No doubt the teachers in Somerset and St Croix Central participated in some form of protests over the Walker Bill. The ACT scores from their students, which have shown to be pretty consistent over the last 15 years, give testimony to the absolute incompetence of the teaching staff at all grade levels.

Considering the number looking for teaching positions, I have to wonder why the whole lot in Somerset and St. Croix Central are not fired. Or why the sheep for parents have not taken to the streets calling for an end to this educational embarrassment and demanding release from this system through educational tax credits or vouchers.

Just imagine what average scores would look like if every senior had to participate. The following six states require every senior to take the ACT exam: Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee and Wyoming (Mississippi had a 96% participation rate and Louisiana had 98%). The average score ranged for these states from 19 to 21.

And you still think government needs to be involved in education?

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1. ACT Scores and Jethro Bodine The local shills for government education, Meg Heaton of the Hudson Star-Observer and New Richmond News reporter Jackie Grumish, once again missed the story behind...

Students in New Richmond had an average test score of 23.8, which was a full point higher than last year. Hudson students came in second with an average of 23.7 and the River Falls average was 23. Scores from St, Croix Central and Somerset came in with a moron like averages of 21.5 and 21 respectively.

The New Richmond scores caused New Richmond Curriculum Director Jess Ferguson to crow about what she termed awesome results. Perhaps intentionally, everyone is missing the percentage of seniors taking the ACT at our local high schools and how they fare against the top districts in the state.

The number of students taking the ACT in New Richmond equaled 58.4% of the senior class. Hudson on the other hand had 70% participation and 77% of the seniors in River Falls took the exam. One can only speculate what the scores in New Richmond would look like if a higher percentage of the senior class had taken the exam. But this should give no comfort to the parents and taxpayers in Hudson and River Falls about the quality of their schools.

Whitefish Bay High School north of Milwaukee and a similar size to New Richmond turned in an average score of 26.6% and a participation rate of 88.4%. Over the last 15 years the lowest score was 24 and the minimal percentage taking the test was 78.4%.

Elmbrook High School students turned in average score of 25.2 with 87% of the seniors participating, a rate that has steadily risen over the last 15 years.

Rounding out are sample is the Arrowwhead School District that showed 83% of the senior class turning in ACT scores with an average result of 24.8.

It is obvious that our local government institutions of learning not only lag behind the top districts in scores, but come up dreadfully short in the percentage of the senior class taking the ACT. The real question behind the local test score stories is: How low would the scores be if Jethro Bodine and Ellie Mae had decided join the ones that did take it?

Naught goes into naught, naught.

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Take a look at this woman(?).  She’s giving us the sign that her husband gave her last night when she got a little frisky…. 

So this is what civility is about?  Remember when Shelly Moore rented the bandshell and announced her candidacy?  Did you see teaparty people ranting and raving, being disrespectful and shouting obscenities? 

Where were the Hudson police yesterday?  Why didn’t they arrest these people for disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace or inciting violence?  Maybe it’s because the police thugs are on the same team as the other government union thugs who showed up yesterday.

What a pathetic display from the Shelly Moore supporters.  Sure can’t let anyone have their right to free speech now can we?  Is this what Shelly teaches her children to do?  And to think these are the same people teaching our children about “anti-bullying”.  How ironic!

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The protestors were allowed to demonstrate outside the property bounds of the motel where the AFP had gathered. After the meeting, protestors who had no intention of engaging in commerce entered the Hudson House for the purpose of confronting State Senator Shelia Harsdorf. The exchanges that took place revealed a collective think of entitlement.

My personal encounter went something like the following:
I asked several of the goons what moral right of collective bargaining they held that forced me to pay the union dues that went toward a political agenda contrary to my beliefs. The salary they receive comes from my taxes, which in turn pays union dues that ends up in the coffers of political candidates who favor more taxation and restriction of personal freedoms.

The response was eye-opening. The thug’s view saw no difference in my question then when they shop at Wal-Mart and the company uses their money to support candidates and causes of their choice. A thief could make a similar defensive analogy in that when they go to a store the proprietor eventually takes their money; taking is common to the action of the thief and the store.

Of course the former is forced upon an individual while the act of shopping at a store is voluntary.

Toeing the union line, every teacher complained how they only made $40,000 and the cost of living made it hard to have a decent life. From the looks of their ages, I doubt every teacher that we encountered made $40,000 or less, plus being single. When talking compensation, they always fail to mention benefits paid mostly by taxpayers plus nearly four months of vacation. If the argument begins with obfuscating the truth, then the answer to the problem cannot be found. I voiced loudly that if they did not like the working conditions, then like any other worker in the country resignation was always an option. Many could be found to replace them.

