Apparently I’m a Rhodes Scholar Now
Apparently I’m a Rhodes Scholar Now
If reading a traffic sign and calculating a 20% tip without a calculator now puts you in the top fifth of the country, the bar isn’t low — the bar is on the floor.
According to the latest NAEP results, roughly 65 of every 100 graduating high‑school seniors can’t demonstrate proficient reading, and 78 of every 100 can’t demonstrate proficient math. The trend isn’t flat. It’s sliding — like a greased buoy in a nor’easter.
The Slogan and the Fine Print
“Standing With” vs. Voting With
A local campaign message recently declared solidarity with “the working men and women of the Commonwealth.” Beautiful phrase. Postcard‑worthy.
The policy attached to the slogan included no tax‑free overtime, no tax‑free tips, and nothing else that would let working people keep more of their own paycheck. So either the slogan means something different in Boston than it does in Hyannis — or “standing with” now means “standing near, but voting in the opposite direction.”
The Math Test
$140,000 Is More Than $40,000
Here’s a real proposal currently moving through Beacon Hill. Caring for an elderly resident in their own home: roughly $40,000. Caring for that same person in a nursing facility: roughly $140,000. The plan: shift the cost from the State to the Federal Government, and call the move a “cost saving.”
Massachusetts taxpayers fund both ledgers. The state line and the federal line both come out of the same wallet — ours. The only thing that changes is which envelope the bill arrives in.
If $140,000 is more than $40,000, and taxpayers pay either way, and moving Grandma costs more — explain how this is “savings.”
Reading or Comprehension?
The Diagnosis Cuts Both Ways
If a graduating senior couldn’t read a budget proposal that says “cost of A = $40K, cost of B = $140K, choose B and call it savings,” the system would call it a literacy gap. When elected officials approve the same proposal and call it fiscal stewardship, the system calls it leadership.
Out here on Cape Cod, we still balance our checkbooks without federal fairy dust. And we’re still on Day 543 of waiting for the audit that voters approved 72–28 to actually start.