From Common Dreams
by Dustin Beilke
Today, hundreds of state legislators from across the nation will head out to an "island" resort on the coast of Florida to a unique "education academy" sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). There will be no students or teachers. Instead, legislators, representatives from right-wing think tanks and for-profit education corporations will meet behind closed doors to channel their inner Milton Friedman and promote the radical transformation of the American education system into a private, for-profit enterprise.
What is ALEC Scoring on Its Education "Report Card?"
Little is known about the agenda of the ALEC education meeting taking place at the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island. The meeting is not open to the public and recently even the press has been kicked out of meetings and barred from attendance. So to understand the ALEC agenda with regard to education, it is important to examine ALEC's education "scorecard."
Imagine getting a report card from your teacher and finding out that you were graded not on how well you understood the course material or scored on the tests and assignments, but rather on to what extent you agreed with your teacher's strange public policy positions. That is the best way to understand the American Legislative Exchange Council's 17th Report Card on American Education released last week.
The report card's authors are Matthew Lardner, formerly of the Goldwater Institute, and Dan Lips, currently of the Goldwater Institute and formerly of the Heritage Foundation. They give every state's public schools an overall grade based on how they rate in 14 categories. Homeschooling, alternative teacher certification, charter schools, private school choice, and virtual learning make up 7 of the 14 categories. Of the other seven categories, two rate the states' academic standards and the other five have mostly to do with the way states retain "effective" teachers and fire "ineffective" ones.
ALEC's education bills encompass more than 20 years of effort to privatize public education through an ever-expanding network of school voucher systems, which divert taxpayer dollars away from public schools to private schools, or the creation of new private charter schools with public funds, and even with private online schools (who needs actual teachers when you can have a virtual one?). The bills also allow schools to loosen standards for teachers and administrators, exclude students with physical disabilities and special educational needs, escape the requirements of collective bargaining agreements and experiment with other pet causes like merit pay, single-sex education, school uniforms, and political and religious indoctrination of students.
States where students score well on tests but where ALEC's legislative agenda around school choice, charters, merit pay, de-unionization and alternative certification have not yet taken hold get low grades. States where elected officials are gung-ho for ALEC's agenda but the students are not faring so well are still graded generously.
Ranking Policy, Not Performance
While ALEC's report card and its many appendices weigh in at hefty 130+ pages, it is markedly slight on evidence that school choice, charters, or firing more teachers improve student performance. Indeed, the report card itself even makes this case by also ranking each state's students' performance on the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) exam, the largest and most accepted national, standardized assessment of student knowledge in several subject areas.
Massachusetts, Vermont, New Jersey, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, North Carolina, Kansas, New Hampshire and New York comprise the top 10 states in NAEP performance. Among them, only Colorado is among the 13 states ALEC gives a B or better on its report card. Vermont, even though it scored number two on the NAEP, is tied for dead last for policy with a D+. Missouri, ALEC's star pupil with an A-, scored 47th on NAEP.
"It's a compendium of the progress of the ALEC agenda and it has nothing to do with educating students," says Julie Underwood, Dean of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Underwood, who wrote about ALEC for The Nation last summer and has studied the organization extensively, notes that the most interesting and potentially useful data in the report card is left out of each state's grade calculation. There are tables ranking states according to the NAEP performance of low-income students, students of color and students with disabilities, but this is not added in in the final grade.
"Why is that not part of the state's A to F grades?" Underwood asks. Missouri ranks 43rd in low-income students' 4th grade reading score improvement and 34th in math improvement, but still got the top grade. Utah is 49th and 37th, but was still one of the few states to score a B or better from ALEC. Maryland is number one in reading improvement and number 2 in math improvement, but drew a C-.
Union-Busting Applauded
Her answer comes in the report card's introduction, where Lardner and Lipps call 2011 "The End of the Beginning in the Battle for K-12 Reform." Legislative efforts to weaken and defeat unions were so successful in places such as Florida, Indiana and Wisconsin last year that, according to the authors, we have entered a new era for ALEC's education policy agenda.
