May 1, 2015

Some interesting paragraphs about Bernie Sanders' lifestyle.

The differences

Unlike Clinton and the vast majority of his Senate colleagues, Sanders has parlayed his career in public service into a lifestyle that is less than lavish. He makes $174,000, a salary frozen since 2009. He lives in a narrow, two-floor, one-bedroom townhouse on Capitol Hill that he bought (from me) for less than $500,000. There's a window air-conditioning unit on the second floor because the 125-year-old home doesn't have central air. It's worth the price of a mansion in Iowa or New Hampshire or Vermont, but it's modest for a walk-to-work crash pad a few blocks from the Senate.

His net worth, based on disclosed ranges, is somewhere between $110,000 and $551,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He has debts of up to $65,000 or so. If he gave three or four Clinton speeches, he could retire. Not that he would do either. Sanders said Thursday that he grew up poor, that his father dropped out of high school, and that his brother introduced him to books, of which there were not a lot around the Sanders household.

I guess he owns a home in Vermont also.

April 30, 2015

Bernie Sanders' letter to Alabama's governor about 2016 budget pulls no punches.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the latest presidential hopeful, issues dire warning to Alabama

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, ranking member of the Budget Committee, outlined the cuts he predicted in an April 26 letter to Gov. Robert Bentley. He sent similar letters to governors of every state.

"In my view, the proposals contained in the Republican House and Senate budgets will be devastating for the middle class and working families of our country and will move us in exactly the wrong time," said Sanders, an Independent, who is set to announce a presidential run.

How bad? Here's what Sanders said:


172,000 people would lose healthcare coverage.
32,000 jobs eliminated by 2017 because of cuts to transportation and education programs.
280,000 families would pay $1,116 more in taxes because of cuts to the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit.
1.1 million seniors would be forced out of traditional Medicare and moved into a voucher program.
Prescription drug prices would go up an average of $930 for almost 90,000 seniors who received Medicare Part D benefits.
The cost of college education will go up for 153,000 Alabama students because of cuts to the Pell Grant program.
570 fewer children would have access to Head Start.
902,000 would see a reduction in food stamps.
$879 million designated for roads and bridges will be cut.
Title I education funds will be reduced by $17.9 million, impacting as many as 33,700 children.
28,900 Alabamians could lose access to job training.

April 29, 2015

Cuomo on Opt Out. "Tests don’t count against students". (Just count against teachers.)

Cuomo on ‘opt out’: Tests don’t count against students


Cuomo. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

More to the story, though. Cuomo had vetoed a bill that would spare teachers from being affected by this often faulty roll out of new tests.

Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday said parents who have chosen to have their children “opt out” of taking this month’s state exams don’t understand that the scores are “meaningless” in terms of students' grades.

“That’s their option,” Cuomo, referring to parents who have participated in the unprecedented boycott of state exams, told reporters after an Association for a Better New York breakfast in Manhattan. “What I don’t think has been adequately communicated is, we passed a law that stops the use of the grades on the test for the student. So the grades are meaningless to the student.”

Cuomo was referring to provisions in the 2014-15 state budget that prohibited Common Core-aligned tests from being included on students’ permanent records or used in grade promotion decisions. He said that action was necessary because of the flawed rollout of the Common Core standards in New York, which he has blamed on the State Board of Regents and Education Department.

But wait.

Cuomo and lawmakers initially intended to also shield teachers from consequences of students’ low scores on the Common Core-aligned tests. At the end of the 2014 legislative session, Cuomo introduced and the Legislature passed a “safety net” bill for educators who might be in danger of being fired because of the rough rollout to the higher standards. But Cuomo later vetoed it.

From the comments section:

So lets get this straight..............
The tests are not an accurate assessment of the student because they are flawed, but are a good measuring tool for the teachers evaluation? We have State Ed going on and on about their value and how important they are .......then............he says this........Seriously!

April 27, 2015

Arne says parents to blame for test stress. Threatens fed intervention if Opt Outs continue.

And so Arne Duncan is asserting his power, showing his ignorance about education, and threatening the states that don't stop the Opt Outs.

He must think someone appointed him God of Education.

As opt-out numbers grow, Arne Duncan says feds may have to step in

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday that the federal government is obligated to intervene if states fail to address the rising number of students who are boycotting mandated annual exams.

...He also said the tests are “just not a traumatic event” for his children, who attend public school in Virginia.

“It’s just part of most kids’ education growing up,” he said. “Sometimes the adults make a big deal and that creates some trauma for the kids.”

