This was in the BBC News. I don't know if it is in the US papers. This was passed on to me from a group of concerned educators.
'Stealth racism' stalks deep South
By Tom Mangold, Louisiana
This World investigates the rise of discrimination in America's deep south as six black youths are charged with an alleged attack on a white student, which could see them jailed for up to 50 years.
Three rope nooses hanging from a tree in the courtyard of a school in a small Southern town in Louisiana have sparked fears of a new kind of "stealth" racism spreading through America's deep south.
Although this sinister episode happened last August, the repercussions have been extensive and today the town of Jena finds itself facing the unwelcome glare of national and international publicity.
Jena has a mixed community, 85% white, 12% black.
The bad old days of the "Mississippi Burning" 60s, civil liberties and race riots, lynchings, the KKK and police with billy clubs beating up blacks might have ended.
But in the year that the first serious black candidate for the White House, Barak Obama, is helping unite the races in the north, the developments in the tiny town of Jena are disturbing.
Nooses in the playground
It all began at Jena High School last summer when a black student, Kenneth Purvis, asked the school's principal whether he was permitted to sit under the shade of the school courtyard tree, a place traditionally reserved for white students only. He was told he could sit where he liked.
The following morning, when the students arrived at school, they found three nooses dangling from the tree.
Most whites in Jena dismissed it as a tasteless prank, but the minority black community identified the gesture as something far more vicious.
"It meant the KKK, it meant 'niggers we're going to kill you, we're gonna hang you 'til you die'," said Caseptla Bailey, one of the black community leaders.
Old racial fault lines in Jena began to fracture the town. It was made worse when - despite the school head recommending the noose-hangers be expelled - the board overruled him and the three white student perpetrators merely received a slap on the wrist.
Troubled community
Billy Doughty, the local barber, has never cut a black man's hair. But he does not think there is a racism problem in Jena.
Caseptla Bailey who is 56 and a former Air Force officer, has a degree in business management, but she cannot get a job as a bank teller. She lives in an area called Ward 10, which is where the majority of blacks live in trailers or wooden shacks. She says no whites live there at all.
"We want to live better, we want better housing." she says. "The Church says we should all be brothers and sisters in Christ".
Yet Sunday morning is perhaps one of the most segregated times in all of America. In the white neighbourhood, Pastor Dominick DiCarlo has only one black member of the Church, out of 450 resident members.
Race-related fights
As racial tension grew last autumn and winter, there were race-related fights between teenagers in town. On 4 December, racial tension boiled over once more at the school when a white student, Justin Barker, was attacked by a small group of black students.
He fell to the ground and hit his head on the concrete, suffering bruising and concussion.
He was treated at the local hospital and released, and that same evening felt able to put in an appearance at a school function.
District Attorney Reed Walters, to the astonishment of the black community, has upgraded the charges of Mr Barker's alleged attackers to conspiracy to commit second degree murder and attempted second degree murder. If convicted they could be 50 before they leave prison.
Mr Walters has refused to give an on-the-record interview to the BBC about his decision on the charges.
Mr Barker has since been charged with possessing a firearm in an arms-free zone (the school grounds).
The six black students will face a hearing next month. One of them is Caseptla Bailey's son Robert, who originally had his bail set at an unaffordable $138,000 (£69,495).
She had to hire a private lawyer who managed to get Robert's bail reduced to $84,000 (£42,285) so that her family could meet it.
Michelle Jones' brother Carwyn is one of the boys charged. She is adamant that he will not get a fair trial in Jena.
"If he's tried here, the jury will pick who they want. I have no doubt that they will convict those boys of attempted second degree murder."
When they do eventually file into court, many observers believe it is the town of Jena which will really be on trial.
This World: "Race hate in Louisiana" will be broadcast on Thursday 24 May 2007 at 1900 BST on BBC Two.
31 May, 2007
29 May, 2007
On Cindy Sheehan's decision to step down from the Anti-War Movement
I was crestfallen when I read that Cindy Sheehan gave up the fight. It didn't feel like there would be any opportunity for her to heal. It felt like she had experienced yet another death and was going home to mourn.
