RESOLUTIONS NEED TO BE TO CREATE DEMOCRACY NOW COMMUNITY GROUPS FOR POLITICAL ACTION AND NETWORKING!!!!
As with the K-12 move to connect school to business our public universities have been moving that way for a decade or so. That is what got O'Malley his ever-rising political politions.....he was committed to advancing corporate education and this is why Maryland is #1 in Education Week.....a charter and privatized education magazine. Every time O'Malley quotes that I know that most people do not know that is what the distinction holds.
To people simply observing this education reform piecemeal it is made to sound like they are enhancing the classroom experience and holding those teachers accountable. To those of us that know the final goal......we see a nightmare of medieval trade workshops for the masses.....which is the goal.
Americans universities are known as liberal hotbeds where professors with tenure feel free to think and write about issues of the day without retribution. Universities promote an environment of all that is the Bill of Rights and Constitution.....free speech, free thought, free expression, political activism, and humanities having cultural relevance of the day. THAT IS WHAT THIS EDUCATION IS MEANT TO KILL! HOW CAN YOU HAVE AN AUTOCRATIC SOCIETY WITH ALL OF THAT LIBERALISM? If you break up the campus by having students on computers elsewhere there is none of this liberalization on campus. If you have students listening to canned lectures by selected professors you get no free thinking radical teaching. If you place students online you eliminate the costs of academic buildings. SO THEY END GOAL IS TO KILL LIBERAL EDUCATION AND TO CHEAPEN THE PROCESS OF EDUCATING.
Are these online classes poor quality and can they be made better? If the goal is to cheapen the educational expenditures for the 90% you will not end up with quality. They simply want concepts learned. You will see none of this in the elite schools as they will still have the democratic education the elite have had from the days of Ancient Greece. They simply are trying to erase the Enlightenment Period where humanities and Greek-style democratic education became available to everyone.
TAKING THESE DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION OPPORTUNITIES AWAY FROM 90% OF THE PEOPLE WILL INSTITUTIONALIZE WEALTH INEQUITY AND THIRD WORLD STATUS.
WALL STREET HAS TOLD US WHICH AREAS OF EDUCATION LEAD TO WORK AND THOSE ARE THE ONES THAT NEED TO BE FOUND IN OUR UNIVERSITIES. SO, GONE ARE THE HUMANITIES AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES.....EXCEPT PSYCHOLOGY.....SO ALL OF THE EDUCATIONAL GAINS IN KNOWING WHO THE EVERYDAY PERSON WAS AND IS, RATHER THAN THE ROYALTY AND NOBILITY AS WAS HISTORY RECORDED IN OFFICIAL LEDGER, IS NOW DEEMED WORTHLESS. THEY ARE EVEN PULLING THE CONTEMPORARY ART OUT OF MUSEUMS BECAUSE IT DOES NOT REFLECT 'BEAUTY'. IT COSTS TAXPAYER MONEY TO KEEP THESE HUMANITIES TYPES EMPLOYED AND WITH THE RICH AND CORPORATIONS CHANNELING ALL TAXPAYER MONEY INTO THEIR OWN POCKETS, THEY DON'T WANT SILLINESS TAKING YOUR TAX REVENUE.
THEY WANT US ALL TO THINK LIKE THE POOR, REPUBLICAN BASE.
VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!!
Pricing Out the Humanities
November 26, 2012 - 3:00am By Colleen Flaherty
History professors at the University of Florida think their courses are plenty valuable, but they don't want them to be among the most expensive. And they are organizing to protest a gubernatorial task force's recommendation to charge more for majors without an immediate job payoff -- a recommendation that the historians fear could discourage enrollments.
History professors have organized a petition against one of the more controversial recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Task Force on State Higher Education Reform: differential tuition that could be punitive to the humanities. They've garnered more than 1,300 names in a week, including those from places far beyond the Sunshine State.
"We, the undersigned faculty, have dedicated our careers to the common good of the State of Florida," the petition reads. "We believe that the institutional goals of our universities are not in conflict with state goals. We also know a great deal about the vital connection between higher education and a responsible and productive citizenry; in fact, this connection is at the very center of our profession. We trust that Governor Scott will recognize the pressing need for meaningful faculty input into future deliberations concerning the future of higher education in the State of Florida."
Quoting the task force's language on differential tuition, petition co-creator Norman Goda said, "The theory is that students in 'non-strategic majors,' by paying higher tuition, will help subsidize students in the 'strategic' majors, thus creating a greater demand for the targeted programs and more graduates from these programs, as well."
Established in May by Governor Rick Scott, a Republican who has said he wants to run Florida's education system more like a business, the task force includes legislators, businesspeople and educators appointed by various parties. It finalized its recommendations earlier this month. The governor is now reviewing the report, which divides reform into three different but interlinked areas: accountability, funding and governance.
Recommendations for accountability include a call for more metrics to determine university success and performance, while those for governance include allowing the state university system's Board of Governors more control over funding (currently the state legislature holds much of that control). Funding recommendations call for non-uniform tuition among the state's 12 universities and a further look into differential tuition among degree programs.
Although several models for differential tuition exist in higher education, the model endorsed by the task force would aim to hold in-state tuition rates for "high-skill, high-wage, high-demand (market determined strategic demand) degree programs" steady for at least three years, making them potentially more attractive to students than other majors. Although the task force report doesn't officially recommend strategic majors, it names several possible categories previously identified by the Florida university system's Board of Governors, including 111 in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM); 28 programs in globalization; and 21 in the health professions. (Such degree programs currently account for 37 percent of degrees granted within the system, with a 21 percent increase during the past four years). Core humanities disciplines did not make the list.
Task force chairman Dale Brill, Florida Chamber Foundation president and Scott's appointee to the group, said the recommendations were based on "logic," rather than research into which degree programs have proven to be the most beneficial to individual students and state economies. Defining "strategic" and "non-strategic" programs ultimately will be the work of the state legislature, he said.
"The task force tried to identify innovative approaches to spreading limited resources to drive maximum benefit to the system," Brill said. "Up until now, in that system, that money is invested evenly across the board with very little attention paid toward getting maximum return on that investment" for the 104 million taxpayers contributing to it.
Brill said he wondered why humanities professors felt targeted by a plan to improve the university funding system, which would improve the university system overall.
"If you improve the system without worrying about the professors in the system, in the end the system has more resources to invest," he said.
But Lillian Guerra, one of Goda's history colleagues at the University of Florida and a petition co-creator, said the task force plan lays the foundation for second-class degrees. Departments receive funding based on how many students enroll in courses, she said, so decreased humanities enrollment would lead to less funding for the department.
Damage to the department would damage the university overall, she added. "In the short term, I think we run the risk of demolishing our prestige as an institution, when so much of the institution's prestige has been anchored in liberal arts."
Goda said that in the long run, differential tuition could mean a less "richly educated" workforce. Students in strategic majors also could suffer from lack of a well-rounded education – something he said makes them "truly adaptable and employable over the course of their lives."
Robert Townsend, deputy director of the American Historical Association, said the professional association was making its members aware of the Florida professors' petition.
"I think there's general agreement that it would not be helpful or positive for the history discipline," he said of differential tuition, adding that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recently announced he's making similar forays into reforming state higher education.
In his Nov. 16 announcement, Walker said funding for technical colleges and the University of Wisconsin System must be linked to performance. "In higher education, that means not only degrees, but are young people getting degrees in jobs that are open and needed today, not just the jobs that the universities want to give us, or degrees that people want to give us?"
Townsend said despite the recent trend toward more seemingly job-oriented degrees, which isn't uncommon during slow economic periods, a history degree holds enduring value.
"There's plenty of evidence that history as a major sets people up for a lot of different careers," he said, including business. "You're trained to think critically and use evidence and write about it. There are [bosses] who prefer that to those who are trained to do that narrowly, to think only about numbers, rather than about numbers in wider aspects and making use of them."
According to a Georgetown University study based on 2010 Census data, recent history majors (ages 22-26) have a 10.2 percent unemployment rate, while more experienced history graduates without an advanced degree fare better at 5.8 percent unemployment. Overall, 9.4 percent of recent humanities and liberal arts graduates and 6.1 percent of their more experienced counterparts are unemployed. By comparison, 7.7 percent of recent life and physical science graduates are unemployed, as are 4.7 percent of older grads; in computers and mathematics, the rates were 8.2 percent and 5.6 percent, respectively.
While the study does show a link between STEM and other strategic degrees and lower unemployment, it cautions that "majors that are closely aligned with occupations can misfire." Because of the decline in construction, for example, recent architecture graduates have the highest rate of unemployment, 13.9 percent. By contrast, education, business, health care and the professional services have been relatively stable employers of recent graduates with related majors.
Science advocates also have opposed the Blue Ribbon proposal. Shirley Malcom, head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Directorate for Education and Human Resources Programs, called differential tuition "a difficult call." But ultimately, she said, it pits different areas of an institution against each other, "where we as STEM people need the rest of the knowledge that is resident in the rest of the institution."
Malcom argued for other ways to promote STEM, such as direct scholarships.
Student groups also have opposed the recommendation. José R. Soto, co-president of University of Florida Graduate Assistants United, helped organize a recent joint-press conference on the recommendations, along with the Gainesville Area Students for a Democratic Society, and is helping plan a rally before the university's Board of Trustees meeting next week.
The doctoral candidate, who recently defended his dissertation in applied economics, said differential tuition could create a kind of brain drain away from Florida higher education, in which the state's "best and brightest" qualifying for scholarships out of state leave to ensure a top-notch education. Additionally, Soto said, trying to forecast the job market to determine which degrees will be most lucrative in the future is misguided. "Any economist will tell you one of the hardest things you can do is predict the market; if you take it farther than a [certain period of time] in unknown territory."
It's unclear exactly when the recommendations could be considered by the Florida legislature, or which, if any, Scott will endorse. A spokeswoman said Scott "has made it clear he thinks Florida's colleges and universities need to be affordable for the families of our state." But the governor -- in-much discussed remarks last year about anthropology -- has seemed skeptical of the value of a number of liberal arts disciplines.
William Proctor, a task force and departing state House member who serves as chancellor of Flagler College in St. Augustine, said, "It may be premature to try to size that up. It won't even get into committee hearings until [next year]." He also noted that while there was interest in differential tuition among his former colleagues, changes to higher education funding remain controversial in Florida. In April, Scott vetoed a bill that would have allowed the school's top research institutions – Florida State University and the University of Florida – to raise tuition.
Proctor also noted that the task force's final report only recommends holding strategic degree tuition steady for a period of at least three years, while other differential tuition models could be adapted later. Even within the task force, he said, there was discussion as to whether to charge more for STEM and other strategic degrees because they can be more expensive for the university. (Schools throughout the country already have adopted that model, especially for degrees in engineering and business).
Still, Guerra, who specializes in Latin American history, said the proposals are disturbing seen through the lens of history. "The Cuban state in the [1960s and 1970s] began to promote technical fields and the hard sciences because those are the fields believed to generate wealth for the collective aspiration, as opposed to an individual meditation on ideas."
MORE AND MORE THE LIBERAL ARTS ARE BEING FOUND ONLY IN MORE AFFLUENT UNIVERSITIES AND EVEN THE MODERATELY AFFLUENT ARE STRAINING TO KEEP THEM. THE REASONS ARE THE PUSH TO DOWNSIZE THE FEDERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS THAT NORMALLY HIRED THESE HUMANITIES GRADS IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS LIKE MUSEUMS, ARCHIVES AND LIBRARIES, AND YES, UNIVERSITIES. IF YOU ARE DEFUNDING ALL OF THESE KINDS OF PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS THEN YOU DON'T NEED THESE DEGREES THEY SAY.
THESE DEGREES FORM WHAT IS A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY WITH A QUALITY OF LIFE. BY MOVING TO END THESE CAREER PATHS YOU CAN SEE WHERE THESE CORPORATE POLS ARE LEADING US!!!
VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!
Liberal arts colleges forced to evolve with market
By By JUSTIN POPE | Associated Press – 17 hrs ago
ADRIAN, Mich. (AP) — They're the places you think of when you think of "college" — leafy campuses, small classes, small towns. Liberal arts colleges are where students ponder life's big questions, and learn to think en route to successful careers and richer lives, if not always to the best-paying first jobs.
But today's increasingly career-focused students mostly aren't buying the idea that a liberal arts education is good value, and many small liberal arts colleges are struggling. The survivors are shedding their liberal arts identity, if not the label. A study published earlier this year found that of 212 such institutions identified in 1990, only 130 still meet the criteria of a "true liberal arts college." Most that fell off the list remained in business, but had shifted toward a pre-professional curriculum.
These distinctively American institutions — educating at most 2 percent of college students but punching far above their weight in accomplished graduates — can't turn back the clock.
But schools like Adrian College, 75 miles southwest of Detroit and back from a recent near-death experience, offer something of a playbook.
First, get students in the door by offering what they do want, namely sports and extracurricular opportunities that might elude them at bigger schools. Offer vocational subjects like business, criminal justice and exercise science that students and parents think — rightly or wrongly — will lead to better jobs.
Then, once they're enrolled, look for other ways to sprinkle the liberal arts magic these colleges still believe in, even if it requires a growing stretch to call yourself a liberal arts college.
"We're liberal arts-aholics," says Adrian President Jeffrey Docking, who has added seven sports and two pre-professional degree programs since arriving in 2005 — and nearly doubled enrollment to about 1,750.
But he's also a realist.
"I say this with regret," said Docking, an ethicist by training. But "you really take your life into your own hands thinking that a pure liberal arts degree is going to be attractive enough to enough 18-year-olds that you fill your freshman classes."
In ancient Greece, liberal arts were the subjects that men free from work were at leisure to pursue. Today, the squishy definition still includes subjects that don't prepare for a particular job (but can be useful for many). English, history, philosophy, and other arts and sciences are the traditional mainstays. But these days, some prefer a more, well, liberal definition that's more about teaching style than subject matter.
"I refer to it as learning on a human scale," said William Spellman, a University of North Carolina-Asheville historian who directs a group of 27 public liberal arts colleges. "It's about small classes, access to faculty, the old tutorial model of being connected with somebody who's not interested only in their disciplinary area but culture broadly defined."
Does it work? It's true that research tying college majors to salaries can make the generic liberal arts degrees look unappealing. But technical training can become obsolete, and students are likely to change careers several times. These schools argue you're better off, both in life and work, simply learning to think.
Research does point to broader benefits of studying liberal arts in small settings, in areas like leadership, lifelong learning and civic engagement. Liberal arts colleges are proven launching pads to the top of business, government and academia (graduating 12 U.S. presidents, six chief justices and 12 of 53 Nobel laureates over a recent decade who attended American colleges, by one researcher's count). Foreign delegations often visit to observe, and big U.S. universities are trying to recreate mini-liberal arts colleges within their campuses.
But outside a secure tier of elites with 10-figure endowments — the Swarthmores, Amhersts, Wellesleys of the world — many schools are in trouble. The liberal arts still account for about one-third of bachelor's degrees, but the experience of getting one in these small settings is increasingly atypical. Definitions vary, but liberal arts colleges today probably account for between 100,000 and 300,000 of the country's roughly 17 million undergraduates. There are more students at the University of Phoenix, alone.
These schools "are all getting to around $40,000 a year, in some cases $50,000, and students and their families are just saying 'we can't do it,'" Docking said. Small classes make these schools among them most expensive places in higher education, though they often offer discounts to fill seats (Adrian's list price is $38,602, including room and board, but the average student pays $19,000).
Other pressures are geographic and generational. Many liberal arts colleges are clustered in the Northeast and Midwest, in towns like Adrian, founded by optimistic 18th- and 19th-century settlers who started colleges practically as soon as they arrived. But where the country is growing now is the South and West, where the private college tradition isn't as deep.
Meanwhile, students these days expect the climbing walls and high-end dorms that smaller, poorer schools can't afford. And a growing proportion of college students are the first generation in their family to attend. They've proved a tougher sell on the idea they can afford to spend four years of college "exploring." In UCLA's massive national survey of college freshman, "getting a better job" recently surpassed "learning about things that interest me" as the top reason for going to college. The percentage calling job preparation a very important reason rose to 86 percent, up from 70 percent in 2006, before the economy tanked.
Politicians have reinforced the message. Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott recently proposed public colleges charge more for degrees in subjects like anthropology that he said were less economically valuable to the state than science and engineering (though in fact, those subjects usually cost much more to teach).
So, with varying reluctance, colleges have adjusted. In his 2011 book "Liberal Arts at the Brink," former Beloit College president Victor Ferrall calculated that in 1986-87, just 30 of 225 liberal arts colleges awarded 30 percent or more of their degrees in vocational subjects. By 2007-2008, 118 did so. Even at a consortium called the Annapolis Group, comprised of the supposedly purest liberal arts colleges, the percentage of vocational degrees jumped from 6 percent to 17 percent.
"What's new in the past few years," said Richard Ekman, president of the Council of Independent Colleges, "is people are beginning to wonder in the places that have remained liberal arts colleges whether that's enough." Schools like Adrian that had already shifted to a more vocational approach "are asking whether the balance is right, whether they need to tip more to the professional side."
Adrian was weed-strewn, demoralized and down to its last 840 students when Docking arrived in 2005.
"We borrowed 30 million bucks and said, 'if this doesn't work out, we're done,'" he recalled.
First, Docking built up facilities and added teams, notably in sports like hockey and lacrosse that tilt toward more affluent students. No niche market was too small: Adrian started one of the country's only synchronized skating teams. At the nearby University of Michigan, almost nobody walks onto the football team or even the marching band, but you can at Adrian. And everybody recruits. Docking's band director has to bring in 20 kids a year, the symphony director 10. He has fired coaches who don't meet their quotas.
(This year, about 700 of Adrian's 1,756 students play varsity sports, more than 40 percent. At the University of Michigan, there are 881 student-athletes — or 3 percent of the 27,500 undergraduates.)
Docking worried Adrian would become a "jock factory," and the number of students wearing team gear on campus is striking. But, he said: "They come in as hockey players, and they leave as chemists and journalists and business leaders." Michael Allen, a longtime theater professor, says the athletics culture has turned out better than he feared, saying most athletes who persist are (or get) serious academically.
Pre-professional programs weren't new to Adrian, but it's recently added athletic training and sports management. The two most popular majors are business and exercise science. So is Adrian still a "liberal arts college?" Some would scoff, but Docking say yes. He notes the top minors include chemistry, English and religion/philosophy. He talks up "institutes" on campus — devoted to ethics, study abroad and other areas — that try to inject liberal arts-style learning around even the pre-professional curriculum. That curriculum still includes liberal arts distribution requirements majors, and he insists liberal arts skills can be taught in other types of classes, and even through extra-curriculars.
Vicki Baker, a professor at nearby Albion College, who co-authored the recent study tracking the 39 percent decline in liberal arts colleges since 1990, also thinks these colleges can retain their value even as they evolve. Her Albion business classes include debates, presentations and other teaching techniques that were impossible when she taught 400 at Penn State.
Liberal arts colleges "appeal to a certain kind of student who really flourishes in that environment," and who might not otherwise succeed in college, Baker said. "It would be a loss to see that vanish."
Senior Kyle Cordova chose Adrian half for the chance to play baseball, half for its small size. He was leaning toward a liberal arts major but ended up in criminal justice to prepare for a law enforcement career. He's had the same half-dozen or so professors year after year. "They know me, they know how I work, what I'm weak in, what I'm strong in, how to help me better," he said. "That's better than going to Michigan State."
