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Courtesy of Obamarmy
Ok kids, Look at the graph…. and see who can be the first to tell me….. Why do we really need to ramp up the education of our black and brown kids now?!!!!
Tax the Rich. Hire teachers to reach an 11 to 1 ratio. Test beginning, mid, and end of cycle only to evaluate the student’s needs ( don’t use them to close schools, fire teachers, or divvy out bonuses to your friends and supporters)… and lets get it done….
Btw, it has to start with the first one.
If you are like me traveling through this interchange is exciting since with every commute, and nightly lane closure, something new and different has been erected.
It has gotten hard with all the complexity, to visualize just where each bridge and ramp will lead…
Hope this helps… It does make one proud of Delaware, … “where roads get thought out first…..”
MSNBC just put up a critique of Texas education.. Texas was the instigator of No Child Left Behind which when Obama took over, became Race To The Top.
It started in Texas. It is about to end, … in Texas.
A coalition of parents nicknamed Mothers Against Drunk Testing has taken the fight to the Texas Legislature. Soon, it appears Texas will lead the nation again on education,… by banning the role testing plays in analyzing the competency of education.
The problem underlying both No Child Left Behind and Race To The Top is not in its philosophy. It is not in its intent. It is not in its principles. It is … the test.
There is a reason these tests are top secret. Here is the story of one that leaked out… The Hare and the Pineapple…..
Subsequent inspection showed….” On the fourth-grade exam, one question has two correct answers, the department warned. The eighth-grade test contains one question with no correct answer at all.”
Needless to say, both came out of a firm, Pearson, receiving a 5 year $32 million dollar contract from New York State….
Grown ups are now taking the tests. Florida school board member with a bachelors degree and two masters degrees made national news when he flunked his state’s 10th-grade math test. Seattle teachers boycotted the giving out of their tests based off the faults inherent in their texts.
Then, we got the results.
Texas started to lose 70,000 kids a year, most dropping out before they had to take the 10th-grade tests that would count against the school.
A third of kids in Texas who started high school never finished.
Scores on the Texas test rose, but SAT scores for prospective college students dropped.
The Texas tests designed by Pearson primarily measured test-taking ability, researchers discovered.
National Assessment of Educational Progress scores were cherry picked to show progress, but Texas lost ground to the rest of the country.
According to Julian Helig, who released this report to examine the education for the Texas Legislature,
Texas revolted back in 2009. The parents and teachers that is. But Republican Governor Perry refused to sign the bill banning standardized testing, saying he would not sign it unless the legislation doubled down on accountability….
So instead of the testing being eliminated, kids in elementary school and middle school would be required to pass tests—or else. To get out of high school they’d have to pass not two, but 15 tests. Pearson got a new $468-million contract to write and administer all these new tests…..
Sandy Kress, a Democratic lawyer from Dallas, who first got Texas Governor George W. Bush’s ear with the expression: ”soft bigotry of low expectations, has moved on to a high paying job with Pearon and was on Texas Governor’s Educational advisory committee when he doubled down on standardized testing.
Now, and only now, as a result of all this data, even the Republican Texas Chief of Education, Robert Scott, is calling the fatuation with all this testing, … a perversion.
Speaking to the Texas State Board of Education late last month, Scott said that the mentality that standardized testing is the “end-all, be-all” is a “perversion” of what a quality education should be. What’s more, he called “the assessment and accountability regime” not only “a cottage industry but a military-industrial complex.” And he attacked the Common Core Standards Initiative as being motivated by business concerns. It is the heart of the vampire, so to speak.”
It’s too soon to say whether a near-unanimity of opposition to high-stakes testing from school boards, superintendents, parents and education researchers will succeed against Perry and Pearson, but there’s a better chance than ever that the false education doctrine that Bush started in Texas and then spread across the country will finally meet its end in the same building where it started.
It can best be described by the Republican appointed Texas Commissioner of Education at a Dallas Board Meeting.
If you were supposed to be getting married and found your future spouse out on a date with someone else, there is probably a good chance you won’t be getting married. One could alway hope. Perhaps it was a business meeting. Perhaps it was an old friend? Perhaps a long talk with a former love?
But in all probability, your fiancée is probably going to call the wedding off.
It is in this framework that we hear that Kinder Morgan, the only approved suitor for the Port of Wilmington, has just bought out Copano for $5 billion. Let’s see. The total cost of their Wilmington Port investment up front fee was $16 million or 0.32 of One percent of what they just spent on buying out Copano.
That gives you an idea of how important Wilmington was to them.