Comparing the union fight to Britain's defeat of Germany in Egypt to secure the Suez Canal, Lardner and Lips crow that in 2011, "For the first time, the unions suffered major policy defeats in a large number of states across a wide array of policy issues."
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels wrote the report card's forward, lamenting how the unions in his state once had a voice in issues such as the length of the school day, academic freedom and, generally, the content of their work, says his state has turned the corner. "Collective bargaining will now be limited to wages and benefits and will no longer stand in the way of effective school leadership or
student progress," Daniels writes.
Indiana's ALEC grade improved to a B from a C+ in 2010 even though its NAEP scores declined from 13th to 17th. Indiana did, however, pass several pieces of legislation in the last year that were influenced by ALEC model bills, including the creation of a statewide voucher school program, merit pay and restricted collective bargaining rights for teachers, and deep budget cuts.
ALEC Education Policy "Academy" at Island Resort, No Students Allowed
The report card, released during National Charter School Week, also comes during the ramp-up to ALEC's annual "K-12 Education Reform Academy" at the swanky Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island, Florida. The non-profit group Fund Education Now intercepted one of ALEC's invitations to legislators in Florida delineating the junket's deluxe (and gratis) accommodations and summarizing the opportunity to learn more about school privatization and giving teachers their comeuppance.
"You are cordially invited to attend ALEC's K-12 Education Reform Academy, February 3-4, 2012 at the Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island, Florida. For invited legislators like you, ALEC will cover your room for up to two nights at the host hotel. ALEC will also reimburse up to $500 for travel expenses, which includes coach airfare, cabfare, and a reimbursement of 55.5 cents per mile driven."
"This event will address the top reforms in K-12 education that ALEC believes each state must have to ensure the successful and productive education for all American students. We will discuss what you as a state legislator can do to address a variety of issues surrounding K-12 education reform, including charter schools accessibility, accountability and transparency, standards for teacher excellence, open enrollment, vouchers, tax credits, and blended learning options."
Fund Education Now co-founder Kathleen Oropeza says the "academy" is closed to the press and the public and Amelia Island itself is secluded from the outside world and heavily policed. The meeting's agenda is so secretive that Oropeza has been unable to track one down.
"The island is a challenge for protestors, and we think they chose it for that reason," Oropeza says.
However, a raft of ALEC legislative and corporate members are certain to be there. These include online school businesses such as K-12 Inc., Insight Schools, and Connections Academy a division of Connections Education LLC. These for-profit schools will likely join with their allies from the Heritage Foundation, Texas Public Policy Center, The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, the Hoover Institution, the Alliance for School Choice and more.
Today, the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida (DPCF) called on Florida legislators to boycott the island retreat. Caucus President Susan Smith stated, "The secretive process of allowing corporate lobbyists and billionaires to write legislation, which they then pass off to Florida legislators, is a betrayal of the intent of representative government. The closed-door gathering of legislators is not government in the sunshine."
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/02-9#.TyvRxpNlkRw.twitter
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
Ron Littlepage's annual all is well in our schools message
I sent this to him but I have yet to hear back. -cpg
Ron I was wondering when you were going to have your annual, we have the right leader and school board to take us into the future column. I hope the recent rankings by the state saying we were 50th out of 67 and we had 8 out of the bottom 25 high schools (out of 404) hadn't dissuaded you.
In all seriousness I don’t think it is fair to compare Duval to St. Johns or Cay or other neighboring districts (1 and 12). Quite frankly our district is both a lot bigger and a lot poorer.
But what about comparing our district to Miami Dade? They have three times as many kids as us and have an even higher percentage of students receiving fee and reduced lunch. In last weeks rankings of districts they were 37th and we were 50th! We have eight high schools in the bottom 25 and they have five while having nearly three times as many high schools. Furthermore we may have two in the top twelve but they have four in the top nine.
I am sure Miami Dade has issues, but many of them are the same as ours and they are doing a much better job handling them.
You could regurgitate the superintendents spin, Our superintendent as usual put a positive spin on it and talked about two of our schools being in the top 12, rigor and our college ready curriculum. I don't think it holds up if history is an indication you might.
