Why We Were Led Astray On Education

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,

“The reason why we’re seeing, well, what we’re seeing, after ten years of No Child Left Behind is the fact that we didn’t close the gaps, the fact that our graduation rates haven’t gone anywhere, our dropout rates haven’t improved, because Texas never did that in the 1990s,” said Heilig. “Over the last ten years now that we have Texas-style accountability and policy in the whole United States, the reason why it didn’t deliver is because it never delivered in Texas.”

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.

I say this all the time: Parents care about kids, teachers care about kids, individuals in this room care about kids.  “The system doesn’t give a damn about kids unless you make it care.”

 

 

“We will not bury our heads in the sand and pretend that gun violence has nothing to do with guns”

Signed: The American Majority.

Eric Bodenweiser

I feel so bad for the boy. I thought, my, what if that had been my son?

Now as a parent I wonder. What on earth could I possibly do for my son after he’d experienced something like that. How as a parent could I somehow give hope, that even though something hellish and horrific took place, “yeah, son, you can still go on”. “Yeah, son, you can still succeed”. “yeah, son, you can have the best revenge, which is living well…”

Platitudes don’t cut it.

How does one communicate through to someone who has gone through such a tragedy? Here all my words fall short. I don’t know if I can. And that ineffectiveness pains me. I don’t think that of all the good that is in me, that any, none that I could give, could ever fill but the tiniest part of that vast hole which must lurk within…..

I do know that closure is important. Having evil lose, is very important to mankind. It is important to all of us. It will be hard, for those memories are buried deep. When they get exhumed as you go through the trial, which with appeals will take years, those feelings you haven’t felt for years, all come rushing back with the intensity you once experienced them…..

But for closure, justice must be pursued. For the simple reason is, that if justice is not allowed to fulfill it’s proper destiny, than we are all unjust ourselves, because we stood in its way. And that, is not who we are…

People will say you are brave. They will thank you for coming forward. They will interview you for your deepest feelings. Then they will go on with their lives proud of what they did. They will forget you.

That may be good, and that may be hard on you after being in the limelight for so long.

And that is when you anger really begins. You no longer have an outlet to express it. Your friends tell you to get over it. You feel like you are a pariah where ever you go…. Whether you imagine or it is real, whispers of being “that victim” will always haunt you….

I probably shouldn’t mention it here, it’s way too early in the process, but there is a way out. And what goes on outside of you, really has nothing to do with what is on your inside….

And that is to forgive him. Yes. forgive Eric Bodenweiser. I’m not saying to let justice off the hook; its wheels need to grind with regularity. Justice is out of your hands. What is in your hands, is your heart…

Forgiveness has been rated a weakness by our American society. When actually it is very hard to do. It takes a tougher man to forgive, than it does to carry revenge as a motive for the rest of their life. That actually is easy compared to forgiving one who did something so horrible to you.

I don’t know if you are up for it. I think it is far too tough for most people. Christians talk about it, but in your case, I think that would be the wrong example to bring up. I know Martin Luther King did it. I know Gandhi did it. I know Mandela did it. I know Mother Teresa did it.

I really didn’t get why forgiveness is important, until watching Star Wars. But somewhere along one of those episodes, it hit me that my anger was what was keeping me weak. It was the focus of all I did. I couldn’t see life past it. It made me do things other people saw as ugly. It created many problems over which I was always trying to overcome. I often wondered why I always had so many problems compared to others, without understanding that I was the one creating them… Where Yoda says: “let go of the anger. let go of the hurt…” that was the point in my lifetime where I realized forgiveness wasn’t something Christian. It was something human, requiring us to use our minds and talk ourselves through our anger, and accept that what happened, was a part of what we were to become in our future….. and that we had a choice of whether to turn that into good, or continue the evil.

Point is, when you finally let go, you are the beneficiary. Mostly we are taught to think forgiveness is for our foe. No, it really is for us; it is a cathartic experience that yeah, we walked through hell and survived… Only after we have truly forgiven them, can we look at ourselves and say, wow, I’m this really great human being. I’m like Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Mandela, and Sister Teresa.