So much of what keeps most of us from fighting, let alone speaking and acting, is economics. I don't mean that people are too tired from working to do anything, though some people are. The classes live on different planes in this country. My at-risk students listen to Rap music and work jobs that barely pay the rent. To adapt to this life, they have shut out a great deal which does not have to do with pleasure. My college friends and I listen to left-wing radio, don't go out much and feel increasingly silenced. Three of my friends are teachers and they have found, like me, that having taught for many years does not give you any more voice in education. The more we work, the more we work, the less power we have.
It's a flaw of mine to want power, to feel that if I stand in the doorway of corruption, people won't just walk around me.
No matter how powerless I feel, listening to you, Randi, Sam and a few others, keeps me from just throwing in the towel. So your work keeps some of us alive.
But if there is one thing I wish we all could do, is plan, strategic, economic protests. If the left wing (the true left, that is) could start buying property, stocks in major companies and have financial leverage, we would strengthen our voices. Maybe that's a stock answer. I remember when ACT-UP starting getting the scientists on their side because both wanted more funding for AIDS research. Who are the interested parties in the peace movement? We know who stands to make money from war. Is there anyone who stands to make money from peace?
So much of what keeps most of us from fighting, let alone speaking and acting, is economics. I don't mean that people are too tired from working to do anything, though some people are. The classes live on different planes in this country. My at-risk students listen to Rap music and work jobs that barely pay the rent. To adapt to this life, they have shut out a great deal which does not have to do with pleasure. My college friends and I listen to left-wing radio, don't go out much and feel increasingly silenced. Three of my friends are teachers and they have found, like me, that having taught for many years does not give you any more voice in education. The more we work, the more we work, the less power we have.
It's a flaw of mine to want power, to feel that if I stand in the doorway of corruption, people won't just walk around me.
No matter how powerless I feel, listening to you, Randi, Sam and a few others, keeps me from just throwing in the towel. So your work keeps some of us alive.
But if there is one thing I wish we all could do, is plan, strategic, economic protests. If the left wing (the true left, that is) could start buying property, stocks in major companies and have financial leverage, we would strengthen our voices. Maybe that's a stock answer. I remember when ACT-UP starting getting the scientists on their side because both wanted more funding for AIDS research. Who are the interested parties in the peace movement? We know who stands to make money from war. Is there anyone who stands to make money from peace?
The Yankees: Perhaps the only tribe to still eat their young
I am a Yankee fan.
But, I hate the way the Yankees are managing things these days.
A few days ago, a young and talented pitcher , pitched five innings and allowed three runs. It was considered a respectable start.
That was Jered Weaver on the LA Angels.
Matt De Salvo does much the same thing -- granted, he loaded the bases with two outs at the end. But, doesn't that make it a fairly respectable start? Does he have to be described as "on loan from Triple A"?
Tyler Clippard let on three runs in four innings against Weaver. Then our relief pitchers came on and let in a ton more. Are they on loan from Triple A, too?
It's unprofessional. And it basically says that the kid, and therefore, the team, is only half baked.
I saw most of tonight's game. The opposing pitcher DID NOT have electric stuff. The kid had an ERA of over 7 and he had very little control. What he had was a lot of confidence, which the Yankees did not have. I saw Matsui (who eventually hit the only run) swing at a pitch as high as his shoulder and strike out. Everybody was reaching.
Perhaps what Torre meant to say was the whole team needs to go back to Triple A.
There are toxic buildings. And I think there are toxic combinations of people. For a while now, I have thought that our squads have not been put together with much forethought. Individual players have been matched to positions, but not to the balance of the team. It's a squad of heavy hitters. Homerun hitters strike out a lot. It's a squad of people who strike out a lot.
We need balance -- some people who can hit singles, etc. We also need people who get along.
