iPod – On the surface it seems harmless enough.

In an attempt to reach kids whose attachment to learning and achievement is weak at best, Seattle schools are offering an inducement. OK, a bribe. Every student who enrolls in a special summer program aimed at increasing performance on the WASL gets a free iPod Shuffle.

The $79 device was considered popular enough to help fill 270 slots in two programs aimed at math, reading and writing achievement. Before the offer was made, only about 80 failing students had signed up for the five-week course.

“For the subset of students who have lost motivation … this is worth a try,” the city of Seattle’s Office of Education director told The Seattle Times.

But the message it sends – and the reality it reflects – is not benign. Kids who goof off shouldn’t receive gifts while kids who try hard get nothing extra. Kids shouldn’t be bribed to try to learn something.

This program will be used by WASL opponents as further evidence of a system gone mad – that districts are so desperate to improve test passage rates that they’ll try anything.

Before the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, 25 percent of kids who entered high school as freshmen didn’t graduate with their class. It won’t be much different post-WASL and might well be better. But the same failure rates that were overlooked before are now cited as evidence of a disaster in the making.

In reality, a lot of kids fail because they don’t give a rip and neither do their parents. We shouldn’t have to bribe them to get them to change that attitude. And we shouldn’t give them a diploma to soothe their self-esteem.

IRV – When the official reasons for taking action don’t make sense, it’s a good bet that the stated reasons aren’t the real reasons. Take the effort by the Pierce County Council and the county executive to delay, disrupt and even kill the instant runoff voting experiment that was approved by voters – over the objections of the political establishment – just last year.

There is nothing wrong with IRV – sometimes called ranked-choice voting – that can’t be fixed in time for the 2008 election. That’s what county Auditor Pat McCarthy says after working all spring with a task force to implement the system.

So why is the council and the executive saying the system won’t work, or at least can’t be made to work by next year? Could it be because Councilmen Shawn Bunney, Terry Lee and Calvin Goings are running for executive and don’t want to be subjected to a voting system they can’t control or predict?

And could it be that they didn’t like it in the first place and resent that voters don’t listen to their leaders?

If there is any doubt, remember this is the same bunch that supports extending the term limits of the auditor from two terms to three. No one is asking for such a change, but it just might keep McCarthy out of the county executive race next year, leaving the field more open for the above-referenced council members.

Try this: We voted for IRV. Make it work.

NBA – Remember the news that the Muckleshoot Tribe wanted to cut a deal with Sonics owner Clay Bennett to build an arena in Auburn?

What was a long shot to start with has become a nonstarter to end with. At least that’s the prediction of a source who understands this stuff better than I do (but who wants to remain anonymous in case he’s right).

With the NBA reeling from a still-developing scandal involving a referee who allegedly bet on games he was working, there is no chance the league will allow a partnership with a tribe that runs a major gambling operation.

NBA Commissioner David Stern, who has called the scandal “an act of betrayal of what we know in sports as a sacred trust,” will not allow a league member to even talk about associating with a casino.

Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657

peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com