In another conversation, a protestor saw nothing wrong with the fourteen Senators fleeing the state. The electoral process in the past that had so well served government workers now needed to be stopped. Democracy is only a virtue when it serves their desires. Coincidentally, this man from the DNR admitted to contributing not one penny to his pension.

When the mob spotted Shelia Harsdorf exiting the motel, they broke the line of private property and surrounded her vehicle. In doing so they not only presented a threat to safety, but denied othersthe ability to enter or leave the property. As we have now witnessed over the last two weeks, private property rights mean little to bullies or in fact to thieves.

Perhaps “Joe the Plumber” said it best. The divide in the country is between those that feel they deserve something versus others who truly believe in freedom where the word “deserve” does not exist. Philosophically, citizens in the country rest in two camps with no common ground.

It is time we go our separate ways.

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Surely, given the Lexus-styled, taxpayer funded, union demanded, cradle to grave idiotic health plan poured onto the already overpaid and under-worked government hacks masquerading as teachers in Hudson that this tax will hit hard.

Then again, all you suckers in the Hudson School District who blindly support the asinine government school monopoly deserve what you will obviously get: a nice bump in your property taxes to pay the 40% assessment.

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…… Every single one of them.

Question: According to WEAC (the union that represents the teachers), how many of the school districts in the state of Wisconsin have quality education? On top of that, it appears that this quality education is continually threatened unless more and more money is poured down the government education black hole.

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Follow the link and nominate anyone whom you feel is the worse of the worse.

If you do not wish to nominate nationally and want to share anything feel free to email 10Worse.

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………….. Sheriff Dennis Hillstead

Question: Who is St. Croix County’s leading real estate listing agent?

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…………… Somerset

Question: What is the next town that will go bankrupt due to an excessive referendum? You’d think they would learn from their neighbors in New Poormond.

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Any system of education that is premised upon, firstly, the sacrifice of individual rights to the collective benefit of “society” will not simply reverse its premise and commit suicide down the road – there is no altruism towards the rights of the individual from the collectivist’s viewpoint. In fact, individual rights, as envisioned by our founders, is anathema to the collective will, euphemistically referred to as “the common good.” To argue that there is a logical funding mechanism to support a virtual government monopoly by simply shifting to either all property tax funding, or all state redistribution of a portion of sales and income tax revenue misses a fundamental point.

Economic educational choice has to be, logically, the first premise and priority. The rights of parents are either primary or they are subordinated, and once subordinated gradually become non-existent over time. Without economic choice as primary you will never get real choice because true choice and ANY government monopoly (regardless of funding source) are logically and practically incompatible. Their ends are justified by their means. And their only means are the restrictions of your liberty with regard to your own children AND the coerced expropriation of your wealth to pay for their ends. The fact that it is done through a so-called democratic process does not make it moral, practical, or in any way optimal as regards the goal of an educated public.

Beverly Petrie, the leader of this current gang of looters running amok in Stillwater, is simply clamoring for more self-sacrifice and is engaging in a profound act of hypocrisy. She argues that the system is unjust because the state only contributes 80% and therefore she is “forced” to “work” 40 to 70 hours per week to propagandize for the passage of a levy which threatens to take yet more money from people at the rhetorical point of a gun.

The active supporters of the Stillwater levy referendum represent a mindset (and a system) which claims to be “for the children,” yet is advocating for the one system that is as anti-child as one can get. When you separate children from their parents by law, and then separate parents from their property to pay for it, by law, you are arguing for an immoral act to pay homage to the initial immoral act. And you do so because if people were not coerced into it, they would not voluntarily support it. To justify the madness all sorts and kinds of rationalizations are attempted. In no case do these supporters dare to submit for examination the moral case for their cause, nor do they ever honestly appraise legitimate, rational, alternatives (such as market forces and real parental choice) to the financial black-hole they have created. The reason? Because their moral case is unsustainable, and their cause, ergo, would fail miserably if exposed to such an examination by a candid public. Support of government school monopoly referendums are, profoundly, a savage’s desire for fruit which he aims to obtain by cutting down the tree.

These people argue that they are supporting the system of “free education,” the most incredible contradiction of facts by language imaginable. Everything about government monopolized education is compulsory, inherently inefficient, and profoundly costly, and these people know it but dare not expose it for the horrors it implies. What the voters in Stillwater need to understand is that the questions on the ballot have real meaning, and it is:

1. Should education continue to be compulsory, monopolized, and tax-supported?

2. Should the government be permitted to remove children from their homes by force, with or without the consent of their parents, and subjected to curriculums and training that they may or may not approve?

3. Should hard working citizens have their earnings expropriated by the threat of property conversion, without any recourse, to support an educational program and philosophy which they may or may not sanction?