The two high schools in the top 12 are Paxon and Stanton, magnet schools for our top kids but remember when Stanton and Paxon were number five and twelve in the nation? Now they are that way in just the state.
There is also a difference between rigorous and advanced classes. Many teachers feel rigor has been destroyed by grade recovery and the districts gentlemen’s C policy, where we pass kids along whether they have the skills they need or not. 34% of our kids don't get to HS without being able to read on grade level by accident.
Finally you might want to ask Florida State College at Jacksonville where 70% of our graduates have to take remedial classes how well our college prep curriculum is doing.
In case you were wondering the state average is 55%, so we're not to far off maybe you could sell that.
I know you care about the river but how about caring about the cities kids too.
Well I was just wondering
Chris Guerrieri
Ron I was wondering when you were going to have your annual, we have the right leader and school board to take us into the future column. I hope the recent rankings by the state saying we were 50th out of 67 and we had 8 out of the bottom 25 high schools (out of 404) hadn't dissuaded you.
In all seriousness I don’t think it is fair to compare Duval to St. Johns or Cay or other neighboring districts (1 and 12). Quite frankly our district is both a lot bigger and a lot poorer.
But what about comparing our district to Miami Dade? They have three times as many kids as us and have an even higher percentage of students receiving fee and reduced lunch. In last weeks rankings of districts they were 37th and we were 50th! We have eight high schools in the bottom 25 and they have five while having nearly three times as many high schools. Furthermore we may have two in the top twelve but they have four in the top nine.
I am sure Miami Dade has issues, but many of them are the same as ours and they are doing a much better job handling them.
You could regurgitate the superintendents spin, Our superintendent as usual put a positive spin on it and talked about two of our schools being in the top 12, rigor and our college ready curriculum. I don't think it holds up if history is an indication you might.
The two high schools in the top 12 are Paxon and Stanton, magnet schools for our top kids but remember when Stanton and Paxon were number five and twelve in the nation? Now they are that way in just the state.
There is also a difference between rigorous and advanced classes. Many teachers feel rigor has been destroyed by grade recovery and the districts gentlemen’s C policy, where we pass kids along whether they have the skills they need or not. 34% of our kids don't get to HS without being able to read on grade level by accident.
Finally you might want to ask Florida State College at Jacksonville where 70% of our graduates have to take remedial classes how well our college prep curriculum is doing.
In case you were wondering the state average is 55%, so we're not to far off maybe you could sell that.
I know you care about the river but how about caring about the cities kids too.
Well I was just wondering
Chris Guerrieri
Martha Barret are you freaking kidding me! She is running for a 4th term!?!
She must feel being on the board for arguably 8 of the worse years since desegregation should allow her to continue to agument her salary as bank manager for another four years and sadly at this point people in Arlington and on the southside agree because nobody is running against her.
This woman is known for one thing and that’s for her giving the superintendent evaluations like they are having an affair.
Friends in Arlington and on the Southside, why do you not care about your kid's futures? Why are you handing this woman years 13,14,15, and 16 on a silver platter? What has SHE DONE FOR YOUR SCHOOLS?
This woman is known for one thing and that’s for her giving the superintendent evaluations like they are having an affair.
Friends in Arlington and on the Southside, why do you not care about your kid's futures? Why are you handing this woman years 13,14,15, and 16 on a silver platter? What has SHE DONE FOR YOUR SCHOOLS?
Florida's education cuts lead to school closures
From the Orlando Sentinel's editorial board
For a lesson in what happens when lawmakers relentlessly cut state funding for education, look no further than Seminole County's public school system.
State funding for the district peaked four years ago. Since then, it has dropped — as ex-Gov. Charlie Crist might have put it — like a rock. The district has lost a combined $83.1million in state funding.
To balance the district's budget, Seminole's School Board has approved a long list of spending cuts, from the big — eliminating 700 positions to save nearly $30 million — to the small — cutting school supplies to bank $200,000.
But one cut in particular, the board's approval last year to close Longwood Elementary, sparked an uproar. And with another looming deficit that could reach $20 million next year, members might shutter two more elementary schools.
