Nothing About The Bakken -- $70 Million High School Stadium In Neighborhood -- LA Times -- September 17, 2016

About a month ago I talked about the fast-growing area just to our northeast -- Collin County, north of Dallas: Plano, Allen, Frisco, and McKinney.

In today's Los Angeles Times: Allen High School has just built a $60 million football stadium; now rival McKinney plans to build a $70 million football stadium. Data points:

• Allen stadium includes a HD video screen over one end zone, a three-tier press box, rivals LA's Staples Center with 18,000 seats
• McKinney stadium will include a 500-seat event center
• McKinney, where $70 million stadium will be built: median income is $83,000
• trend for bigger stadiums took root in 2001 when Carroll High School in Southlake built a 12,000-seat stadium for $15 million (our oldest granddaughter trains at the Carroll High School natatorium; it's huge, but the two-year-old Lewisville natatorium just up the road is even bigger)
• most such stadiums are being built around Dallas
• one exception: a $63-million stadium under construction in Katy, a suburb of Houston
• McKinney school taxes: $1.63 per $100 of assessed valuation (about $700/month for a $500,000 home) -- remember, this state has no income tax; $700/month for an area with median income of $83,000 and no income tax is, at best, an ankle biter
• McKinney scholastic record: 96% graduation rate; SAT averages 1576 (150 points above the state average)
• Texas has the "Robin Hool plan" -- requires districts in property-wealthy areas to share money with poorer districts; but, money from bond elections does not have to be shared

Friday Night Lights

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The Education Page 

Keeping up with the NEA.

Don sent me an interesting article on the new "buzzword" in education: equity, not equality.

For some it might be a hard concept to understand so the state of Georgia has provided a graphic to help explain what they mean by equity:

In the graphic, they stack a bunch of books under the child to the far right and a smaller stack under the middle child so they can "reach" the same level as the child on the left, who will be given no new books or resources under the "equity" plan.

Wouldn't it be a whole lot cheaper and a whole lot easier to simply "dumb down" everything for the two on the left, and then all three would be equal? Oh, that's right. They've been doing that for quite some time now.

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The Apple Page

I don't have the dog in the fight: I don't have a smart phone. Never have. Never will.  My Samsung clam shell must be five years old or older. But it's "fun" to read all the complaints about Apple removing the 3.5 mm headphone jack (and replacing it with something so much better).

But a year from now, the 3.5 mm jack developed sometime in the 1950s, will be seen as "so yesterday."

Our granddaughters are vaguely aware of rotary telephones. I assume their children will be vaguely aware of headphone jacks. Of any size.

Wow, I miss him:

Steve Jobs - Courage