Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

According to a study released last week by Allstate Insurance Co., the top 10 cities with the highest teen driving death rates were Tampa/St. Petersburg/Clearwater, Fla.; Orlando/Kissimmee, Fla.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Nashville, Tenn.; Birmingham, Ala.; Phoenix; Kansas City; Atlanta; Charlotte, N.C.; and Louisville, Ky.

That’s right, Tampa/St. Pete is number 1, with two other Florida metro area right behind.

In an editorial this morning, the Tampa Tribune says More Must Be Done To Prevent Teen Deaths Behind The Wheel:

Speeding was a factor in 27 percent of the fatal crashes involving teens in the Bay area, the report shows. Alcohol was a factor in 7 percent, while drug use was cited in 4 percent.

The biggest common denominator was the lack of seat belt use - cited in nearly 41 percent of fatal crashes. This is somewhat surprising, considering the state’s emphasis on seat belt safety, including the “Click It or Ticket” enforcement program and a three-year-old law mandating that drivers and occupants under 18 buckle up.

Officers have the power to stop a vehicle when occupants and drivers under 18 aren’t wearing seat belts - and for safety’s sake, they should do so. Perhaps enforcement will motivate young people to strap themselves in.

So they want cops to do more to help. But that’s not all.

Driver’s education requirements also need to be reevaluated. As it stands, a 15-year-old can obtain a learner’s permit and start driving under supervision - without ever taking a course that provides behind-the-wheel training. All a teenager must do is complete an online course, have proper identification and obtain a parent’s written consent.

…Some Bay area lawmakers, including state Sen. Victor Crist of Tampa, worked to make driver’s education courses - taught by professionals - mandatory this past legislative session, but were unsuccessful.

…Requiring teens to take full-fledged driver’s education programs could save lives. It’s that simple.

So they want schools to do more, too.

But what of the mothers and fathers of these teens? Do they have a role in driving lessons? Nope - they get a free pass so they can keep an eye on American Idol.

Counting on parents to teach their teens to drive, as state law encourages, may not be the best approach…

If a child dies behind the wheel, his or her parents are the ones who suffer most. You could say they have a vested interest in their teen’s driving habits, and should do all they can to show those kids the way.

Victor Crist and the Tribune want to give parents another place to point fingers, and another reason to be less interested in their children’s lives. This sort of thinking makes me wonder if they feel parents should bother with anything beyond conception.

Opinion piece from Lakeland Local. Note that USF Lakeland has since been renamed USF Polytechnic. Chuck Welch takes issue with a recent Tampa Tribune editorial about USF Lakeland Polytechnic:

It seems the last couple of years have proved one fact to this new resident of Lakeland.

Tampa and Orlando media are afraid of Polk County.

To the Orlando Sentinel we’re often “rural Polk County” or “Orlando-area.”

To the Tampa Tribune we’re evidently a drain on their campus.

In [Sunday]’s Tribune is an unsigned editorial, USF Lakeland Campus Driven By Political, Development Ambitions

I’ll sum up the editorial for you, “Dear Lakeland, We got ours. Stay small. Wait for us to annex you.” It’s the same thing we hear from Orlando. Both cities look to Polk County as land for their growth.

The editorial starts with the statement: “One of the smartest things Gov. Charlie Crist did last year was veto funding for a regional campus of the University of South Florida in Lakeland.”

Now we well know that Crist was new to the job, and pulling the funding was a matter of misinformation. The campus money…unlike the commuter rail funds…was a matter of long public debate.

The Money:

As you read the editorial, notice how the writer wants you to believe USF Lakeland is taking money out of the hands of USF Tampa.

“and weighed against the cost to USF’s aging campus in Tampa” “A new university in Lakeland shouldn’t be built at USF’s expense.”

The fact of the matter is that Polk County and Lakeland officials have pledged much of the money to the campus. Money matched by other funds. And none of the funds would or could go to USF Tampa. The Tribune’s lone reporter based in Polk County, Billy Townsend, recently wrote:

Only $15 million in state money is currently budgeted to begin construction of a single building at the proposed I-4 site. Polk County and the city of Lakeland have both pledged $5 million, which makes the campus eligible for an additional $10 million in state economic development funds.

The Land:

The Tribune editorial writer can’t determine if holding the campus off a year would keep or lose the donated land. That’s an important point to remember. The campus would be built on donated land.