The impact would ripple beyond the two schools' neighborhoods by forcing a rezoning that could affect half the elementary schools in the district. Outraged parents have been protesting that prospect to district leaders.
But the politicians in Tallahassee who have starved schools are starting to feel the heat, too. As well they should.
Gov. Rick Scott, who signed a budget last year that cut $1.3 billion in public school funding, is insisting on one for next year that boosts funding by at least $1 billion. That would solve some, but not all, of Seminole's money problems next year.
Enter state Rep. Jason Brodeur, elected to represent a swath of Seminole County. He introduced an amendment to the House's latest budget to bar the School Board from closing any more schools.
This is the same lawmaker who voted last year to cut school funding by $1.3 billion. Who signed a no-tax pledge which, of course, creates more pressure for cuts in areas like education. And who declared on his campaign website, "The best decisions are made closest to the people and should be handled that way."
Brodeur later withdrew his silly and vindictive amendment. What a statesman.
Critics of school closings in Seminole have argued that the School Board should cut elsewhere — as if it hadn't already achieved more than 97 percent of its savings that way. That includes reducing its district office staff by 20 percent and its district-level administrators by 8.5 percent.
If Seminole gives its elementary schools a reprieve, other money-saving measures that could hit far more families, like fees for student athletes, might be necessary.
That is, unless lawmakers like Brodeur stop trying to micromanage school districts and instead help them dig out of the hole that Tallahassee helped create.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/os-ed-seminole-school-closings-020312-20120202,0,2044012.story
For a lesson in what happens when lawmakers relentlessly cut state funding for education, look no further than Seminole County's public school system.
State funding for the district peaked four years ago. Since then, it has dropped — as ex-Gov. Charlie Crist might have put it — like a rock. The district has lost a combined $83.1million in state funding.
To balance the district's budget, Seminole's School Board has approved a long list of spending cuts, from the big — eliminating 700 positions to save nearly $30 million — to the small — cutting school supplies to bank $200,000.
But one cut in particular, the board's approval last year to close Longwood Elementary, sparked an uproar. And with another looming deficit that could reach $20 million next year, members might shutter two more elementary schools.
The impact would ripple beyond the two schools' neighborhoods by forcing a rezoning that could affect half the elementary schools in the district. Outraged parents have been protesting that prospect to district leaders.
But the politicians in Tallahassee who have starved schools are starting to feel the heat, too. As well they should.
Gov. Rick Scott, who signed a budget last year that cut $1.3 billion in public school funding, is insisting on one for next year that boosts funding by at least $1 billion. That would solve some, but not all, of Seminole's money problems next year.
Enter state Rep. Jason Brodeur, elected to represent a swath of Seminole County. He introduced an amendment to the House's latest budget to bar the School Board from closing any more schools.
This is the same lawmaker who voted last year to cut school funding by $1.3 billion. Who signed a no-tax pledge which, of course, creates more pressure for cuts in areas like education. And who declared on his campaign website, "The best decisions are made closest to the people and should be handled that way."
Brodeur later withdrew his silly and vindictive amendment. What a statesman.
Critics of school closings in Seminole have argued that the School Board should cut elsewhere — as if it hadn't already achieved more than 97 percent of its savings that way. That includes reducing its district office staff by 20 percent and its district-level administrators by 8.5 percent.
If Seminole gives its elementary schools a reprieve, other money-saving measures that could hit far more families, like fees for student athletes, might be necessary.
That is, unless lawmakers like Brodeur stop trying to micromanage school districts and instead help them dig out of the hole that Tallahassee helped create.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/os-ed-seminole-school-closings-020312-20120202,0,2044012.story
Chris Guerrieri to meet today with the Friends of Northwest Jacksonville Schools
I am meeting with The Friends of Northwest Jacksonville Schools, at six at the Community Rehabilitation Center Institute located at 5308 Pearl St. I plan to discuss how inner city schools have been handicapped by national (NCLB) state (the FCAT) and local (to many to mention) policies as well as Betty Burney, District Five's current representative and Gerard Robinson the states Education Commissioner who will be in town tomorrow.