Communications major Garrett Beitelschies said his professors meet with him on every paper and "you're actually talking in front of the room, having to defend your stance." He's also partaken of an extracurricular feast unimaginable at the bigger schools he considered: president of his fraternity and the senior class, radio, theater, homecoming king and even dressing up as Bruiser the Bulldog mascot at football games. With financial aid Adrian ended up costing him less than some state schools.
Both students said they'd learned broader skills — Cordova cited the complex skills involved in learning to interview witnesses.
But neither said they'd taken a class where the syllabus entailed reading, say, a set of novels.
Liberal arts colleges talk constantly — and perhaps with more urgency lately — about better pitching their case to the public. But until they do, they'll have to respond to what that public wants.
Docking says the survival recipe will vary (hockey helps here but won't in for Florida colleges). But the basic formula is the same.
"You need to be able to offer more than simply strong academics or you're going to have difficulty attracting students," he said. "There's a lot of competition. You'd better have something to distinguish yourself."
Follow Justin Pope at http://www.twitter.com/JustinPopeAP
Maryland is doubling-down on an education reform that almost no one wants. All academic research released has shown these courses to be for the most part poor venues for anything other that peripheral learning..added to existing classroom work, not instead of it.
We are finding in programs that are online students left to their own devices even as the promise of teacher accessibility is always assured. It provides little interactive learning as we all know is key to achievement and it creates a linear learning experience as the course is taught by a small group of lecturers. One of the strengths of democratic education is that the variety of professors offers a variety of interpretations.
Online courses will be helpful as tools to help but will never replace classroom teaching....which is the goal of these people promoting it. We have a reform movement pressed by Wall Street to privatize public education so they want it as simply and cost-effective as possible. What is more cost-effective than sitting a student in front of a computer to watch a canned lesson? They won't even need to provide a school building. If you are affluent, your schools will retain the quality humanities driven experiential classroom teaching we know is best..for the majority of families..watch out..they are coming for your public school. The elite say 90% of education is wasted on 90% of people.
University of Maryland expands online learning System experiments with combining traditional courses with free online lectures
By Julie Scharper, The Baltimore Sun 11:05 a.m. EST, December 29, 2012 Baltimore Sun
When some University of Maryland, College Park students return to class for the spring semester, they could be attending lectures, taking quizzes and completing group projects without leaving their dorm rooms.
The university is participating in a pilot program that combines massive open online courses with traditional classroom instruction. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently awarded $1.4 million to nonprofit research group Ithaka S+R to study how the state's university system could incorporate the increasingly popular online courses
"There are two things we're seeking: new strategies that will improve learning outcomes and lower costs," said University System of Maryland Chancellor William E. Kirwan. "We can't have one without the other."
The online courses, commonly referred to as MOOCs, have soared in popularity over the past two years. Unlike the online hybrid courses that universities have offered for years, the courses are designed to be taught solely online. They feature video lectures from professors at prominent universities interspersed with quizzes, assignments and discussions.
Perhaps what makes the courses most popular is the price — most are free. However, with a few exceptions, most universities do not award students credit for completing the courses.
Students who participate in the pilot will still pay tuition and receive credit.
Researchers from the New York-based Ithaka S+R will examine over the next 18 months how professors can bolster their classes with material from the online courses. Two College Park statistics classes will be supplemented with the online lectures in the spring, and courses will be rolled out at other public campuses in the summer and fall, Kirwan said.
Deanna Marcum, Ithaka S+R's director, said her group chose to use the Gates money to study Maryland's university system because state education leaders had already been working on redesigning courses to incorporate more online material and showed "a general receptivity to trying new things."
The university system has revised recently about 40 courses to stress online components, Kirwan said.
"The notion," he said, "is that the classroom is not used for lecture time, but used as time for active learning. Students are working on material, and the professor and graduate students and advanced undergraduate students are walking around the room and helping them work through the material."
Researchers have met with officials at seven public universities across the state so far, Marcum said, including University of Maryland Baltimore County, Towson University and Coppin State University.
The consultants are seeking professors who are willing to experiment with adding the online content to their classes, such as having students watch a lecture from Coursera — which, along with edX and Udacity, is one of most popular purveyors of such classes — and complete an online assignment before gathering for a class discussion or lab.
"The test is … can the content be used effectively by a faculty member on the ground?" said Marcum. "Can these courses, which were designed for a direct consumer market, be used in institutions to some good effect? Can they lower costs, free up faculty to do other things or broaden the exposure to students in some way?"
One concern is the perception that students, who are paying ever-increasing tuition costs, will be getting less for their money. The Ithaka S+R researchers will be examining the costs and benefits to students of the courses. Professors who have experimented with similar models at other universities say the free materials can be used as a jumping off point for classwork, much like an assigned reading, Marcum said.
While courses with "right and wrong answers" such as mathematics or computer science seem to lend themselves to the online work most naturally, humanities classes can also be enhanced by online content.
"I took the Coursera course on modern and contemporary poetry and I was really impressed by how effective that course was," said Marcum.
Martha Nell Smith, chair of College Park's university senate, said her colleagues are intrigued by the possibilities of the online courses — although some wonder if the trend is overhyped.
Smith said she is excited by possibilities for the democratization of higher education presented by the online courses, since they remove financial barriers for those who are otherwise unable to enroll in college.
Smith, an English professor, would like to create a MOOC about her specialty, the poetry of Emily Dickinson. She believes that online courses have as much to offer students in the humanities as those in science or engineering.
"You can have much more extensive discussions sometimes online," Smith said of the hybrid courses she has taught. "My students all turn in their papers online. When they're performing for their fellow students as well as for me, they do better."
But Smith cautioned that MOOCs are not a panacea for the challenges faced by higher-education institutions.
"Some people think that MOOCs are going to be big cost-savers or produce lots of revenue," she said. "But someone has to pay for the software and for the professor's time. Labor is just going to be redistributed."
julie.scharper@baltsun.com
AS WE FIGHT TO RELIEVE OUR YOUTH FROM THESE OUTRAGEOUS STUDENT LOAN DEBTS WE DO NOT WANT TO HAVE TAXPAYERS PAY YET AGAIN FOR THESE PREDATORY LOANS.....WHICH IS WHAT THESE BUSINESSES WANT. LIKE THE SUBPRIME MORTGAGES THAT WERE PAWNED OFF ONTO TAXPAYERS THROUGH AIG AND FREDDIE AND FANNIE, THESE PRIVATE STUDENT LOAN LENDERS NOW WANT TAXPAYERS TO RESCUE THESE STUDENTS OF THEIR LOANS.
WE WANT THE SAME THING ONLY WE WANT THE BANKS AND THE FOR-PROFITS FORCED TO FORGIVE THESE LOANS AS THEY ARE RIDDLED WITH FRAUD. WE WANT A SETTLEMENT WITH BANKS OVER THESE FRAUDULENT STUDENT LOANS.
Is Education a Human Right or a Privilege for the Wealthy? Thursday, 13 December 2012 10:39	By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Truthout | News Analysis
Over the last 40 years, higher education in the United States has been transformed into a commodity that produces automatons to serve big-finance capitalism, prevents campuses from being a source of societal transformation and creates modern indentured servants through debt slavery.
Today, there is over $1 trillion in college debt with graduates entering a job market that cannot fully employ them, resulting in rapidly rising defaults. In fact, while tuition has grown 72 percent since 2000, employment for graduates with bachelor degrees has declined by almost 15 percent over the same time period.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, passed on December 10, 1948, and ratified by the United States, declares that, "Everyone has the right to education" and declares higher education "shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit." The purpose of education is broader than creating workers for big business; it is to "be directed to the full development of the human personality."
Unfortunately, rather than treating education as a right, the United States has moved in the opposite direction to treat it as a commodity. As a result, education has become entangled with big finance. Author Danny Weil describes private for-profit educational institutions such as Phoenix University as behaving like a criminal cartel that target poor and working-class students who are eligible for federally insured student loans, writing: "They set up at welfare offices, hang out at laundromats in low-income neighborhoods, recruit at public housing units, and their 'recruiters' patrol the streets of distressed neighborhoods in automobiles or on foot, looking for vulnerable working-class bodies they can register for government cash."
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Once entangled in the debt trap, student debtors are kept there by big finance's deceptive and dirty tricks. Accountant Lynn Petrovich described some of big finance's tricks: holding payments made online for two to four business days, which adds thousands of dollars in interest paid by borrowers over the life of the loan; if there is more than one loan, the one with the lowest interest is paid off first while the other accumulates interest; and they tell people that they are delinquent when they aren't so that they can charge penalties. Petrovich reported that in the last nine months, Sally Mae, which is a private corporation named SLM and is the largest student loan provider, had over a half billion in profits.
The debt trap also makes students and graduates insecure and easier to control. In the 1960s, college campuses were the source of unrest seeking equal rights for women and minorities, environmental protection, an end to the Vietnam War and transformation of the economy. People in power expressed concern. President Nixon's education adviser, Roger Freeeman, urged in 1970 that, "We have to be selective about who we allow to go through higher education" because "We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat."
In 1971, before being appointed to the Supreme Court, Lewis Powell wrote a confidential memo to the US Chamber of Commerce urging defense of free enterprise and noted, "a priority task of business - and organizations such as the Chamber - is to address the campus origin of this hostility." He laid out a plan for big business to take control of the direction of the country. Regarding campuses, he highlighted the power business had over universities because they relied on "(i) tax funds generated largely from American business, and (ii) contributions from capital funds controlled or generated by American business."
"The boards of trustees of our universities overwhelmingly are composed of men and women who are leaders in the [business] system," wrote Powell.
Debra Leigh Scott describes how higher education has been destroyed in five easy steps. The defunding of higher education opened the door to greater influence by corporations. It also weakened students by increasing tuition, which saddled them with high debt in a poor job market. Professors were weakened by moving them from solid, tenured to fragile, adjunct positions with low job security and low wages, while the number of corporate administrative managers who are paid high salaries and consulting fees expanded. For example, three dozen college presidents earned over $1 million last year. Former senator Bob Kerrey earned $3 million at the New School in New York despite a multi-million dollar shortfall in the school budget. Harvard's top endowment managers now make about 20 times what a professor makes, with the top endowment manager making $3 million.
What is to be done about it? The consensus of people we have talked to is that in the long run, education advocates need to seek free college education as a human right, not a privilege for the wealthy. More immediately, students and their supporters need to organize for a debt jubilee, and if ignored, organize debt strikes; adjunct professors need to organize to demand security; and government needs to increase funding for higher education.
Students at Cooper Union in New York City are aggressively protesting a plan being put forward to end free education at the school. They occupied the Peter Cooper Suite on the eighth floor of the school for a week and organized protests that brought the community to their side. Students also occupied a board of trustees meeting, demanding transparency and participation in decision-making while livestreaming and blogging the event.
They allied themselves with the Quebec student movement which successfully fought tuition increases. US student activists have adopted the color of the Quebec student movement, red, in their banners and symbols.
Other students are beginning to burn their loan papers in a "Burn the Bill" campaign which threatens to grow as more people learn the facts about abusive loans, predatory practices and high administrative overhead.
We doubt that Congress will respond in a meaningful way until the student movement grows and becomes even more assertive. As Sen. Durbin once said, "The bankers own the place." Congress is another area where students are engaging this issue. The nonprofit higher education reform group Student Debt Crisis is promoting HR 4170, The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012, which would be a partial step in solving the debt problem.
Student loans are one aspect of the predatory loan economy, which was the primary cause of the housing collapse and has resulted in massive credit card debt at usury rates. Students in Canada quickly learned that their tuition problems were part of a broader austerity environment of the finance-based capitalist economy. Many students in the US also recognize that their tuition and student debt crises are connected to the broader problems in the economy and government. Student activism is one more sign of a culture of resistance that is developing and threatening the abusive power structure.
Education, like health care and other public goods, is under attack in the neoliberal agenda that treats everything as a commodity. More people, including students, recognize that access to free, high-quality education is not only a human right that does not belong in the marketplace, but is also better for the economy and the society as a whole. The actions of students at Cooper Union and around the world are stimulating important discussions in communities about whether we are going to treat higher education as a right for all or a privilege for the wealthy few.
For more information, the Clearing the FOG Radio Show has covered this issue in two shows:
Predatory Student Lending and the Financialization of Education
Tyler Paige, one of 11 students occupying a suite at Cooper Union demanding that the college continue to offer free education. Lynn Petrovich, CPA, author of "Sticker Shock," exposes the fraudulent practices of Sallie Mae and other corporate student lenders. And author Danny Weil exposes the financialization of education, the monetization of students, the collusion between government and corporations, Obama's neoliberal education agenda and what we can do about it.
The Crisis of Student Debt and the Corporatization of Higher Education
Guests are Kyle McCarthy, fellow at the Backbone Campaign and co-founder with Natalia Abrams of Student Debt Crisis, discuss the crisis of student loan debt. Debra Leigh Scott, who blogs as the Homeless Adjunct, is writing a book and movie called "Junct: The Trashing of Higher Ed in America." And, Steve Horn of DeSmogBlog talks about de-funding public universities, which opens a vacuum for corporations to use universities to legitimize their propaganda.
Kevin Zeese JD and Margaret Flowers MD co-host Clearing the FOG on We Act Radio 1480 AM Washington, DC, co-direct It's Our Economy and are organizers of the Occupation of Washington, DC.
THE WEEKENDS ARE MY POLITICAL ACTION DAYS SO THIS IS SOME OF WHAT WE NEED TO SHOUT OUT ABOUT NEXT WEEK:
WE SEE A PATTERN IN BALTIMORE OF INTIMIDATING ANYBODY WHO ACTIVELY PROTESTS THE DEVELOPMENT THAT MARGINALIZES MOST PEOPLE. WE HAVE HAD SEVERAL CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS WHO PEACEFULLY FIGHT FOR JOBS AND JUSTICE RECEIVE UNUSUAL AND HARSH LEGAL PROCEEDINGS....IT IS MEANT TO SILENCE PEOPLE.
THIS IS NOT WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!!!
SHOUT OUT FOR MR. MAC ARTHUR AND FOLLOW HIS CASE. TELL CITY STATE'S ATTORNEY BERNSTEIN AND YOUR INCUMBENTS TO STOP THE INJUSTICE
Saturday, December 1, 2012 FREEDOM UNDER FIRE -- I WILL DIE FREE!!!
By A.F. James MacArthur Ph.A.L.
Baltimore crime comes in many forms.
When government tramples over the rights of it's citizens, and the media stands by and look, it is difficult to decide who has committed the greater crime.
When civil rights are willfully violated by the government, particularly by law enforcement -- charged with protecting and serving us -- there can be few crimes with a greater victim to society.
As bad, or perhaps worse than a government trampling over the rights of it's citizens, is a press that sits by and does nothing but look on while this happens. Not only is this morally reprehensible, but it defies the very purpose of a free press in a free society.
Purpose Of The Press
For the press is not needed to entertain. There's nothing wrong with diversions, but this should never become the primary purpose of our press.
When football and baseball scores, TV and movie reviews start to dominate more space, and gain ever higher placement and prominence on your news sites, know that freedom everywhere is under fire. The smoke is rising but you're being told to look the other way.
The protections guaranteed us by law are routinely disregarded by our government. Sadly, these things were prophesied in the Bible, long, long ago. Some have studied the holy scriptures and are well aware of this. The vast majority of Americans are completely clueless.
We cannot entirely place blame on the common man for not knowing. After all, he's been conditioned all his life to rely on the press to keep him informed and aware. To make sure he's knows what is important. To warn him of looming disaster and threats.
So when the common man fails to see the danger ahead, proceeds blindly onward and is slaughtered, who then can we blame for this?
It is highly doubtful that any of these words written here today will effect much change in the manner in which mainstream media operates. I have absolutely no hope of witnessing such a miracle.
We Are Already At War
What I do have hope for, is that others will pick up the torch where I drop it. If the standard I've marched forward into battle bearing were to fall, I would hope that 10 brave souls would rush forward to pick it up.
In our age, much of the battles will be fought as an information war. A war to capture your mind, to divert your attention. To keep you from focusing on things that really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
We now face issues that are a serious threat not only to our way of life, that we've all come to enjoy and take for granted, but also to our very existence as a free country.
To many, these words may sound strange. To many, they may seem odd. Still others will quickly dismiss it as nonsense.
But to the chosen ones. To those tasked by God to do a great work. These words should serve to ignite the fire within. To wake up souls. Open your eyes wide. Lift your head up to the sky. Seek the protection of the Almighty and march on!
Anyone Can Be Erased
Later today, for the first time ever, I will take to the airwaves to relate my story, of being held in custody for 40 days in Baltimore correctional facilities. There were no charges. There was no warrant. Not even bail. When friends and family, including Maryland State Del. Jill P. Carter -- a defense attorney -- made official inquiry to the correctional facilities, they were all soundly told, I was not there. Even popular talk host and former State Senator Larry Young could not locate me through official channels.
As if that wasn't scary enough, that an innocent man, who's committed no crime could be held so long without anyone knowing. I had friends working inside the jail. Covertly I was allowed to see the internal inmate database. Indeed, through various searches using a multitude of matrices, with my own eyes I saw, there was no one even matching my description, anywhere to be found.
"No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you." Joshua 1:5 NKJV
There Will Be Casualties
What happened to James MacArthur was not only detestable, but should be seen as a serious threat to the peace, safety and liberty of any and all Americans. For if it happened to one, it can certainly happen to all. You could be next.
It was the great American Martin Luther King, who said; "injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere."
Another great American once said give "me liberty or give me death."
These are the words I now live by, in what's left of my relatively short, troubled life. I choose to be among the company of the courageous, and not among cowards.
I've lived a life that's been troubled, not because of drugs or alcohol, because I shun those substances. Not because of lack of opportunity or criminal wrong doing. No! My life has been a life troubled, simply because as one who decided long ago, to always go boldly forward with the truth. At times I found myself standing out front, facing the enemy, all alone.
The Future Belongs To The Brave
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." Psalm 23:4 NKJV
Looking to my left, no one there. Look to my right, everyone took flight. A check to the rear, there was no one there.
While the everyday citizen is rarely in a position to make much impact by being a truth teller. The power and value of standing boldly on principle should never be dismissed. For what is done by one, is often copied by others.
Through word of mouth, person to person, and via the the near magical powers of the internet, words spoken by one mere man, even a common man, could be the media equivalent of one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.
Though some should meet disastrous fate, as in the case of mine. This should not serve as discouragement. For in war, even wars that were won, the winning side often suffers serious casualty as a result of fighting the good fight.
Your media may have failed you. Your press may have passed on, deciding not to alert you of the dangers that lay ahead. But James MacArthur has not. James MacArthur is not afraid. Not afraid of anything on this Earth. Not any man, beast or powers that be.
It is true I desire to live a long life, free of troubles and stress, to one day have grandchildren bouncing on my lap, but I am not so naive to think this is guaranteed to any man.
A man by the name of Douglas MacArthur-- you may have heard of him -- once said; "there is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity."
I intend to make the most of the moments allowed me on this Earth. To seize upon every opportunity given me by the grace of God. While I am not perfect, as is no man. I intend to do all in my power, to not only live the kind of life God would have me live in my personal walk. But to carry on with confidence and bravery in doing his work.
Remember, a crime is a crime, no matter who, or what entity commits it.