I said above, that there was nothing I could do. But perhaps this is it. Perhaps just for years, keep in mind that forgiving Eric Bodenweiser will be what you have to do someday to move beyond this…. It might take years after justice has been served…. Just keep it in mind. … My heart, my soul goes out to you now…

I know you have a tough time headed your way. If you need anything……

At What Price, Loyality?

This is going to my hard core Republican friends. Why are you still supporting Romney?

1) You know he is not going to win.
2) You know as the election heats up, his Bain Capital experience will make Republicans untouchable for decades.
3) You can’t pin down where Romney stands on anything.
4) He tied his dog to a car.
5) He stands with black people and says “Who let the dogs out, woof, woof.”

Most of you are telling me, “I certainly can’t vote for Obama. I guess I’m not voting for President this time.”

Let’s say, just for argument sakes there was a presidential candidate out there who says to have good government you need: …………………

1. Become reality driven. Don’t kid yourself or others.
Find out what’s what and base your decisions and actions
on that.

2. Always be honest and tell the truth. It’s extremely
difficult to do any damage to anybody when you are
willing to tell the truth–regardless of the
consequences.

3. Always do what’s right and fair. Remember, the more
you actually accomplish, the louder your critics become.
You’ve got to learn to ignore your critics. You’ve got to
continue to do what you think is right. You’ve got to
maintain your integrity.

4. Determine your goal, develop a plan to reach that
goal, and then act. Don’t procrastinate.

5. Make sure everybody who ought to know what you’re
doing knows what you’re doing. Communicate.

6. Don’t hesitate to deliver bad news. There is always
time to salvage things. There is always time to fix
things. Henry Kissinger said that anything that can be
revealed eventually should be revealed immediately.

7. Last, be willing to do whatever it takes to get your
job done. If you’ve got a job that you don’t love enough
to do what it takes to get your job done, then quit and
get one that you do love, and then make a difference.

Honesty. Integrity. Principal.

Sounds good so far. Let us say just for argument, he had chief executive experience. Let us say just or argument that he once ran a state, one of the fifty in this union. Let us say while governor, this is what he did…..

During his tenure, New Mexico experienced the longest period without a tax-increase in the state’s entire history.

1) He cut the rate of government growth in half,

2) Left the New Mexico state government with a budget surplus and 1000 fewer employees (without firing anyone),

3) Privatized half of the prisons in the state,

4) Brought a state-wide school voucher system to New Mexico.

5) Vetoed 750 bills (more than all the vetoes of the other 49 Governors in the country at that time, combined) with only 2 overrides, earning him the nickname Gary “Veto” Johnson.

6) In 1999, Johnson became the highest-ranking elected official in the United States to advocate the legalization of drugs.

7) Shifted Medicaid to managed care.

ISN’T THAT WHAT YOU WANT? ISN’T THAT WHAT WE NEED?

Can you not think of a better way to show your lack of enthusiasm over a wealthy capitalist buying his way to the top of your ticket, by voting for someone who has character, who does what you’ve always wanted, a doer, not a talker?

And to think…. you were simply just going to throw your vote away.

His name is Gary Johnson. He is the new party’s candidate for President.

Remember Republicans. It is your values that are important. If your party has given up and moved on from your values, don’t think you have to be loyal to the word…. “Republican”… What you have to be loyal too, is yourself. Always. Never lie to yourself.

You don’t need to waste your vote on Romney. You probably need to find more about this guy, Gary Johnson, and then throw your support behind him.

Don’t worry it is not one of the two parties on whose ticket he is running. Remember, at one point in time, the Republican Party was a once a third party too. One that went mainstream because of its core values, its principles resonated with everyday American People.

New Hampshire Repeals Gay Marriage Bill

Not so fast… The repeal failed… In a state that is OVERWHELMINGLY Republican, the vote was not even close…..  211 to 116 to keep same sex marriage as the law of the land in New Hampshire…

It appears that the backlash against the trashy Rick Santorum,  is making waves in the Republican Party itself… Running away from Social Conservatism and embracing the party’s roots in Libertarianism, the Republican Party of New Hampshire, may have found a method to survive in the modern world……

Eliminate the Social Conservatives….  Get rid of every stupid, stinkin’ thing they stand for….. Quite a few social conservatives checked themselves into the local hospital emergency room, as the whopping defeat made itself known…..