Then if time, solutions that we could implement quickly that don’t reinvent the wheel, break the bank, or out source our kids education.
Come if you can.
Chris
Then if time, solutions that we could implement quickly that don’t reinvent the wheel, break the bank, or out source our kids education.
Come if you can.
Chris
How you can tell Gerard Robinson is clueless
Mentors, it's always mentors with the ill informed about education. You can always tell who is clueless about education because when talking about solutions they play the mentor card first thing as if we just had a few more everything would be okay. Mentors are nice, sure we can use them but do you know what we really need. We need busses.
We need to be able to keep students (not ask them to stay but make sure they do) after school so the ones that need extra help can get it and the ones that need a consequence can get that too. That’s right we need rigor and discipline a lot more than we need mentors.
Robinson insults me with his flowery we need mentors rhetoric.
We need to be able to keep students (not ask them to stay but make sure they do) after school so the ones that need extra help can get it and the ones that need a consequence can get that too. That’s right we need rigor and discipline a lot more than we need mentors.
Robinson insults me with his flowery we need mentors rhetoric.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Education Commish Gerard Robinson brings his spin and misdirection to Jacksonville (rough draft)
Florida Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson will be the keynote speaker at the 4th Annual Urban Education Symposium: Reclaiming Black Males for Jacksonville’s Future. The event is from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Main Library Saturday.
I don’t know Gerard Robinson. I don’t know if he is a true believer or just a shill for the privatization of public education but I do know he is bad for Florida and especially to the individuals he will be speaking to on Saturday, the black community.
Florida through the FCAT has devastated our inner city mostly minority schools. So what is Robinson’s response? It’s to ratchet up the FCAT and he himself nonchalantly admits that an additional fifteen thousand tenth graders are likely to fail it next year. Where do these tenth graders go to school? Well the vast majority go to our inner city mostly minority schools. How many are going to drop out after they fail? What is an acceptable percentage?
An educator friend of mine said the new FCAT cut scores were like raising the bar on a pole-vaulter from twelve to fifteen feet. The problem is the pole-vaulter has never hit twelve. I said, oh, it’s like NASA of the sixties going, you know what lets skip the moon and head straight for Mars. Before we ratchet up the standards wouldn’t it make more sense to have more kids master the standards we already have?
He further shows how clueless and how distant he is from the reality of what is happening in our schools. In a Times Union interview he says what’s happened in Florida is actually mixed:
On one hand, you know all the atrocious statistics: the number who drop out, the number who graduate but are functionally illiterate, the number who end up in the prison system, we know that there are more black women than men enrolled in college. So that’s one side of the fence.
But there’s also another side if you look at the fact that Florida State University has had six Rhodes Scholar quarter finalists and two of them were actually black men. We need to equally celebrate the fact that two African-American Rhode Scholars for the nation have come out of Florida. You’ve got the president of STEMflorida, who is an African-American. So I just want to focus on the positive aspects not only in Florida but nationwide and use that to say that you’re bigger than you zip code and statistics may be fact, but they’re not always truth.
He equates the tens of thousands of African American kids graduated ill prepared for life with the success of a handful.
He says we have had a little good and a little bad.
No friends that’s not the case at all, we have had mostly bad and a sliver of good and his answer is to make things worse.
He shows how clueless he is when he says, The fact is that you may come from a home or neighborhood or zip code where many of the kids in your neighborhood didn’t finish — that may be a fact, but it’s not truth that you won’t finish high school, that you won’t go to college or that you won’t become a multi-millionaire.
Sure you might come out a millionaire but the odds are greater to the power of infinity that you’re not and him spewing such flowery rhetoric is boarder line criminal. We need realistic solutions to the problems in our struggling schools not flowery rhetoric.
We need year around schools for many of our kids so they have extra time to get the skills they need and then don’t lose them over the break. We need multiple curriculum's that play to kids strengths and interests instead of fitting them into a one size fits all everybody is going to go to college program and we need social workers and counselors because why so many kids act up in school often has nothing to do with school.
That’s what our kids need. Not some carpetbagger who hasn’t been in Florida for a year, saying, you can make it with just a little elbow grease.