Currently busy at work building an all day news, talk and information radio network, all while managing to elude evil people out for his neck, A.F. James MacArthur has become the established leader in on-scene, feet-on-the-street, Baltimore crime and emergency incident reporting. Baltimore's premier independent crime correspondent and street reporter, is a multimedia journalist who also covers urban decay and public corruption. He may be reached at 410-205-NEWS (6397) voice or text message, MacArthurMedia@gmail.com, and followed on numerous social media, including: @BaltoSpectator on twitter , Spreaker web radio, BlogTalk Radio, Baltimore Spectator on Facebook,YouTube channel
BALTIMORE HAS ONE OF THE WORST HUMAN RIGHTS RECORDS IN THE COUNTRY. LABOR AND WAGES, POLICE BRUTALITY/WEALTH INEQUITY/REGRESSIVE REVENUE COLLECTION ALL WORK AGAINST THE LOWER/MIDDLE CLASS. WE HAVE THESE PROBLEMS BECAUSE THE SAME INCUMBENTS ARE VOTED INTO OFFICE OVER AND AGAIN.
START ORGANIZING AND FIND PEOPLE TO RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR/JUSTICE CANDIDATES NEXT ELECTION.
Human Rights Dialogue MDPublic
By Luis Larin, Todd Cherkis and Sergio España
10:30am until 3:00pm
Join the United Workers, Healthcare is a Human Right - Maryland, Public Justice Center, Legal Aid and the Baltimore Algebra Project for our Human Rights Dialogue. We are coming together because we recognize that our communities are in crisis. We are experiencing systemic human rights abuses in every sector -- work, housing, health, education, the environment. The fight to address these big problems requires the building of a large social movement. And that is exactly what is happening, with Healthcare is a Human Right - Maryland off to an inspiring statewide start, and the fight for Fair Development in Baltimore empowering communities throughout the city. And yet, part of building our movements depends on studying the lessons of past struggles which is why our Human Rights Dialogue will include a study of Dr. King's Poor People's Campaign of 1968 and the transformation from Civil to Human Rights.
Dr. King's call for a freedom church of the poor to be a new and unsettling force in our complacent national life raises up critical contradictions that require examination and action -- people going through bankruptcy because they got sick, workers working two jobs to make ends meet, homeless families living on the street next to abandoned homes, students demanding an education in a system that doesn't provide basics like books and lab equipment.
In addition to the reflection on the Poor People's Campaign we will be breaking into two groups -- one focused on Fair Development and the struggle for human rights standards for publicly supported development; and another focused on the next steps in the Healthcare is a Human Right Maryland Campaign -- preparing for county wide community conversations to empower our communities and share this important statewide story!
Join us in helping shape the next steps of our campaigns!
IN MARYLAND, GOVERNOR O'MALLEY HANDED THE CITIZENS OVER TO A NATIONAL ENERGY CORPORATION. HE SAID---PUBLIC UTILITIES DO NOT GIVE SHAREHOLDER VALUE.....WE NEED RATEPAYERS MAXIMIZING PROFITS! SO, THIS MONTH WE WILL YET AGAIN GO TO AND WRITE THE MARYLAND PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION TELLING THEM THE RATEPAYERS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR A PRIVATE CORPORATION'S OPERATIONAL COSTS AND INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT. EXELON IS A BILLION A YEAR PROFIT-MAKER FROM RATEPAYERS. BELOW IS A GREAT LETTER TO THE COMMISSION. I can't copy it so go to the site. The public meetings will be coming in mid-January.
25 - Maryland Public Service CommissionFile Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat5) BGE now demands rate increases to pay for the $81 MILLION DOLLARS the company says it incurred in paying for clean up costs. Such a rate increase is ...webapp.psc.state.md.us
THIS COMMISSION GAVE ITS APPROVAL FOR A MERGER OF BGE WITH EXELON WITH ALL KINDS OF 'PROTECTIONS' FOR THE CONSUMER........INCLUDING GUARDS AGAINST RATE HIKES.........WELL HERE ARE THE RATE HIKES. CALL THE MEMBERS OF THIS COMMISSION AND TELL THEM TO STOP THIS HIKE!
BGE will seek distribution rate increase Utility plans to submit case to state regulators this year
By Lorraine Mirabella, The Baltimore Sun 9:52 p.m. EDT, June 7, 2012
Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. plans to ask Maryland regulators later this year to allow it to raise rates for the distribution of electricity and natural gas, Chicago-based Exelon Corp., the utility's new owner, said Thursday.
Exelon executives told stock analysts during a meeting in New York that BGE had delayed filing the rate case while BGE's former parent company, Constellation Energy Group, finalized a merger with Exelon. The $7.9 billion deal, which created the largest nonutility energy provider in the United States, closed in March.
"Through the merger, we've held off on filing a rate case, and we will be filing our next rate case in the second half of 2012," said Denis O'Brien, a senior executive vice president of Exelon and CEO of Exelon Utilities, during the meeting. He did not elaborate.
If approved by the Maryland Public Service Commission, the state's public utility regulator, new rates would take effect no more than 210 days after the filing, the company said.
BGE's request will include "recovery of among other things, investments focused on electric and gas reliability, tree and vegetation management and other projects to continue to provide safe and reliable service to our customers," said Robert L. Gould, a BGE spokesman. "Parts of BGE's electric and gas system, much of which was built in the 1950s and 1960s, are approaching the end of their useful life and require new investments to ensure continued reliability."
Distribution charges, which cover delivery of power and gas to customers' homes, typically make up between a quarter and a third of a customer's bill.
"I'm not surprised they are going to come in for a rate case so soon after the merger, but I'm pretty disappointed," said Paula M. Carmody, the People's Counsel in the Office of People's Counsel, which represents rate payers. While the company presented the plans for a rate case as an indication of its commitment to a successful merger, "I don't think customers are going to consider an increase in their rate to be a sign of a successful merger."
The last BGE distribution rate hike took effect in December 2010, when residential customers were expected to pay, on average, an additional $16 on electric bills and $10 on gas bills a year. At the time, BGE said the increases would raise an estimated $30.9 million for electric distribution, as well as $9.75 million for gas delivery. The utility said those increases were needed to pay for system improvements at a time when power prices were falling.
The state's other two utilities, Pepco and Delmarva, are seeking increases in distribution rates. Both cases, filed in December, are pending before the Public Service Commission.
Exelon Utilities, which serves a combined 6.6 million electric customers and 1.1 million gas customers, is working to standardize equipment and systems and install "smart meters" in all service areas, O'Brien said. The company plans to invest about $690 million in BGE transmission projects through 2016.
Also Thursday, a company offical told the analysts that Exelon expects to have an agreement by August to sell three former Constellation coal plants that it agreed to relinquish under terms of the merger. They include the Brandon Shores and H.A. Wagner plants in Anne Arundel County and the C.P. Crane plant in Baltimore County.
The company started marketing the plants after the merger closed and is now reviewing bidders, said Bill Von Hoene, Exelon's chief strategy officer and a senior executive vice president. It expects the plants will be sold as a package, he said.
During the presentation, Exelon officials offered no new information on how the planned 600 job cuts would affect workers in Maryland as the company eliminates overlapping functions through next summer.
To win state regulators' approval of the merger, Exelon agreed that there would be no layoffs at BGE for at least two years after the merger closed. Still, that leaves hundreds of former Constellation employees vulnerable.
Over time, Exelon expects its employment to increase in Baltimore and in the state, said Exelon spokesman Paul Adams. Exelon is building a new headquarters tower in Harbor East that will house its commercial and renewable development businesses, seen as the growth engine for the new company. But Exelon's corporate headquarters remains in Chicago.
"We expect that positions could be eliminated across the entire corporation, but not all in any one location or company," Adams said
THESE EDUCATION REFORM IDEAS ARE ALL WRITTEN BY ALEC.....THE BUSINESS POLICY MAKING MACHINE OFTEN ATTACHED TO THE TEA PARTY
In Baltimore the capture of city schools by Wall Street is backed by Johns Hopkins. They with Governor O'Malley's help brought in public school privatizer Alonzo fresh from Wall Street Mayor Bloomberg's education program. He has been busy. The first step in ending public education is to destroy the centralization of the system. If you want schools to be equal opportunity, equal access, equally funded, and democratic in instruction you must have central oversight to see those priorities are maintain.....ergo....the central administration. If you are trying to privatize and vocationalize the public schools you declare them individual businesses with individual charters, attach them to corporations and businesses, and set the curricula to a 'program' suitable to that vocational track. YOU CAN SEE HOW THIS CIRCUMVENTS ALL OF WHAT PUBLIC EDUCATION IS AND IN FACT ALL OF THIS IS ILLEGAL BECAUSE IT BREAKS ALL OF THE BROWN VS BOARD OF EDUCATION RIGHTS NOT TO MENTION ALL OF THIS WAS STARTED AND IS ONGOING WITHOUT ANY COMMUNITY DISCUSSION AS TO WHAT THESE CHANGES MEAN. DO YOU THINK IF MAYOR RAWLINGS-BLAKE OR GOVERNOR O'MALLEY STATED PUBLICLY WHAT I SAID ABOVE THAT PEOPLE WOULD WANT THIS REFORM? NO.
So I'm listening to WYPR.....Wall Street all the time....and a commentator came on to tell us that yet another private non-profit established by Hopkins would determine which communities are healthy enough to survive and which will die on the vine. This related to the school closing/school building meeting in which communities slated to survive were pitted against communities slated to die on the vine. None of these people in these communities was involved in these decisions.....it was after all the job of the private non-profit. I spoke of the people fighting for their schools and today I wanted to speak of one of those people caught in this pseudo-tragedy. Remember, there is plenty of money for all schools to be renovated, they are just pretending there isn't. I have spoken with many black leaders about the failure of black leaders to step up against this onslaught against the poor and working class in Baltimore and the story is familiar.......IN ORDER TO GET THE FINANCIAL HELP THEY NEED FOR THEIR COMMUNITIES THEY FEEL PRESSURED TO SUPPORT THAT WHICH ULTIMATELY IS NOT GOOD FOR THE COMMUNITY. NOT THAT I DO NOT FEEL SOME PERSONAL GAIN IS BEING SOUGHT IN SOME CASES.
When I attended a school board meeting a month or so ago I spoke with parents fighting those school closures. When I explained the privatization and vocationalizing plans she could now understand what was happening. She said 'that's why they are calling all of this 'programs' rather than simple instruction'. Indeed. She asked' why are the pastors not speaking out against all of this' and she answered her own question immediately......THEY ARE DOING IT TO KEEP FUNDING FOR THE POOR.
THESE ARE THE KINDS OF LEADERS WE HAVE IN BALTIMORE AND MARYLAND. BOTH POLS AND THE PRIVATE NON-PROFIT INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX IS SO DISCONNECTED FROM THE PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITIES AND THEY COULD CARE LESS. BECAUSE WE KEEP REELECTING THEM.
VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!!!
The middle-class can see by what is happening to their quality of life that all of this charter school privatizing is coming to a neighborhood near them.
SHOUT LOUDLY AND STRONGLY AGAINST CHARTER AND VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS!!!
Below you see what is becoming common in Baltimore and that is the school that is connected with an anchor institution who controls the funding. In this case it is University of Maryland who has another vocational school attached to it. In this case it is one that keeps children 12 hours of the day. It will have to serve all three meals on site. Now, what this does is eliminate community programs that are helpful to the families as a whole.......they don't want that cost....and consolidates all child activity to this one school program. DOES THIS SOUND LIKE A GOOD STRATEGY TO YOU!
Of course not. Keeping children away from home to 'protect' them from an environment that needs to be addressed as well feels a lot like warehousing children. IT IS CHEAPER YOU HAVE TO ADMIT!!!
Pastor Hathaway was one of the few pastors to speak publicly in support of the school building program that closes schools and will convert many public schools to charter schools in underserved communities. Here is why. He is heading the creation of a charter that keeps kids from 7am to 7pm installing what is called a program of schooling that involves the online education that Wall Street is using to cheapen the classroom. The teachers who will staff these schools are either Teach for America or will be some non-union teaching techs. So a $500,000 grant to his charter will win support.
When I speak with Baltimore pastors who are considered the group that will determine black voter support why they support the very people, like Rawlings-Blake and O'Malley, they tell me that they will not receive the safety net support for the poor unless they support the very politicians who work to impoverish the working-class in Baltimore. Then, talking with the political activists coming from these underserved communities, I am told these same black pastors push them out of the churches and label the activists as troublemakers.
THIS IS THE TRAVESTY OF INJUSTICE......WHEN THE BENEFITS FOR THE POOR ARE PREFACED WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE VERY POLITICIANS AND SYSTEMS THAT IMPOVERISH. SUCH IS THE CRONY SYSTEM IN BALTIMORE.
THE STATE AND CITY MAKES IT IMPOSSIBLE TO COPY THEIR DOCUMENTS-----OH I MEAN OUR DOCUMENTS---SO TAKE A LOOK AT THIS ENTERPRISE ZONE. UPTON/DRUID HILL IS SLATED FOR AFFLUENT DEVELOPMENT SO THE UNDERSERVED FAMILIES ARE NOT A PART OF THE FUTURE OF THESE NEIGHBORHOODS. What will happen is much like the Patterson Park area where working and middle class will be encouraged to buy and gentrify the neighborhoods and then find themselves the victim of neglect with more affluent development.
[PDF] University of Maryland School of Social Work, 525 West ...Adobe PDFcontinuum that serves children and families living in the Upton/Druid Heights communities of West Baltimore – Promise Heights. ... Please join Union Baptist Church for ...www.promiseheights.org/newsletters/2010/Promise_Heights...
HERE YOU HAVE A STRONG PARENT COALITION THAT DEBATES THE EXTENSION TO JUST 7 1/2 HOURS A DAY. AS THEY SAY TIME AND AGAIN THE DATA USED TO SUPPORT THESE REFORM IDEAS ARE EITHER NOT THERE OR ARE MISREPRESENTED. WHAT UNDERSERVED SCHOOLS NEED IS STRONG FUNDING AND RESOURCES SO THEY CAN PUT MORE ADULTS IN EACH CLASSROOM AND THEY CAN BUY MATERIALS THAT INTEREST AND ENGAGE!!
Parent groups: Data for longer school day doesn't add up BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter/rrossi@suntimes.com April 9, 2012 11:48PM
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard answered reporter's questions after they toured Benjamin E. Mays elementary school, 838 W. Marquette Rd., as it started the full school day, giving its students additional hours of instruction time. | Rich Hein~Sun-Times
Updated: April 10, 2012 8:04AM
A coalition of 16 parent groups Monday demanded a meeting with Mayor Rahm Emanuel to go over the real research on a 7 1/2-hour school day, and not the "misinformation" they charged district officials with spreading.
"They are either misinformed or deliberately misleading the public,'' said Jonathan Goldman of the new Chicago Parents for Quality Education coalition.
"In either case, that's not how we should be deciding public policy, especially when it comes to our children.''
Goldman said he and other parents have analyzed longer day studies listed on the Chicago Public School website as supporting Emanuel's call for a 7 1/2 hour school day, and they are, at best, "mixed.''
In fact, when the Sun-Times called the author of one analysis of 15 studies cited by CPS as proof that longer school days work, Erika Patall of the University of Texas said the evidence the studies cited was "weak'' and their conclusions were "very tentative" because "a good deal of the research does not rule out something other than time causing the improvement.''
Parents also questioned CPS contentions that the system needed a 7.5 hour school day to get "on par with other districts.'' CPS officials have said their numbers were based on weekly instructional minutes in a National Center for Education Statistics chart, multiplied out annually.
However, an author of the NCES report told the Sun-Times that the chart was based on weekly teacher minutes, not student minutes, of instruction. Plus, the NCES researcher said, every district counts school days differently, so NCES would never extrapolate student instructional minutes in a year from one week's worth of teacher instructional minutes.
"In putting it all together, somebody is making a lot of assumptions,'' the NCES researcher said of the CPS calculations. "We do not do that at the National Center for Education Statistics.''
Members of the Chicago Parents for Quality Education said they want a longer school day than the current 5 3/4 hours in most CPS elementary schools — and one that includes the art, music and daily physical education missing in many schools — but they don't want the longest day in the nation.
Asked to respond to charges they were misinterpreting or spinning the data, CPS officials referred the Sun-Times to research summarized by the National Center for Time and Learning that CPS said supports a longer school day. Included there was the research that Patall described as "weak.'' Schools will have the "autonomy to add the enrichment they need'' in a longer day, and the extra time, combined with tougher learning standards and a new teacher evaluation framework, should "improve teaching and learning in every classroom,'' CPS officials said.
"This is about more than adding time to the school day — we're strategically investing in initiatives that will ensure that additional time is quality time, and the result is to boost student achievement,'' CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said in an email.
Parents Monday delivered a white paper entitled "The Best Education, or Just the Longest?" to Emanuel's fifth-floor City Hall office and demanded a meeting with the mayor. Their white paper contended that CPS has "seemingly ignored strategies that are backed by research" — such as early childhood education, reduced class size and individualized tutoring. Parents questioned how CPS could spend the $1,300 per pupil that Massachusetts spent lengthening its school day when CPS is anticipating a $700 million deficit.
Without more funding, said parent coalition member Wendy Katten, CPS' longer day plan amounts to "reform on the cheap.''
CPS says it will come up with the money for a longer day by reprioritizing its budget.
Katten said the new parent coalition includes parents from Rogers Park to Beverly, from Logan Square to Lakeview and from Pilsen to Portage Park.
Also Monday, the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign released a new survey indicating that CPS elementary teachers work far more than the 5 3/4 hours in a day listed in their contract.
A survey of 983 CPS teachers with an 8.5 percent response rate indicated CPS teachers are actually at school an average of almost nine hours per day and spend almost two hours more working at home in the evening.
"The length of the school day discussion appears to ignore the reality that teachers are already working a very long day,'' according to Beyond the Classroom: an Analysis of a Chicago Public School Teacher's Actual Workday.
WE ARE SEEING ACROSS THE COUNTRY PRIVATE INVESTORS WHO ARE ALLOWED TO 'FUND' SCHOOLS ON THEIR OWN TERMS. THESE ARE STILL CALLED 'PUBLIC SCHOOLS' AS PRIVATE ORGANIZATIONS ARE ALLOWED TO CREATE WHATEVER ENVIRONMENT THEY CHOOSE. RATHER THAN PAYING TAXES OR RETURNING CORPORATE FRAUD SO THE LOCAL, STATE, AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CAN FUND PUBLIC SCHOOLS, YOUR THIRD WAY CORPORATE POL IS ALLOWING THESE CRIMINALS TO TAKE YOUR MONEY AND MINE TO BUILD SCHOOLS IN THEIR OWN IMAGE. THIS SAME THING IS HAPPENING BIG TIME IN BALTIMORE AND MARYLAND!!!!
WE DO NOT WANT CORPORATE DONATIONS........WE WANT JUSTICE FOR CORPORATE FRAUD AND FOR CORPORATIONS TO PAY TAXES.
The Corporatization Of San Jose High School and child labor By Danny Weil on December 25, 2012 12:30 am /
Joe Rodriguez, a reporter for the Mercury News recently reported that in San Jose, California:
"The city is blessed with high schools that prepare low-income, underachieving students for college, but here comes one with a twist. Students at this school will attend classes four days a week, but on the fifth they'll put on work clothes and hoof it over to a local business, corporation or agency and put in a day's work for a day's pay. The catch is they can't keep the money" (http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_22251566/new-cristo-rey-high-school-san-jose-will).
Yes, the heady days of neo-feudalism have now arrived and with them have come the school to work pipeline that affords students the ability to be exploited, like prison inmates all in the name of education.
Pegged as an opportunity for students, so-called philanthropist John A. Sobrato, who recently donated $1.25 million for the new Cristo Rey San Jose High School, which is scheduled to open in the fall, commented:
"Basically, I liked the work requirement. I worked as a young kid, and I think it's important for them to learn what it's like to work in a business or office" (ibid).