What is probably the most fascinating aspect of this absolutely ridiculing and embarrassing defeat of social conservatism, is that the force to defeat it….. came from conservatism itself…..  This was not a win by liberals… This was a win by conservatives for every American’s right to live free from the scorn that Social Conservatives heap on everyone who doesn’t share their cultish view.

As Tea Party Republican Tammy Simmons correctly noted:  ”I always say that my liberty ends, where your liberty begins.  …And if you’re a gay man wanting to marry another gay man, how does that impact me personally? You know,.. it doesn’t …”

“It’s not about whether I’m Catholic or whether or not the party platform says this or whether or not the Democrats were the ones who brought it in the first place. All of that’s really irrelevant.”   

Social Conservatives are irrelevant.

 “It’s great to have faith and it’s great to have religion, but that should dictate your life, not how somebody else lives their life.”

“The people that are supporting repeal want their personal religious views to be the law of the land. I hate to say it, but that’s really what it’s coming down to,”–  Tammy Simmons

Our founding fathers gave up everything,  fought,  and died to prevent that… Damned if we’re going to let these nuts tear up the Constitution… and take us back to the very Dark Ages of Enlightenment……

“We’ve got so many Republican state representatives that are opposed to this repeal effort. And it’s like the Republican Party’s getting back to its roots—values of individual freedom and liberty and equality. It’s been an exciting thing to see. I think that New Hampshire is going to be a model for the national Republican Party to see that it is okay for the Republicans to be inclusive of gays and lesbians and to be in favor of equal rights. It’s a new step forward for the party.”  Tyler Deaton

Finally, a Republican Party that is getting back to it’s roots… values of individual freedom and liberty and equality.

Currently, if you valued freedom at all, the only place you could find it, was when you had a government consisting of all Democrats,  and no  Republicans…….

Make the Internet Free

It is time to fight back.

Predatory lawsuits are the next thing corporate America is trying.

You get a call from a lawyer that says you were looking at copyrighted porno on the internet, and you didn’t pay for it.. someway, somehow.

You will be taken to court and it will cost you $10,000 in damages as well as $6-7000 in court costs… However…(there is always a however) if you pay to this lawyer who is calling you right now, a fee of $2,000, he will make this whole thing disappear; he knowing that you have learned your lesson, will no longer partake of illegal activity….

This lawyer is counting on these three things…..

One, the threat of an award of statutory damages and attorney fees
Two, that the plaintiff has no knowledge of their lawful rights.
Three, that the stigma of porn will cause the plaintiffs to settle.

Basically the corporation uses the discovery process to gather IP addresses and then shake down those people behind those addresses.
Incidentally, the court where the discovery takes place, often has no jurisdiction over where the recipient lives…

In an exact case, AH Holdings LLC, filed discovery in Washington DC, and received over a 1000 IP’s… They could have easily paid a service to track down the IP’s for them. But, that would have cost tremendous amounts of court costs to go after 1000 individuals wherever they supposedly committed the crime of watching free porn.

Instead, armed with the IP information(only 28 lived in the jurisdiction filed), their legal arm began to extort those recipients, even though they did not have the jurisdictional authority to do so..

So……

How do we fix this problem long term?

We make the internet a copyright free zone… No lawsuits over copyright infringement if the product is digital in nature…..

The legality comes down to this question. Is the internet a business or is it free speech?

If we decide it should be corporate, then let’s regulate it. But if as a people, we decide it is free speech, then hand off… For over 136 years Americans have used the telephone… We paid our phone bill and what we said over the phone was ours, it was free… If we wanted to spoil the ending of the new upcoming Batman movie, ..”Dad, you gotta see it, here is what happens…” we did not have a lawyer extorting us with attorney’s fees for telling copyrighted information…

I don’t know about you, but…. today all we do is communicate with digital information. We send links, we copy and paste, we click here, we click there, we like, we comment, we post, we twitter, we facebook, we take pictures of the advertisements on Time Square and send to all our friends…

That is what we do….

