Here’s my story from today’s front page, on how the feds say Texas’ dropout problem is actually several times larger than state officials claim it is. For reasons utterly invisible to you, Gentle Reader, I’m quite happy with it. Not that it still won’t be a boring read.
Went to the Tipperary Inn last night for a trivia contest. We finished one question away from victory, alas, out of 19 teams. My highlight: being the only one in the bar who could answer the question: “Why is Pierre Omidyar famous?” Of course, considering the readership of this site, lots of you probably know.
Also had the unique experience of being recognized in the bar by three crabwalk.com readers (Dave, whom I’d met at SXSW when I noticed his Good Records t-shirt, and two CDMOM traders, Mike and Tony). Since I’m not in the habit of posting photos of myself here, I’m still not sure what it was that gave me away — perhaps the way I would speak every couple hours, pause to mention the exact time in the Central time zone, then plaintively say, “no comments?”
One hopes they will all attend the DFWblogs.com happy hour this evening.
3 thoughts on “dropout story, tipp inn trivia, spotted by c.com readers”
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hey josh, welcome back. =)
also, i had a conversation yesterday with a friend and we were discussing the dropout situation in texas. i think it’s a shame that the dropout rate is so high, so we were trying to come up with ways to decrease it. one thing i think is brilliant is a law that was instituted in florida the year i graduated (91). basically, if you drop out of high school, you can’t get a driver’s license until you turn 18. and if you’ve already got a license and then decide to drop out, it’s revoked. there was an immediate and substantial decrease in the dropout rate just one semester after this law was put on the books, and the dropout rate in FLA has been decreasing ever since. personally i think that should go nationwide, as driving is the biggest priviledge in a teenager’s life. if they can’t drive they have no life, so goes their logic.
do you think that would be a reasonable thing to do? i know it’s not the “end-all-be-all”, but i think it would be a nice shot in the arm, so to speak.
Quite a few states have laws like that. I’ve got no idea if the Legislature would be interested in such an idea in Texas.
Nice story. And a very savvy response…