“As much as anything, this campus is about helping a large landholder build a new community.” The implication is that the company thinks having a university close by would be a good thing. Guess what? It is. I am sure if I went to the Tribunes archives I could find all kinds of editorials arguing against USF Tampa getting donated land and grants.

What’s worse is the writer is confused about the land grant. On one hand they warn if the university doesn’t attract a certain number of students the land grant is revoked. The Tribune claims “USF Lakeland says it expects just 1,522 students by 2014-15,” but the USF
Lakeland Educational Plant Survey states: “Projected student headcount enrollment for the 2009-10 academic year will be 3,472 with 1,736 FTE and in 2014-15 headcount is projected to be 8,688 with 4,344 FTE.” (FTE = the number of Full Time students plus a percentage
of the part-time students)

Then the editorial writer counters with “However, it’s hard to believe the company will walk away if the deadline is not met, given the money it stands to make on the development.”

The corner of I-4 and the Polk Parkway is a perfect central for an university in as growth blooms along the freeway in Polk County. A company wants to give USF Lakeland the land. And Tampa thinks USF Lakeland should walk away. The Tribune opines that some other landowner would donate land. Does that make sense to you?

You’d get the impression that the editorial writer has an argument with the Williams Company. The Tribune editorial writer says, “Problem is, USF has said the Lakeland campus will not focus on research, but on extending the university’s reach to people who can’t make the drive to Tampa. So why build a research park?”

First, USF Lakeland faculty do perform research. Second, companies like to have research parks next to campuses.

Isn’t that a novel idea! A place for USF Lakeland students to intern and get good jobs. Right here in Polk County.

Of course, the Tribune has argued against USF Tampa having a research center located near the campus. Wait, no, they haven’t. In a
recent editorial they argued that USF Tampa should run next door neighbor Byrd Alzheimer Center “The Byrd center should become part of USF, where scientists are doing great work on Alzheimer’s research. It’s a natural fit.”

We’ve got ours. You get yours on your own.

The Buildings:

The Tribune editorial writer was also under the belief that money for USF Lakeland could be spent on improving infrastructure at USF Tampa, “money that will not be spent for upgrades at the Tampa campus’ less-than-new facilities.” USF Tampa started in 1956. I went to a university much older than that. They had buildings a lot older than 50 years. I can’t seem to remember that classes held in older buildings were inferior.

The Tribune counters with crowding, again in Tampa, “where professors face overcrowded classes and students sometimes have to sit on the floor.”

We have overcrowded classes because the Florida voter is more concerned with saving pennies in taxes than funding salaries for more teachers.

Admission Standards:

The writer claims that USF Lakeland admissions standards will be lower. The fact is USF Lakeland would be able to set their own standards. But what if they do allow more students to attend?

“Especially since the admissions standard for the campus will be lower than in Tampa, which means a USF Lakeland degree will hold less standing.” the writer claims.

Under that logic an USF Tampa degree holds less standing than those from hundreds of universities in the US. How elitist. When you decide which Media General editorial writers to keep, do you decide based on their alma mater?

Finally:

In true editorial fashion the writer ends with a bevy of unanswered questions. I thought I’d help out with a few answers.

• The manner in which USF Lakeland is being built isn’t good public policy.

– You mean it isn’t good for Tampa Tribune public policy.

• It is, however, good for The Williams Co. and the ambitions of a handful of Polk legislators.

– And quite a few people I call my neighbors.

• When balancing funding choices in this difficult year, Gov. Crist should call a time-out on USF’s ambitions for a campus in Polk. Instead, the governor should ask the state board to come back within a year with a plan that makes sense for the state, including the possibility of a
12th university.

– Why not move all of USF Tampa here to where the population growth is projected. I am sure Tampa could use the land for another freeway.

We told you last year that former Stinger’s stripper Mark Consuelo was producing a documentary about the Brandon High School wrestling team’s 34 year old winning streak. “The Streak” began in 1973, and the Eagles piled up 459 consecutive victories and went 468 matches without a defeat. Both of those numbers are national records for a high school team in any sport. Of course, the same year this movie is made, the Brandon Eagles finally lost a match.

At any rate, “The Streak” premieres on ESPN2 tonight at 9pm (2 hours), and ESPN.com’s Joe Tessitore previews the film:

It’s every bit as improbable as the Miracle on Ice, without the dramatic play-by-play call. It exudes greatness along the lines of Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, but there’s no oversized commemorative coffee table book. It’s numbers-driven like Joe DiMaggio’s 56 straight games with a hit, but this streak always has been about the process, not the result.

