Combatting this chill with a mug of newsroom brew. And if you want to know just how awful this economy is, a Chicago law firm has stopped giving away free coffee to their employees. I sense a mass exodus of lawyers into the Chicago job market is coming soon.
Some time ago, I wrote how Gov. Ed Rendell’s plan to consolidate Pennsylvania’s 501 school districts into just 100 would provide the Democratic Party a platform for the governor’s race next year.
I may have been a little premature. Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak was punched on the right and left flanks (metaphorically, of course) during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, according Tom Barnes of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
State Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak ran into a bipartisan buzzsaw today before the Senate Appropriations Committee, as he was assailed for trying to reduce the state’s 501 school districts to just 100 … .
Democratic Sens. Sean Logan of Monroeville and Andrew Dinniman of Chester questioned Gov. Ed Rendell’s controversial idea of consolidating school districts.
Mr. Logan said it had been tough enough just to close Duquesne High School and transfer those 135 students to nearby high schools.
“How are we going to deal with transferring millions of students if the districts are reduced to 100?” he said.
Mr. Dinniman asked where the number of 100 came from.
Mr. Zahorchak, who is Mr. Rendell’s point man on several emotional education issues, said some people had talked about having just one school district per county, and there are 67 counties. Larger counties, such as Allegheny, would probably need several school districts, so the figure of 100 came up, he said.
Logan? A prominent Senate Democrat? I’m sensing this Rendell proposal to have a bipartisan legislative committee look at school district consolidation may be sunk before it ever sails out of harbor. Franklin & Marshall College’s poll last week suggested a tiny number of Pennsylvanians - only 21 percent - support the idea. Now the education secretary’s getting thumped at Senate hearings by Republicans and Democrats.
That means either the Rendell administration, Zahorchak included, needs to ramp up the sales pitch outlining specific ways school consolidation lowers taxes or abandon this proposal before it becomes an albatross for the 2010 elections.
Elsewhere in this political carnival:
*U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts will provide his expertise at a … wait for it … Millersville University seminar on the middle class. Pitts is considerably less controversial than that other guest speaker coming to campus later this month.
From MU’s news release:
Sworn into congress in 1997, he is a promoter of family values and focuses on issues such as the energy policy and healthcare reform. He will speak on March 14 from 9 a.m. until 11 a.m.
Also speaking at the conference are David Sanger, Monique M. Morrissey and Stephen Golub. Sanger is the Senior White House correspondent for The New York Times. Author of the book, “The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power,” Sanger will speak on America’s place in the global economy.
The conference will be held in Gordinier Hall on March 13-14.
And if you haven’t had enough of Pitts, here’s the Republican railing against the $480 billion omnibus bill currently before Congress that’s full of pork barrel stuff.
I’ve heard Pitts use the “enough is enough” line five dozen times this year. I kid of course. It’s only been four dozen. I kid, again. But enough times to drive his point across, I guess.