Today they signed an agreement totaling $30 million investment in improvements down in Southern Texas with Calpine, a power generating company.
At the same time they were meeting with the Diamond State Port Authority here just off 13 south of State Road….
The Wilmington Port nor Diamond State Port have commented at this time….
Looking at the money there is a good chance we just got brushed off……
Today inside the Senate a vote was taken on Bob Marshall’s bill that requires the General Assembly’s approval if the Port of Wilmington gets sold to Kinder-Morgan. The deal has caused considerably concern because it has been shrouded in secrecy. No one knows of any of its details. Someone may make billions off of this, so it is important that people look over the arrangement to see who or who isn’t hurt by this major public to private transfer…..
ACT TO AMEND TITLE 29 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO STATE GOVERNMENT AND THE DIAMOND STATE PORT CORPORATION.
Synopsis: This act would require the Diamond State Port Corporation to obtain the approval of a majority of both Houses of the General Assembly and the Governor, through the passage of legislation, before entering into any agreement or transaction whereby the Corporation would transfer, sell, privatize, or lease all or substantially all of the Port of Wilmington to a single entity, or to a related group of entities.
Here are the cosponsors of the Bill.
Sens. Henry McDowell, Blevins, Townsend, & Reps. Keeley, Mulrooney , Brady, J.Johnson, Osienski
The bill passed with 11 votes yea and 9 votes nay, and one vote not cast. It was released out of committee on the same day with 2 favorables, 3 on the merits, and 1 unfavorable…
Unfortunately it was not an unanimous vote…
Just saw the right wing group that used half a billion dollars to put Romney into the oval office, just mentioned that Obama was pushing us off the fiscal cliff.
Just like Hitler was under attack and lashed out against Poland.
Just like Tojo was defending himself when he ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Just like Mayor Guiliani was threatening Osama Bin Laden and had 9/11 coming to him.
Just like the teachers and students are to blame for Adam Lanza’s behavior…..
Just like Nazis never did incarcerate and kill any Jews.
Just like Humas never did fire any rockets into Israel.
Just like “Officer, I wasn’t speeding.. You radar must be wrong.”
Anyone can say anything… But since that is true, it means we can certainly make fun of Karl Rove and Americans for Properity, for saying something as absurd as it being the Democrats who pushed us off the cliff…
The Democrats opened the negotiations. The Republicans put up nothing. The Democrats made the first move. The Republicans made no movement at all. The Republicans are solely, unequivocally, and absolutely are the cause of the stalemate right now. There is a bill in the House, pre-approved by the Senate, supported by 201 House Democrats, that just needs 17 Republican votes to sign on and pass it with a majority vote, and instantly dissolve this crises.
Just 17 Republican are:
a) holding up payrolls for every company in America
b) holding up spending plans and budgets for January in every company in America
c) holding up long term unemployment insurance for 40 million Americans who can’t spend anything now.
d) forcing every payroll business, like Jim Paoli’s here in Delaware, to wait-and-see before making adjustments on every client’s payroll for the first week of January.
e) holding up every billionaire who if he guesses wrong right now pays a gigantic price in 2013.
Everyone knows Hitler lies. Everyone know Karl Rove is not synonymous with truth….
So, if you see a Republican, let him know how you really feel, for his party screwing with your life and livelihood…..
Studies are a dime a dozen. This one came from the University of Missouri. It was also funded by the MIlkens.
If you are new to this controversy, society (corporations, elected officials, administrators) are for basing a teachers pay on merit. Teachers remain opposed to that concept, so much that when speaking of it, experts have dropped the word “merit” in front of the word pay.
Here are their objections.
It is difficult to rate teachers.
It is bad for teacher morale, and that affects teaching.
It puts politics into the choice of who is worthy of staying.
“Teach for Pay” was tried in England in 1710 with disastrous results. Teachers became obsessed with the rewards and punishments. “Teach for Pay” was tried in Canada in 1876. In 1883, public outcry ended the experiment permanently. In 1969 Arkansas tried the same, until it ended up disorganized, scandal ridden, and devoid of results.
Essentially, “Teach for Pay” caused these issues.
1) Performance based compensation programs encourage competition between teachers as opposed to cooperation.
2) The “us versus them” conflict between teachers and the powers that pay them, makes it difficult to handle compensation within a system that is not based on rules.
3) There is not one clear-cut objective definition of a “good teacher”. What is the Merit Pay to be based upon?
4) Relying on test scores to determine the extent of student learning, is not a direct correlation of student performance…
5) When you reward teachers for teaching results, no one wants to teach a certain race from a certain part of town.