Voice is no longer our prime means of communication. We have evolved… It is time our laws catch up to the reality of our world.

Everything on the internet needs to be free… Period… Make your damn money elsewhere…..

End of Argument.

ADDENDUM: Elect no political legislator who does not subscribe to a totally free internet.

Giant Holes In The U.S’s Case…..

MegaUpload said they had tried to comply with all of the copyright requests, and they had…

Listen how the Obama Justice Department twists that into a crime.

Courtesy of the LA Times.

MegaUpload provided no index or search function to the public, and sister site MegaVideo filtered its search results to remove copyrighted content. Wait, doesn’t that sound like good thing? Wait, see how the Obama justice department twisted that around….. The indictment contends that it’s a bad thing because it made it harder for copyright holders to see how much piracy was occurring on the service. WHAT?

The list of the “Top 100″ files at MegaUpload is edited to exclude copyrighted works. Wait, that sounds like a good thing…. The indictment, however, asserts that it “makes the website appear more legitimate and hides the popular copyright-infringing content that drives its revenue.” WHAT?

Users could not stream a file on the affiliated MegaVideo site for more than 72 minutes unless they were paid subscribers to MegaUpload. (72 minutes is too short to copy a copyrighted movie) The indictment contends that the point wasn’t to discourage illegal movie viewing, but rather to monetize it. WHAT?

The Conspiracy made no significant effort and the company is being faulted for not monitoring what each of its users did on its service, not inspecting content as it was being uploaded for copyright violations, and not combing through its servers for infringing material. But that’s inconsistent with the rulings from several federal courts, which have held that online companies have no duty to police their services to prevent infringements or detect them after they occur.

Justice David Souter wrote, “in the absence of other evidence of intent, a court would be unable to find contributory infringement liability merely based on a failure to take affirmative steps to prevent infringement, if the device otherwise was capable of substantial non infringing uses.”

This indictment was done in haste and is not a condemnation of MegaUpload, a COMPANY THE INDICTMENT ITSELF, CONFIRMS WAS TRYING TO COMPLY WITH EXISTING COPYRIGHT LAWS……

This was served in Federal Court in Richmond. The same court that says that National Health Care is unconstitutional, even though a number of courts have ruled opposite.

This is a rogue court. This court has proven twice, it is not representative of America, and New Zealand should suffer for not questioning the authority of the order it was given… Injunctions across America need to be filed immediately in more circumspect courts, all aimed halting this injunction issued by this rogue court.

First Shot Fired……..

On the green at Lexington, April 19th, 1775, two sides stood forth, eye to eye, musket to musket…. the tension, the silence, neither side wanting to be the one to strike first…..

Then, a shot was fired… and after all the muskets had discharged, each side blamed the other….. 8 Americans dead; one British wounded….

In their glee, after being mustered into General Assembly, their commanding officer allowed them to fire a victory shot….

It was premature…

By the time those troops had returned to Boston, 19 officers and 250 of Britain’s finest, would never experience another fine spring day….

TODAY, MEGAUPLOAD WAS TAKEN OUT….. To show the Entertainment Industry that politicians who were in their pocket, would not waver, the orders were unsealed … and FBI arrested 4 people, and shut down the server in Virginia….

The New York Times quoted FBI sources that this was the 13th largest entity on the Internet up to the moment it was shut down.

This was not a domain move. This was taken out; shut down. The IP addresses do not work.

Curious, with enough outrage, this could elevate Ron Paul’s candidacy. He is the only candidate today, protecting the Internet. He seems to be the only one who understands that the loss of liberty, is taken in tiny steps. The gassing of Jews during the Nazi Holocaust, was the culmination of a long chain of freak events, any of which a vigilant society COULD HAVE STOPPED…..

This could stop Obama in his tracks. This is the equivalent of taxing tea. Everyone uses the Internet.

Everyone has benefited from MegaUpload.

The shot has been fired. Time to line up on either side.

On SOPA: The Supreme Court Has Already Spoken….

