Craig Dawkins .....Liberty Thoughts

Better Late than Never...  The Board of Oklahoma County Commissioners did the right thing even if it was late. Whetsel has been routinely and purposely overcrowding the county jail in order to drive revenue to his operation without any concern about the constitutionality of the treatment of those inside the jail. Let's hope Oklahoma County has a new sheriff after the November elections. Whetsel has had too much time for there to be this much wrong with his office. It's time for a change. From the story... "Afterward, Whetsel said he is obviously concerned about the impact on his office of losing more than $2 million in income from the Corrections Department next fiscal year. "We will have to live with the decision," he told The Oklahoman. "We'll just have to do the best we can with what we got." http://newsok.com/oklahoma-county-jail-to-stop-holding-extra-state-prisoners/article/5495566

A "Reckless" Lie vs. a "Deliberate" Lie?  Linked below is a story about OKC Police Sergeant Keith Medley who lied his way into someone's home, according to a federal judge. In today's Oklahoman, a story by Nolen Clay details that the sergeant has received an official reprimand from the OKC Police Department and transferred to a "nonenforcement" position where he will not be making arrests. The article went on to say that had the judge said his actions were "deliberate" rather than "reckless" he would have been subject to the "possibility" of dismissal. Seriously? So lying "recklessly" is SO different than lying "intentionally?" Wow... Our politicians can hang all their lies on such parsing of the facts. Seems the lesson is that lying "recklessly" means you get to keep your job. Good Lord. http://newsok.com/article/5479586

Academic Freedom Should Replace Top Down Model..... To the extent that the premise of the story is accurate, it seems to be more an indictment on the top down education model more than anything. The truth is that teachers should have academic freedom to choose to teach as they wish and be measured on student outcomes. The problem is that when teachers are essentially implementers of curriculum in a top down, bureaucratic model, rife with political competition and cronyism, it's very hard to get any real progress. You want to fix education in these troubled districts? Turn it over to a competitive model and allow parents to take their kids to the schools they like best. It cannot possibly be worse than the current model which has resulted mostly in failure. Make every school one that is free of the bureaucratic model of imposed curriculum and pedagogy. Do it for the children. Screw the educrats and political meddlers who want to control the entire learning process.