6) Subjective Grading hinges entirely upon subjective bias and favoritism.
7) Performance based compensation will deflate individualism. It simply requires teachers to jump through hoops. Everyone will soon teach the same way.
8) Performance compensation awards the top 15-20% without making any effort to improve all teachers.
9) The costs of implementation a performance based system are very large.
10) Good teachers are those who do it to serve kids, not work for money. We want teachers who love to teach; not do it to simply earn money.
11) Performance Pay forces teachers to work harder to get more pay, but the extra amount of pay is not worth all the extra hard work required to achieve it.
12) If those who achieve merit status are posted, it may disaffect parents who disagree with that assessment, or who get very mad when their child is NOT put with a teacher of merit…
13) Great risks in comparing apples to oranges, for example the Private, corporate, for-profit sector, with teachers and education.
14) Performance based compensation cannot be forced from the outside.
15) Teaching is fine; kids are learning. It is the new systems being used to evaluate the teaching profession, which are flawed. Particularly if they are by firms who then turn around to sell their services to those very schools they evaluated…
Such are the “Cons”.. The “Pros” are as follows.
1) The reality is that something new has to be done: US mathematical skills are below almost all other countries. Urban poor populations are not achieving on the same level as are white influential suburban populations. The current system failed to achieve adequate results.
2) Some teachers will find performance-based pay distasteful and leave teaching . They will be replaced by teachers who prefer performance-based teaching and who will thrive in that environment.
3) Performance based pay is common in government, non-profits, and private and public education. It is commonly the preferred method of payment in most fields, not just the corporate private sector.
4) Are we not better off if all information regarding superior physicians, lawyers, or orthodontists is released? Should we instead, work to suppress any mention of “poor” physicians, “poor” lawyers, and “poor” orthodontists? Wouldn’t the same apply to teachers?
5) College Professors are awarded based on merit. They do not have to divert large amounts of their time away from their teaching and research, just to take external assessments to demonstrate their prowess. On the contrary, their exemplary teaching is recognized by their students, their peers, and administrators.
6) If a teacher really wants to teach, they will, no matter how low the level of pay drops to. Dedicated teachers will stay. Those teachers on the margins, who are simply there, will quit, and be replaced by other applicants who will be dedicated to being in love with teaching.
7) School systems could flatten out (drop) regular pay, and a merit pay pool could be introduced with not one penny of additional cost.
8) The fact that the quality of teachers has declined over the last 50 years, should be enough evidence that we are no longer attracting the top talent to our schools. Higher merit pay, will do so.
9) Allowing teachers to work as they wish is a very unrealistic standard. Very few professionals other than the President of the United States, get to work “as they wish”. Ultimately teachers are accountable to the taxpayers and cannot work as they wish.
10) Focusing merit pay on the gains achieved by students instead of their overall knowledge, could make teaching inner city children more lucrative because anything above a negative one, is a win.
11) We’ve always evaluated student progress by testing. Why not use the same tests measuring student progress, to measure the effect of that teacher too?
12) Merit pay is the primary pay method in service industries where it is far more difficulty to measure performance than in a classroom… For teachers, you measure what the student learned by two tests, one at the beginning, and one at the end. If there is significant and worthy growth, you reward the teacher. If not, you fire her/him.
13) Unions are socialist. Just as Communist Russia treated everyone with equal indifference, that is the environment teachers want for themselves. Their union demands it. Teachers will naturally be resistant to any change that gets rid of their protective union forever.
14) The TAP model of education reform provided by the Milken Foundation (patrons of this study), encourages collegiality and interaction among teachers. It will all simply, just work out.
So, there you have them. The Con’s first, then the Pro’s…..
And this may be quirky because it is just me who decided it, but it seemed to me, a proponent of merit-based teacher pay, that the con’s grievances were far more realistic than the idealistic hypothesis being offered as the reasons for going in the direction of merit pay… Again, that could just be me.
But, one thought I did have (and it will be my parting one I’ll leave with you), is that the job of governor is very similar to that of a teacher. How do you rate a governor as doing an exemplary job, or a very good job, or just a good job, or a less than great job, or a failure? Involved with that office are so many intangibles, millions of individual threads making up the tapestry of his four years in office,which make evaluating him, very similar to evaluating someone teaching in a school… Really it is a great comparison! He could decrease taxes and some people would cheer, while others cursed at him for cutting an invaluable service they required just so he could achieve those tax decreases… So how does one truly rate a governor? And if every one of his four years, he had to go before a board and pass a litmus test on his effectiveness, exactly how objectively could that be judged? Would he get the option to carry credits like one does on ones taxes from one bad year to the next? Because the governor, like teachers, always gets challenged by events totally beyond his control. In fact, one good definition of a governor’s job duties, is to “grab hold, and don’t let go until your time is up”…..