Yes, the philanthro-pirates like Sobrato love child labor especially when it is free, offers minimal protection and can be sold as "helping kids" when in fact it is child abuse and child labor all designed and bundled up by businessmen in silk back suits with lofty plans for the transition of education into purgatory for low paid work under failing capitalism.
When 125 freshmen reopen a shuttered school at Five Wounds Portuguese National Parish church just east of downtown, they will join some 7,400 other low-income, mostly minority and urban students at 17 Catholic high schools across the country. The schools are run by the Chicago-based Cristo Rey Network and Jesuit religious order.
The schools says it offers an "all-around education and emphasizes independent and critical thinking", but when one reads the warning label what differentiates Cristo Rey from the low-income, college-prep pack is the mandatory requirement for off-campus jobs. Students typically perform clerical work in corporate and legal offices, but here they'll have the opportunity to work at high-tech campuses, too. This is what one can only call being tied to the carpet loom of peonage.
Khanh Russo, a Cisco manager who wrote the feasibility plan for the school, said a big selling point for the San Jose campus was its potential for bridging the educational gap between the valley's low-income populations and the vast number of Silicon Valley companies where even entry level positions require college degrees. Now why would an entry level position require a college degree? They don't. College degrees are little more than commodities to be bought and sold for student debt and then once purchased, they are used to gain a handhold on the low paid ladder of despair. Moving up on the salary scale is another scam used to force people into colleges to seek phony degrees that carry little in the way of education but pack a low paid punch for low paid work.
Even so, as Rodriguez noted, Cristo Rey schools are open to students of all faiths. Sobrato said 40 percent are not Catholic. Students typically come from families earning $35,000 a year or less a year. The school has lined up 37 San Jose employers eager to hire the kids — lending credence to the fact the school is little more than a recruiting center for precarious employment, a holding tank for capitalist work in the race to the bottom.
Rodriguez reports that many of the students are in for culture shock. When a CBS 60 Minutes news team visited Cristo Rey's flagship school in Chicago recently, it videotaped students learning how to knot ties for the first time and how to shake hands with the confidence of professionals — charm schools for the working class, disenfranchised, people of color and the poor or better yet, for Fagin's kids.
Whatever the students earn will go toward tuition (just like whatever prisoners earn will go to the 'canteen'). The cost of tuition averages about $10,000 a year at Cristo Rey schools. Thus, the students will work to pay debt while their employers exploit them in the name of progress and trade student loan debt, or Student Loan Asset Backed Securities (SLABS) on Wall Street. Sobrato said most of the families could afford to contribute up to $1,000, with the rest covered by student earnings and various grants and donations.
Sobrato's $1.25 million gift was actually a challenge grant, which he said has already been met by other seedy and smarmy 'donors'. Take for example another lead benefactor, Brendan J. Cassin, a venture capitalist and Cristo Rey board member. The school's board of directors has selected the Rev. Peter Pabst, a Jesuit and founder of two college prep middle schools in San Jose, as the new high school's president.
These philanthro-pirates love to use religion as a hook to get students and their parents to pray for pie in the sky when they die. Using 'reverends' without reverence, these hucksters can then clamp on to young children like parasites looking for a host, which they are.
All of this is being sold as something good for students when in fact it is a Dickensian abhorrence that can only be envisioned as something beneficial by those who seek to exploit children while denying them a truly meaningful and contemplative education.
This is where we are today when it comes to 'schooling under capitalism'. It has nothing to do with education and everything to do with boosting profits for the wealth vultures and flocks for the sheepherders.
This is faith based capitalism in action – the neo-feudal landscape of the new childhood where there are those who rule, those who work and those who pray. The truly disgusting part is that it is all part of the Obama Department of Education's plans for the cementing of the new Jim Crow and acceptance of an escalating inequality that can only worsen under the current economic oligarchs.
YOU CAN SEE THIS IS HAPPENING ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY. HERE IS PENNSYLVANIA DOING WHAT BALTIMORE IS DOING....CHANNELING STUDENTS INTO THE LOWEST PAYING JOBS.
PUBLIC EDUCATION IS ABOUT PREPARING CHILDREN WITH A WELL-ROUNDED CURRICULA THAT ALLOWS THEM TO CHOOSE CAREER PATH WHILE IN HIGH SCHOOL.
Medical charter school opens doors to first students
While jobs are in short supply in many industries, that's not the case in the medical field.
A new charter school in Lehigh County is now trying to address that need. The Medical Academy Charter School in Catasauqua is the first of its kind in the Lehigh Valley. It's goal is to better steer kids into the field of health care.
Between the algebra and history of the Jamestown settlement is an art class teaching students how drawing can turn to healing for the sick.
"This is an example of a Zen tangle art therapy method that psychotherapists may use to draw out emotions in patients," said teacher Carol Traynor.
The new school is using the promise of a career in health care to draw students in.
"This is where the jobs are going to be now and in the near future. It's ever growing," said Joanna Hughes, CEO and principal of the school, which opened in September to 9th and 10th graders.
The school, which will expand to 11th and 12th graders, infuses health care sciences into the general curriculum, Hughes said.
"We will provide the children with opportunities so that can be an x-ray tech or a phlebotomist or someone who works in the office doing billing," Hughes said.
Taylor Fullin, who wants to be anesthesiologist, transferred from Northampton Area High School.
JUST TAKE BACK THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY LABOR AND JUSTICE!!!!
DO NOT DEPEND ON THESE POLITICAL ACTION PETITION GROUPS.....SIGN THE PETITIONS AND RUN/VOTE FOR YOUR OWN CANDIDATES!!!
When the Center for Media and Democracy sends out its petitions for the fight against corporate campaign financing it has a good issue....we all want corporations out of elections and law writing. Here is the problem......the largest factor placing these corporations and hedge funds in this business is the failure to bring back trillions of dollars in corporate fraud. IT IS CLEAR THAT THESE CORPORATIONS WOULD NOT HAVE THE MONEY FOR CAMPAIGNS IF THE FRAUD WAS BROUGHT BACK AND THESE CORPORATIONS DOWN-SIZED BY THIS ACTION. So why are all of the 'progressive' organizations identifying issues that will take decades to fix when the current democratic leadership has only to enforce Rule of Law to do the same thing right now? No Republican can stop that and it funds itself. IT IS NOT HAPPENING BECAUSE THIRD WAY CORPORATE LEADERS IN CONGRESS ARE PROTECTING PROFITS OVER PEOPLE AND THESE 'PROGRESSIVE' POLITICAL ACTION ORGANIZATIONS ARE THIRD WAY AS WELL. See how you can tell the difference?
When a political action group sends out a petition that promotes the Affordable Care Act and doesn't say anything about the need to cap the size of these health systems or the need to pass privacy laws forbidding medical data from being shared for profit, they are not working for you and me. The damage caused by allowing these health systems to become global health systems that will refuse to treat the poor and elderly because it isn't profitable will end entitlements. So a politician saying they are fighting for entitlements or a political action organization that doesn't make that the issue they are petitioning ARE NOT WORKING FOR YOU AND ME!!!!
VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!!!!
CMD Is Working Hard to Expose the Billionaire Kochtopus! No one person can keep up with Charles and David Koch, two of the richest men in the world. But the sleuths at the Center for Media and Democracy can certainly keep an eye on them -- and we do!
This year, CMD played a leading role in exposing these oil barons and their allies on many fronts:
LAWYERS Because of a CMD complaint, the IRS has been investigating the "charity" shell game played by Mark Block, the former campaign manager for Herman Cain and former director of David Koch's "Americans for Prosperity" operations in Wisconsin.
GUNS CMD broke the story of how the Koch fortune has helped bankroll the American Legislative Exchange Council's extreme gun agenda with the NRA, including Florida-style "Stand Your Ground" bills, bills to stop cities from barring machine guns and cop-killer bullets or even suing weapons manufacturers, and bills against banning assault-style weapons.
MONEY After the Kochs pledged to spend at least $100 million in the 2012 election, CMD tracked Americans for Prosperity as they rolled out deceptive "issue ads" and contorted themselves to hide the names of their big donors from the American people. We also challenged the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel when they misreported AFP's role in the recall election of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. We documented that AFP alone was outspending Walker's opponent in the race.
WHO WILL SUBPOENA THE KOCHS? Immediately after the election, we launched a campaign to get the Democratic-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee to "subpoena the Kochs" and hold oversight hearings on the role of dark money in the 2012 elections. The Senate has the power to investigate how the "Citizens United" decision and related election and tax laws are being used to hide big spenders trying to influence who wins and who loses elections, and CMD is calling on Senators to use their power to help expose the Kochs and their buddies, like Karl Rove.
CMD does not accept corporate or government grants. Our breakthrough investigations are made possible by donations from people like you.
Help us hold the Kochs accountable with a donation today! Sincerely,
Lisa Graves and Mary Bottari
P.S. Your tax deductible donation today will help us continue to play offense in exposing the Koch Brothers and their operatives trying to distort our democracy!
About the Center for Media and Democracy The Center for Media and Democracy is a non-profit investigative reporting group whose work aids public awareness about the people, companies, and groups attempting to shape the media and our democracy. Founded in 1993, our national reporting and analysis focus on exposing corporate spin. We accept no funding from for-profit corporations or the government. The Center for Media and Democracy's websites are PR Watch, SourceWatch, BanksterUSA, ALECexposed and Food Rights Network.
WE ARE SEEING IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY THIRD WAY CORPORATE LIBERALS.....REPUBLICAN IN ALL THINGS CORPORATE AND WEALTH.... TRYING TO TAKE THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AWAY FROM THE DEMOCRATIC BASE. LABOR AND MINORITIES MAKE UP 80% OF THE PARTY AND CORPORATE DEMOCRATS MAKE UP THE 20%. SO WHAT IS A 20% MINORITY TO DO? DIVIDE THE LABOR AND MINORITY VOTE......MAKE LABOR AND THE POOR BREAK TOWARDS THE REPUBLICANS. NPR public media has stated clearly it is a liberal/conservative policy program as of 2011......no fiscal progressives/labor/justice in their news (you'll find them in the wealth and poverty special programming)
CENTRIST DEMOCRATS ARE JUST REPUBLICANS MINUS THE RELIGION.
NPR AND PUBLIC MEDIA HAVE STATED LOUDLY AND STRONGLY THEY OFFER CENTRIST NEWS AND VIEWS.
Third Way corporate liberals have said more than once they no longer represent the labor/minority/ poverty crew. That is why we are seeing such gross injustice in Third Way states and cities regarding police brutality, charter schools as gentrification tools, and school to jails opportunities. It is why labor is seeing wages and benefits plummet in democratic states. This is in Third Way Maryland....a supposedly blue state.
When you watch Fox News, notorious for their conservative political views, they are always the ones showing local minority news and that is because of this recruitment that is happening now. What Third Way democrats are trying to do is make the democratic base....labor and justice ....feel they are no longer a part of the democratic party. This coming from a caucus that has the shareholder class of 5% of the voters behind them. The democratic base is 95% of the democratic party, they just are deliberately uninformed as to the nature of the party.
The labor and justice caucus of the democratic base needs to recognize that they are the democratic party. These Third Way democrats are only Reagan Liberals......Republicans on all things fiscal. They will promote issues that will through granny under a bus if it turns a profit. These are the Clintons and sadly the Obama's. So rather than be fooled into thinking you must go to the republicans for representation.....oh yeah....realize you simply need to take back your democratic party by running and voting for labor and justice candidates.
Centrists are CORPORATE AND ARE KILLING LABOR AND JUSTICE!!!!
Minorities May Spurn The GOP, But The Party Welcomes Them by Alan Greenblatt
December 26, 2012 2:24 PM Enlarge image Incoming Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who spoke during the Republican National Convention this summer in Tampa, Fla., is among a number of minority politicians seen as rising stars in the GOP.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images As the nation's first African-American president, Barack Obama benefited from and expanded his party's enormous advantage among minority voters.
But as he prepares to start his second term, Obama hasn't managed to usher in behind him many Democrats who are minorities to top elected office. Conversely, Republicans — despite their highly limited support among non-Anglo voters — have managed to elevate more top politicians from minority backgrounds.
"It's just an objective, empirical fact that more members of minority groups have done well winning in the Republican Party," says Artur Davis, a former Democratic congressman from Alabama who has switched allegiance to the GOP.
"The Republican Party has proven welcoming to minorities, and its voters will elect minorities as long as those minorities share their worldview, as long as those minorities are conservatives," Davis says.
Thinner Lineup
Obama's success disproves the notion that minorities can't be elected as Democrats, and in terms of lower offices, far more minorities are elected as Democrats than Republicans. But when it comes to major statewide offices, Davis is right. OBAMA RAN AS A PROGRESSIVE AND RULES CENTER RIGHT......HE IS NOT A DEMOCRAT.
Minority Democrats face several obstacles, if only because they often represent congressional districts that are more liberal than their states as a whole. Many of them, in fact, hail from Southern states that are unlikely to elect Democrats of any color statewide these days.
For their part, Republicans are happy and eager to promote politicians of color who embrace the party's conservative agenda.
When Congress reconvenes next month, Democrats will make history by seating the first caucus in House history comprising more women and minorities than white men. The House GOP caucus will remain dominated by white males.
By contrast, the lineup of Democrats holding top statewide offices is thin — limited to Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, who is African-American, and Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who is Hispanic. THESE TWO ARE WALL STREET THROUGH AND THROUGH.
Republicans can boast of a number of minority officeholders whose first two names in news accounts seem to be "rising star," including Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and incoming Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
Once newly elected officials are sworn in, Republicans will have more female governors and more Hispanic U.S. senators than the Democrats. Republican Tim Scott of South Carolina will be the only African-American in the Senate — appointed by Nikki Haley, one of two Republican governors of Indian descent. (Louisiana's Bobby Jindal is the other.)
Minority politicians are likely to have "a smoother path" running for top offices as Republicans, says Robert C. Smith, author of several books about race and politics.
"The left highway is crowded, and the right highway's less so," he says.
Hobbled By Success?
The nature of the districts many minority Democrats represent handicaps them when they set their sights on statewide offices, says Lara Brown, a Villanova University political scientist.
"When you look at those minority-majority districts, this is why Democrats don't have statewide elected officials [from minority groups]," she says. "Their constituents and these districts are very liberal, and that makes it very hard for these individuals to moderate [their positions] to win their states."
Smith, who teaches political science at San Francisco State University, says this argument was more true 10 or 20 years ago than it is today.
He notes Democratic black politicians with aspirations for higher office — such as Davis, who ran as a Democrat for governor in 2010, and then-Rep. Harold Ford, who ran for Senate in Tennessee back in 2006 — self-consciously adopted moderate or even conservative positions to run statewide.
"Twenty years ago, black politicians had little ambition to seek office beyond being in Congress or being a big-city mayor," Smith says. "Now, they're positioning themselves as centrists so they can run for statewide office." Centrists are CORPORATE
The Need For Crossover Appeal
Still, reaching the top rungs can be difficult for African-American politicians in particular — because the vast majority of those holding elected office are in the South.
Neither Davis nor Ford was able to win election, and other blacks nominated to statewide posts in the South have done even more poorly.
In addition to the region's conservative nature, in the Deep South, "in terms of statewide elections, there's high racial polarization," says David Bositis, an expert on black politics at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
Democratic politicians of color frequently are nominated to statewide office in the South, but they rarely win. In recent races in states such as Mississippi and Florida, black candidates have taken roughly 30 percent of the general election vote — about the same share as the minority populations there as a whole.
Following his keynote address to the Democratic National Convention this summer, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro was widely touted as a potential star. But despite prognostications that Texas may eventually turn "blue" in presidential voting, Castro has to include in his calculations the fact that Texas hasn't elected a Democrat to statewide office in nearly 20 years.
HOW CAN TEXAS TURN BLUE? IF YOU LET THIRD WAY CORPORATES DEFINE 'DEMOCRAT' THEN ALL THEY HAVE TO DO IS SHED THE RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE.
Things may be different for Cory Booker, the African-American mayor of Newark, who recently made clear his intentions to run for U.S. Senate. If he's nominated, he'll have a strong chance in the generally Democratic state of New Jersey, Smith says.
Minorities running in Northern states with relatively small minority populations "absolutely" need to have crossover appeal, says Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected & Appointed Officials. ONLY IF LABOR DOESN'T UNDERSTAND CORPORATE DEMOCRATS ARE WORKING AGAINST THEM
He notes that both Menendez, from New Jersey and former Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar (now Obama's interior secretary) carried states that are both about 15 percent Hispanic.
GOP's Welcome Mat
By contrast, Vargas notes, even successful minority Republican officials have mostly failed to carry majorities among their own ethnic communities. Rubio, the Florida senator, is a notable exception, having won 55 percent of the Hispanic vote in his 2010 election.
Given the usual lack of support for Republican blacks and Hispanics within their own groups, there's a certain quality close to tokenism that prevails on the GOP side, Bositis suggests.
"The Republican Party has always tried to have a certain number," he says. "If they could find some black or Hispanic or Asian person to put out front, they were always happy to do it."
There's no question Republicans are eager to showcase minority politicians. Their national convention in Tampa, Fla., at times seemed to feature more black and brown faces on the podium than were otherwise in the hall.
Smith, the San Francisco State political scientist, says this is done from necessity. Giving prominent roles to minority politicians, he suggests, may not help the GOP make deep inroads into minority communities that find the party's platform hostile to them on issues such as voting rights and immigration.
"But it gives the party the image of being an inclusive, multiethnic party," Smith says. "White suburbanites would not be comfortable with a party that is not inclusive."
If an ambitious politician who happens to be African-American or Hispanic or Asian also happens to be conservative, the GOP is going to welcome that person with open arms.
"If you're an African-American or a Hispanic of conservative bent — and you will be, or you wouldn't be in the Republican Party — you're going to be in the mainstream of your party more often than not," says Whit Ayres, a GOP consultant.
MOVE ON IS A 'PROGRESSIVE' ORGANIZATION THAT SHOUTS OUT ABOUT BAD BANKS BUT THEN ENDORSES THE SAME POLITICIANS WHO ARE LETTING CORPORATIONS STEAL TRILLIONS WITH NO PENALTY. MOVE ON ENDORSED ALL OF MARYLAND'S THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS EVEN AS THEY SIT SILENT THROUGHOUT ON HOLDING CORPORATIONS ACCOUNTABLE. THESE CORPORATE DEMOCRATS HAVE BEEN SHOUTING LOUDLY FOR CORPORATE TAX BREAKS AS THE PUBLIC STARVES AND THEY ARE SUPPORTING PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS THAT ARE KILLING LABOR AND UNIONS. SO WHY DOES MOVE ON KEEP TELLING ITS EMAIL LISTS TO VOTE FOR THE SAME POLITICIANS WHO ARE KILLING THE MIDDLE-CLASS AND LABOR? WHY AM I HAVING TO YELL AT DEMOCRATIC POLS SUPPORTED BY MOVE ON TO NOT VOTE FOR CUTS IN SOCIAL SECURITY? THERE IS DEFENSE SPENDING THAT CAN BE USED TO NEGOTIATE!!!
BECAUSE THEY ARE A THIRD WAY CORPORATE POLITICAL ACTION GROUP....
LOOK AT WHO THESE GROUPS SUPPORT AND THEN WATCH HOW THESE POLS VOTE OR ARE SILENT ON ISSUES IMPORTANT TO YOU AND ME!
I will go to shout at Elijah Cummings as to why he is not demanding Rule of Law be enforced and trillions of dollars in corporate fraud used to pay down this national debt!!
