When a lane on a highway is about to close, many people feel morally superior about immediately moving to the lane that will go through. Say left lane is closing and the right lane continues. This overcrowds the right lane and decreases the roadway efficiency.
People should continue using both lanes as normal, and zipper merge at the lane closure.
My expensive Japanese Rx spectacles spent the night in a parking garage recently. They have been runover and scratched.
Suggestions for good indie shop? Bonus for central location.
TIA
[supprimé]
A couple months ago I posted here about AISD's budget crisis and where the money goes. A lot of you had the same reaction I did: "Austin ISD is paying >$800 million a year in recapture while running a $181M deficit, closing schools, and cutting staff?" Who knew so much more would start falling apart since that post: oak/elm rezoning, looming state TEA takeover, short term loan announcements. It's starting to get hard to keep track of all this.
There was a question I wasnt able to answer last time: who is actually receiving all this recapture money? Texas publishes detailed data on who pays into the system (that's how I was able to chart all that last time), but there's no equivalent dataset showing who's pulling from it. So I figured out how to calculate it from TEA's PEIMS finance data, and when I first saw the numbers I thought I was doing my math wrong.
Right now, three tiny towns I'd never heard of are pulling $432 million a year in state aid. Combined population of all three: about 13,000 people. That's not the student population, that's the "every person living in these towns" population.
Hallsville ISD (East Texas, population ~4k): brought in $212 million last year in state recapture aid, 24,559 students on paper. Math proficiency scores: 9%. (State average: 44%).
Fort Stockton ISD (West Texas, population ~8,000): $118 million last year. Was paying $11.4M in recapture in 2023, then launched a virtual school. Enrollment went from 2,167 to 13,453, and now they receive $118M instead. TEA Math proficiency last year: 4%.
Roscoe Collegiate ISD (population ~1,300): $102 million/year. 12,253 students on paper in a town of 1,300 people. Math proficiency: 15%, TEA gave the district an F.
This is possible because these small towns provide the physical legitimacy for for-profit virtual learning programs. The districts provide the legal status as a public school district, which is what makes those students eligible for full-ride state funding. The operator is pulling ~92% of the money. The districts keep ~8% as an "oversight fee." Hallsville's cut alone is $16.7 million a year.
Here's how I back-traced how this works: Texas' recapture formula divides a district's property wealth by its student count. Fort Stockton sits on Permian Basin oil wealth, so its property tax base is massive in proportion to its student population, which tipped them into paying $11M in recapture. Add 11k virtual students from all over Texas to the denominator, and per-pupil wealth drops, inverting their recapture obligations. Same property, same tax base (just more students on paper). The district used to pay $11.4M in recapture, now it receives $118M from it.
Since starting these virtual programs, these three districts have drawn over $1.3 billion in cumulative state aid out of the recapture bucket. That money comes from the same general revenue pool that funds every other district in Texas. The same one Austin has been paying billions into over the same time period.
The formula doesn't distinguish between a kid sitting in a Fort Stockton classroom and a kid logging into a Zoom call from Arlington. Both count the same in the denominator in the host ISD's district. For years this happened through a series of stopgaps: COVID virtual edu waivers became a temporary bill, became an executive directive. Then SB 569 made it permanent law last year. The Texas legislature codified it without updating the recapture formula to account for what it enables.
Full writeup and every data source used to find this: labs.tryopendata.ai/virtual-enrollment-loophole.
Ask me any follow up data questions in this thread and I'll do my best to dig into the numbers if they are available.
Mother enjoys a Daniel Boone picture book with Junior. Beth Ann tells Teddy not to be frightened. Father scans the CONELRAD stations for news of radiation contamination and follow on Soviet bomber strikes. What a wonderful two weeks it will be.
​
From the pamphlet Save Money on Your Shelter, State of New York Civil Defense 1961.
Cat Tax. Really clean setup with this all in one. Hope to find space for separates
Just noticed this after 3 weeks…
Two weeks now with my beautiful White Lightning, call sign ‘Blitz’, 2024 GTS 4.0. Gillespie County, between Fredericksburg and Enchanted Rock. What an amazing ride she is. All the way, all the time.
July 16, 1945. The dawn of the Nuclear Age. Deep in the New Mexico desert, the Manhattan Project culminated in the "Trinity" test. The "Gadget"—a complex plutonium implosion device—was detonated atop a 100-foot steel tower. The blast released 21 kilotons of TNT equivalent energy, changing military technology and global geopolitics forever. This is a technical documentary breakdown and visual chronicle of the world's very first nuclear detonation. Unclassified data.
Thanks for yesterday’s sound advice. 2025 Cayman GTS 4.0 in Evanston to steer clear of…
Found the Cayman I’ve been looking for, was willing to make a 15K deposit and offered 94%. Strong bid…?
I got some really regrettable replies involving my being a loser, with instructions to go ‘service’ myself.
Regrettable ‘tude. I’m still interested in the car.
Is the seller’s market so strong they can run along crapping on serious buyers?
I’m in my mid-30’s, been a huge Dylan and Tom Petty fan since I was a kid, but it somehow took a damn rewatch of Community for me to hear about the Wilbury’s. I cannot seem to get to Vol 3 because I keep relistening to Vol 1 over and over again. This album is incredible, it’s everything you could want from such a genuinely unbelievable collection of talent coming together. Just some of the most talented artists of the 20th century coming together to have fun making music. I feel so lucky to be alive in this moment right now where this actually exists.
Both albums came out before I was born, what was the reception like at the time? Were they appreciated like they should be? Tweeter and Monkey Man should firmly be in the Dylan canon. Roy Orbison next to Dylan Petty and Harrison honestly sounds like a dream. I can’t believe this album exists. I need to talk about it, I need to hear what others think about this band that feels beyond comprehension to me. We’re talking Tom Petty, George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne, and Bob motherfucking Dylan. My god.