For any referendum which comes before the citizens as regards additional (any) funding purpose, please understand that the above three questions are the real issues, regardless of what may be printed on the ballot. Please, good people of Stillwater and elsewhere, understand that if you are committed to the principal of individual rights as so profoundly illustrated in America’s founding documents, the answer to all three is an emphatic NO!

A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state. The only difference, the reason that the full and final implications of such a system are not yet completely realized (although we are getting closer, referendum passed by referendum passed) is that parents are allowed to send their children to private schools or to home school – although they are still required to financially support the [effective] government educational monopoly. The obscene result is an environment where only the wealthiest among us can afford private schooling for their children. This is not choice in any sense of the real economic meaning of the concept.

When the state assumes financial control over education it becomes self-serving and evident that the state will assume control over what is allowed to be taught, and which values it will promote. When the government thus enters the realm of ideas and the controlling of content thereof over the minds and aspirations of our children and their parents THAT is the death of a truly free society – is this not precisely what Ms Petrie is petitioning for in the end? Your Yes vote will be your individual sanction of this immoral system and you cannot run or hide from that fact.

Of course, the looter mentality put on display by people of Ms Petrie’s ilk is stunning but the solution certainly cannot be to support her thesis, nor would I support exclusively taxing private property under the notion that this would cause fundamental change – the degree of dependency which has arisen would never allow for that to occur. The single solution here is to vote NO as often as possible, and bring the system to its knees until and unless this looter mentality ceases and real economic educational choice is put forth firstly. There can be no compromise with these people, their intransigence is clear and we have allowed them to enjoy it by our unwillingness to stand firm for our own inalienable rights! They have arrested their minds and concluded that the state has sovereignty over the individual in the realm of education. There can be no greater threat to all of our liberty than this, yet few seem to understand this reality. Fewer still willing to take up the fight for individual rights in this arena.

Education must be liberated from the control and intervention of government, and the only way that can happen is to institute real economic educational choice – market education and direct, real, competition. What needs to be challenged directly, and I believe I have done this implicitly here, is this pernicious and false idea that education is some sort of natural right, a “free education.” The powers of statism foster this delusion in order to confuse the issue of whose freedom is really being sacrificed here to pay for this leviathan that actually costs, in the case of the State of Wisconsin, approximately 45% of all revenues (and growing) – and this does not include local property tax levies! The reality is that there are no such free gifts.

Lastly, I will leave you with a quote from a very strong woman of immeasurable common sense. Isabel Patterson wrote: “Do you think nobody would willingly entrust his children to you to pay you for teaching them? Why do you have to extort your fees and collect your pupils by compulsion?”

Why, indeed. My advice to the good people of Stillwater – JUST VOTE NO.

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Boy it didn’t take Kitty long to show her true colors! Here come the tax increases. First Kitty said yes to spending $80 Million MORE than the original increase for PreK-12 and now she has rolled over completely and given the Democrats $500 Million MORE in cigarette taxes!

“We offered to accept $500 million in new spending with no strings attached, but they said that wasn’t enough,” said Rhoades.

Kitty Rhoades, our hero. No wonder the local liberals love to put her sign in their yard.

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Property taxes up as house prices fall

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Foreclosures seem to suddenly be catching more people’s attention lately. The growing number of foreclosures have been appearing in news stories and opinion letters in our local papers. Some of you may remember this issue being brought up by yours truly in a post I made over a year ago called “St. Croix County’s Yellow Brick Road is Lined with Debris” cautioning the likelihood of things getting much worse. And worse it is – and getting “worser”! (There – how’d ya like that word?)

It is clear we are facing a growing nightmare here in St. Croix County. A nightmare caused by a number of factors, but most of which are from people who have thrown caution to the wind by ignoring the basic financial rules of debt management. Regardless what the interest rate is, you can’t spend yourself rich.

Listed below are 39 homes where I’m sure the residents aren’t sleeping too well. Their wake-up call is already scheduled within the next 7 weeks with their nightmare either about to begin or end. And this is just a small number of those yet to have their wake-up call number waiting to be dialed.