Cindy- Just a reminder that this is happening today—and we need all hands on deck. Can you drop by Rep. Cummings's local office today with the message: Don't cut Social Security benefits!
Click here to sign up: http://moveon.org/pac/lameduckdropby/index2.html?id=59947-23326133-FHKuoYx&t=1
Here's the address for Rep. Cummings's office:
1010 Park Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21201
You'll be joining more than 1,600 other MoveOn members around the country delivering a message to members of Congress on their first day back to work that they must not cut Social Security benefits, and that they must not let the interests of millionaires and billionaires stand in the way of tax cuts for 98% of Americans.
P.S. Check out the easy suggestions below for how to deliver your message.
I'm taking action this Thursday to stop Congress from cutting Social Security benefits for me and millions of others. Will you join me by dropping off a message at Rep. Cummings's office this Thursday? It could be our last chance.
Take action Thursday Dear fellow MoveOn member, I've paid into Social Security for more than fifty years. My five children and six grandchildren are paying into Social Security now. I retired ten years ago, and in 2008 and again this year, I campaigned for President Obama. I elected the President, and other Democrats, to protect Social Security and to ask the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes—not to cave in to Republican demands to cut the benefits that my family, and millions of other families, depend on.
But last week, in fiscal talks with Republican Speaker Boehner, President Obama offered to cut Social Security benefits. Negotiations are still in flux, but there's a real risk that a deal could be struck this week that includes those cuts. Democrats in Congress—whose support is needed to pass a deal—have been split on whether they'd allow Social Security cuts.
This is an unusual time for politics. We're taking much needed holiday breaks. We're traveling. We're holding our family and friends very, very close.
Amid all of this—in fact, because of all of this—on Thursday, I'm walking into my representative's local office with a few friends and family members, and we're delivering a clear message before it's too late: Don't cut Social Security benefits.
I won't sit back and let my Social Security—which I've earned and paid for—be cut. I won't sit back and let my children and grandchildren's Social Security be jeopardized.
Can you join your voice with mine by dropping by Rep. Cummings's office in Baltimore this Thursday?
Yes, I will take action Thursday.
Here's where to go:
Members of Congress are home this week for the holidays, and when they head back to Washington on Thursday, they may be asked to vote to cut Social Security. If this happens—and it breaks my heart to think about it—Barack Obama could become the first Democratic president in history to cut this core social insurance program. Even if President Obama is willing for that to be his legacy, I just won't tolerate it—will you?
You don't have to do exactly what I'm doing. But, please do something. This is our last, best chance, and it really is in our hands. Here are a few ideas I've heard for what you can do on Thursday, but really, do whatever moves you:
Deliver holiday cards to Rep. Cummings's office with the message, "I hope this isn't the last holiday card I write you—but it will be if you cut my benefits."
Sing different words to holiday songs that carry your message—look online, or make up your own! Or, picket outside the office and call your local TV news station to come along.
Bring your family—especially your kids or grandkids if you have them. They'll give punch to your message.
If you want to make your message memorable, do something fun and creative. Drop off a bag of nuts (peanuts, pecans, whatever you've got!) at Rep. Cummings's office with a note saying, "This is nuts! No Social Security cuts!"
I'll be out there Thursday, along with thousands of MoveOn members all across America—will you join us?
Yes, I can take action Thursday. Again, here's where to go:
I'd love to hear what idea you have for Thursday—sign up using the link above and share your idea, or use one I've suggested.
Thank you, and happy holidays,
Frank Burton
MoveOn member
P.S. New districts and newly-elected members of Congress don't go into effect until January, so the information above is still current.
PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. This email was sent to Cindy Walsh on December 27, 2012. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.
I like Russ Feingold and the Progressives United but every time I ask them to highlight the trillions in corporate fraud that need to come back and the Third Way corporate democrats who are blocking that.....they tell me that isn't their issue. So, we are going to shout at the billionaires who have the money from fraud, but only about paying more taxes. Paying more taxes is good, but Rule of Law is a principle of democracy......wouldn't a labor/justice political group make that the issue? A Third Way corporate group would not.
We saw more corporate meddling in this year's election than any election in recent memory. But don't expect it to let up any time soon.
Corporate interests and a handful of eccentric billionaires aren't just out to buy an election. They're out to buy what happens after elections: the policies that affect how all of us live our lives every single day.
That's why, together, we're fighting back right now against a right-wing lobbyist-backed deal to slash essential benefits for America's elderly, disabled, and poor.
That's why we speak out when corporate and wealthy interests try to rig the game by slanting the playing field in their favor -- both in and out of election seasons.
And that's why we must hit our year-end $100,000 goal. We have to be organized to take back the field.
Help ensure we're strong before we enter the New Year. Contribute $5 today, and help reach our year-end goal.
Progressives United never took our eye off the ball in calling attention to some of the most egregious attacks on our democracy this year.
As a result, broad majorities of Americans have seen -- and rejected -- the politics of unlimited, corrupting corporate money. Together, we're creating the conditions for reform -- and we're doing it from the bottom up.
But corporate America is redoubling their efforts to take their spoils from sweetheart deals and favorable loopholes made at the expense of hardworking families when Congress meets in the New Year.
Already, we've stopped attempts to inflict damaging cuts to crucial programs. But further attacks are around the corner, and we have more to do -- it's time to play offense.
Contribute $5 today to help reach our year-end organizing goal.
I'm excited for what we can accomplish -- just as we have time and again -- in the coming year. But we need the resources to succeed. Please contribute today.
Thank you for uniting as a progressive,
Russ Feingold
YOU WILL LOSE YOUR DEMOCRACY IF YOU DO NOT SHOUT LOUDLY AND STRONGLY FOR FREE PRESS THAT WORKS IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST!!!!
I want to address a media issue before returning to K-12 in Baltimore and across the country. It is simply unacceptable to have media that tells us after the fact that policy that is decades in the making produced something bad, and that is what is happening yet again with these corporatized university campuses. I am having to listen to our local public media WYPR decry this policy as bad after it is in place. Even as I spent years trying to get media on this policy and demanded of all media to make this an issue in elections, all of Maryland media was silent. You will see my comment to our local 'economic' commenter.
Another issue is the Affordable Care Act. The exact same thing is happening and media are yet again allowing these pols to say one thing while doing another. So I tell my local public media:
Regarding the deficit reduction debates and Basu's economic forecasts:
Rather than wait for two decades more to have Basu tell us that Affordable Care was all about consolidating the health industry into Wall Street-sized global corporations that will prey on or ignore the poor and elderly and allow health care for about 20% of the population that can afford insurance coverage.....so forget about entitlements....let's talk about it now. Your incumbents are not protecting your entitlements.
The idea of Affordable Care is how to make health care more profitable to health businesses, not to offer more or better care. This is why we see the push to preventive care because that is all the care that the 80% of Americans will be able to access. With health data in hand....Hopkins is leading that public interest nightmare....they will be able to determine who gets insurance and how much according to these health records. You say 'but they told us it was to lower costs and give better care! They promise the data won't be used against us'!
We have gone through two decades of the US as a third world government that is as corrupt and criminal as ever in American history. Are you really going to continue to believe what you hear?
What is important to those of us wanting our democracy back is demanding and fighting for media that serves the public interest. These issues most important to the public are silenced. I was so glad to hear that NPR in Washington was flush with hate mail and threats simply because it shows the political action needed for change. We don't need to break the law, but we do need to make these media outlets think twice about who they serve. Did our public media economist Basu know two decades ago the direction of this university corporatizing policy.....of course. He very well was a part of the planning. THESE PEOPLE ARE SHOWING GRAVE DISRESPECT BY ACTING AS THOUGH THIS BEHAVIOR IS OK.
I PICK ON PUBLIC MEDIA BECAUSE THAT IS THE PEOPLE'S NETWORK....ERGO......'PUBLIC' MEDIA.
Basu is like the weather forecaster who tells us after the storm that the storm has occurred...with great indignation. O'Malley has worked for 2 decades to build what Basu now protests. It is why Maryland is ranked first in Education Week and Time put Grabowsky and UMBC on their corporate rag front page....privatizing public education. It is also why O'Malley is in the national spotlight; he is a good corporate team player.
Basu did identify the problem the public now has to reverse. A generation of students who were forced to pay high tuition to build this corporate pipeline are the ones now spoken of as the lost generation because of the debt piled upon them by this corporatization of private and public universities. We can easily disband the business administrative piece designed to move taxpayer money into corporate R and D. The new facilities are not so easily gone so they will simply be a reminder of misguided public policy. The Feds can pay for that since they drove the policy. Getting rid of the innovation centers and the partnerships with all kinds of agencies will bring tuition down substantially and bring universities back to the task of teaching. Having the state reinstate Rule of Law in Maryland so as to bring back billions and billions of dollars in corporate fraud across all business sector will bring back the money for state university funding for all.
We need to demand more from Maryland media as the citizens of Maryland have a government that feels it can hide all of development plans until the plan is finished and then simply tell the public what is going to happen afterwards. This is not democracy and it is not first world.....it is third world and autocratic. Every media outlet protects this system against the interests of the public. This is why we need to VOTE OUR INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE AND THE FARM TEAM BEHIND THEM!
Community Advisory Board The WYPR Community Advisory Board
CAB members are a volunteer group of interested citizens and listeners who are appointed by the WYPR Board of Directors. The CAB is required to meet at regular intervals. The CAB deliberates independently of station management and WYPR's Board of Directors. It determines its own agenda and elects its own leadership.
012/2013 CAB Meetings held at Our Daily Bread Employment Center and begin at 6:00 PM.September 24, 2012 (Please note date change from 9/26/12)
I HAVE ASKED THE CENTER FOR MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY HOW IT CAN REPORT ON ALEC ISSUES AND NOT INCLUDE THE OBAMA EDUCATION REFORM. THIS REFORM IS WRITTEN BY WALL STREET AND BILL GATES WITH THE HELP OF EDUCATION TECH COMPANIES AND AIMS TO PRIVATIZE PUBLIC EDUCATION. WHAT CAN BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THAT???? SO, I QUESTION WHY THEY DO NOT OUT A THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATIC SCHEME AND ONLY REPUBLICAN. FINANCIAL REFORM IS BEING WRITTEN COMPLETELY BY THE BANKS, AND OUR INTERNATIONAL TRADE POLICIES ALL BY CORPORATIONS AND THEIR LAWYERS. THESE ARE ALL HAPPENING IN A THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION.
Does Media and Democracy do good things....of course it does. WHY ARE WE HEARING OF RIGHT TO WORK LAWS AFTER IT HAPPENS? THESE POLICIES WERE CREATED YEARS AGO. It is working in our interest if it neglects the largest offenses of our time? OF COURSE NOT!!! LET THEM KNOW!! Remember this......most of these petitioning organizations are simply trying to get your email info to tell you how to vote next election. Most of them will be telling you to vote for a Third Way corporate democrat like Clinton, Cuomo, Biden, or O'Malley.
Your Support Helped Us Kick ALEC in the Pants December 13, 2012
With your help, we've accomplished some amazing things this year!
We connected the dots between corporations, politicians, and controversial legislation pouring out of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) -- like the "Right to Work" (for less) law that was just passed in Michigan by the ALEC/Koch cabal, and the "Shoot to Kill" law cited in Florida to protect Trayvon Martin's killer which was crafted by the NRA and pushed out nationally by ALEC.
Together with our allies, we convinced 42 major corporations to dump ALEC (including Wal-Mart!). Plus, at least 70 state legislators quit the organization and another 117 others lost their seats in the last election.
We sued ALEC legislators who were trying to hide public access to lobbying communications from ALEC in their private emails and won! And time and time again, the courts rejected key parts of the ALEC agenda on voter suppression, immigration, school privatization and more.
We won five major awards for our investigative journalism and leadership of the public campaigns to expose corporate influence and corruption of our democracy, including an "Izzy" named for the great investigative journalist I.F. Stone, a "Sidney" from the Hillman Foundation, a "Bennie" from the Business Ethics Network, and more.
We picked these fights because playing defense is just not good enough. We did it because corporations are undermining essential American institutions, manipulating opinions, and diverting your taxes from the public good to private profit through "privatization" schemes.
Will you help us continue our work to expose the bad guys by donating today? Every dollar you contribute helps us hit harder with the facts!
Lisa Graves
Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy
I THINK ALL MINORITIES IN BALTIMORE AND MARYLAND WILL SHOUT OUT THAT CORDISH IS ACTIVELY ABUSING AND MARGINALIZING BOTH HISPANICS AND BLACKS AS THEY ARE CHEATED OUT OF WAGES AND FORCED TO ENDURE POOR WORKPLACE CONDITIONS. WE NEED TO KNOW THAT CORDISH HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED AS THINKING OF BUYING THE BALTIMORE SUN. CAN YOU IMAGINE AN ORGANIZATION KNOWN FOR CRIMINAL MISCONDUCT AND ABUSE HOLDING A REGIONAL PAPER....
WE NEED TO LET THE FCC KNOW THAT THIS IS NOT HOW MEDIA IN AMERICA WORKS!!!!
Cordish division named in Louisville, Ky., lawsuit alleging discrimination Plaintiff claims employees of Cordish tenant turned away party with black attendees
By Richard Gorelick The Baltimore Sun 10:55 a.m. EST, December 22, 2012
A division of the Baltimore-based Cordish Cos. has been named as a co-defendant in a lawsuit alleging discriminatory practices at The Maker's Mark Bourbon House and Lounge, a tenant at Cordish's Fourth Street Live! property in Louisville, Ky.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, alleges that the lounge's employees "demanded to know the ratio of 'black people' to 'white people'" who were expected to attend a party, then denied entrance to every black person who showed up.
Andre Mulligan, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, is suing Louisville Bourbon LLC (doing business as Maker's Mark Bourbon House and Lounge) and Cordish Operating Ventures LLC of Baltimore in Jefferson County Court in Kentucky.
In the suit, Mulligan says that he met Aug. 17 with employees from Maker's Mark Bourbon House and Lounge about a party he was planning there. He alleges that they asked him about the proportion of black patrons vs. white patrons and, upon learning that all the attendees would be black, told him that "he and other African Americans would not be allowed to hold an event." The lawsuit claims that the next evening, when Mulligan and other black would-be party-goers showed up, bar employees refused to serve them.
In addition, Mulligan's suit contends, "Cordish security told the Plaintiff to 'shut up' and that he was trespassing. Cordish security informed the Plaintiff that he would be 'locked up' if he did not leave the grounds."
Kurt A. Scharfenberger, who is representing Mulligan in his lawsuit, told The Baltimore Sun that Mulligan had booked the party at Maker's Mark Bourbon House and Lounge before his Aug. 17 meeting with the lounge's employees. It was only when Mulligan showed up in person for the meeting, with his brother, that he was asked about the party's racial make-up, Scharfenberger said.
Asked Friday evening about the incident, the Cordish Cos. supplied a statement from Fourth Street Live spokesman Mike Leonard.
"This is a matter between a third party tenant and an individual. Neither Fourth Street Live! nor The Cordish Company nor any of their employees were involved in the alleged situation," he said. "The tenant has vigorously denied the allegations and stated they are totally false. In addition, we have conducted an independent investigation of the allegations and believe them to be without merit."
Maker's Mark released a statement distancing itself from the Maker's Mark Bourbon House and Lounge.
"Maker's Mark licenses its name and trademark to a third party appointed by Cordish Operating Ventures, LLC, which is solely responsible for the ownership, operation and management of the Maker's Mark Bourbon House and Lounge in Louisville Kentucky," said the statement from Chairman Emeritus Bill Samuels Jr. and COO Rob Samuels. "Maker's Mark has no ownership or involvement in the Lounge whatsoever. ... Maker's Mark does not accept, and will not tolerate, discrimination in any form, and has so notified and warned the company which is solely responsible for the operation of the Lounge."
Follow Baltimore Diner on Twitter @gorelickingood
THIS IS A GREAT OVERVIEW ON AN IMPORTANT TOPIC. IT WILL BE THE SUPERHIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION OF THE 21ST CENTURY. SINCE THIS GRID WILL ENCOMPASS ALMOST ALL OF PUBLIC COMMUNICATION...THINK THE POST OFFICE......IT SHOULD BE PUBLIC. THIS IS WHERE THE ISSUES FOR MOST PEOPLE START. ACCESS AND AFFORDABILITY.
THEY WILL PUSH PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS. AGAIN, THIS MEANS YOU AND I PAY TO BUILD AND MAINTAIN IT AND THE CORPS WILL RUN THE PROCESS AND DECIDE HOW IT CAN BE USED. THAT IS WHERE YOUR THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRAT IS TAKING IT.
NET NEUTRALITY IS THE MOST CRITICAL OF ISSUES THAT IS NEVER DISCUSSED. OBAMA RAN AS A PROPONENT OF NET NEUTRALITY AND YET, HIS APPOINTMENT TO THIS AGENCY IS ALLOWING ALL OF PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS DISAPPEAR AND NET NEUTRALITY HAS BEEN SHELVED. DO WE NEED TO LOSE ALL OF OUR PUBLIC AIRWAVES SO WE CAN HAVE UNLIMITED APPS AND CABLE STATIONS THAT NO ONE USES? FREE TV, FREE RADIO, AND FREE INTERNET SURFING (OTHER THAN PAYING YOUR MONTHLY FEE JUST AS WITH YOUR ELECTRIC BILL) ARE ALL UNDER ATTACK. THESE CORPORATIONS INTEND TO RAISE THE COST FOR INTERNET CONNECTION TO A PRICE THAT MOST PEOPLE CANNOT AFFORD; THEY INTEND TO CHARGE EVER MORE FOR HOW MUCH YOU DOWNLOAD; THEY INTEND ON SIDELINING PEOPLE WITH SLOW INTERNET SPEED (DIAL UP ANYONE) ACCORDING TO WHAT YOU CAN AFFORD TO PAY.
THESE POLICIES WILL PUSH MANY PEOPLE INTO THE STONE AGES. THIS ALL NEEDS TO BE PUBLIC AND REGULATED IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST OF DEMOCRATIC ACCESS JUST LIKE ELECTRICITY.
"Progressive America Rising"
What Is the Smart Grid? Core Infrastructure for the 'Green New Deal'
By Joe Miller
SolidarityEconomy.net via Smartgridnews.com
Many people are asking, "What is the Smart Grid?"
Many more are trying to define it with short "sound bite" descriptions. These short statements cannot adequately convey the level of detail needed to provide a clear understanding. The Smart Grid isn't a thing but rather a vision and to be complete, that vision must be expressed from various perspectives – its values, its characteristics, and the milestones for achieving it.
Smart grid values
The transformation to the Smart Grid will require new investment and commitment by its many stakeholders. These stakeholders expect significant value in return. Understanding how this value will be created is an important step in defining the vision. Expectations for the Smart Grid are great and will be realized through advances in each of the six value areas described below:
It must be more reliable. A reliable grid provides power, when and where its users need it and of the quality they value.
It must be more secure. A secure grid withstands physical and cyber attacks without suffering massive blackouts or exorbitant recovery costs.
It is also less vulnerable to natural disasters and recovers quickly.
It must be more economic. An economic grid operates under the basic laws of supply and demand, resulting in fair prices and adequate supplies.
It must be more efficient. An efficient grid employs strategies that lead to cost control, minimal transmission and distribution losses, efficient power production, optimal asset utilization while providing consumers options for managing their energy usage.
It must be more environmentally friendly. An environmentally friendly grid reduces environmental impacts thorough improvements in efficiency and by enabling the integration of a larger percentage of intermittent resources than could otherwise be reliably supported.
It must be safer. A safe grid does no harm to the public or to grid workers and is sensitive to users who depend on it as a medical necessity.