A-Rod said that he feels more confident when he throws now because he knows Doug Mintkiewicz can catch anything. Over in Queens, Shawn Green, close friend of Carlos Delgado was brought in, in part because they are friends as well as that he fills a need for the team.
For whatever reason, this collection of people does not mesh. Too much of the same thing, perhaps. Not enough ying and yang. And no concern for the young.
But, I hate the way the Yankees are managing things these days.
A few days ago, a young and talented pitcher , pitched five innings and allowed three runs. It was considered a respectable start.
That was Jered Weaver on the LA Angels.
Matt De Salvo does much the same thing -- granted, he loaded the bases with two outs at the end. But, doesn't that make it a fairly respectable start? Does he have to be described as "on loan from Triple A"?
Tyler Clippard let on three runs in four innings against Weaver. Then our relief pitchers came on and let in a ton more. Are they on loan from Triple A, too?
It's unprofessional. And it basically says that the kid, and therefore, the team, is only half baked.
I saw most of tonight's game. The opposing pitcher DID NOT have electric stuff. The kid had an ERA of over 7 and he had very little control. What he had was a lot of confidence, which the Yankees did not have. I saw Matsui (who eventually hit the only run) swing at a pitch as high as his shoulder and strike out. Everybody was reaching.
Perhaps what Torre meant to say was the whole team needs to go back to Triple A.
There are toxic buildings. And I think there are toxic combinations of people. For a while now, I have thought that our squads have not been put together with much forethought. Individual players have been matched to positions, but not to the balance of the team. It's a squad of heavy hitters. Homerun hitters strike out a lot. It's a squad of people who strike out a lot.
We need balance -- some people who can hit singles, etc. We also need people who get along.
A-Rod said that he feels more confident when he throws now because he knows Doug Mintkiewicz can catch anything. Over in Queens, Shawn Green, close friend of Carlos Delgado was brought in, in part because they are friends as well as that he fills a need for the team.
For whatever reason, this collection of people does not mesh. Too much of the same thing, perhaps. Not enough ying and yang. And no concern for the young.
28 May, 2007
Troubled? Send us an email...
JUST FYI, BCNHS' graduation rate was pretty high -- I think higher than 56%...so I don't get it, at all...
Troubled kids get retooled schools
BY CARRIE MELAGODAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Posted Friday, May 25th 2007, 4:00 AM
The city is revamping its schools for troubled students and axing several failing programs - including schools for pregnant girls, officials said.
Next year, the four pregnancy schools and the last seven New Beginnings centers for students with behavioral problems will be phased out because of low attendance and poor performance.
Education officials will create a hotline, an e-mail address and referral centers in each borough designed to "triage" students in danger of dropping out, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said yesterday.
"Whatever life challenges or opportunities our students face, we have to find the individualized solutions," Klein said.
The city will create five more transfer schools - small, rigorous programs that have a 56% graduation rate for older students who are behind in credits, compared to 19% for such students at typical schools.
Yesterday's announcement comes amid a renewed focus on the city's graduation rate, which the city puts at 60% and the state calculates at 50%.
Education officials had retooled programs for problem students in 2003, when they announced the creation of 17 New Beginnings centers, one-year programs designed to boost students' performance so they can transfer back to their original school. Ten have already been shut down.
Critics of the pregnancy schools believed they were relics from a bygone era and applauded the Education Department's move.
But Giovanny Lantigua, 18, credits the Ida B. Wells school in Flushing, Queens, with keeping her on track while she was expecting.
"It was close to my home and more comfortable for me," said Lantigua, who now attends the Cascades transfer school in Manhattan and plans to graduate in January.
cmelago@nydailynews.comEnd Content Columns -->
Troubled kids get retooled schools
BY CARRIE MELAGODAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Posted Friday, May 25th 2007, 4:00 AM
The city is revamping its schools for troubled students and axing several failing programs - including schools for pregnant girls, officials said.
Next year, the four pregnancy schools and the last seven New Beginnings centers for students with behavioral problems will be phased out because of low attendance and poor performance.
