Good Luck With That, And More

Good Luck With That
The Ann Arbor school board has chosen Patricia Green to be the new superintendent. From what I read, both finalists seemed qualified. She is going to come in on a BIG new salary (comparable to what they are paying the New York City chancellor of schools, I understand). And then she gets to ask everybody to take pay cuts--when last year or the year before that they already gave concessions. Well, I say, good luck with that...

Trademarks
I was very happy to read this article about Ann Arbor trademarking high school logos. Faithful readers of this blog (the few, the proud!) may remember that last year I wrote a blog post titled Varsity Bear.  At a pharmacy I had found this very, very cute Pioneer bear and I had to take a picture of it. The bear on the left also has a purple P.

Liz Margolis, the district's Communications Director, wrote at the time,
"This is troubling for us in the district and especially at the high schools. The schools see no revenue from these sales. We are working to issue letters to these stores asking for voluntary percentage returns to the schools on all sales. The logos and names are "owned" by the district so the district can seek this return."

So, I'm glad to see some resolution for this issue--not just because it brings the district some revenue, but also because it's not always so easy to buy the perfect River Rat jersey. And I hope that Ann Arbor will SHARE its expertise with other districts in the county. After all, Chelsea and Manchester might want to trademark their logos too. I also hope that we can add the Community High School logo, and the middle school logos. I mean, who wouldn't want a

Rainbow Zebra sweatshirt (Community) or a

Golden Bear hat (Slauson) or a

super cute Scarlett Roadrunner!

Diane Ravitch
She's on fire! So is Jon Stewart. If you missed the pieces on his show last week--one an interview with Diane Ravitch, the other some discussion by Jon about "greedy" teachers, you can find them right here at Assorted Stuff's blog. (I was going to post them myself, but I'm feeling lazy.)

I'll tell you what I really respect about Diane Ravitch--she has shown that she has the capacity to change her mind, and admit--out loud--that she made mistakes. The rest of us (and I freely include myself) could learn a lot from her.


Mike Thompson: Those Durn Public Sector Unions
I always enjoy Mike Thompson's cartoons (he's the Free Press cartoonist) and this one seems particularly appropriate. Click on the link, you won't be sorry you did. (But my friend tells me the comments are vicious--I haven't read them.)