(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
A reporter caught this gripping moment from the Seattle Washington riots following the state’s decision to drop their NCLB waiv…what? Seattle police don’t carry shields with Greek words written on them? Few in Seattle took any notice of the waiver business?
Sorry my bad.
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
Matt – I am so confused.
Should WA residents have strongly objected to the state’s rejection of the use of Value Added Measures for teacher evaluation, which Arne Duncan demanded to get a waiver?
or
Should WA residents have strongly objected to Duncan’s ignoring relevant data in his waiver rejection? WA’s NAEP scores and progress were better than most state’s that Duncan granted waivers.
Please clarify.
Or (c) few in Washington have much reason to care whether the state has a waiver or not.
Took me a good deal of work to dig this up:
I have this mental image of the streets of downtown Seattle at noon, teeming with hipsters sipping their lattes from Anyplace But Starbucks (Seattle’s most popular coffee for thirty years running), when out of nowhere someone yells “WAIVER RIOT!!!!!!!!!!” and all hell breaks loose. The National Guard is finally brought in to restore order, but not before half the downtown succumbs to wanton property destruction.
The next day, the mayor announces that the city’s $15 minimum wage makes rebuilding cost-prohibitive, so the city is being permanently abandoned.
A year later, the abandoned buildings are reclaimed by squatters. On inspection, they are revealed to be enterprising Texans who saw unused assets and couldn’t refrain from repurposing them.
Five years later, the city is declared a Texas protectorate, with a cut of local taxes going to Washington State as compensation. Ten years later, twelve major American cities, including Chicago and large parts of Los Angeles, have followed suit.
In 2034, the United States of Texas is formally incorporated. It outperforms the rest of the world economy by a wide margin.
(Okay, this comment escalated unexpectedly.)
Now that you mention it, Texas could use a port on the Pacific…
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