Education officials will create a hotline, an e-mail address and referral centers in each borough designed to "triage" students in danger of dropping out, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said yesterday.
"Whatever life challenges or opportunities our students face, we have to find the individualized solutions," Klein said.
The city will create five more transfer schools - small, rigorous programs that have a 56% graduation rate for older students who are behind in credits, compared to 19% for such students at typical schools.
Yesterday's announcement comes amid a renewed focus on the city's graduation rate, which the city puts at 60% and the state calculates at 50%.
Education officials had retooled programs for problem students in 2003, when they announced the creation of 17 New Beginnings centers, one-year programs designed to boost students' performance so they can transfer back to their original school. Ten have already been shut down.
Critics of the pregnancy schools believed they were relics from a bygone era and applauded the Education Department's move.
But Giovanny Lantigua, 18, credits the Ida B. Wells school in Flushing, Queens, with keeping her on track while she was expecting.
"It was close to my home and more comfortable for me," said Lantigua, who now attends the Cascades transfer school in Manhattan and plans to graduate in January.
cmelago@nydailynews.comEnd Content Columns -->
27 May, 2007
26 May, 2007
Hillary taking money from Colombians...
from David Sirota
AP: Clinton Aides Being Paid By Colombian Government to Push Trade DealBy David SirotaWell, it's a bad week, and the depressing hits just keep on coming. In a stunning new report just out on the wire from the Associated Press, we find out that the Colombian Government - the government that the Washington Post notes collaborates with paramilitary gangs to execute union leaders - is now paying top aides to Sen. Hillary Clinton hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to help get Congress to pass the U.S.-Colombian Free Trade Agreement:
"According to Justice Department filings, Colombia agreed this month to pay $300,000 to public relations firm Burson-Marsteller - whose president, Mark Penn, is a senior advisor to Sen. Clinton - to help "educate members of the U.S. Congress and other audiences" about the trade deal and secure continued U.S. funding for the $5 billion anti-narcotics program Plan Colombia.The filings also show that last month Uribe’s government put The Glover Park Group, a Washington D.C.-based lobbying firm that includes former Clinton spokesman Joe Lockhart, on a $40,000 a month retainer."
AP reports that "last month, former Vice President Al Gore backed out of an environmental conference in Miami to avoid appearing alongside Uribe, who has struggled to defend himself against charges that members of his family and government supporters collaborated with murderous right-wing militias." Yet on June 8, former President Clinton will attend a Colombian government gala in his honor. AP says that "prominent Democrats on the guest list include former Clinton strategists Dick Morris and Vernon Jordan, former Clinton Cabinet members Lawrence Summers and Madeleine Albright, and several Democratic congressmen." Morris, by the way, just penned an article referring to the scandal-plagued, paramilitary-connected Uribe as a "democratic beacon."Again, this is a government that actively colludes with paramilitary gangs to execute union organizers, and is now pushing the United States Congress to give it a gift in the form of a free trade agreement. I really have nothing more to add other than to say again that we really do live in dark times.
AP: Clinton Aides Being Paid By Colombian Government to Push Trade DealBy David SirotaWell, it's a bad week, and the depressing hits just keep on coming. In a stunning new report just out on the wire from the Associated Press, we find out that the Colombian Government - the government that the Washington Post notes collaborates with paramilitary gangs to execute union leaders - is now paying top aides to Sen. Hillary Clinton hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to help get Congress to pass the U.S.-Colombian Free Trade Agreement:
"According to Justice Department filings, Colombia agreed this month to pay $300,000 to public relations firm Burson-Marsteller - whose president, Mark Penn, is a senior advisor to Sen. Clinton - to help "educate members of the U.S. Congress and other audiences" about the trade deal and secure continued U.S. funding for the $5 billion anti-narcotics program Plan Colombia.The filings also show that last month Uribe’s government put The Glover Park Group, a Washington D.C.-based lobbying firm that includes former Clinton spokesman Joe Lockhart, on a $40,000 a month retainer."