St. Croix County Scheduled Foreclosure Sales
Property Address	Market Value	2006 Taxes	Back Taxes	Sheriff Sale Date	School District
1114 Pine Ridge Drive, River Falls WI	$369,500	$4,499	0	3/27/07	River Falls
1427 Mallard Ave, Baldwin WI	$185,200	$3,533	0	3/27/07	Baldwin Woodville
1116 105th Street, Roberts WI	$148,400	$1,944	$2,002	3/27/07	St Croix Central
436 West Second Street, New Richmond WI	$107,200	$1,726	0	3/27/07	New Richmond
567 McCutcheon Road, Hudson WI	$262,000	$2,845	0	3/27/07	Hudson
415 Maple Street, Woodville WI	$117,000	$1,934	0	4/03/07	Baldwin Woodville
1112 7th Street, Hudson WI	$151,000	$2,132	0	4/03/07	Hudson
571 County Road SS, Roberts WI	$200,400	$2,420	$2,493	4/10/07	St. Croix Central
1189 Tamarack Place, New Richmond WI	$297,900	$5,231	0	4/10/07	New Richmond
47 Heritage Blvd, Hudson WI	$180,200	$2,557	0	4/10/07	Hudson
700 LeRoy Lane Unit #17B, River Falls WI	$172,300	$2,933	0	4/10/07	River Falls
937 Meadowwood Lane, Hudson WI	$344,700	$3,844	0	4/10/07	Hudson
678 Davis Street, Hammond WI	$200,400	$3,492	0	4/17/07	St. Croix Central
814 Crimson Valley Road, Hudson WI	$406,700	$4,531	0	4/17/07	Hudson
530 US Highway 12, Wilson WI	$229,300	$3,194	$3,290	4/17/07	Spring Valley
613 Topaz Lane, Hudson WI	$385,300	$5,547	$13,629	4/17/07	Hudson
1876 90th Street, New Richmond WI	$197,700	$2,619	0	4/17/07	Somerset
2580 130th Avenue, Glenwood City WI	$142,300	$2,281	0	4/17/07	Glenwood City
902 First Street, Hudson WI	$175,600	$2,409	0	4/24/07	Hudson
1561 100th Avenue, Hammond WI	$184,500	$2,652	0	4/24/07	St. Croix Central
444 East 7th Street, New Richmond WI	$126,900	$2,140	$88	4/24/07	New Richmond
1282 200th Avenue, New Richmond WI	$238,200	$2,561	0	4/24/07	New Richmond
1813 Shasta Drive, Hudson WI	$194,200	$2,960	$6,241	4/24/07	Hudson
281 St. Andrews Driver, Hudson WI	$874,900	$11,546	0	4/24/07	River Falls
2108 81st Street, Somerset WI	$193,100	$2,559	0	4/24/07	Somerset
787 Holden Lane, Hudson WI	$245,000	$2,656	0	4/24/07	Hudson
2081 110th Avenue, Baldwin WI	$213,700	$2,290	0	5/01/07	Unknown
xxx Rice Lake Road, Somerset WI	Unknown	Unknown	??	5/01/07	Somerset
760 Glenmeadow Streeet, 744 Glenmeadow Streeet, 728 Glenmeadow Streeet, 829 Glenmeadow Streeet, 801 Glenmeadow Streeet, 785 Glenmeadow Streeet, 729 Glenmeadow Streeet, 709 Glenmeadow Streeet, all in River Falls WI	$600,800	$10,224	0	5/01/07	River Falls
2087 118th Street, New Richmond WI	$150,300	$1,585	0	5/08/07	New Richmond
1092 210 Avenue, New Richmond WI	$218,400	$2,786	0	5/08/07	Somerset
2351 53rd Street, Somerset WI	$226,400	$2,978	0	5/08/07	Somerset
	$7,739,500	$106,608	$28,764	TOTAL

If you want to confirm this listing and would like to see if your neighbor is on the list, you can vist the St. Croix County website to verify. Here is the link.

This list is updated constantly. How many homes have been sold at the hands of the Sheriff so far this year? How many were there last year? How many families have been forced to move away from St. Croix County and how many children will we no longer need to build schools for?

Much of this pain could have been avoided had the lending institutions maintained the 10% downpayment requirement when purchasing a home. As it stands now, not only will the banks suffer huge losses due to the large number of default mortgages, but so will the bedroom communities, like Hudson and surrounding areas, left to deal with the impact of over-valued properties having too low of incomes to support both the debt of their homes pluse the debt of the infrastructure surrounding it.

Now is the time I believe New Richmond needs to come out of its REM sleep and look at their own financial picture. How much money do you have to put down? As a district, if you were going into a bank to borrow $93 million to build a new house, are you able to put down the required 10% right now? $9.3 million is close to the amount of your present local school tax levy. What would be the response if you were to double everyone’s school tax bill for one year just to raise the 10% needed before going to referendum?

What I find most ironic is how this current schedule of properties being sold by the sheriff totals in value at $7.7 million. This is the amount New Richmond will need to come up with each year to meet the payment requirements of the loan they wish to make. Inside of 2 months 39 homes will be sold to the highest bidder with all most likely going for at least 20% less than their market value price. And this pace isn’t going to slow anytime soon. Most of these foreclosures should have taken place late last year, but the judge presiding over these cases has tried to slow these actions by placing a 3 or 6 month redemption period before going to sale. Even with this type of judicial intervention, the law of economics still rules. Too much debt is extremely difficult to recover from – if able to at all.

It’s wise to remember, “When digging your way out of a hole, be prepared to move a lot of dirt.”

In the mean time…… the nightmares continue…….

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