(in CA it's until 18 not 16)

Yeah, I was surprised to hear that.

I think the definitions are part of the conundrum. OTOH, I heard that the rate of started-but-failed-to-graduate college has gone up in the US in comparison to the rest of the world. On NPR somewhere. Waving hands.

Yes. this stat was on last week's TAL, but it is a standard stat in education. It's a bad situation that could be improved if colleges spent more time an effort on the problem. IMO.

Oh fuck. I bought a jumbo bag of cough drops this morning, but left most of them in the office. I can't decide if I should set my alarm for the morning or just try to sleep. Ugh.

...and totally the kid pulled a Riggins. Yeah.

le nubian,

It's a bad situation that could be improved if colleges spent more time an effort on the problem.

What do you think colleges could do? I am curious because we have lots of kids who think they'll do 2 years of community and transfer to a four year. In 4 years, we've had 2 kids transfer (one was highly motivated and the valedictorian who wasn't allowed to go to Berkeley because her parents wouldn't let her move that far away). We have fewer kids who enroll in a 4 year and then dropout.

I can't imagine ever letting a kid live with me. It's just not... I don't know. I have my own family to raise. Maybe that makes me an asshole, but the ideal will-do-anything-for-a-kid can do some harm in all that good.

She was pretty clear this was pretty much an extraordinary choice. She had 3 kids! CRAZY.

It doesn't make anyone an asshole to not choose that. I wasn't trying to imply that was a viable option- just the parallels to FNL's scripts had me agape.

Pretty much every one of our ministry partners or other missionaries in the area is raising a kid. Adoption to non-Native parents isn't legal, so none of them are actual adoptions.

I seriously respect that kind of dedication but I have some severe doubts as to whether or not we could do it ourselves. I mean, we're not parents biologically already because of reasons.

since I did not see all of FNL my mind's idea of totally pulling a Riggins is only gonna work if Tammy's recently dumped younger sister comes to live with them. And she looks a lot like me. IJS.

Jamaica has a lot of cross-family parenting. And inter-family. But it's a small, third world. A very different one.

I've been doing all sorts of poking around provocateuse, trying to make the best use of what I've got (i'm lazy, lazy, lazy). Can you imagine--the domain velvetedge.com is for sale? Sure, no one has bought it, but someone thinks there's a demand for a domain name I made up. And I just let it lapse. Seeing as I'm never letting go of thevelvetedge.com, I'm kinda wondering--could I have made $50 on that one? I'm tempted to ask for a quote, but if they're claiming it's really valuable, I will shoot something.

Anyway, I'm checking the bandwidth the provocateuse sites use. And it's not what I thought. Leaving out beards, skirts, and silverfoxes, because they're the runts of the litter, which site would you think is at the top, and which at the bottom?

• barefoot
• bestof
• handson
• spectacle
• venus
• wetmen

I seriously respect that kind of dedication but I have some severe doubts as to whether or not we could do it ourselves.

I don't know about ministry, but from an education perspective it's just... too much. I think of it as the Freedom-Writers-Diarification of education. Like if I'm not willing to take an extra job so I can by stuff for my students I must not care enough. There is a weird backwards entitlement within the community I work, like being a teacher automatically means I should be selfless, especially in a climate that is super toxic around education. If I'm not willing to supply my students with pens and tissues and paper, then I'm not doing my job. If I'm not willing to be at school for an extra 3 hours, it's because I don't teach well.

This is, in some ways, is a result of or part of the charter movement. That is a True Believer group who is willing to forego higher wages for longer hours. Fifteen years ago, I could live, eat and sleep my work in the classroom, but now, not so much and I look at that and think it's a little unhealthy.

(Also, while I'm on it, there is only questionable research, Apollo 20 aside, that longer hours matter. What seems to matter according to international data is more days. Believe it or not at 1080 hours, ours is one of the systems with the most hours. But we don't do things well enough with them. The systems that have 220+ days but only 600 hours fare better than ours on standardized testing. Longer hours in our system often just means more of the same. Instead of more of the same, how about more enrichment, more music, more art?)

I mean, we're not parents biologically already because of reasons.

Yet you're still doing a lionshare of parenting.