On Thursday, GOP nominee Mitt Romney robot-walked his exoskeleton into a West Philly charter school and proclaimed to teachers and administrators that class size has no influence on student performance. As you might expect, this went over about as well as… a Mitt Romney PR stop in the heart of West Philly.

Romney’s campaign contacted Universal Bluford, a local elementary school run by Kenny Gamble, to arrange the open discussion on education. While he framed the disparate performances of black and white students as the ”the civil rights issue of our time,” Romney went on to cite a Massachusetts study that apparently found no relationship between class size and student performance. ”As a matter of fact, the district with the smallest classrooms, Cambridge, had students performing in the bottom 10 percent. So just getting smaller classrooms didn’t seem to be the key.”

Steven Morris, a quite ballsy music teacher at the school, responded to Romney, ”I can’t think of any teacher in the whole time I’ve been teaching, over 10 years, 13 years, who would say . . . that more students would benefit [from larger classes]. And I can’t think of a parent who would say, ‘I would like my kid to be in a room with a lot of kids and only one teacher.’ “

We happen to agree and, despite any evidence to the contrary, it was sort of stupid thing for a presidential nominee to say, especially at a charter school in Philadelphia. Class size has been at the center of the education debate since 2000. While common sense dictates that more one-on-one time with teachers and less distractions in the classroom are a good thing, there actually are a few studies that show no correlation. However, according to Education Week, “most [studies] have linked smaller classes to improvements in achievement.”

Mayor Nutter has since responded to Romney’s West Philly visit, saying, ”I don’t know that a one-day experience in the heart of West Philadelphia is enough to get you ready to run the United States of America.” He later added, “You want to have an urban experience? You want to have a West Philly experience? Then come out here and talk to somebody in West Philly.”

Read more at the LA Times.

Photos courtesy of Clem Murray via Philly.com

If there’s one thing that proves city officials are actually working in our best interest, this has to be it. Not too long ago, we reported that Councilman Bill Green introduced a bill to put down the loathsome beast that is Philly’s traffic court by allowing drivers to contest parking tickets online or by phone.

Yesterday, City Council unanimously approved its euthanization, and Nutter plans to sign off on it shortly. This means that the worst place in Philadelphia (the Bureau of Administrative Adjudication) should be a ghost town by fall.

To pay for the new system, Councilman Mark Squilla has proposed adding an extra $4 to every parking violation. If approved, the surcharge will likely be phased into the new program during the fall. Philly.com reports that the extra fee could raise another $4 million in revenue each year.

Last year, Democrats declared that the Republican “War on Women” is real, and now they may have another example to back their claims. Yesterday, Republican lawmakers in Harrisburg introduced a bill that would dramatically reduce state funding for Planned Parenthood by directing tax payer money to other health care providers that do not offer abortions.

The initiative, which is curiously titled Whole Woman’s Health Funding Priority Act, was introduced by State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler), and critics claim it could leave some 350,000 women without affordable health care. There are 42 state clinics currently operating under Planned Parenthood in Pennsylvania.

Metcalfe, who has not been successful in passing this bill in the past, argues that “Pennsylvania taxpayers must no longer be forced to subsidize the loss of innocent lives.” He assures the public that overall funding towards women’s health will not go down. Instead, hospitals, clinics, and health centers will simply have financial precedence.

Although the Planned Parenthood nonprofit is mostly known for abortions, it also provides many other gynecological health services, which may no longer be available if the bill is passed. Sari Stevens, executive director of PA Planned Parenthood maintains that only 4% of individuals seeking services last year came in for an abortion.

Pennsylvania is currently the 5^th state to have pending bills which seek to defund Planned Parentood.

Read more at Huffington Post

The mother of the 1-year-old boy who was recently locked in a running washing machine plans to sue the two idiots who put her son there.

In yet another act of pure stupidity turned YouTube sensation, the a friend of the boy’s babysitter was caught on camera playfully tossing the toddler into a washing machine in “an attempt to play peek-a-boo.”  For lack of better words, the situation spun out of control when the machine unexpectedly turned on and the door would not unlock. The boy’s bumpy ride lasted for about a minute and came to an end when an employee shut the machine’s circuit off from the back.

As if Tan Mom wasn’t enough to handle, we think Laudromat Babysitter might just surpass her as the biggest moron to ever be left with a child.

