves as first vice-president, political action chair and webmaster of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.

Barbwire by Barbano moved to Nevada's Daily Sparks Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in them parts ever since.
Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
Tempus fugit.

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