Smart grid principal characteristics
The Smart Grid can be considered a "transactive" agent. That is, it will enable financial, informational, as well as "electrical" transactions among consumers, grid assets, and other authorized users. Its functionality is defined by the following seven principal characteristics:
First, it will enable active participation by consumers. The Smart Grid will give consumers information, control, and options that enable them to engage in new "electricity markets." Grid operators will treat willing consumers as resources in the day-to-day operation of the grid. Well-informed consumers will modify consumption based on the balancing of their demands and resources with the electric system's capability to meet those demands.
Second, it will accommodate all generation and storage options. It will seamlessly integrate all types and sizes of electrical generation and storage systems using simplified interconnection processes and universal interoperability standards to support a "plug-and-play" level of convenience. Large central power plants, including environmentally friendly sources such as wind and solar farms and advanced nuclear plants, will continue to play a major role even as large numbers of smaller distributed resources, including Plug-in Electric Vehicles, are deployed.
Third, it will enable new products, services, and markets. The Smart Grid will link buyers and sellers together – from the consumer to the Regional Transmission Organization. It will support the creation of new electricity markets from the home energy management system at the consumer's premise to technologies that allow consumers and third parties to bid their energy resources into the electricity market. The Smart Grid will support consistent market operation across regions.
Fourth, it will provide power quality for the digital economy. It will monitor, diagnose, and respond to power quality deficiencies resulting in a dramatic reduction in the business losses currently experienced by consumers due to insufficient power quality.
Fifth, it will optimize asset utilization and operate efficiently. Operationally, the Smart Grid will improve load factors, lower system losses, and dramatically improve outage management performance. The availability of additional grid intelligence will give planners and engineers the knowledge to build what is needed when it is needed, to extend the life of assets, to repair equipment before it fails unexpectedly, and to more effectively manage the work force. Operational, maintenance and capital costs will be reduced thereby keeping downward pressure on prices.
Sixth, it will anticipate and respond to system disturbances (self-heal). It will heal itself by performing continuous self-assessments to detect and analyze issues, take corrective action to mitigate them and, if needed, rapidly restore grid components or network sections. It will also handle problems too large or too fast-moving for human intervention. And finally, the Smart Grid will operate resiliently against attack and natural disaster. The Smart Grid will incorporate a systemwide solution that reduces physical and cyber vulnerabilities and enables a rapid recovery from disruptions. Its resilience will create an image that intimidates would-be attackers. It will also be less vulnerable to natural disasters.
Smart grid milestones
Smart Grid milestones represent the building blocks of the Smart Grid. Completion of each requires the deployment and integration of various technologies and applications. "One size does not fit all" – the sequence for implementing these milestones and the degree of implementation will depend on the specific circumstances of those involved.
Consumer Enablement (CE) empowers consumers by giving them the information and education they need to effectively utilize the new options provided by the Smart Grid. CE includes solutions such as Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), home area networks with in-home displays, distributed energy resources (DER), and demand response programs as well as upgrades to utility information technology architecture and applications that will support "plug-and-play" integration with all future Smart Grid technologies.
Advanced Distribution Operations (ADO) improves reliability and enables "self-healing." ADO includes solutions such as smart sensors and control devices, advanced outage management, distribution management, and distribution automation systems, geographical information, and other technologies to support two-way power flow and microgrid operation.
Advanced Transmission Operations (ATO) integrates the distribution system with RTO operational and market applications to enable improved overall grid operations and reduced transmission congestion. ATO includes substation automation, integrated wide area measurement applications, power electronics, advanced system monitoring, and protection schemes and modeling, simulation, and visualization tools to increase situational awareness and provide a better understanding of real-time and future operating risks.
Advanced Asset Management (AAM) integrates the grid intelligence acquired in achieving the other milestones with new and existing asset management applications. This integration enables utilities to reduce operations and maintenance and capital costs and better utilize assets during day-to-day operations. Additionally, it significantly improves the performance of capacity planning, maintenance, engineering and facility design, customer service processes, and work and resource management.
It is this combination of values, principal characteristics and milestones that answers the question, "What is the Smart Grid?" Brief "sound bite" descriptions cannot do justice to this complex subject.
Joe Miller is the DOE/NETL Smart Grid Implementation Strategy Team Lead and Senior Vice President at Horizon Energy Group.
I'M ON HOLIDAY SO I HAVE A BRIEF BLOG......
Free market globalization was never about lifting the poor of the world into middle-class; it was always about expanding the wealth and power of the Western elite and the corporations they own. DOES ANYONE THINK AMERICA WOULD BE GRIPPED IN SUCH INEQUITY AND CORRUPTION IF THE INTENT WAS ENLIGHTENMENT? OF COURSE NOT! We see the result of these few decades of massive fraud and the same ethic spread around the world through elite universities resulting in movement of wealth to the top in all countries of the world. Ask the average citizen anywhere in the world....
Of course there will be nationalism and not open markets as developing worlds mimic this Western ethic of systemic corporate fraud and greed and want their nation's booty for themselves.
VOTE THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS OUT AND LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES INTO OFFICE TO REBUILD AMERICAN DEMOCRACY!!!
The Return of Toxic Nationalism
The spread of universal values is being rolled back on many fronts, from Russia to the Middle East.
By ROBERT D. KAPLAN
Western elites believe that universal values are trumping the forces of reaction. They wax eloquent about the triumph of human rights, women's liberation, social media, financial markets, international and regional organizations and all the other forces that are breaking down boundaries separating humanity.
Tragically, they are really observing a self-referential world of global cosmopolitans like themselves. In country after country, the Westerners identify like-minded, educated elites and mistake them for the population at large. They prefer not to see the regressive and exclusivist forces—such as nationalism and sectarianism—that are mightily reshaping the future.
Take Cairo's Tahrir Square in early 2011. Western journalists celebrated the gathering of relatively upper-income Arab liberals with whom they felt much in common, only to see these activists quickly retreat as post-autocratic Egypt became for many months a struggle among the military, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamist Salafists—with the Coptic Christians fearing for their communal survival.
Though secular liberals have resurfaced to challenge Egypt's Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, do not be deceived. The military and the Muslim Brotherhood both have organized infrastructures. The liberals have only spontaneous emotion and ad hoc organizations. An Islamist-Nasserite regime-of-sorts is likely to emerge, as the military uses the current vulnerability of the Muslim Brotherhood to drive a harder bargain.
Egypt and the Middle East now offer a panorama of sectarianism and religious and ethnic divides. Freedom, at least in its initial stages, unleashes not only individual identity but, more crucially, the freedom to identify with a blood-based solidarity group. Beyond that group, feelings of love and humanity do not apply. That is a signal lesson of the Arab Spring.
An analogous process is at work in Asia. Nationalism there is young and vibrant—as it was in the West in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Asia is in the midst of a feverish arms race, featuring advanced diesel-electric submarines, the latest fighter jets and ballistic missiles. China, having consolidated its land borders following nearly two centuries of disorder, is projecting air and sea power into what it regards as the blue national soil of the South China and East China seas.
Japan and other countries are reacting in kind. Slipping out of its quasi-pacifistic shell, Japan is rediscovering nationalism as a default option. The Japanese navy boasts roughly four times as many major warships as the British Royal Navy. As for Vietnam and the Philippines, nobody who visits those countries and talks with their officials, as I have, about their territorial claims would imagine for a moment that we live in a post-national age.
The disputes in Asia are not about ideology or any uplifting moral philosophy; they are about who gets to control space on the map. The same drama is being played out in Syria where Alawites, Sunnis and Kurds are in a territorial contest over power and control as much as over ideas. Syria's writhing sectarianism—in which Bashar Assad is merely the leading warlord among many—is a far cruder, chaotic and primitive version of the primate game of king of the hill.
Nationalism is alive and thriving in India and Russia as well. India's navy and air force are in the process of becoming among the world's largest. Throughout most of history, India and China had little to do with each other, separated as they were by the Himalayas. But the collapse of distance by way of technology has created a new strategic geography for two big nations. Now Indian space satellites monitor Chinese military installations, even as Chinese fighter jets in Tibet have the possibility of including India within their arc of operations. This rivalry has further refined and invigorated nationalism in both countries.
In Russia, Vladimir Putin's nationalism is a large factor in his high popularity. President Putin's nationalism is geographical determinism: He wants to recreate buffer states in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, like in the old Soviet Union. So he does everything he can to undermine the countries in these regions.
Western elites hope that if somehow there were truly free elections in Russia, then this foreign policy might change. The evidence is to the contrary. Race-hatred against Muslims is high among Russians, and just as there are large rallies by civil-society types, there are also marches and protests by skinheads and neo-Nazis, who are less well-covered by the Western media. Local elections in October returned a strong showing for Mr. Putin's party. Like it or not, he is representative of the society he governs.
Nor can Europe be left out of this larger Eurasian trend. A weakening European Union, coupled with onerous social and economic conditions for years to come, invites a resurgence of nationalism and extremism, as we have already seen in countries as diverse as Hungary, Finland, Ukraine and Greece. That is exactly the fear of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize committee, which gave this year's award to the European Union in order to make a statement against this trend.
Fascists are not about to regain power anywhere on the Continent, but the age of deepening European integration is likely behind us. Get ready to see more nasty and thoroughly frightening political groupings like Greece's Golden Dawn emerge across the Continent.
We truly are in a battle between two epic forces: Those of integration based on civil society and human rights, and those of exclusion based on race, blood and radicalized faith. It is the mistake of Western elites to grant primacy to the first force, for it is the second that causes the crises with which policy makers must deal—often by interacting with technology in a toxic fashion, as when a video transported virtually at the speed of light ignites a spate of anti-Americanism (if not specifically in Benghazi).
The second force can and must be overcome, but one must first admit how formidable it is. It is formidable because nations and other solidarity groups tend to be concerned with needs and interests more than with values. Just as the requirement to eat comes before contemplation of the soul, interests come before values.
Yet because values like minority rights are under attack the world over, the United States must put them right alongside its own exclusivist national interests, such as preserving a favorable balance of power. Without universal values in our foreign policy, we have no identity as a nation—and that is the only way we can lead with moral legitimacy in an increasingly disorderly world. Yet we should not be overturning existing orders overnight. For it is precisely weak democracies and collapsing autocracies that provide the chaotic breathing room with which nationalist and sectarian extremists can thrive.
Mr. Kaplan is chief geopolitical analyst for Stratfor, a private global intelligence firm, and author of "The Revenge of Geography" (Random House, 2012).
I'M STILL ON HOLIDAY SO....
THIS IS AN ABBREVIATED POST BUT IT IS IMPORTANT!!!! REGARDING THE 'FISCAL CLIFF'.....REMEMBER THIS, GOING OVER THE CLIFF GIVES US THE TAX CUTS ON THE RICH AND THE CUTS TO DEFENSE SPENDING WHILE PROTECTING ENTITLEMENTS, BUT IF CONGRESS WANTED TO DO AN AUSTERITY CUT AND ALL AROUND TAX HIKE ON MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICANS.......AUSTERITY JUST LIKE THE EUROPEANS........THE FISCAL CLIFF WILL BE IT. A 10% SPENDING CUT ACROSS ALL FEDERAL AGENCIES WILL HIT POVERTY PROGRAMS AND FEDERAL EMPLOYEES HARD. FROM FOOD STAMPS TO EDUCATION IT WILL BE WORSE THAN ANY AUSTERITY DEMOCRATS COULD GIVE!!! WILL DEMOCRATS COME BACK AND REDUCE THE MIDDLE-CLASS TAXES AND FIGHT TO RESTORE POVERTY AND GOVERNMENT PERSONNEL?
BELOW IS HOW THINGS COULD WORK IF WE DIDN'T HAVE THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS IN OFFICE!!!! WE WILL BE WATCHING HOW THEY PROTECT US IF WE GO OVER THE CLIFF!!!
THIS IS A GOOD ARTICLE ON OPTIONS....SOME ARE FAR-FETCHED BUT MOST ARE RIGHT ON.
Fiscal Cliff: Time to Call Their Bluff December 23rd, 2012
in Op Ed
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by Ellen Brown, Web of Debt
The "fiscal cliff" has all the earmarks of a false flag operation, full of sound and fury, intended to extort concessions from opponents. Neil Irwin of the Washington Post calls it "a self-induced austerity crisis." David Weidner in the Wall Street Journal calls it simply theater, designed to pressure politicians into a budget deal:
The cliff is really just a trumped-up annual budget discussion. . . . The most likely outcome is a combination of tax increases, spending cuts and kicking the can down the road. Yet the media coverage has been "panic-inducing, falling somewhere between that given to an approaching hurricane and an alien invasion." In the summer of 2011, this sort of media hype succeeded in causing the Dow Jones Industrial Average to plunge nearly 2000 points. But this time the market is generally ignoring the cliff, either confident a deal will be reached or not caring.
The goal of the exercise seems to be to dismantle Social Security and Medicare, something a radical group of conservatives has worked for decades to achieve. But with the recent Democratic victories, demands for "fiscal responsibility" may just result in higher taxes for the rich, without gutting the entitlements.
The problem is that no deal is going to be satisfactory. If we go over the cliff, taxes will be raised on everyone, and GDP is predicted to drop by 3%. If a deal is reached, taxes will be raised on some people, and some services will be cut. But the underlying problems – high unemployment and a languishing economy – will remain. More effective solutions are needed.
Be Careful What You Wish for: Fiscal Hostage-Taking Could Backfire Taxpayers and governments that are pushed too far have been known to resort to more radical measures, and there are some on the table that could fix the problem at its core. Here are a few that are receiving media attention:
1. A financial transactions tax. While children's shoes and lunchboxes are taxed at nearly 10%, financial sales have so far gotten off scot-free. The idea of a financial transactions tax, or Tobin tax, has been kicked around for decades; but it is now gaining real teeth. The European Commission has backed plans from 10 countries — including France, Germany, Italy and Spain — to launch a financial transactions tax to help raise funds to tackle the debt crisis. Sarah van Gelder of Yes! Magazine observes that the tax would not only help reduce deficits but would hit the highest income earners, and it would cool the speculative fever of Wall Street.
Simon Thorpe, a financial blogger in France, cites figures from the Bank for International Settlements, showing total U.S. financial transactions of nearly $3 QUADRILLION in 2011. Including other sources, he derives a figure of $4.44 QUADRILLION. Even using the more "conservative" $3 quadrillion figure, a tax of a mere 0.05% (1/20th of 1%) would be sufficient to raise $1.5 trillion yearly, enough to replace personal income taxes with money to spare.
2. The trillion dollar coin trick. If Republicans insist on the letter of the law, Democrats could respond with a law of their own. The Constitution says that Congress shall have the power to "coin money" and "regulate the value thereof," and no limit is put on the value of the coins Congress creates, as was pointed out by a chairman of the House Coinage Subcommittee in the 1980s.
I actually suggested this solution in Web of Debt in 2007, when it was just a "wacky idea." But after the 2008 banking crisis, it started getting the attention of scholars. In a December 7th article in the Washington Post titled "Could Two Platinum Coins Solve the Debt-ceiling Crisis?," Brad Plumer wrote that if Congress doesn't raise the debt ceiling as part of the fiscal cliff negotiations, "then some of these wacky ideas may get more attention."
Ed Harrison summarized the proposal at Credit Writedowns like this:
The Treasury mints a $1 trillion coin, or whatever amount is desired.
The Treasury deposits the coin into the Treasury's account at the Fed.
The Treasury buys back bonds.
The retirement of bonds is an asset swap, no different from QE2.
The increase in reserve balances is not inflationary, as Credit Easing 1.0, QE 1.0, and QE 2.0 already have shown.
These operations by the Treasury create no new net financial assets for the non-government sector.
The debt ceiling crisis is averted.
Plumer cites Yale Law School Professor Jack Balkin, confirming the ploy is legal. He also cites Joseph Gagnon of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, stating, "I like it. There's nothing that's obviously economically problematic about it."
To the objection that it is a legal trick that makes a mockery of the law, Paul Krugman responded,
"These things sound ridiculous — but so is the behavior of Congressional Republicans. So why not fight back using legal tricks?" 3. Declare the debt ceiling unconstitutional. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution mandates that Congress shall pay its debts on time and in full, and Congress does not know how much it will collect in taxes until after the bills have been incurred. The debt ceiling was imposed by a statute first passed in 1917 and revised multiple times since. The Constitution trumps it and should rule.
4. Borrow interest-free from the government's own central bank. If the government refinanced its entire debt through the Federal Reserve, it could save nearly half a trillion dollars annually in interest, since the Fed rebates its profits to the government. The Fed's newly-announced QE4 adds $45 billion monthly in government securities purchases to the $40 billion for mortgaged-backed securities declared in QE3, and no time limit has been designated for ending the program. Forty-five billion dollars monthly is over half a trillion yearly. Added to the federal debt already held by the Fed, the whole $16 trillion federal debt could be bought back in 28 years.
This is not a wild, untested idea. Borrowing interest-free from its central bank was done by Canada from 1939 to 1974, by France from 1946 to 1973, and by Australia and New Zealand in the first half of the 20th century, to excellent effect and without creating price inflation.
5. Decommission some portion of the military. When past costs are factored in, nearly half the federal budget goes to the military. The data speaks for itself.
6. Debt forgiveness. Economists Michael Hudson and Steve Keen maintain that the only way out of debt deflation is debt forgiveness. That could be achieved by the Fed by buying up $2 trillion in student debt and other asset-back securities and either ripping them up or refinancing the debts interest-free or at very low interest. If the banks can borrow at 0.25%, why not the people?
7. Publicly-owned state and local banks. Municipal governments are facing cliffs of their own. Ann Larson, writing in Dissent Magazine, blames predatory Wall Street lending practices. Debt financing of U.S. cities and towns by Wall Street, she says, has inflicted deep and growing suffering on communities across the country.
Predatory Wall Street practices can be avoided by establishing publicly-owned state and local banks, which leverage the public's funds for the benefit of the public. The profits are returned as dividends to the local government. German researcher Margrit Kennedy calculates that a whopping 40% of the cost of public projects, on average, goes to interest. Publicly-owned banks slash borrowing costs by returning this interest to the government, along with many other advantages, detailed here.
Unshackle the Hostages and Let the Good Times Roll The fiscal cliff has been said to be holding Congress hostage to conservative demands, but the real hostages are the debt slaves of our financial system. The demand for "fiscal responsibility" has been used as an excuse to impose radical austerity measures on the people, measures that benefit the 1% while locking the 99% in debt.
The government did not demand fiscal responsibility of the failed financial sector. Rather, Congress lavished hundreds of billions of dollars on it, and the Fed lavished trillions more. No evident harm from these measures befell the economy, which has fared better than the austerity-strapped EU countries. Another couple of trillion dollars poured directly into the real, productive economy could give it a serious boost.
According to the Fed's figures, as of July 2010, the money supply was actually $4 trillion LESS than in 2008. (The shrinkage was in the shadow banking system formerly reported as M3.) That means $4 trillion could be added back into the money supply before general price inflation would be a problem.
The self-induced austerity crisis is a diversion from the real crises, including unemployment, the housing crisis, a bloated military, and unrepayable debt. Slashing services, selling off public assets, and raising taxes won't cure these ills. To maintain a sustainable and productive economy requires a visionary leap into the new. A new economy needs new methods of public financing.
PLEASE EXCUSE MISSED DAYS OF POSTS AS I DO HOLIDAY TRAVELING!!!!! THANKS FOR JOINING MY WEBSITE AND BLOG!!! JOIN ME IN THE NEW YEAR!!!
