It’s a nearly perfect day. I’m cleaning up the garden this morning. With mulch smell on my hands, let me jot out one quick blog post with links about urban education.

Andy Kessler in the WSJ thinks that MOOCs are the answer to the problems in urban education. I absolutely can’t imagine that a kid who barely shows up to school and has a third grade reading level is going to have the discipline or the background to take advantage of online learning. The article is worthless, except for some interesting numbers.

I began by pointing out that in 2011 only 7.9% of 11th graders in Chicago public schools tested “college ready.” That’s failure, and it’s worse when you realize how much money is wasted on these abysmal results. Chicago’s 23,290 teachers—who make an average salary of $74,839, triple U.S. per capita income and 50% more than median U.S. household income—cost Chicago taxpayers $1.75 billion out of the city’s $5.11 billion budget.

Why not forget the teachers and issue all 404,151 students an iPad or Android tablet? At a cost of $161 million, that’s less than 10% of the expense of paying teachers’ salaries. Add online software, tutors and a $2,000 graduation bonus, and you still don’t come close to the cost of teachers. You can’t possibly do worse than a 7.9% college readiness level.

For a more informed debate, check out Deborah Meier and Michael Petrili in Education Week.