Then he falls into the old blame the family trap. You know what that and fifty cents gets you? Whatever you can buy with fifty cents. We can no longer sit around and say if only little Johnnie’s dad would have given him a pop every now and then or Little Suzie's mom would have read to her that might have made it. No we need to draw a line in the sand and say schools are going to be platforms for change, it’s here where we are going to break the cycle of poverty.
He is right we have come a long way from Brown v. Board of Education, it’s just sad, that No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top and the rhetoric being sold from Tallahassee are taking us back to the time before.
I don’t know Gerard Robinson. I don’t know if he is a true believer or just a shill for the privatization of public education but I do know he is bad for Florida and especially to the individuals he will be speaking to on Saturday, the black community.
Florida through the FCAT has devastated our inner city mostly minority schools. So what is Robinson’s response? It’s to ratchet up the FCAT and he himself nonchalantly admits that an additional fifteen thousand tenth graders are likely to fail it next year. Where do these tenth graders go to school? Well the vast majority go to our inner city mostly minority schools. How many are going to drop out after they fail? What is an acceptable percentage?
An educator friend of mine said the new FCAT cut scores were like raising the bar on a pole-vaulter from twelve to fifteen feet. The problem is the pole-vaulter has never hit twelve. I said, oh, it’s like NASA of the sixties going, you know what lets skip the moon and head straight for Mars. Before we ratchet up the standards wouldn’t it make more sense to have more kids master the standards we already have?
He further shows how clueless and how distant he is from the reality of what is happening in our schools. In a Times Union interview he says what’s happened in Florida is actually mixed:
On one hand, you know all the atrocious statistics: the number who drop out, the number who graduate but are functionally illiterate, the number who end up in the prison system, we know that there are more black women than men enrolled in college. So that’s one side of the fence.
But there’s also another side if you look at the fact that Florida State University has had six Rhodes Scholar quarter finalists and two of them were actually black men. We need to equally celebrate the fact that two African-American Rhode Scholars for the nation have come out of Florida. You’ve got the president of STEMflorida, who is an African-American. So I just want to focus on the positive aspects not only in Florida but nationwide and use that to say that you’re bigger than you zip code and statistics may be fact, but they’re not always truth.
He equates the tens of thousands of African American kids graduated ill prepared for life with the success of a handful.
He says we have had a little good and a little bad.
No friends that’s not the case at all, we have had mostly bad and a sliver of good and his answer is to make things worse.
He shows how clueless he is when he says, The fact is that you may come from a home or neighborhood or zip code where many of the kids in your neighborhood didn’t finish — that may be a fact, but it’s not truth that you won’t finish high school, that you won’t go to college or that you won’t become a multi-millionaire.
Sure you might come out a millionaire but the odds are greater to the power of infinity that you’re not and him spewing such flowery rhetoric is boarder line criminal. We need realistic solutions to the problems in our struggling schools not flowery rhetoric.
We need year around schools for many of our kids so they have extra time to get the skills they need and then don’t lose them over the break. We need multiple curriculum's that play to kids strengths and interests instead of fitting them into a one size fits all everybody is going to go to college program and we need social workers and counselors because why so many kids act up in school often has nothing to do with school.
That’s what our kids need. Not some carpetbagger who hasn’t been in Florida for a year, saying, you can make it with just a little elbow grease.
Then he falls into the old blame the family trap. You know what that and fifty cents gets you? Whatever you can buy with fifty cents. We can no longer sit around and say if only little Johnnie’s dad would have given him a pop every now and then or Little Suzie's mom would have read to her that might have made it. No we need to draw a line in the sand and say schools are going to be platforms for change, it’s here where we are going to break the cycle of poverty.
He is right we have come a long way from Brown v. Board of Education, it’s just sad, that No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top and the rhetoric being sold from Tallahassee are taking us back to the time before.
The Florida legislature once again shows its priorities don’t include you
Let me ask you a question. If low taxes and lack of regulations are so important to businesses why is Florida in the position it is. We have one of the lowest corporate taxes in the nation, we don’t have an income tax and we are definitely pro business in our regulations, yet still our citizen's wages are low and unemployment is high.
