Stuff to read

1. The blog Flipping Pencils has a great piece about urban design/placemaking issues in Lexington, Kentucky. It's a good model for consideration when you look at your own places. See "My Wish List for Lexington."

2. CenLamar has some great criticism and analysis of the Alexandria, Louisiana Master Plan. See "Why I don’t like the Master Plan."

3. Did you see the great piece in yesterday's Post about narcissism and elected officials? See "Clinton, Obama and the Narcissist's Tale," of course, I don't think of this as question as either/or but and/and... from the article:

1. If I ruled the world, it would be a much better place.
2. The thought of ruling the world frightens the hell out of me.

I don't want to rule the world, but I do think of this more at the micro "city" level, the whole idea of progressive urban political and policy agenda. I don't think we have one so much in DC.

If I "ruled" the land use, transportation, and retail planning side of things in DC I think it would be a better place, but it would frighten the hell out of me to have that much _responsibility_, not just the _power_.

Locally, we have plenty of people comfortable with the exercise of power, but their sense of responsibility side of the equation seems to be underdeveloped.

Power and responsibility ought to be reciprocal, not oppositional, when it comes to local governance.

4. And George Will's piece, "Education Lessons We Left Behind," assessing the state of education, 25 years after the report Nation At Risk. He writes:

In 1964, SAT scores among college-bound students peaked. In 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) codified confidence in the correlation between financial inputs and cognitive outputs in education. But in 1966, the Coleman report, the result of the largest social science project in history, reached a conclusion so "seismic" -- Moynihan's description -- that the government almost refused to publish it.

Released quietly on the Fourth of July weekend, the report concluded that the qualities of the families from which children come to school matter much more than money as predictors of schools' effectiveness. The crucial common denominator of problems of race and class -- fractured families -- would have to be faced.

But it wasn't. Instead, shopworn panaceas -- larger teacher salaries, smaller class sizes -- were pursued as colleges were reduced to offering remediation to freshmen.

This is why the DC K-12 educational reform effort appears to be doomed. The Chancellor et al think the "problem" is bad teachers and too much space. The problem is a lot simpler and at the same time far more complicated.

And not knowing what to do, and without a plan, likely they are destroying the "publicly run" (DCPS) school system. The sad thing is, fewer than 20% of DC households have children, and so most citizens aren't engaged in the "reform" effort. And they make the mistake of conflating action with effective programmatic focus on transformation and improvement.

Just because you reform or change something doesn't mean you improve it... cf the piece that Harry Jaffe wrote in the Examiner a couple weeks ago, "Charter school movement wins the education war in District," barely acknowledging the need for government oversight, and not focused very much on civic engagement.

It still amazes me that Jaffe co-authored Dream City. By his writings in the Examiner you would absolutely never guess that he understands the backstory of power in the city and behind the scenes.

5. Jonetta Rose Barras wrote a great piece in the Examiner about the University of the District of Columbia, and the way DC Government cronyism continues to run rampant. See "How not to build a university in D.C." and an earlier piece, "UDC: The basket case."

6. Quotes to think about when considering local government generally:

-- The king is dead. Long live the [new] king.

-- The more things change the more they remain the same. (Proust)

-- Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. (Pete Townshend, The Who)