AP reports that "last month, former Vice President Al Gore backed out of an environmental conference in Miami to avoid appearing alongside Uribe, who has struggled to defend himself against charges that members of his family and government supporters collaborated with murderous right-wing militias." Yet on June 8, former President Clinton will attend a Colombian government gala in his honor. AP says that "prominent Democrats on the guest list include former Clinton strategists Dick Morris and Vernon Jordan, former Clinton Cabinet members Lawrence Summers and Madeleine Albright, and several Democratic congressmen." Morris, by the way, just penned an article referring to the scandal-plagued, paramilitary-connected Uribe as a "democratic beacon."Again, this is a government that actively colludes with paramilitary gangs to execute union organizers, and is now pushing the United States Congress to give it a gift in the form of a free trade agreement. I really have nothing more to add other than to say again that we really do live in dark times.
25 May, 2007
Run, Al, Run!
I'll add my small, marginal voice to the list of people wanting Al Gore to run.
Gore/Edwards ...because no one else has the experience, decency or the common sense.
I imagine Gore and Edwards just letting themselves speak freely. They could have a running refrain about Bush/Hilary Clinton/Barack Obama policy (because they're all doing the same thing). They could look at the choices our government has made and just say, "What were you thinking?"
Gore/Edwards ...because no one else has the experience, decency or the common sense.
I imagine Gore and Edwards just letting themselves speak freely. They could have a running refrain about Bush/Hilary Clinton/Barack Obama policy (because they're all doing the same thing). They could look at the choices our government has made and just say, "What were you thinking?"
The way not to run a team...
Don't plan to have a solid pitching staff... If someone is only GOOD like Gil Meche or Ted Lilly...don't buy him....better to have nobody than JUST GOOD pitchers. Oh, and don't buy relievers recommended by your solid, decent players. Look for a bargain fourth starter who, himself, admits that he's no star...
Hope that next year you can buy somebody who was amazing a few years ago. Don't look at who's amazing now, though. After all, what's the chance that Santana will get injured as he gets a bit older...Take the risk. Go ahead. Wait. Just Wait. Wait till next year! (Oh yeah, that's the Cubs slogan...)
Here's just a list of few good people we refused to buy because they weren't brilliant. And who needs them? Who wants to watch someone just keep the team in the game with their smarts and not their stuff?
Gil Meche
Ted Lilly -- not enough of a star to buy back. JUST GOOD.
Jamie Moyer -- met the age requirement, but just too plain consistent.
Barry Zito -- too expensive? Do you know how much we've paid Carl Pavano?
Daisuke Matsuzaka -- Actually, he was brilliant, but we gave him up for Lent or Yom Kippur or Ramadan or something...
Hideki Okajima --recommended by Matsui. Were we afraid he would be JUST RELIABLE?
Pedro Martinez --What? Were we afraid that having both Pedro and then eventually Damon would turn us into the Red Sox? I love Damon, but we took a fielder with a decent bat and no arm instead of a pitcher with a pretty decent arm who hits batters. Clemens hits batters.
Greg Maddux -- same problem as Jamie Moyer.
Tom Glavine -- same problem as Maddux and Moyer.
And here are some inexpensive pretty reliable guys we could have had
Steve Trachsel (I know he got injured in the playoffs. But didn't Clemens get blown up in some pretty important games for us? How about Mussina? If we care so much about the playoffs, where the heck is El DUQUE? Besides we have to GET TO the playoffs...)
Mark Redman -All right, he didn't do well for the Braves this year, but how much worse has he done than our cheap fourth starter from Japan...
Jason Marquis (granted, he had a bad year last year...but he's doing fine this year)
Jeff Suppan (I hate his politics, so I wasn't so interested. But, I doubt that's why Cashman turned his nose up.)
Brian Lawrence (One of Cashman's few smart moves was buying Jon Leiber and waiting for him to heal from his Tommy John surgery. He was very consistent. That of course meant we didn't re-sign him.)