A federal education department spokeswoman said last week that the agency could withhold funding from states if some of their districts have too few students take the exams, but that it has not yet done so because states have addressed the issue on their own.

There are some interesting posts in the comments section.

iCarly • 5 days ago

Arne says that the tests are not stressful to his children. Well, Arne, they're stressful to mine because since my husband got laid off last year, my teaching job has supported our family. Now with NY teachers' jobs tied so heavily to test grades, I face the possibility of losing my job since I teach very low functioning students. My children are stressed out about having their mother lose her job and our family's income based on the testing whims of other kids. So yes, a-hole, the tests are stressful to children depending on what your perspective is. My kids will be refusing NY's math tests this week in protest of the high stakes attached to them with regard to teachers' job evaluations.


Brruinsgirl . iCarly • 5 days ago
His Kids also do not take the same test we are refusing for our children. His kids do not take the SB or the PARCC.


Avatar
Lance Hamm Brruinsgirl . • 5 days ago

Neither did Cuomo's, neither do Obama's. Neither do any of the elite's children. No one in the 1% is subject to this, and yet the 1% is dictating it.

This post in the comments is really good. I think Arne Duncan has opened a big old can of worms here.

yarissa • 5 days ago

When a public policy begins to crumble, like this one is, the right thing is to sit down and think "what are we doing wrong?" and not "how are we going to beat people into submission?"

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong approach, Arne Duncan!

High stakes standardized testing has been not proven to be an accurate measure of what a student can do and how ready he/she is becoming for adulthood, but it HAS been proven to go against the affective filter hypothesis (among others educational theories and best practices) which states that students do best in a stress-free environment. Students also do well when they are slightly challenged , but it has been shown that CC and these standards and tests are above the Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky), which means they are too far away from where the students are to really respond. 4-5 hours of testing is also completely inappropriate pedagogically and developmentally for children in primary grades.

Take a step back, reassess and come talk to education experts and GET IT RIGHT instead of pushing on and admitting you made a mistake... isn't that what learning is all about? We learn from FAILURES!
Failing leads to improvement, but only if you're brave enough to admit you have failed.

Are you brave enough, Arne Duncan?

(My apologies for any typo, this page on my phone isn't great)

IMO Arne may be starting a battle he can not win. Time for President Obama to rein him in or fire him. He is threatening a war with teachers, parents, students, and states.

April 26, 2015

TPP branded as trade agreement, but what's really at stake. From Public Citizen.

Branded as trade agreement, but what's really at stake.

Trade officials from twelve Pacific Rim nations--Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile,
Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vi-
etnam are in intensive, closed door negotiations to sign the TransPacific Partner-
ship (TPP), a sweeping Free Trade Agreement (FTA), in 2014. Every Pacific Rim na-
tion from China to Russia could eventually be included. There are draft texts for
many of this pact’s 29 chapters, most of which have nothing to do with trade, but
rather impose limits on domestic food safety, health, environmental, and other policies. The governments won’t release the texts to the public. But about 600 U.S. corporate “trade advisors” have full access. America’s worst job offshoring corporations, global banks, agribusiness, and pharmaceutical giants want this deal to be another corporate power tool like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Consumer, labor, environmental, and other public interest advocates want a transparent process and a “Fair Deal or No Deal.”

A major goal of U.S. multinational corporations for the TPP is to impose on more countries a set of extreme foreign investor privileges and rights and their private enforcement through the notorious “investor state” system. This system allows foreign corporations to challenge before international tribunals national health, consumer safety, environmental, and other laws and regulations that apply to domestic and foreign firms alike. Outrageously, this regime elevates individual corporations and investors to equal standing with each TPP signatory
country’s government and above all of us citizens. This regime would empower corporations to skirt national courts and directly challenge our governments before tribunals of private sector lawyers operating under UN and World Bank rules to demand taxpayer compensation for domestic regulatory policies that investors believe
diminish their “expected future profits.” These regulatory policies can be anything from government procurement contracts and environmental protection to financial regulation.

If a corporation “wins”, the taxpayers of the “losing” country must foot the bill. Over $400 million in compensation has already been paid out to corporations in a series of investor
state cases under NAFTA style deals alone.

And a little from one of my favorite columnists, Michael Hiltzik.