According to the reasoning of Republicans in Tallahassee businesses should be fighting to get here but they are not and the few that are coming need bribes to do so.
How do I know this? Look at the latest budget proposal from the legislature. Not only does it include higher tuition, less road construction, lower payments to hospitals treating the poor but 73 million for corporations as well. Rick Scott by the way requested over two hundred millions for his slush fund and where 73 is several hundred million lower than last year’s corporate welfare number, what are we getting for it? Why do we need to give them anything?
Florida has several billion dollars, because of loopholes, annualy diverted from the state’s coffers. The legislature has refused to ask travel companies to pay taxes and likewise won’t tax internet purchases. Then our legislators cry poverty and look to raise college tuition and ignore our roads because we can't afford to fix them.
Maybe we need more money to go to education and infrastructure, maybe just maybe that is what businesses are looking for.
What good are low taxes if society crumbles around us?
According to the reasoning of Republicans in Tallahassee businesses should be fighting to get here but they are not and the few that are coming need bribes to do so.
How do I know this? Look at the latest budget proposal from the legislature. Not only does it include higher tuition, less road construction, lower payments to hospitals treating the poor but 73 million for corporations as well. Rick Scott by the way requested over two hundred millions for his slush fund and where 73 is several hundred million lower than last year’s corporate welfare number, what are we getting for it? Why do we need to give them anything?
Florida has several billion dollars, because of loopholes, annualy diverted from the state’s coffers. The legislature has refused to ask travel companies to pay taxes and likewise won’t tax internet purchases. Then our legislators cry poverty and look to raise college tuition and ignore our roads because we can't afford to fix them.
Maybe we need more money to go to education and infrastructure, maybe just maybe that is what businesses are looking for.
What good are low taxes if society crumbles around us?
Why should you listen to teachers? Nobody else does
With a nod to Modern School, from the Examiner.com
by David Reber
I’m going to step out of my usual third-person writing voice for a moment. As a parent I received a letter last week from the Kansas State Board of Education, informing me that my children’s school district had been placed on “improvement” status for failing to meet “adequate yearly progress” under the No Child Left Behind law.
I thought it ironic that our schools were judged inadequate by people who haven’t set foot in them, so I wrote a letter to my local newspaper. Predictably, my letter elicited a deluge of comments in the paper’s online forum. Many remarks came from armchair educators and anti-teacher, anti-public school evangelists quick to discredit anything I had to say under the rationale of “he’s a teacher.” What could a teacher possibly know about education?
Countless arguments used to denigrate public school teachers begin with the phrase “in what other profession….” and conclude with practically anything the anti-teacher pundits find offensive about public education. Due process and collective bargaining are favorite targets, as are the erroneous but tightly held beliefs that teachers are under-worked, over-paid (earning million-dollar pensions), and not accountable for anything.
In what other profession, indeed.
In what other profession are the licensed professionals considered the LEAST knowledgeable about the job? You seldom if ever hear “that guy couldn’t possibly know a thing about law enforcement – he’s a police officer”, or “she can’t be trusted talking about fire safety – she’s a firefighter.”
In what other profession is experience viewed as a liability rather than an asset? You won’t find a contractor advertising “choose me – I’ve never done this before”, and your doctor won’t recommend a surgeon on the basis of her “having very little experience with the procedure”.
In what other profession is the desire for competitive salary viewed as proof of callous indifference towards the job? You won’t hear many say “that lawyer charges a lot of money, she obviously doesn’t care about her clients”, or “that coach earns millions – clearly he doesn’t care about the team.”
But look around. You’ll find droves of armchair educators who summarily dismiss any statement about education when it comes from a teacher. Likewise, it’s easy to find politicians, pundits, and profiteers who refer to our veteran teachers as ineffective, overpriced “dead wood”. Only the rookies could possibly be any good, or worth the food-stamp-eligible starting salaries we pay them.
And if teachers dare ask for a raise, this is taken by many as clear evidence that teachers don’t give a porcupine’s posterior about kids. In fact, some say if teachers really cared about their students they would insist on earning LESS money.