So, how well would it work, if we hired a governor, paying him on a sliding scale between $30,000 to $132,500? Would it be get better “governance” if he had to justify his work to an “impartial” jury, who would then determine his pay? Or, are we better off, to pay him enough at the beginning so it is one less thing he has to worry over, thereby allowing him to devote all his effort and time towards making our lives a little better?…..
Hi, I’m Cathy Cloutier and I approve this message.
Hi, I’m Chris Counihan, and I approve this message.
One nice thing about the 5th District: no matter who wins or who loses, the initials on the 5th district desk in the Senate will not have to change.
The most interesting aspect of the race is the position being taken on abortion and gay rights by the incumbent, Cathy Cloutier…. Cathy Cloutier plays both sides, being endorsed by Planned Parenthood as being pro-abortion, and by Rose and A Prayer, as being anti-abortion…. How can that be? I am for life, before I was against it? I am for a woman’s right to choose, before I was against it? Does it sound like someone filled out questionnaires two different ways to get two opposite endorsements, hoping one side would never see the other?
If so, is that the kind of tough leadership, the 5th district needs? “Hi, Cathy, I’m voting for you because you are for planned parenthood”… 6 months later… “What are you doing… I voted for you because you “were” pro choice!….. or…
“Hi, Cathy, I’m voting for you because you are against abortion. I’m Catholic you know. …. 6 months later…”What are you doing!… I voted for you because you “were” pro life….
Is that fair? I mean… would it be fair if you went to SuperFresh, and bought a box of Ritz Crackers, and opened them to find orange cream filled Oreos? How would you deal with a manager when you took it back who said…. sorry, we couldn’t sell those the way they were, so we repackaged them in Ritz Cracker boxes… Buyer (voter) beware! You bought them, you own them! They’re really not bad if you dip them in chocolate first…” And when you get irate with him, he wags his finger in your face and goes… “ah, ah, ah, I know Tom Carper.”…
And then there was the story on trying to make all marriage equal…. Cathy Cloutier was courted for her vote… “Oh, yes, I’m for gay marriage, all the way, count me in…. I like gays and I think gays are just as normal as people who aren’t gay… I will be glad to support gay marriage”….
When the vote came… ”Has anyone seen Cathy? Let’s check the hall… Cathy, you out here? Someone go in the rest room… Cathy… Cathy… are you in here? Quick. Go check her parking spot… That’s her car, it’s backing out… Call her… she’s making the turn onto King…. Call her… Did you get her?… No! …voice mail!…..”
Question is… does the 5th District deserve this type of leadership? Or, does it deserve better? Seriously there are two types of people serving their districts. One is everything to everybody, and no one to nobody… Like social gadflies they touch on every subject, but never let on who they are or what they feel… Basically you elect them because of other reasons, besides their convictions… You could have had a drink with them. You could have spoken with them on the phone. You could have once been friends with her husband… Whatever the reason, you couldn’t care one iota what she thinks or what she believes… We all know someone like that…..
The other side, of course, is the competent one. He learns, creates, moves forward, and causes his district to prosper, instead of just wither on the vine… This person has convictions and is not afraid to tell you about them. In this case, Chris is pro women ( actually more than the woman running), and is pro equality to marriage, not letting arbitrary items like gender stand in the way of two human beings who love each other and want to spend life together as a couple…. Seriously, what kind of ogre could be against marriage.
It appears the Cathy Cloutier kind.
Cathy has been a Senator since “Gore got more”, and “we got Bushed whacked”… 2000. She has been a Senator for twelve years… What’s happened over those twelve years? 9/11 for one, two wars for two, a giant recession for three, the acceptance of gay marriage, now even by Chik Fil A, … quite a few things… How many of your cars were built before 2000? My guess 1%… How many of you still work off laptops from the year 2000… probably less than 1%… How many of you still use the same phone as you did in 2000, you know the one where you pull the antennae out to talk or receive calls? How many of you have the same computer you did in 2000?
Point is, keeping the old around hurts us sometimes. There comes a time to upgrade. To put new blood in. To give the energy levels a boost… The longer you keep someone in the same office, the less and less they become effective….