On the other side of the argument is the trade pact's potential to foster economic growth and job creation — "650,000 jobs in the U.S. alone," as Secretary of State John F. Kerry asserted last month. But that widely challenged figure is extrapolated from a 2012 report by the Peterson Institute of International Economics, which didn't offer a jobs estimate. In fact, the report said the TPP might dislocate workers and drive older people out of the workforce — and that any benefits might be canceled out by the resulting costs to workers and society. Evidence from earlier trade pacts, including the North American Free Trade Agreement, suggests that the benefits for developing countries among the treaty signatories are similarly oversold.

Here is more from the Public Citizen website about the Investor State system.

Investor-State Attacks: Empowering Foreign Corporations to Bypass our Courts, Challenge Basic Protections

Among the most dangerous but least known parts of today's "trade" agreements are extraordinary new rights and privileges granted to foreign corporations and investors that formally prioritize corporate rights over the right of governments to regulate and the sovereign right of nations to govern their own affairs. These terms empower individual foreign corporations to skirt domestic courts and directly challenge any policy or action of a sovereign government before World Bank and UN tribunals.

Comprised of three private attorneys, the extrajudicial tribunals are authorized to order unlimited sums of taxpayer compensation for health, environmental, financial and other public interest policies seen as frustrating the corporations' expectations. The amount is based on the "expected future profits" the tribunal surmises that the corporation would have earned in the absence of the public policy it is attacking. There is no outside appeal. Many of these attorneys rotate between acting as tribunal "judges" and as the lawyers launching cases against the government on behalf of the corporations. Under this system, foreign corporations are provided greater rights than domestic firms.

This extreme "investor-state" system already has been included in a series of U.S. "trade" deals, forcing taxpayers to hand more than $400 million to corporations for toxics bans, land-use rules, regulatory permits, water and timber policies and more. Under a similar pact, a tribunal recently ordered payment of more than $2 billion to a multinational oil firm. Just under U.S. deals, more than $38 billion remains pending in corporate claims against medicine patent policies, pollution cleanup requirements, climate and energy laws, and other public interest policies.

At the bottom of that link there are more examples of other cases going on.

I was also reading a post here today that I had missed.

Fact or Fiction: Does the Hatch-Wyden-Obama Trade Promotion Authority Bill Protect U.S. Sovereignty

Thanks, Cali, for posting that.

I am surprised at how many still compare sincere questioning about such a drastic policy to being a hater of Obama. I still get feedback that is ugly when I question how public education and public school teachers have been steamrolled by this administration's corporate education reform.

I hope the use of terms like hater soon stops, or else it is going to be a tough time until next November.

My late hubby and I supported Obama both times, not just donating but locally taking part as well. It makes me feel like I am no longer part of a party when questioning policies brings labels like that.

April 24, 2015

Obama compared liberal TPP complaints to rumors of "death panels" during Obamacare debate

This article from National Journal links to Democratic Underground.

I am very upset when our Democratic leaders talk like that. Opposing the trade agreement that would likely take away our sovereignty makes us as liberals nothing at all like the tea party right.

This trade deal seems so serious a step that I would say that if it passes our votes would mean very little from then on.

He was speaking to an OFA group.

Obama Compares Progressive Opposition to Trade Deal to ‘Death Panels’ as the Left Ramps Up Opposition

"If you were watching MSNBC and all this stuff, and you're thinking, 'Oh, man, I love Obama but what's going on here?'" the president joked. Obama tried to reframe the deal as part of his push for what he calls "middle-class economics," which he said was "the idea that this country does best when everybody gets their fair shot, everybody does their fair share, everybody plays by the same set of rules."

Obama also called the deal "the most progressive trade agreement in our history," adding that it has labor and environmental enforcements. Obama compared the liberal complaints to the rumors of "death panels" during the Obamacare debate.

But the line was seen as a slap in the face to some progressives.

"It's shameful to see President Obama compare Democrats who oppose fast-tracking the TPP through Congress to Sarah Palin and the delusional 'death panels' rhetoric," said Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America, in a statement. "Frankly, it's beneath this president to resort to such name-calling."

And the link to a post here:

The speech is the latest effort in the Obama team's hard sell to progressives. A group of former Obama campaign officials have also started a pro-TPP group called the Progressive Coalition for American Jobs. On Friday, George Zornick of The Nation tweeted that Obama joined a press call with Labor Secretary Thomas Perez on Friday, and criticized politicians who "send emails out to their fundraising base that they're working to stop a secret deal," a not-so-subtle shot at Warren.

More recently, Organizing for Action sent out an email about TPA that Democratic Underground posted trying to explain the importance of the legislation. The email also argued that the term "fast track" for TPA was a misnomer because TPA would have to go through Congress like any other bill.