No. 69

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

380 U.S. 51

Argued November 19, 1964

Decided March 1, 1965

MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

“First, once the censor disapproves the film, the exhibitor must assume [60] the burden of instituting judicial proceedings and of persuading the courts that the film is protected expression. Second, once the Board has acted against a film, exhibition is prohibited pending judicial review, however protracted. Under the statute, appellant could have been convicted if he had shown the film after unsuccessfully seeking a license, even though no court had ever ruled on the obscenity of the film. Third, it is abundantly clear that the Maryland statute provides no assurance of prompt judicial determination. We hold, therefore, that appellant’s conviction must be reversed. The Maryland scheme fails to provide adequate safeguards against undue inhibition of protected expression, and this renders the § 2 requirement of prior submission of films to the Board an invalid previous restraint.

But a model is not lacking: In Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown, 354 U.S. 436, we upheld a New York injunctive procedure designed to prevent the sale of obscene books. That procedure postpones any restraint against sale until a judicial determination of obscenity following notice and an adversary hearing. The statute provides for a hearing one day after joinder of issue; the judge must hand down his decision within two days after termination of the hearing.

Justice Black tags onto the end with this comment.

“For the reasons there stated, I do not believe any form of censorship–no matter how speedy or prolonged it may be–is permissible. As I see it, a pictorial presentation occupies as preferred a position as any other form of expression. If censors are banned from the publishing business, from the pulpit, from the public platform–as they are–they should be banned from the theatre.”

To that we add… the Internet.

Censoring anything (the Internet) before having a hearing in which the person being censored is present and has been given the opportunity to argue his case before the court into why his first Amendment right should not be suppressed, …. hereby violates the First Amendment of the Constitution and is therefore unconstitutional.

SOPA effectively allows the state to remove a person’s right to free speech, without his side being aired at a hearing.

Your Freedom’s on The LIne….

Today MegaUpLoad sued Universal Music Group over copyright infringement.

Here’s the story. MegaUpLoad, a file sharing system, created an advertisement featuring some of the most famous artists of our time…

It is here…

Macy Gray sings parts of the song.. As the ad picked up steam, Universal Music Group, one of the major companies behind SOPA, which allows the shutdown of any website that portrays copyrighted information (ie, all of the internet), contacted YouTube with a Digital Millenium Copyright Act takedown notice, claiming that the work infringed on their copyright and demanding that it be removed immediately, which it was.

There was a problem.

The composition was an original score, not copyrighted by UMG. Further, MegaUpLoad had signed contracts with the performers, who performed in the video. And when MegaUpLoad contacted Univeral Music Group, they were brushed off… in fact, some sources say laughed at haughtily.

“After this demonstration of the abuse of power by UMG, we are certain that such an instrument of Internet censorship should never be put into the hands of corporations,” the CEO David Robb concluded.

SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, is catching a lot of heat these days. Even groups that supported the proposed law initially are now backing away, saying the legislation needs work…..

UMG’s takedown of Magaupload’s content isn’t the only incidence of large rights-holding companies asserting allegedly false copyright claims and issuing takedown notices to YouTube and other companies.

The average “YouTube” life of a Rick Perry “STRONG” parody is about 5 hours…. Try clicking down the list of YouTube thumbnails on the right side or the screen, and see just how many are now non existent?

Some may argue that slights and untruths should be taken down… They believe if it is untrue, it should not be said….

Were that the case, the Republican Debates could not be televised. They are so full of untruths it makes a normal American throw up in their mouth. Since our founding, Americans have had the right to view untruths, and make up our own mind, We do it every time we see a commercial on TV…..

Just think if you couldn’t challenge these Untruths?

1) The King knows what is best for his subjects. That’s why he’s King.

2) Every state is Independent. They need subject themselves to no Federal entity.

3) The African Race is genetically inferior to that of Whites…

4) Slaves lack the capacity to function in Free Society…

5) A women’s place is in the home.

6) A woman doesn’t deserve the compensation a man gets.

7) If a textile mill can’t employ underage children, it will go out of business….

Everyone of these was an untruth at its conception. Horror if the UMG had controlled Free Speech throughout our nation’s formation….