Jon Lieber
Don't get a pitching coach with a scientific method or who specializes on re-treads or anything. Just expect your pitchers to be great forever. I'm sure Guidry does his best, but I don't think he was brought in to make guys better...Stottlemyre was a guy who liked to work with veterans and I didn't hear that we were shifting gears in hiring Guidry. That's okay, after all, maybe you can get two-for-one like you did with Andy Pettite -- don't buy him when he's not perfect, let him learn to pitch somewhere else -- then come back. Yeah, that could happen again...really. All we need is a pitching coach who trusts people to just be who they are...stars. Buy stars and let them be stars. Stars don't need coaching...
But, never ever be prepared to fix someone who's not perfect/experiencing trouble. After all, who are you, Baltimore? Oh yeah, Baltimore is having a pretty good season..Oh yeah, and didn't the Cardinals win the World Series with Dave Duncan who specializes in re-treads as their pitching coach? So what if Steve Trachsel has been more reliable than Mike Mussina or the battery of starters we have burned through. There is NO POINT in working with a pitcher with problems. Who needs consistency and a low ERA? We want brilliant pitching or nothing!
Oh, and so what if Trachsel outpitched us...He's still no (Fill in the name of a pitcher we don't have but are waiting, hoping to kind of buy. ) I'd rather have no pitcher than an okay one.
Five brilliant pitchers or nothing! After all, we have great fielders and they are learning to field behind nothing! So what if people come to us and consistently get worse. It's just "New York jitters". Yeah. Some pitchers instantly lose their mechanics the closer they get to the subway. It's a magnetic thing....
Bring up young kids and expect a miracle...
Hire veterans and expect them to be young kids...
Oh and bury your young fielding talent...Melky will learn a lot on the bench. Just keep playing Abreu while he doesn't hit...don't give Melky more time...Maybe when he's, say, 35, he can
earn a full time spot. But, then he won't be perfect and we'll trade him for someone a year older.
Oh, and put together a line-up with only ONE right handed-power hitter. So what if YOUR OWN RADIO ANNOUNCER NOTICES AND WONDERS WHY? (Thanks to John Sterling for pointing that out. Sterling and Waldman have been the only highlights of some games for me.)
The Yankees are still my team. I am just speaking my mind.
Can you imagine being a young pitcher in this organization? If I don't shine every time, I'll never be seen again...
If I were a star youngster, I'd get myself traded someplace else. Like St. Louis. Or Baltimore. Or the Mets. Or Detroit. Somewhere where they can cultivate young talent and work with pitchers.
I know we shelled him, but John Maine is having an otherwise great season. But, he was a re-tread...
Oh, and AS I WRITE THIS, EL DUQUE pitched SIX INNINGS giving up NO RUNS. But, we don't work with people who aren't perfect anymore.
Unless they are
1) Completely washed out (Pavano)
2) Highly neurotic and tempermental (Mussina)
3) Over 40 and semi-retired (Clemens)
They're still my team. But, to steal from ex-Yankee David Wells, "Perfect, they're not!" (Wells is pitching well this year...of course, we only buy people over 40 who are semi-retired or in decline...)
I don't want them to be perfect.
I'd settle for good.
Hope that next year you can buy somebody who was amazing a few years ago. Don't look at who's amazing now, though. After all, what's the chance that Santana will get injured as he gets a bit older...Take the risk. Go ahead. Wait. Just Wait. Wait till next year! (Oh yeah, that's the Cubs slogan...)
Here's just a list of few good people we refused to buy because they weren't brilliant. And who needs them? Who wants to watch someone just keep the team in the game with their smarts and not their stuff?
Gil Meche
Ted Lilly -- not enough of a star to buy back. JUST GOOD.
Jamie Moyer -- met the age requirement, but just too plain consistent.
Barry Zito -- too expensive? Do you know how much we've paid Carl Pavano?
Daisuke Matsuzaka -- Actually, he was brilliant, but we gave him up for Lent or Yom Kippur or Ramadan or something...