If that entire attitude weren’t bad enough, what other profession is legally held to PERFECTION by 2014? Are police required to eliminate all crime? Are firefighters required to eliminate all fires? Are doctors required to cure all patients? Are lawyers required to win all cases? Are coaches required to win all games? Of course they aren’t.
For no other profession do so many outsiders refuse to accept the realities of an imperfect world. Crime happens. Fire happens. Illness happens. As for lawyers and coaches, where there’s a winner there must also be a loser. People accept all these realities, until they apply to public education.
If a poverty-stricken, drug-addled meth-cooker burns down his house, suffers third degree burns, and then goes to jail; we don’t blame the police, fire department, doctors, and defense attorneys for his predicament. But if that kid doesn’t graduate high school, it’s clearly the teacher’s fault.
And if someone – anyone - tries to tell you otherwise; don’t listen. He must be a teacher.
http://m.examiner.com/k-12-in-topeka/in-what-other-profession
by David Reber
I’m going to step out of my usual third-person writing voice for a moment. As a parent I received a letter last week from the Kansas State Board of Education, informing me that my children’s school district had been placed on “improvement” status for failing to meet “adequate yearly progress” under the No Child Left Behind law.
I thought it ironic that our schools were judged inadequate by people who haven’t set foot in them, so I wrote a letter to my local newspaper. Predictably, my letter elicited a deluge of comments in the paper’s online forum. Many remarks came from armchair educators and anti-teacher, anti-public school evangelists quick to discredit anything I had to say under the rationale of “he’s a teacher.” What could a teacher possibly know about education?
Countless arguments used to denigrate public school teachers begin with the phrase “in what other profession….” and conclude with practically anything the anti-teacher pundits find offensive about public education. Due process and collective bargaining are favorite targets, as are the erroneous but tightly held beliefs that teachers are under-worked, over-paid (earning million-dollar pensions), and not accountable for anything.
In what other profession, indeed.
In what other profession are the licensed professionals considered the LEAST knowledgeable about the job? You seldom if ever hear “that guy couldn’t possibly know a thing about law enforcement – he’s a police officer”, or “she can’t be trusted talking about fire safety – she’s a firefighter.”
In what other profession is experience viewed as a liability rather than an asset? You won’t find a contractor advertising “choose me – I’ve never done this before”, and your doctor won’t recommend a surgeon on the basis of her “having very little experience with the procedure”.
In what other profession is the desire for competitive salary viewed as proof of callous indifference towards the job? You won’t hear many say “that lawyer charges a lot of money, she obviously doesn’t care about her clients”, or “that coach earns millions – clearly he doesn’t care about the team.”
But look around. You’ll find droves of armchair educators who summarily dismiss any statement about education when it comes from a teacher. Likewise, it’s easy to find politicians, pundits, and profiteers who refer to our veteran teachers as ineffective, overpriced “dead wood”. Only the rookies could possibly be any good, or worth the food-stamp-eligible starting salaries we pay them.
And if teachers dare ask for a raise, this is taken by many as clear evidence that teachers don’t give a porcupine’s posterior about kids. In fact, some say if teachers really cared about their students they would insist on earning LESS money.
If that entire attitude weren’t bad enough, what other profession is legally held to PERFECTION by 2014? Are police required to eliminate all crime? Are firefighters required to eliminate all fires? Are doctors required to cure all patients? Are lawyers required to win all cases? Are coaches required to win all games? Of course they aren’t.
For no other profession do so many outsiders refuse to accept the realities of an imperfect world. Crime happens. Fire happens. Illness happens. As for lawyers and coaches, where there’s a winner there must also be a loser. People accept all these realities, until they apply to public education.
If a poverty-stricken, drug-addled meth-cooker burns down his house, suffers third degree burns, and then goes to jail; we don’t blame the police, fire department, doctors, and defense attorneys for his predicament. But if that kid doesn’t graduate high school, it’s clearly the teacher’s fault.
And if someone – anyone - tries to tell you otherwise; don’t listen. He must be a teacher.
http://m.examiner.com/k-12-in-topeka/in-what-other-profession
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