How will someone who runs from accountability be able to handle the challenges we face the next four years? If Romney gets elected, Federal funds to Delaware will stop instantly in order to cut back on the Federal Deficit. If Romney gets elected, the stock market takes a nose dive, as confidence in a campaign run only on lies, dissipates. If Romney gets elected, Obamacare is instantly gone, and we have to rework the entire medical process all over again.. If Romney gets elected, Federal taxes get sliced, which means our taxes now appear higher by percentage in comparison. We will have to have backbone to raise taxes, since Romney is sending us most of what used to be run by the Federal Government, down to the states, with more responsibility, we will have no choice but to raise state taxes sky high to cover the new services thrust upon us…
Is Cathy Cloutier up to the challenge? Chris Counihan certainly is… With insurance, government, political science, entrepreneurship, experience, Chris Counihan has the ability to accept very challenging situations. Indeed, we know they will be very challenging during the next four years. As we try to wrap our state around Obamacare if Obama wins, someone well versed in the insurance trade inside the legislature, can balance the weakness existing in our state insurance department. As we try to insource new funding, having someone who has direct experience in trying to woo jobs to Delaware, is exactly what we need as we banter over how to make that happen.
Is Cathy Cloutier still up for the challenge? The voters of the 5th, can choose between two types. One, is the person who waits for others to do the leg work, asks their opinion, and then votes without knowing any of the details, and the other type, is one who does the leg work…
There are two completely different styles… One old, set, and hard to change. The other, new, full of ideas and energy, competent, aggressive in tackling problems, and just happens to be in the same party that controls the state….
Cathy Cloutier states that she gets along with both parties. (Obviously now we know why…) But she has to. There are only 7 Republicans in the state Senate. There are 14 Democrats as well as a Democratic governor. Doesn’t it make more sense to elect someone who doesn’t have to fight every minute just to bring some crumbs back to her district? Doesn’t it make more sense, if the Democrat is far more qualified, to put him in so the 5th District can once again thrive, and be proud of its own when it picks up the News Journal in the morning?
You will have to decide… but a wise man once said… “never do business with your friends… they won’t take you seriously, and you won’t take them seriously”… Many people are friends with Cathy… They will have to choose between friendship and everyone-else-in- their-district’s, … well being…. It will be a tough four years for this state’s government…. so choose wisely….
Thank you Delaware Liberal. I don’t know where I was to have missed this. And it is rare I comment on something already out there.
This boggles the mind…. This person, beat Mike Castle? What the hell is wrong with Sussex County? David Anderson. You better explain yourself. And your beat-up, tattered party, Mr Seigler, is a disgrace. Putting your party’s well being ahead of a child’s rape is unconscionable. Mr. Seigler, this is your doing. As head of the Republican Party of Delaware, you sir, are entirely responsible. Where is your outrage over Christine’s statement? Didn’t think it was even worth commenting on….
Please read the redacted document. Read it all 113 times.
Oh, that’s “tacky” to bring that up before election time says the woman who tried hard to smear old Mike Castle as being gay, two weeks before the 2010 primary election. … Child rape… ha ha ha.. Republicans don’t care about that…. Mr. Seigler hasn’t even apologized to Sussex County yet.. WGMD is still trying to propagandize these indictments as lies, made up and brought to bear upon an innocent man.
Let me tell you one thing, Republican Party of Delaware…. My favorite football program is under sanctions for something far, far, far, less egregious then what you, Mr. Siegler, Christine O’Donnell, and staff of WGMD, are trying to cover up…..
Anyone, anyone who votes for any Republican in Delaware this election, any Republican especially in Sussex County, will be guilty of promoting child homosexual rape by association…..
Seriously Delaware. if you dare vote for any Republican, if you dare; whether its Greg LaVelle, Cathy Cloutier, Dori Conner, Evan Queitsch, or Brian Pettyjohn, …. you are showing your support for Mr. Seigler, Jeff Christopher, and all those who knew and kept this quiet.. All should resign immediately. And every Republican who wants to run in the future, (are you listening Mr. Kovich and Mr. Craig) should immediately suspend their campaigns over this issue, toss in the towel, and say, that they cannot be apart of any organization that puts their party’s win/loss record, as a higher priority over that of the safety of a child….
Republicans: Christine O’Donnell is your voice, like it or not. She is your highest profile candidate, and like it or not, she SPEAKS FOR YOUR PARTY. The only recourse any decent human being has in the Republican Party after today, is to walk away…. Just say, “I’m not dealing with this crap; I quit….”
Tacky, my ass…
Thank you Nancy for pointing us here. For every man, woman, child who just simply wants the facts, without bullshit, here they are.
Be prepared to flick through them all. You won’t be able to restrain yourself. Takes 4 minutes.
