No, I am not talking about Campbell Soup (have you looked at the fat and Sodium content?) I am talking about Mastery, Mediocrity, and Mendacity. OK, yes, I have been told that I should not use three syllable words, but if I have great expectations of our students, shouldn't I have the same expectations of our electorate? But we stray from a topic close to the hearts of all residents of Lake Woebegone, where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average".

Vincent Damon Furnier may have never discussed regression recoupment or overcrowding in the classroom with his kids' teachers. Welcome to our nightmare, Vincent....

Yesterday I sent the note below to all school board candidates. I received only one response, which equivocally asked why EFCA was relevant to the School Board. In fact, with all the grumbling about how labor is in the driver's seat in Anchorage, not even the candidates endorsed by the Anchorage Central Labor Council, Starr Marsett and Jeannie Mackie, would get onboard with such a simple proposition.

I started my day chatting with Dirk SIsson at Great Harvest about community park issues and ended it twelves hours later talking with Basilio Gallo at the Hacienda about what the small businessman in Anchorage might expect in the upcoming year. Despite the apparent differences between these two men, I think the real story is in what they share. These are hard working guys with soft hearts. They are devoted to family, friends, employees and community.

I was having breakfast with someone who is a person to be reckoned with in the Anchorage adult soccer community and, as is often the case, the talk turned to community based recreational opportunities for children, especially in the North East. Using elementary schools as foci for recreational soccer would reach hundreds of children and would provide real help in the "war" on childhood obesity (as compared to ASD's efforts to date, upon which I have opined already).

A bit of humor now and then goes a long way, but the dire situation facing our students for whom English is a second language requires some immediate action.

While Anchorage can't seem to find the time to have a community discussion about ESL/ESOL [link] questions of how best to address the needs of non-English or limited-English speakers is getting attention in the New York Times [link].

A tip o' the hat to the Bartlett Club, one of the few organizations (of any stripe) that appears to be interested in hosting any kind of discussion among School Board candidates.

Wednesday evening I was wearing my North East Community Council Parks Committee hat and attending the Russian Jack Community Council to talk about preserving Russian Jack Springs Park. John Steiner was there promoting our school bonds. While I do support the bonds, I have to note how quickly the current Board is to point out that it was prior administrations that built so cheaply in the 70's. Only time will tell if current design and contracting practices are any better. And we are all betting our homes that they are, aren't we? But I digress....

Yep, if you saw a greybeard loose his footing while rocking out to one of my pandora stations, it may have indeed been me. While I do love KLEF, it is difficult to ski to......

The ASD "junk-food" policy will not reduce obesity and today's ADN editorial is misleading in suggesting that the policy may be having some impact on our students. This is just more "feel good" policy that was dubious when it was adopted and dubious now. That is not to say that we don't have a crisis on our hands with obesity. We certainly do. But we are simply fooling ourselves if we believe that we are really changing student behavior with the "junk food" policy.