Well, now, to quote Elizabeth Warren recently... "We're Not Allowed To Talk About" TPP Specifics, Process Is "Rigged"

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: They're asking us to vote now on greasing the skids, so that we give up now any chance to be able to amend it, any chance to be able to block it or slow it down. Give all that up, and then you'll get to see the deal on the other side...

We can talk about the facts that the American people can't see, but there is one fact the American people can see; how the negotiation process worked.

These negotiations have been going on for a long time and there are 28 different working groups for it. 85% of the people in those working groups are senior executives in various industries that will be affected or lobbyists for those industries.

They're the ones who helped shape the deal, they're the ones who determine what the deal is going to look like on the other side. My view is, when the process is rigged, the outcome is likely to be rigged.

Negotiations have been so secretive, it pretty much says it is not at all about the people...and everything about the power players.

April 20, 2015

Florida testing halted again today due to company unauthorized updates. Not the first time.

FSA testing halted today because of computer problems, schools say

An "unapproved" and "unnecessary" computer update done this weekend by Florida's testing contractor disrupted testing for thousands of Florida students this morning when they could not log on to the state's computer system, Education Commissioner Pam Stewart told superintendents this morning.

Stewart said at 11 a.m. that the problem has been resolved and districts could try again to administer FSA reading and math exams. The Orange, Lake and Seminole county school districts said they have been able to resume testing at least some students.

In the telephone call with superintendents, Stewart said she as "exasperated, frustrated, dismayed, angry" that the state's testing contractor, American Institutes for Research, or AIR, had made a "technical change" during the weekend to the testing system.

"It was not approved by the department," she said. "It was not necessary to the administration of the FSA."

This test grades teachers, students, schools....it's a no excuses high stakes test which can override a student's other school progress, even that of honor students.

It should not count.

Opponents of high-stakes testing quickly took to social media sites to argue the new problems mean students shouldn't be judged by FSA results.

Not the first time testing has gone badly this time.

FL testing a mess. Girl finished essay, there was no submit button.

From an anonymous Florida teacher:

Today I got to see the frustration and anger on a kids face. She had finished her essay and was ready to submit, but there wasn’t a submit button. The test was saved and then paused. Moved to another computer. Logged in and …. Nothing. All her work was gone. Case opened with FSA. The young lady was really angry. Who could blame her? She refused to “rewrite the essay” or even “submit the test” which was now blank. This is where testing has gone too far. How many students have had to deal with this statewide?

From Orlando Sentinel reporter Leslie Postal: Florida’s new online testing system lost the writing exams of more than 300 Central Florida students who took the test this month. Most of the essays have since been recovered, but about 50 remain missing.

April 19, 2015

At least 155,000 NY students opted out of tests on Thursday. Big protest. Picture.

With Massive Boycott of Standardized Tests, New York Students Take Stand Against Corporate Education


Tens of thousands of students in New York boycotted the annual state-mandated English Language Arts exams this week in a grassroots challenge to Governor Andrew Cuomo's controversial education agenda.

Organizers, including educational advocacy group United to Counter the Core, said at least 155,000 students opted out of the tests on Thursday, with only half of the state's districts tallied. That figure is up from 112,763 on Wednesday—and up from 49,000 last year. Testing began on Tuesday.

The revolt is in response to what parents, students, and activists say is a political takeover of educational standards—seen at the national level as well—that pushes a focus on standardized exams and a Common Core curriculum, developed by a secretive for-profit company, that compromises learning for test preparation.

In late March, Cuomo approved a budget that included many divisive revisions to the state education agenda, including teacher evaluations based partly on test scores, which critics say take too long , are too vague to be accurate, and fail to measure real learning.

Investigative journalist Juan Gonzalez explained the concerns over the increased focus on testing in his column for the New York Daily News:

The politicians created a test that says all schools are failing, not just the ones in the big cities, then declare a crisis, so they can close more neighborhood schools, launch more charter schools, and target more teachers for firing.

Meanwhile, the private company that fashioned this new test, Pearson, insists on total secrecy over its content.

April 18, 2015

Speaking of disrespect for teachers' unions...I can tell you what teachers likely to do in 2016

unless someone starts honoring their contracts and their negotiated benefits. They will simply not vote. Teachers tend to be passive by necessity, and they probably won't tell anyone about their decision not to bother. Their careers have been at stake for over 6 years now.

There was a post here today about Obama slamming unions.

Since teachers' unions were not mentioned I decided to post some reminders of how their legal contracts and negotiated benefits have been trampled on. Early on in 2009 both Obama and Secretary of Education warned districts not to cave in to unions.