This is my political action weekend post and I want you to use all of that holiday time to network and create/ share your own community Democracy Now newsletters to ever more people. GROW YOUR MAILING LISTS AND SHARE MY WEBSITE WITH AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE.
BALTIMORE CITY WILL BE PETITIONING TO PUBLIC REFERENDUM THE RIGHT TO RECALL ALL ELECTED OFFICIALS AND RETROACTIVE TERM LIMITS FOR ALL ELECTED OFFICIALS. THIS WILL REMOVE CURRENT POLITICAL CLASS AND LIMIT CRONYISM IN THE FUTURE.
WE WILL INCLUDE A REQUIREMENT FOR AN ELECTED SCHOOL BOARD AND A REQUIREMENT THAT THE NUMBER OF CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS REMAINS AT 15.
WE WILL BE PETITIONING TO PUBLIC REFERENDUM CHANGES IN THE CITY CHARTER THAT REMOVES MANY OF THE POWERS OF THE MAYOR AND RETURNS THEM TO THE CITY COUNCIL.
THESE ARE CRITICAL PETITIONS AND THIS NEXT ELECTION CYCLE IS NOW 3 YEARS AWAY. OUR JOB IS TO CREATE A NETWORK FOR SIGNATURE COLLECTION FOR THESE PETITIONS ACROSS THE CITY. THE AMOUNT OF SIGNATURES NEEDED MAY BE TENS OF THOUSANDS AT THE MOST......REALLY NOT HARD IN A CITY OF 160,000 PEOPLE.
THIS IS DOABLE AND IT IS VITAL TO THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY IN THIS CITY AND STATE!
In talking about the school building forum in Baltimore I outlined how most of the people were left out of the process and how real concerns were deliberately sidelined. Can you image that my comments regarding the soundness of tying public schools to a Wall Street financial instrument or the fact that billions of dollars already owed the city are available to pay HAD NEVER BEEN STATED PUBLICLY? THAT'S RIGHT!!!
What was telling was a statement from our much maligned Baltimore School Superintendent and Wall Street crony Alonzo at the end of this public session. He was proud to announce that over 700 people in the city participated in discussions regarding these school building proposals. 700! Baltimore has a population of approximately 160,000 people and that 700 represents the number of the wealthiest people in the city. THEY ARE IN FACT THE PEOPLE TELLING ALONZO AND CITY COUNCIL WHAT DEVELOPMENT WILL LOOK LIKE IN BALTIMORE....AND IT DOESN'T END WELL FOR THE MIDDLE AND LOWER CLASS.
IF THE THIRD WAY POLITICIANS RUNNING AS DEMOCRATS CANNOT EVEN MEET THE DEFINITION OF DEMOCRACY-------YOU KNOW IT IS TIME TO VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE.
Beliefs Central to Democracy:
Decisions should reflect the will of the majority
Government is limited in its power and must respect people's rights
Citizens should have a voice in decision-making
All citizens should have a sense of responsibility to other people and the community
Citizens should have a sense of what is socially just (good/fair for society)
Elements of Democracy:
Rule of Law (Magna Carta) – both the government and the governed are subject to the law
Political Equality – everyone is equal; one person/one vote
Common Good – decisions are made for the benefit of everyone
Personal Freedoms / Human Dignity – fundamental freedoms (speech, religion, etc.) = civil rights
Political Freedoms – protect the right of citizens to participate in the political process
Being informed and getting involved – democracy works best when the citizens are active and
Respect – we must accept that not everyone has the same political views
Elements of Autocracy (Authoritarianism)
Features of an autocratic government (totalitarian, fascist, communist):
Total control of society – an attempt to dominate citizens' public and private lives
Instils fear through mechanisms of terror – military force; police brutality; secret service
Controls media – censorship; government propaganda
Official political ideology – mandatory for all; dissent unacceptable/punished
One political party – opposition parties may be deemed illegal or are ineffective
Clearly defined internal (citizens) and external enemies
Rule of Law does not exist
History may be re-written to conform to government ideology; traditional ideas/ways are replaced
A new, ideal type of person is promoted (e.g. tall, blonde Aryan in Nazi Germany; the hard worker in a Communist country)
I want to spend one more day on the school building meeting simply because it highlights all of the dysfunction and corruption that is Baltimore cronyism. I know that all of you are experiencing something similar where you live and we must be public with this as these people want to institutionalize this culture.
The following behavior exists at all levels of community action:
WYPR does a piece on the school building that basically gives an impression that the plan offered is foregone. It then lists the next meeting as on a Thursday rather then on its actual Wednesday even as I corrected it. No other news outlet announced this critical meeting. The Baltimore Teacher's Union sent an email that gave the meeting on Wednesday but said it would be at the City School Administration Building on North Ave. and parents from these affected schools said only a last minute robo-call was made on the subject. The turnout was huge because of community networking by average citizens not any of the public structures.
I deliberately arrived early because I like to witness the process from start to finish. When I went to sign up to speak there were several groups already listed that were all in the same handwriting and none of them were there. We were to be given 3 minutes as is usual which gives enough time to send out issues with no explanation. Remember, this is a scheduled 2 hour event and they stick to these time schedules. First to sign in will assure you get to testify. I SHOUTED LOUDLY TO THE SCHOOL BOARD MEETING HANDLER STATIONED NEXT TO ME......IT APPEARS THAT THEY HAVE FRONT-LOADED THE SPEAKER SHEET WITH PEOPLE CONNECTED TO THE ALONZO PLAN.
They did in fact do that with the intention that the very families who never get a voice at any of these staged meetings will yet again see time end without their words being heard. As it was, after making very public the stacked list the leader of the event extended the forum to hear all testimony, but as everyone knew to be the case, several of the groups had to leave because they have no transportation and had rented buses for a select period and had to leave without comment.
DID YOU KNOW THAT THE UNDERSERVED IN URBAN AREAS GENERALLY HAVE NO TRANSPORTATION AND IF THEY CAME WOULD BE RESTRICTED TO TIME CONSTRAINTS? EVERYBODY IN THE SCHOOL SYSTEM UNDERSTANDS THIS.
So, the people who were pre-listed were the usual Johns Hopkins organization non-profits that direct Alonzo's school development plans.....and I am going to out what I am 99.9% sure but since I didn't see it I cannot say with certainty.....Greater Homewood Development Corporation as the integrity-compromised entity......SURPRISED?????? OF COURSE NOT......THAT IS THEIR MODUS OPERANDUS. For those not familiar Greater Homewood is the academic branch of the Johns Hopkins development group. So all of these private non-profits put into place by Hopkins to promote these policies came late and left immediately and took up a chunk of time. By the time the last group spoke the auditorium was almost empty.......which was the point. I WANT TO EMPHASIZE THAT ACLU-MD LEADS THIS BEHAVIOR....THE VERY ORGANIZATION SET UP TO PROTECT CIVIL LIBERTIES!!!!
The recurring theme of the testimony was that the schools slated to close were often well-performing and supported schools in neighborhoods that were higher functioning then others schools left open. It was stressed as to how families living in those communities would be placed in hardship as children would be endangered and in many cases there isn't even any public transportation to and from these communities allowing for transfer to other schools. The stats used in all of the studies that qualified these school building decisions were constantly shown to be false and/or in conflict with the stated goal. THIS IS THE ONLY TIME PARENTS WERE ABLE TO PUBLICLY SPEAK TO THESE ISSUES AND IT IS AT A TIME AFTER THE CITY COUNCIL AND THE SCHOOL BOARD VOTED TO APPROVE THE ENTIRE PROJECT AND SEND IT TO THE STATE LEGISLATURE.
IT IS LIKE DEALING WITH A KANGAROO COURT IN A BANANA REPUBLIC.
It is the same environment as exists when you attend the Baltimore Board of Estimate meetings and the existing plans are pushed forward regardless of legality or public interest.
What happens when a government becomes this corrupt and criminal? YOU HAVE AN AUTOCRACY JUST AS THEY DO IN ANY THIRD WORLD COUNTRY......THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE FOLKS AND YOUR INCUMBENT IS PROVIDING THIS CULTURE FOR YOU!!!
VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!
I ATTENDED A SCHOOL BOARD MEETING IN BALTIMORE RECENTLY WHERE EVERYONE STOOD ASKING EACH OTHER 'WHERE DO THEY GET THE TERM 'SCHOOL CHOICE' WHEN WE ALL KNOW THAT IT IS REALLY 'NO CHOICE' FOR THE WORKING-CLASS AND POOR FAMILIES WHO ARE WATCHING AS THIS PROGRAM IS USED TO GENTRIFY THE LOW-INCOME OUT AND THE AFFLUENT IN TO URBAN CENTERS AND TO SEGREGATE IN RURAL AREAS.
I ENCOURAGE EVERYONE TO CONTACT THIS GENTLEMAN WHO WANTS TO STUDY THIS ACADEMICALLY TO LET HIM KNOW HOW YOU FEEL THIS SCHOOL 'CHOICE' IS WORKING.
YOU SEE HIM EXPLAINING THAT COSTS AND SERVICES ARE GOING TO VARY, ETC. SO YOU CAN TELL THIS IS A STUDY THAT COMES FROM THE PERSPECTIVE THAT EQUAL ACCESS AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IS NOT A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT.......EVEN THOUGH IT IS.
New Brief Points
to Key Considerations
in Funding 'Choice' Schools
Contact William J. Mathis, (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net
URL for this press release: http://tinyurl.com/aa4fvcb
BOULDER, CO (December 13, 2012) – The newest in a series of two- and three-page briefs summarizing current relevant findings in education policy research describes important issues and questions that policymakers should consider in determining public funding of alternatives to conventional public schools.
Dr. William Mathis, author of Public Funding of School Choice, explains, "When lawmakers do decide to allocate public funding to choice schools, as they have increasingly done over the past couple of decades, they must then engage in a new level of scrutiny regarding the structure, level and conditions of these subsidies."
Mathis notes that the specific costs as well as the specific needs of students will vary from school to school, meaning that funding requirements can correspondingly vary widely. Similarly, wide variations among states in funding levels, funding sources, regulatory scrutiny and the details of choice mechanisms complicate the decisions policymakers face. Mathis also explains that recipients of public funding should be open to rigorous scrutiny that emphasizes equity, transparency, and the assurance that the funding is reaching the intended students.
Dr. William Mathis is managing director of the National Education Policy Center, housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education. Public Funding of School Choice is part of Research-Based Options for Education Policymaking, a multipart brief that takes up a number of important policy issues and identifies policies supported by research. Each section focuses on a different issue, and its recommendations to policymakers are based on the latest scholarship.
The brief is made possible in part by support provided by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.
Find William Mathis's brief on the NEPC website at:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/options
The mission of the National Education Policy Center is to produce and disseminate high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. We are guided by the belief that the democratic governance of public education is strengthened when policies are based on sound evidence. For more information on the NEPC, please visit http://nepc.colorado.edu/.
This brief is also found on the GLC website at http://www.greatlakescenter.org/
YOUR CITY COUNCIL MEMBER WAS SILENT IN ALL OF THIS DEBATE AND YOUR MAYOR RAWLINGS-BLAKE HAS HANDED YOUR SCHOOLS OFF TO GOVERNOR O'MALLEY WHO THEN APPOINTS A SCHOOL BOARD THAT WORKS AGAINST THE PEOPLE'S INTEREST. IF YOUR LABOR AND JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS ARE NOT RUNNING A CANDIDATE AGAINST ALL INCUMBENTS.....THEY ARE NOT WORKING FOR YOU AND ME!!!
THE FACT THAT MARYLAND ALLOWS THE GOVERNOR THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE SCHOOL BOARDS IS THE WORST POLICY IN THE WORLD AND IT REFLECTS YET AGAIN HOW MARYLAND IS NOT A DEMOCRATIC STATE.....WHERE ARE THE PEOPLE'S VOICES? BALTIMORE WAS HANDED TO O'MALLEY BY RAWLINGS-BLAKE AND WE HAVE ALONZO TRYING TO MAKE OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS INTO VOCATIONAL TRAINING CENTERS.
THESE PUBLIC OFFICES SHOULD BE ELECTED IN ALL ACCOUNTS.......PUBLIC SERVICES COMMISSION? ELECTED.......GAMBLING COMMISSION.....ELECTED.....
IS YOUR INCUMBENT SHOUTING FOR ELECTED BALTIMORE SCHOOL BOARD? WHY DOES THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS SHOUT OUT FOR BALTIMORE COUNTY AND NOT BALTIMORE CITY? LET'S ASK THEM.
VOTE YOUR INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE!!!
Some Balto. Co. lawmakers renew push for school board change
County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, who last year lobbied hard against changing the school board's structure, has signaled that he may be willing to compromise this time around. (Sarah Pastrana, Baltimore Sun Media Group / December 9, 2012)
By Alison Knezevich, The Baltimore Sun 4:52 p.m. EST, December 9, 2012
Baltimore County residents and lawmakers who want to add elected members to the county school board are gearing up for a familiar push as the legislative session nears, and they say they are better organized this time around.
With state lawmakers set to meet in January, supporters of changing the all-appointed school board say they're stepping up outreach efforts to legislators and county residents. County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, who last session lobbied hard against changing the board's structure, has signaled that he may be willing to compromise this time around.
Earlier this year, a bill nearly passed but died during the last minutes of the session.
"The process last [session] brought into focus a lot of people's concerns about the issue," said Del. John Olszewski Jr., a Dundalk Democrat who chairs the county's House delegation. "I think it'd be best to find some solution and maybe once and for all get this issue behind us."
The board is now appointed by the governor based on the county executive's recommendations. Those who want elected members say it would make the board more accountable and responsive. But opponents' concerns include whether changing the board's structure would lessen minority representation or make it harder for board members to make unpopular decisions.
Sen. Bobby Zirkin, a Pikesville Democrat and longtime advocate of adding elected members to the board, plans to again introduce a bill that would create a "hybrid" school board, a combination of elected and appointed members.
"I intend to put that bill in right at the beginning of the session and hope for the best," said Zirkin, adding that he's working with Del. Steve Lafferty, who plans to introduce the House version. "It's long past time that the citizens of Baltimore County join the rest of the world in having a democratic process in the selection of their school board."
Earlier this year, a coalition called Advocates for Baltimore County Schools formed to organize support for a hybrid board. Also, the League of Women Voters of Baltimore County is taking a more active role in promoting the idea.
"We have been making a concerted effort ... to meet with as many as we possibly can," said Judy Miller, chair of the county league's education committee. "We're really stepping it up."
The league intensely studied the issue and feels it's an "issue of democracy," she said.
The county chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People opposes altering the selection process for the board, as it has in the past, said President Tony Fugett.
Fugett said the organization doesn't believe that an elected board would serve children best, and that the people who are most qualified to serve on the board might not be the same as the people who would "run the best campaign." He added that the organization plans to discuss the issue in detail at an upcoming state conference.
According to a letter sent to Zirkin and other lawmakers Friday by Kamenetz's director of government affairs, Yolanda Winkler, Zirkin proposed a compromise in talks with the Kamenetz administration that would involve choosing school board members through a process similar to the way judges are nominated, allowing for the retention or rejection of board members by popular vote.
Zirkin called that assertion "an out and out lie" and said he only discussed the idea of a nominating commission, but did not propose it as an agreement.
"Unfortunately, he's just not a trustworthy partner in government," Zirkin said of the county executive.
In September, Kamenetz wrote to state lawmakers, asking them to avoid discussion of the school board issue, saying it would take focus away from supporting new Superintendent Dallas Dance.
Still, Kamenetz's chief of staff, Don Mohler, said that in recent talks between Zirkin and Kamenetz, "they both are eager to see if they can reach some kind of an agreement."
"They have made substantial progress in trying to reach common ground," Mohler said.
The school board itself has previously opposed changing the panel's structure. Board President Lawrence Schmidt said members haven't yet taken a position this time.
"I would expect that we would be consistent with the position we have taken in the past, but that would be subject to the board taking a look at what [legislation] is filed," Schmidt said.
alisonk@baltsun.com
twitter.com/aliknez
One of the recurring themes in my talks with families in the city center is that their schools are disappearing and those that are renovated come back as charters. This city-wide school construction plan will involve over a hundred schools and we all are aware that when a school is renovated in an underserved community, Alonzo very well has been instructed by Johns Hopkins to convert it to a charter.
Regardless of what Alonzo states, families do not want charters and they do not want choice. They want all schools treated equally in funding and resources.....WHICH IS NOT THE CASE IN BALTIMORE----DON'T COMPLAIN OR YOU MAY NOT FIND A PLACE IN THE SCHOOL SYSTEM! Sound autocratic? IT IS!
Below you see what all of the billions in Enterprise Zone development has brought underserved families.
Daily Record investigation: The education solution Posted: 7:49 pm Wed, February 2, 2011
By Melody Simmons and Joan Jacobson
Daily Record Business Writer
After half a billion dollars of investment, the latest hopes of success for The New East Baltimore project are housed in three humble trailers on what used to be the playground of a now vacant and vandalized city school. There, 207 students in kindergarten, elementary and middle school grades at the public East Baltimore Community School ...
Read more: http://thedailyrecord.com/2011/02/02/daily-record-investigation-the-education-solution/#ixzz2FhzB5ye4
I DO GO ON AND ON REGARDING EDUCATION REFORM BECAUSE THAT IS MY PASSION. PLEASE BECOME ENGAGED. REMEMBER, MOST OF WHAT IS HAPPENING IS ILLEGAL, WE SIMPLY DO NOT HAVE FUNCTIONING JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS IN MARYLAND! IF IT WAS TAKEN TO COURT....IT WOULDN'T HOLD UP.
I sent yesterday's blog regarding the commerce clause to all of Maryland's justice organizations because, after all these international trade laws are an attack on the people's ability to legislate! Why do we not hear Public Justice, Civil Justice, PIRG MD, Common Cause MD, Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition, or ACLU MD shouting loudly and strongly about what is happening behind the scenes? Do you think these justice organizations are captured? Who appoints the leadership? That's right.....Governor Martin O'Malley, a favorite of the Third Way national caucus.
I don't know that Alonzo is working within the parameters of the law....we will be going to court over this process whether it is the disagreement with closings or the $2 billion structured financing.
I would like to pivot to education as that is the focus of this New Economy being thrust upon us. Vocational K-college is the new global education industry after all and your incumbent is working hard to move this forward.
VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!!! THESE PEOPLE ARE DESPICABLE!!!
Below you see my response to a WYPR article that shows how closely these corporate media people work with this privatization effort. They tell us over and again that no one attends or speaks out on this Building Schools for the 21st Century, you will see the Baltimore School Board pretend to do copious outreach, but if you actually talk to the parents they are frantically trying to be heard. They are feeling intimidated, harrassed, and silenced as they are fearful of speaking out because it may affect their ability to get their children into any school in the city. THE SCHOOL SYSTEM IN BALTIMORE FEELS LIKE A AUTOCRATIC TAKEOVER THAT HAS NO COMMUNITY INPUT. ALL OF THE INPUT COMES FROM THESE HUGE NON-PROFITS LIKE BALTIMORE EDUCATION COALITION WHO BACK ALL OF THE POLICIES NO ONE WANTS.
If you are middle-class and think this open gentrification is good for your future, you had better look at New York City where the middle-class are targeted with removal as much as the poor. That is the goal of these developers and what is being used against the underserved now will be used on the middle-class soon enough. YOU DO NOT WANT TO SUSPEND DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION TO ADVANCE DEVELOPMENT BECAUSE IT DOES NOT COME BACK!!!!!