“My thoughts are nobody should ever put a child in a washing machine,” says the wise grandmother of the boy. Yeah, we think so too, as do the thousands of YouTube viewers who have left angry comments on the video taken from the laundromat’s surveillance camera.

Sakia David, the boy’s mother, says that she is more upset because she wasn’t told about the incident after it happened. She first viewed the video on the nightly news along with the rest of America. She intends to press charges against her babysitter, who is actually her baby’s father’s girlfriend. Complicated, I know.

“She never said anything about it, that’s the thing. I found out yesterday when I looked at the tape, they thought I was going crazy. I’m like I’m not going crazy, I know my son and I know you. She just kept saying it wasn’t her,” David said.

Frankly, we’re not sure what the craziest part of this story is. But one thing is certain: it is definitely time to for this mother to get a new babysitter.

You may have heard talk of Mayor Nutter’s new Actual Value Initiative (AVI), since it pretty much has every Philadelphia homeowner either anxious, or really pissed off. It’s an admittedly complex issue, but here’s what you need to know about it.

Nutter’s proposed policy would reappraise all real estate in Philadelphia to the current-market value, generating an additional $94 million in tax revenue to bolster funding for our FUBAR school district. This would mean higher property taxes for residential homeowners- an increase that would likely trickle down to renters.

As The Inquirer points out, the greater the discrepancy between your home’s current-market value and its assessed market value (the current value used for tax purposes only), the higher your tax increase will be. Although Philadelphia properties are generally undervalued, commercial and industrial properties are appraised closer to their actual worth. So, the AVI could actually drive down taxes on industrial properties, and the vast majority of that $94 million windfall would come from residential home owners.

Alarmingly, current estimates project that approximately $200-300 million in total tax revenue would be transferred from commercial to residential property owners. Council Bill Green is not down with that figure. So he’s proposed to transfer the tax burden from residential property owners to commercial property owners by increasing the Use and Occupancy Tax (which only affects commercial property owners) by $94 million.

Adding to this mess is City Council’s looming deadline to submit a budget and tax rate by July 1st, even though the new property reassessments AVI demands will not be completed by then.

During a recent City Council meeting, Councilman Mark Squilla proposed a one-year delay in the implementation of AVI. Although he considers the initiative essential, he does not approve of the way in which the Nutter Administration handled the matter. The Tax Fairness Coalition also supports a one-year delay, as it would allow new property reassessments to inform the city’s future policies.

For a glimpse into how Nutter’s AVI could screw affect you, download this Excel sheet and plug in your estimated current-market value and the value listed on the Officer of Property Assessment.

Photos by PWBaker via Flickr

We’ve got good news, fatties; it looks like Federal Donuts is going to open another location at the 1600 block of Sansom, according to Naked Philly. At a recent Center City Residents’ Association Meeting the venerable folks from Federal Donuts reportedly announced their plans to open a second chicken-donut-coffee shop where Video Liquidators currently resides. Hopefully this will help FD match Philly’s unbridled love for their birds and donuts, a love that can, at times, go unreciprocated.

There’s no word yet on when the additional location will be up and running, or if any of this will actually happen, but be sure to liquidate all your… videos(?) as soon as possible- just to be on the safe side.

Photo via Naked Philly

The Press of Atlantic City is quite pissed over a recent Daily News article with the headline “Tourist Death Trap.” The headline is in reference to a truly horrible double murder that took place near an AC casino this past Monday, in which two Canadian tourists, one 80 and the other 47, were ferociously stabbed to death during what appears to be a botched robbery by a schizophrenic homeless woman.

Antoinette E. Pelzer, 44, has since been charged with both murders and other related offenses, but her capture did not stop the DN from speculating on the many dangers brought about by the homeless in Atlantic City as well as their dwindling casino industry. As you might imagine, the whole story basically reads as a litany of reasons why no sane person should ever go to Atlantic City.

To counteract the bad PR, the Press of Atlantic City released this somewhat scathing statement to the DN:

“A ‘Tourist Death Trap’? Please. In words our fellow journalists who designed Tuesday’s front page at the Philadelphia Daily News might use: Yo, Philly. Stick it.

Newspapers, of course, have an obligation to report the news, even and especially when the news is painful and distressing. And The Press of Atlantic City did not shy away from reporting this story in the newspaper and online. But our brethren at the Daily News were over the top – and irresponsible.”

Ouch. To be fair, Philadelphia has seen 135 murders since January, and just because one person savagely gored two tourists does not mean we should all steer clear of AC. Trump is a good enough reason for that.