Then they proceeded with a policy that in effect turned public schools over to education "reformers" who know nothing about educating young people.

Here are some examples...only a few...there are so so many. Remember that many of these teachers were tenured, also known as Continuing Contract and other names.

When they are fired or laid off that is called union-busting.


Newark: 700 Teachers May Be Laid Off and Replaced by TFA

TFA (Teach for America) is a private company that recruits recent college grads and charges thousands of dollars to districts who hire them. Of course districts could hire locally for free.

Veteran journalist Bob Braun reports that Cami Anderson–the Christie administration’s state-appointed superintendent in Newark (and a graduate of Teach for America)–may lay off 700 Newark teachers and replace many or most of them with TFA.

He writes:

“The state administration of the Newark Public Schools (NPS) is expected to lay off hundreds of experienced city teachers and replace many with new hires, including more than 300 members of Teach for America (TFA). The report comes from union sources but is supported both by the latest version of the state’s “One Newark” plan and by the Walton Family Foundation website. The foundation is expected to subsidize the hiring of the new teachers.

More:

7,000 NY teachers laid off in cuts

ALBANY -- Layoffs hit nearly 3 percent of teachers in New York this year, according to a survey released Tuesday by the state Council of School Superintendents.

That translates into more than 7,000 teacher layoffs, said Richard C. Iannuzzi, president of the New York State United Teachers union. Another 4,000 unfilled positions were eliminated.

Chicago teachers faced another group than TFA. It is called the New Teacher Project. They were to replace the teachers laid off because they were not needed. Weird, huh?

Laid off teachers in Chicago surprised by "secret" rating method. New Teacher Project involved.

Chicago Public Schools says it’s using 30 reviewers—all top-notch, National Board Certified teachers—to look over its online teacher applications. They’ve so far reviewed 4,000 applications and added a designation to each one. Winckler said reviewers are trained and are using a rubric developed several years ago by CPS and The New Teacher Project. That’s a national group dedicated to getting high quality teachers into needy schools.

The New Teacher Project, founded by Michelle Rhee, was busy in NY as well.

The city may lay off 8,500 teachers, but education officials still want approval for a contract of up to $5 million a year to recruit even more teachers.

The agency's Panel for Educational Policy will vote later this month on the hefty contract, but already critics are questioning the need to spend money to recruit during a time of layoffs.

"We should put a freeze on any spending related to new hiring. We should not even be going through the expense of negotiating a contract now," said Patrick Sullivan, the panel's Manhattan representative.

Since 2000, the New Teacher Project has contracted with the city to recruit New York City Teaching Fellows. For this school year, the group received $2.8 million for recruiting 705 teachers.

Get that? They want to lay off tenured teachers and pay 5 million to recruit more. That is just plain stupid.

Did you see that "non-profit" has earned 2.8 million since 2000? Really.

And though there is so much more, I think journalist Bob Braun said it well on his Twitter page.

Bob Braun
‏@BobBraunsLedger

TFA calls me "fear mongerer." I feel the fear in hearts of teachers laid off so TFA-ers can slum it for two years. http://bobbraunsledger.com/?p=1254

I think teachers were among the many who stayed home at election time. I am retired, I voted, I voted Democrat.

Now these teachers are having the parents and students come on board with them, and their jobs are even more at stake.

This will drop as most education posts do, I will have people lecture me about how bad teachers' unions are, how public education is no good.

That doesn't matter. Agree or not...the situation exists. No one in leadership particularly cares.

And one more thing. I wish when people stand up for other unions here at a Democratic forum that they would at least mention teachers' unions.

April 17, 2015

"I believe that we are best as a party when we lead with our principles, not according to polls"

Martin O'Malley said that today, he is right.

Martin O'Malley Goes After Hillary Clinton For Leading By 'Polls,' Not 'Principles

WASHINGTON -- Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) went after Hillary Clinton Thursday, accusing her of changing policy positions based on polls rather than her convictions. It's the first time the prospective Democratic presidential candidate has attacked Clinton since she announced her presidential bid Sunday.

"I’m glad Secretary Clinton’s come around to the right positions on these issues," said O'Malley, referring to same-sex marriage and immigration. O'Malley spoke to reporters at Harvard University, where he gave a speech on the economy.

"I believe that we are best as a party when we lead with our principles and not according to the polls," O'Malley added. "And every election is about the future. And leadership is about making the right decision, and the best decision before sometimes it becomes entirely popular."