The Baltimore City School Board has been so disingenuous in how it promotes its plan and the public input for this school development mirrors the process in the community outreach for the neighbor design development.....these meetings are always tilted towards a plan that is already in place and any public input is ignored. The public is given 3 minutes to speak about a project that has profound impact on their neighborhoods and almost everyone testifying states that NO ONE IS LISTENING OR INCLUDING THEM IN THIS PROCESS.
It is easy to disguise this captured approach when it is framed as 'rebuilding Baltimore's dilapidated schools'....everyone wants that. Again, they are simply choosing Enterprise Zones as the development scheme so that successful schools like Poly Western that is now fully underserved students will be closed to make way for affluent development. That means choosing a quota of poor to attend an affluent school. They keep telling me this is 'public' education/schools. THIS IS HAPPENING ACROSS THE COUNTRY AND IT IS THE POLICY OF OBAMA AND THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS SO WE MUST RUN LABOR/JUSTICE CANDIDATES AS WE
VOTE OUR INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE!!!
Keep in mind what you aren't hearing in media. You are not hearing about the outrage, the injustice, the skewed approach to the decisions. We were glad to hear from leaders in the black community that have been silent thus far. I was able to make my points regarding the funding of this project through Wall Street financial instruments and the fact that the city has plenty of revenue slated to come to Baltimore for underserved development and schools that will more than pay to rebuild schools in Baltimore in a democratic way!!!! Some neighborhoods are empty and schools not well-attended.
That comes with blight. But there are few schools that meet that criteria.
IT IS PITIFUL THAT OUR INCUMBENT HAVE ALLOWED OUR SCHOOLS TO BECOME CORPORATE PAWNS.....REMEMBER, IT STARTED WITH CLINTON ALLOWING SCHOOL CURRICULA TO BE DUMBED DOWN......'DO NOT USE TEXTBOOKS FOR READING AND ALLOW CALCULATORS FOR MATH WAS THE POLICY.......REALLY?????
I attended the school board meeting last year where the middle school in Federal Hill was closed. This is almost all underserved students in an area wanting to gentrify to affluent so closing the middle school met that objective. When the parents asked where they were supposed to go the school board said just go over to Francis Scott Key. The parents said but Francis Scott Key already told us they were full so we can't go there. So these parents were left with the 'choice' of moving out of Federal Hill, which is the point, or placing their children on buses for long bus rides to school every day. That is not school choice.
I spoke recently to parents as part of a survey of data I'm collecting for the lawsuit we will have and they are telling me that in East Baltimore every time a school is rebuilt/upgraded they underserved watch as their public school is changed to a charter school and they are forced to attend that charter even as they don't want to. We know there is a system being put into place by Johns Hopkins and Baltimore's 1% that want to create a tiered system of education that has the poor and soon to be middle class attached to a K-college vocational training tracking of schools attached to businesses. This is Alonzo's goal as he works for Wall Street and corporate interests intent on turning America's public education system into simply a vocational tracking on par with China's system. None of this has anything to do with public education or equal access/equal opportunity. For those middle-class people who don't care about the fate of the poor families tracked into these lower tiers of education, the plan is to expand this to all public schools......yes, the middle class. The 1% have famously declared that 90% of all education is wasted on 90% of all Americans and it will be the elite class leading at all levels so why does the lower/middle class need a democratic education?
Baltimore School Board's Hearing on the Plan for Schools' Construction December 12, 2012
No one testified against the proposed 10-year plan to rebuild Baltimore's schools at last night's school board hearing on the issue. The $2.4 billion plan calls for the closure of 26 schools, with four closing at the end of this year. If the plan is approved by the board on Jan. 8, some residents plan to challenge the closures in the courts. WYPR's Gwendolyn Glenn attended the hearing and has this report.
Gwendolyn Glenn
Last night's hearing was the first of two scheduled for this week on the 10-year building plan. A large turnout was expected, but only a handful of residents showed up. Only one person testified, Kim Trueheart, who lives near Garrison Middle School. The building plan calls for Garrison to close at the end of this school year because of low academic performance and low enrollment. Trueheart told the board she supports the idea.
Kim Trueheart
"The fact that its' capacity is 721 and we've got 163 students enrolled, to me is wasteful. For that reason alone, I think that this board's recommendation to close it is probably a wise one. My underlying concern is for the 163 students who are currently enrolled.
School officials say there are other middle schools nearby that can handle Garrison's displaced students. Parents will get a close look at some of them at the district's choice fair on Dec. 15 at the convention center. Representatives from 64 middle and high schools will be on hand to talk to parents about their programs. City school's chief of staff Tisha Edwards says they will provide extra assistance to parents of students at the four schools slated to close, before and after the fair.
Tisha Edwards
At each of these schools, we are also having buses at the schools to take the parents and the students to the choice fair so that we can ensure engagement of those of this particular population of students and we have staff that will be going back out to the schools to work with parents on an individual basis to make sure that they are fully engaged and fully informed as we prepare for the transition if the board does approve staff's recommendation.
A large turnout is expected Thursday at the final public hearing on the building plan. Alumni of Northwestern High School are planning a rally before the 6 p.m. hearing to voice their opposition to the plan. Under the building plan, Northwestern will close in 2015 because of its low enrollment and poor academic achievement. Rita Carlin is president of Northwestern's alumni association.
Rita Carlin
If our name does not come off the list and they go ahead with the proposal for the closure, I am prepared to take it all the way to court.
School officials say it would cost $48 million to bring Northwestern up to modern standards. Carlin disputes that figure and says the school has had renovations, including a new athletic field in recent months. She says in a lawsuit, they would charge that closing Northwestern violates Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act. Title 6 prohibits discrimination based on race in programs that receive federal funding.
Being that they're dealing with predominately black students in school, they're hindering their education by closing the school.
Schools Superintendent Andreas Alonso does not think they have a strong case.
Dr. Andreas Alonso
We're working under the parameters of the law. We have enormous support of the rest of the city and what I hope is that the people in Northwesters who are great supporters of our schools, that they see what this means for the city as a whole.
Dr. Alonso says he supports the alumni association's right to file a lawsuit and understands their attachment to the school. But says,
We have to make decisions that are about the future, that are about all the kids, and is about doing what we can do so that all of our kids are in great schools.
A report last year revealed that most city schools lack basics such as adequate heating and air conditioning and that only 65 percent of the space in school buildings' is being used.
I'm Gwendolyn Glenn reporting in Baltimore for 88 1, WYPR.
Let's be clear about this new push towards data and accountability in school achievement. Everyone wants schools/students to achieve but we recognize that achievement declines were the result of education policy sent to us by these same elite schools back in the early 1990s fundamentally changing how teachers taught in the classroom. Reversing these policies are all that is needed to return to the best in the world classrooms and achievement..it is very simple regardless of what the education technology industry wants you to believe. In the 1990s teachers were told, and I was one of them, to stop using text books in the classroom...they stopped creativity and innovation we were told. We were also told to allow children to use calculators in class even as teachers protested that the students would not learn basic math if they simply tapped into calculators. Education leaders at the national level ignored concerns and this is why we have children who cannot read or do math. It was deliberate education policy by these same elite schools now telling us we need all of this education technology and data collection to improve education. It is simply a Wall Street tech bubble.
The evaluation of student/teacher are not necessarily bad. Almost all academics agree is that these tools have not had time to be developed and accessed and do not provide useful information at this point.
I LIKE THIS PARENT'S COMMENT:
I'm a parent, and I think all the accountability BS is simply that. The MSAs and HSAs are a total waste of taxpayer money. I hate the fact that my children's valuable time is wasted on them to make a bunch of politicians and overpaid administrators (and newspaper editorial writers) feel useful. NONE of this accountability BS has improved education in Maryland. It's all sham and show. MSA results are worthless. The ONLY thing that matters is hard-working, creative teachers doing their thing. The SPI is nothng but a boondoggle mandated by the federal government and created by a bunch of near-innumerates at MSDE who couldn't pass a freshman statistics class.
Maryland's new school metric Our view: A new method of measuring school progress crunches lots more data, but is it too complex and difficult for parents who aren't mathematicians to comprehend?
12:20 p.m. EST, December 19, 2012 Baltimore Sun
The new system for measuring school progress announced by the Maryland State Department of Education this week is being touted as a great advance over the one it replaces. State officials say the School Progress Index aims to cut in half the percentage of students who fail to score proficient or better on standardized tests by 2017 and that it sets more realistic targets for what schools can achieve. Yet its complexity and the lack of transparency regarding how school performance is calculated are enough to raise questions about whether the new system really represents much of an improvement over the old.
Maryland developed the School Progress Index in order to receive a federal waiver from the requirements of the Bush-era federal No Child Left Behind Act. Under that law, schools were judged to be failing if they didn't make "adequate yearly progress" in boosting test scores in reading and math, leading toward 100 percent proficiency in both subjects by 2014.
No Child Left Behind's greatest success was to focus national attention on the quality of American schools compared to those in other leading countries. But it also had a number of unintended consequences that undermined its usefulness, including encouraging states to lower standards and, in some instances, pushing teachers and principals to resort to cheating in order to show progress.
When it became apparent that even many otherwise high-performing schools — not just in Maryland but around the country — were in danger of being labeled failing because they couldn't meet the law's requirement for 100 percent proficiency by 2014, Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced he would grant waivers to states that agreed to embrace the Obama administration's school reform goals. In May, Maryland became one of 34 states whose applications for waivers have been approved.
Maryland's waiver allowed it to develop its own standards for evaluating schools, and the system it came up with breaks the process down to three key indicators: achievement, growth and gap reduction. The first measures the percentage of all students scoring proficient or better on standardized tests who are on track to meet the targets set for that school. The second indicator, growth, measures the change in student performance from year to year; and the third, gap reduction, measures how much progress a school has made toward reducing the performance gap between its highest- and lowest-performing students and groups of students.
Breaking down the factors that go into assessing each school's overall performance gives educators a far more granular view of where schools are succeeding as well as where improvements are needed. But it also requires some mighty data crunching to yield the weighted numerical indexes used to score each school's performance, and not everyone will find their meaning easy to grasp.
Calculating the School Progress Index for a single elementary-middle school, for example, involves manipulating a matrix of no fewer than 49 separate data points which, when run through the system's computers, produce an overall score expressed numerically as a value between 0 and 1. Parents who aren't professional statisticians could easily drive themselves crazy trying to figure out what the numbers mean for their child's fourth-grade reading class.
And they shouldn't have to. There are few things more frustrating than being presented with a barely comprehensible statistical measure that tells people little about what they really want to know. Of course, as people become more familiar with the new system and how it works, those concerns may fade. Parents are pretty resourceful when it comes to judging whether the school their kids attend is doing its job, and to the trained eye of an educator, the numbers paint a much more detailed and in-depth picture of a school's strengths and weaknesses while pointing to multiple paths toward needed improvements.
The importance of the new metric may still boil down to the same kinds of questions the No Child Left Behind law set out to answer: Are students making steady progress toward proficiency in math and reading? Are they developing the skills they will need to graduate and be successful in college or the work world? Are the achievement gaps along racial, ethnic and class lines being reduced? Given the choice between the overly simplistic No Child Left Behind pass/fail system and one that may prove too complex, we'll take the latter. It at least provides useful tools for administrators, principals and teachers to improve performance. But we hope state officials will work to translate its findings in a way that is readily accessible to parents and students, too.
Education Choice is a Republican policy that was years in the making and it took Third Way corporate democrats to make the push towards what is a step towards a tiered education system. We see Choice in urban areas where gentrification is in process and with that goes an imbalance in how schools are funded, how real the admissions process holds to 'open lottery' format, and it places a burden on low-income and poor families who 'choose' to go across town to a better school rather than simply having a good school in their own neighborhood. That is what school choice does to a uniform, equal access, equal opportunity democratic education. Remember, the cities schools are so poor in performance because of decades of underfunding and declining resources so all that need be done is bring money from one of the most wealthy states in the country to Baltimore's schools. We have the money to make all Baltimore's schools resource ready we simply need to end the distorted way revenue moves in the state of Maryland.
We had the best schools in the world from 1950s -70s because they were neighborhood schools tied to the families living nearby; they were well-funded and well-rounded in having access to all educational pursuits. Students were exposed to variety and that sparks choice. We lost the achievement in the 1990s when school became a no text book zone with calculators for math.
Baltimore City ranks among top 10 'choice districts' Baltimore County ranks 22nd in report published by Brookings Institute
Erica L. Green 2:36 p.m. EST, December 11, 2012
The Baltimore city school system was named among the top 10 districts of choice in a national ranking published by the Brookings Institute on Tuesday.
Of the 107 districts examined, the system received a grade of B-, and tied for the number seven spot with Milwaukee and San Diego. The Institute examined the policy and practice of districts with diverse school portfolios, and whose philosophies foster competition.
The districts were ranked according to an "Education Choice and Competition Index," which scored school systems in 13 categories, from the accessibility of school information to offerings of alternative programs, like virtual schools.
The districts of New Orleans (now called the Recovery District), New York City, and Washington D.C. rounded out the top three highest scores.
Baltimore County schools ranked 22nd, and received a grade of "C." In the county's profile, which can be found here, the district performed well in funding its schools, and accessibility to online information about them, but the Institute found the district had taken few measures to restructure its portfolio.
In Baltimore city's profile, the Institute noted that while it had taken measures to restructure the district to create more viable school options--clearly a trademark of city schools CEO Andres Alonso's administration--it still struggled with offering alternative programs.
On Saturday, the city will host its annual school-choice fair at the Baltimore Convention Center, from 9-2 p.m. More information can be found here.
erica.green@baltsun.com
THIS IS A GREAT ARTICLE THAT LOOKS AT THE DEVELOPMENT ISSUE FROM THE PROSPECTIVE OF THE CITIZENS IN THE COMMUNITIES. NO ONE KNOWS BETTER THE DANGERS AND MISDIRECTED POLICY THAT SIMPLY MOVES PEOPLE OUT OF ONE PLACE AND INTO ANOTHER. IT NOT ONLY PLACES PEOPLE IN CONFLICT WITH ONE ANOTHER, IT MOVES POVERTY AND CRIME TO THE NEXT COMMUNITY UNADDRESSED, AND THE NEXT COMMUNITY IS USUALLY LESS ABLE TO FUND A RESPONSE.
NOTICE THIS ARTICLE IS IN AN ALTERNATIVE MEDIA AND YET IT SPEAKS TO MAINSTREAM CONCERNS. THE ONLY PRESS YOU GET IN THE BALTIMORE ON EDUCATION SUPPORTS THE CORPORATE REFORM AGENDA.
Why Baltimore children deserve more than shiny new school buildings
City schools plan needs more thought
By: Hassan Giordano
Youth Stand Against Local Injustices Credits: GCOMM Media Co Independent newsletter Related topics
Territorial disputes and neighborhood gangs should be the determining factor of any new school plan
In the 1989 hit 'Field of Dreams', Shoeless Joe Jackson (voice of Ray Liotta) said, "If you build it, he shall come"; which is commonly misquoted as 'they shall come'; and this seems to be the mindset of our local leaders in Baltimore City, as they invest incredible political capital in unveiling a $2.4 billion strategy to revamp the city school buildings.
This valiant effort spearheaded by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, coupled with an expanding Vacants to Value housing program to revitalize 3,000 vacant properties throughout Baltimore, seems to be in line with the vision she laid out before the voters of Charm City last year - that ultimately seeks to attract 10,000 families by 2020. The daughter of one of the most savvy and intellectually respected politicians in the history of Baltimore, Rawlings-Blake has consistently raised doubts as to her family roots with policies that seemed aloof and mispirited at best; yet, in a town that has consistently been ranked one of the deadliest, dirtiest and most dilapidated urban cities in the country, these efforts should certainly be applauded and accepted – within reason.
Her misguided statement regarding parent concerns, about "people having emotional attachments to buildings, but we should have a stronger attachment to our children", sounded good in theory; but based on it being the furthest thing from what these parents meant, it should be rethought and rescinded. What the Mayor and other educational officials are missing is, that while they close down these dilapidated buildings and move these children 'across the tracks', they will be possibly endangering the lives and physical safety of these children who will be entering an almost different time zone. Why? Well, anyone from say Park Heights knows that anyone from 'up top' coming 'down bottom' would be in a world of trouble, based on this being a city of neighborhoods that, as newly appointed police commissioner Batts has already figured out, is separated and controlled by its gangs. (See attached video where the Mayor confirms my point)
Therefore, any attempt to ship the kids from Northwestern over to let's say Forest Park area, will have a safety issue before they even get to the educational one. And while the 'Build it and they shall come' theory sounds good on paper, and even while selling this plan to legislators who have absolutely no clue as to the street politics of Baltimore City neighborhoods; what it doesn't answer is, what happens once they get there? Will they continue to get the same sub-par, secondary education we've seen lead to dismal test scores and illiterate graduates? Will our children's behavioral problems all of a sudden disappear; or the gaping learning gap somehow magically dissipate? Most parents don't think so, which is why you will see such reluctance to this move from any parent not affiliated with groups getting paid to see this happen.
School CEO Andres Alonso has said that 'this plan is right for kids and necessary to take their progress to the next level'; yet, despite his greatest efforts over the past few years, no one in the African American community of Baltimore has much faith in his 'plan of action'. And I'd be very interested to hear exactly what the kids believe is right for them, not some filtered version from an adult who tend to always think they know what's best for children – without ever seeking their input? Closing 26-schools – after already shuttering at least ten in the past few years that I can remember – while 'consolidating and renovating' more than 100 more, may sound good as a sound byte or campaign slogan; but the reality of what these kids will be facing while these adults play 'Russian Roulette' with their education, should at least be taken into consideration by the 24-members of the Baltimore City delegation – and the remaining 157 state legislators.
Baltimore City remains the highest funded jurisdiction in terms of operational education dollars coming from the state of Maryland; yet, they consistently ignore their own children by decreased alternative and after-school learning funds while putting all their interests and finances into public safety. However, now they are asking those same state funders to give them more money to waste in school buildings, i.e. capital projects, that they themselves show no interest in investing in? I wholeheartedly agree with our children – as my son goes to city public schools – deserve the very best environment and resources needed to learn at the level of other jurisdictions; however, I – and probably a good majority of city parents – have absolutely no faith in our local leaders to see that plan become a reality. Just because someone offers you a shining new toy, doesn't necessarily mean that it will remain shiny and operational for long; as another often repeated saying that I tend to live by is: 'The pathway to hell is paved with good intentions...'
MY COMMENTS TO THE BALTIMORE CITY SCHOOL BOARD:
A comment on the Baltimore school building meetings on Wednesday which were well attended:
I reminded the school board that the city has plenty of revenue sources already owed and as such there is no need to enter into a financial agreement with what we know to be a bad public policy of funding public schools with Wall Street financial instruments at a time when the banks have placed the economy in the same leveraged and endangered position as 2007. I reminded the school board that we have $700,000 won through a settlement for subprime mortgage fraud last year that somehow went into the State general fund rather than to the underserved communities hit with the fraud....this will fund the school rebuild for those schools stated to closed with the school board plan. Then I reminded them that the Algebra Project won a $800,000 settlement with the state for underfunding Historically Black Colleges and Baltimore City Schools and that can be applied to the school rebuilding. Finally, I reminded the school board that the $1 billion settlement for mortgage fraud last year was only an interest payment on $600-800 billion in fraud and as the Maryland AG said, this first settlement will be followed by billions more coming to Maryland. This will come to underserved communities and will be used for school rebuilding. So, there is no need to enter into a financial agreement with what we all know to be a criminal entity and there is no need to close many of the schools slated to close. The audience all approved of these comments! A lawsuit would be in order to make sure this good plan to rebuild our schools is funded properly.