We are constantly bombarded with pleas for more money for education. After all, it’s for the CHILDREN. They DESERVE a good education. MORE MONEY is the answer.

Sadly, more money is not the answer. Locally, Milwaukee Public Schools shows us exactly why money is not the problem.  The district increases total spending nearly every year. If you look at the spending on a per student basis, the spending increases are staggering.  In an 8 year period, MPS increased per student spending by over 56%. At the same time, less than 1/2 of 10th graders were able to read, and less than 1/3 of 10th graders were able to do basic math.

I don’t often feel a lot of pity for people who get themselves into debt that they can’t pay off. I was raised in a frugal family. You only buy what you can afford. You save money for emergencies. And no matter what, you pay what you owe.

It’s easy to have no sympathy for those who got themselves deep into credit card debt because they’re irresponsible. (No, it’s not the credit card company’s fault for extending you the credit. It’s your fault for using it.) I don’t feel bad for people who bought houses they couldn’t afford, hoping that down the road they’d have enough equity to refinance and keep their payments “affordable.” That’s just dumb.

Yesterday’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had an article on the concept of merit pay for teachers. The idea has been floated many times, but not tried very often. Teachers are against it for the most part. Wouldn’t you be? Why give up your $100,000 compensation package in return for having to earn your pay and benefits?

by Jack Zemlicka
Wisconsin Law Journal

With the explosion in social networking and business conducted online, it’s easier than ever for a thief to steal someone’s identity.

To fight that, prosecutors are taking a more aggressive approach in how they use Wisconsin’s identity theft laws.

“I think the reason behind that is because the implications of identity theft in the Internet age are so much greater,” said Milwaukee County District Attorney John T. Chisholm. “I’ve known some prosecutors who have been victimized themselves and it can take years to restore credit.”

But defense attorneys argue that in some instances, misappropriation of identity laws are too broadly used in place of lesser theft charges. A violation of Wis. Stat. sec. 943.201 to include unauthorized use of an individual’s personal identifying information or documents is a Class H felony punishable by up to a $10,000 fine, six years in jail, or both.

The following press release from Citizens for Responsible Government explains how the Milwaukee County DA’s office investigated political blogger Christopher Liebenthal, and found he was doing his political blogging on taxpayer time. I believe Liebenthal should lose his job and be required to pay back the taxpayers for the wages he stole from them.

CRG Network
PRESS RELEASE
July 12th, 2010
For Immediate Release

DA Investigates Taxpayer-Funded Political Blogger
Finds Evidence of “extensive political blogging”

Let me start out this post by saying that I don’t like it when anyone is taken advantage of. Any individual, any group. I don’t like scammers who prey on the elderly, or those who speak English as a second language, or members of a certain religion or ethnic group, etc. It’s simply wrong.

However, I also don’t like sweeping generalizations that put a group of people in the status of “victim” without any hard facts to back it up.

Robert Kiyosaki is a best-selling author, but his advice is controversial. I’ve always thought he was heavy on hype, light on substance. Nonetheless, Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad” brand is recognized by many and therefore worth a lot of money.

CBC’s Marketplace did an episode on their investigation of Rich Dad Education. And it’s very interesting, as well as horrifying. Kiyosaki licenses the “Rich Dad” name to a company called Whitney International (also called Whitney Information Network, and most recently “Tigrent“). Whitney has lots of complaints against it related to their “get rich” seminars.

Guest Post by Ronald Kral, MBA, CPA, CMA
Managing Partner of Candela Solutions LLC

Sound data, information and intelligence are clearly critical business success factors; however, is it getting to the right people? Too often we think of C-level decision makers as the ultimate end-user. Yes, they are collectively the company’s brain-trust and are directly responsible for executing strategy, but whom should be monitoring and why? The answer is the board of directors, who serves to protect and represent the interests of shareholders. The active engagement of directors needs to be the lynchpin of important corporate deliberation, which hinges on information. Now that we have the “who” and “why” identified, let discuss “how.”

First let’s be very clear on what “risk intelligence” entails. There are both macro and micro elements to this definition as used in this article.  From a macro standpoint it involves the governance structure, and relating policies and procedures, to help ensure that decision making is undertaken in the best interest of shareholders. From a micro standpoint, the decision making process hinges on the timeliness, accuracy and comprehensiveness of information. This includes the supporting data elements and assumptions. Data transparency (i.e., knowing the origin and history of information, assumptions,  ownership, biases and accuracy) is essential in making sound decisions. Finally, while “risk” is the possibility of an adverse event, “opportunity” is the possibility of a favorable event. These two potential outcomes are inseparable as every decision to create or protect shareholder value (i.e., opportunities) involves risk.

I have spent plenty of time ranting about the employee costs at Milwaukee Public Schools. The bulk of the problem is teacher salaries and benefits, which average $100,000 per teacher per school year. In order to make things work financially within MPS, they must cut salaries and benefits for the teachers. If they don’t, the only other way to control teacher costs is by laying off teachers.

But don’t forget that administrative costs in MPS are way out of line as well. Simply put, “central office” provides limited value to the students, but costs taxpayers a ton. Of course, we do need administrative staff to keep things running as a district. But how much staff does the district need?

Today Daily Finance has published an article by me about the current state of the Facebook privacy drama. Simply put, it’s completely overblown.

I don’t like the fact that Facebook seems to make huge changes just when I’ve finally figured out the last batch of changes. But this is the internet, people. Things move fast, and so Facebook has to make frequent changes to keep developing their business model.

And make no mistake – - Facebook is a business. As much as you might like to think it’s just a clever way to interact with your friends, the reality is that Facebook is a business that needs to generate revenue one way or another. Users don’t seem willing to pay for access to Facebook, so the company must look to advertisers and other partners to bring in money.