“It is an achievement as extraordinary as anything ever seen in American sports,” filmmaker Jon Hock says.

Hyperbole, you say? As extraordinary as anything ever seen in American sports?

Well, you can dismiss this as just another sports story drowning in predictable exaggeration. I almost did. But then you open your eyes, look past the tall talk, and find what first connected you to sports long ago.

Hooray for the Brandon High School Eagles for creating and maintaining such an incredible story. Hooray to Mark Consuelos and ESPN for recognizing the accomplishment, and recording it on film. Watch tonight on ESPN2.

The subhed in this morning’s headline in the St. Pete Times provides a perfect example of the stuff that bugs me about the boneheads in Tallahassee working hard to destroy what’s left of this wonderful state.

The hed:

“Budget gets final slicing“

Subhed:

“The deal cuts money to classrooms and nursing homes. Only state troopers get raises.”

Kinda says it all. You cut money for education, you’d better increase money for police.

I love and respect cops, glad we’ve got em, believe they deserve more money and bennies than they currently get to do a damn tough job. However, I honestly believe that if we took better care of our kids, we would need fewer troopers and prisons. As for cutting aid to nursing homes, remember that old saying about the measure of a civilization being the way it treats its most vulnerable members? What’s next, are we gonna launch the elderly into the Gulf on rickety rafts to we don’t have to bother with them anymore? Maybe we can put them to work selling lottery tickets to support our schools.

Senator Bob Graham was making the rounds recently, pushing his newly formed Center for Public Service, created partially to bring civics education back to public schools.  Which is sort of funny, because back in 1953, educational philosopher Robert Maynard Hutchins said that is the whole point: 

"The object of the educational system, taken as a whole, is not to produce hands for industry or to teach the young how to make a living. It is to produce responsible citizens."

To improve the performance of schools in the USA, No Child Left Behind went into effect in 2002. The Center for Education Policy says that since that mandated emphasis on reading and math, many schools have cut back on other classes.  That has led to some folks crying that your kids need more physical education, more art education, more music education and band practice, and that current science standards are not enough.  And that’s not all.

Eighty-eight percent of voters say they believe that schools can and should incorporate 21st century skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving skills, computer and technology skills, and communication and self-direction skills into their curriculum.  Some schools now offer career academies, and career training.  

Don’t forget about sex education.  And driver’s education.  And home economics.  Or foreign languages. 

Not everyone is happy with the basics, either. Some people say today’s students need more core math skills, while others want them to Just Read, Florida. 

So with all that learnin’ to do, your children will have to stay in school all day long or all year long or both.  Florida has added Pre-K classes, but it’s not good enough for some people.  Still others say we need more relevant and rigorous courses for all students.

But along with all of that pushing and pulling of students in different educational directions, school teachers and administrators still have so much more to do.  First the schools have to make sure there is a way to get the kids to school, and feed them healthy food.  Then they must make sure kids pull up their pants, keep an eye out for suicide prevention, perform random steroid testing on the athletes, may soon have to enforce an anti-bullying law winding through the legislature, and hundreds of other non-educational pursuits that have been (or are being) forced onto the school system.

Meanwhile, kids are really learning less and less.  They have no clue what’s going on with current events.  And Mom and Dad are so busy looking for ways to lower their taxes, they can’t help with the parenting, and they can’t even afford lottery tickets anymore to help with the costs.

I don’t know if forcing all that stuff into classrooms will help produce better citizens.  But without question, there sure is a need for some common sense in the educational system.

Hey Floridians!  You aren’t gambling enough.  Your kids will be more stupider if you don’t buy some scratch-offs right now.  You should probably smoke more cigarettes, too.  Think of the kids!

On Good Friday morning, I got out of bed and saw that the High School Senior had slept in late. I woke her up so she could rush to school. “It’s Good Friday,” she said. “We’re going to the beach.” Being the stepdad, I assumed she had worked it out with her mother, and let her fall back asleep.

And I asked Wifey about this. With rumors that there wasn’t going to be much “teaching” going on, Wifey didn’t see the point of going to school, either. I found later they weren’t really “rumors.” Plenty of teachers were discussing the “free day off” with students all week at the local high school.

The 2nd Grader did go to school. She and 3 others showed up at the classroom built for twenty. Those four joined another class of TWO, and those six students didn’t learn anything. They drew pictures for each other and they “worked” on their coloring books. That’s not all, according to the seven-year-old. They did have a Phys Ed class - playing at the playground. And Lunch.

It seems that the High School Senior got as much an education at Siesta Key that day as did the 2nd Grader at her Local Elementary School.

How is it that school is scheduled, but nothing gets done? There are many reasons, but they all come back to the same thing. The Hillsborough County School Board has no common goal, no direction, no guts, and is manned by a bunch of self-important ninnies who have way more power than they should.

Back in February of last year, board members were insistent that holding school on Good Friday would be a disaster:

“In this country, the majority of the people are of the Christian faith and have accepted it as a day off,” Faliero said. “If you begin to take things like that away, people believe that you are eroding what this country was founded upon, and that was freedom of religion.”

But that is a knee-jerk reaction without even looking into the the subject. In that same article, the St. Pete Times notes that Pinellas holds school on Good Friday, as does Polk County, Orange County, and Bay County. In 2006, Pinellas’ Good Friday absentee rate was 15 percent for students, and about 10 percent of teachers.

A 10-15% absentee rate is something they could deal with. But even a year later, with Good Friday coming upon us, Faliero insisted. In the Times on Tuesday, March 18, she planted the seeds of Faliero’s Fantastic Friday Fiasco:

“Parents, please hear this: Your buses are going to be late,” School Board chairwoman Jennifer Faliero said. “Be prepared for a backup plan.”

Doom, Doom, and more Doom (Doom III?), she prophesies. What’s next, locusts? Nope, but religion comes up anyway. Read on from the Times on Wednesday, March 19:

“What I see — which is something I haven’t seen in a long time — is Christians uniting,” said School Board member Jennifer Faliero, who favors a day off on Good Friday. “They are fearing that their religion is being overlooked.”

Aha! It’s to be an uprising of Christians - uniting to protest the assault on their holy day! But wait - just the day before in the Tampa Tribune, Faliero said it had nothing to do with religion:

Taking Good Friday off has nothing to do with religion, however, said School Board Chairwoman Jennifer Faliero.

“Parents have always taken off Good Friday - they always will,” Faliero said. “This is an American tradition.”

So it’s an American Tradition. A holiday, not a holy day.

Nonsense. She simply wants no school on that day and is saying anything that will convince students, parents, teachers, bus drivers - including Jews, Muslims, and atheists alike to play hooky. In addition, she counted on the newspapers to be her megaphone. And it worked. Did you see what both dailies did? Starting on Tuesday, both papers had section front stories all week proclaiming Doom III, and basically just pounded it into your head:

• Tuesday, March 18 - Many Teachers, Drivers Plan To Skip Work Good Friday, Hillsborough schools prepare for Good Friday flu
• Wednesday, March 19 - Schools’ Biggest Worry Good Friday May Be Buses, Hillsborough schools brace for Good Friday absences
• Thursday, March 20 - Schools Hope For Best On Friday and 19 Schools Will Have No Bus Service on Friday
• Good Friday, March 21 - Schools Hoping It’s No Freaky Friday, Hillsborough schools’ goal for Good Friday: a normal day

Good grief! They ran out of ways to say the same thing over and over and over. Not only that, but would you believe that TBO created a Blog dedicated to the saga? Yep, it’s entitled Good Friday for Skipping School.

Just because some teachers don’t read a newspaper, doesn’t mean they all are clueless. And kids can read too, you know. So is it any wonder that by Thursday, teachers, students, administration, bus drivers - hell, even the janitors were discouraged to show up.

And of course it worked:

Tribune - Lack Of Students Makes ‘Lonely’ Day, Times - Nearly 60% of Hillsborough County students absent on Good Friday

Or did it?

By the 20th, reporters heard that original numbers of absenteeism were being overestimated. And late Friday, the numbers that the Tribune got from each individual school was significantly different than the figures from the district. As far as I can tell, we have not yet received a verification of the correct number of absentees. Regardless, it was a mess.

Finally, this Tuesday, both papers ran editorials slamming the School Board for allowing a free day to occur. The Tribune and Times both suggest administrators limit the number of people taking a personal day, so the entire district doesn’t get shut down for a day.

The Times also specifically encouraged Jennifer Faliero to remember that the public school system is here to serve Christians and non-Christians alike.

Yep…

It’s an epidemic. There is now another one - this one from Pasco County schools. It’s happening so often that this one didn’t even make the front page of Trib’s Metro section.