Hideki Okajima --recommended by Matsui. Were we afraid he would be JUST RELIABLE?
Pedro Martinez --What? Were we afraid that having both Pedro and then eventually Damon would turn us into the Red Sox? I love Damon, but we took a fielder with a decent bat and no arm instead of a pitcher with a pretty decent arm who hits batters. Clemens hits batters.
Greg Maddux -- same problem as Jamie Moyer.
Tom Glavine -- same problem as Maddux and Moyer.
And here are some inexpensive pretty reliable guys we could have had
Steve Trachsel (I know he got injured in the playoffs. But didn't Clemens get blown up in some pretty important games for us? How about Mussina? If we care so much about the playoffs, where the heck is El DUQUE? Besides we have to GET TO the playoffs...)
Mark Redman -All right, he didn't do well for the Braves this year, but how much worse has he done than our cheap fourth starter from Japan...
Jason Marquis (granted, he had a bad year last year...but he's doing fine this year)
Jeff Suppan (I hate his politics, so I wasn't so interested. But, I doubt that's why Cashman turned his nose up.)
Brian Lawrence (One of Cashman's few smart moves was buying Jon Leiber and waiting for him to heal from his Tommy John surgery. He was very consistent. That of course meant we didn't re-sign him.)
Jon Lieber
Don't get a pitching coach with a scientific method or who specializes on re-treads or anything. Just expect your pitchers to be great forever. I'm sure Guidry does his best, but I don't think he was brought in to make guys better...Stottlemyre was a guy who liked to work with veterans and I didn't hear that we were shifting gears in hiring Guidry. That's okay, after all, maybe you can get two-for-one like you did with Andy Pettite -- don't buy him when he's not perfect, let him learn to pitch somewhere else -- then come back. Yeah, that could happen again...really. All we need is a pitching coach who trusts people to just be who they are...stars. Buy stars and let them be stars. Stars don't need coaching...
But, never ever be prepared to fix someone who's not perfect/experiencing trouble. After all, who are you, Baltimore? Oh yeah, Baltimore is having a pretty good season..Oh yeah, and didn't the Cardinals win the World Series with Dave Duncan who specializes in re-treads as their pitching coach? So what if Steve Trachsel has been more reliable than Mike Mussina or the battery of starters we have burned through. There is NO POINT in working with a pitcher with problems. Who needs consistency and a low ERA? We want brilliant pitching or nothing!
Oh, and so what if Trachsel outpitched us...He's still no (Fill in the name of a pitcher we don't have but are waiting, hoping to kind of buy. ) I'd rather have no pitcher than an okay one.
Five brilliant pitchers or nothing! After all, we have great fielders and they are learning to field behind nothing! So what if people come to us and consistently get worse. It's just "New York jitters". Yeah. Some pitchers instantly lose their mechanics the closer they get to the subway. It's a magnetic thing....
Bring up young kids and expect a miracle...
Hire veterans and expect them to be young kids...
Oh and bury your young fielding talent...Melky will learn a lot on the bench. Just keep playing Abreu while he doesn't hit...don't give Melky more time...Maybe when he's, say, 35, he can
earn a full time spot. But, then he won't be perfect and we'll trade him for someone a year older.
Oh, and put together a line-up with only ONE right handed-power hitter. So what if YOUR OWN RADIO ANNOUNCER NOTICES AND WONDERS WHY? (Thanks to John Sterling for pointing that out. Sterling and Waldman have been the only highlights of some games for me.)
The Yankees are still my team. I am just speaking my mind.
Can you imagine being a young pitcher in this organization? If I don't shine every time, I'll never be seen again...
If I were a star youngster, I'd get myself traded someplace else. Like St. Louis. Or Baltimore. Or the Mets. Or Detroit. Somewhere where they can cultivate young talent and work with pitchers.
I know we shelled him, but John Maine is having an otherwise great season. But, he was a re-tread...
Oh, and AS I WRITE THIS, EL DUQUE pitched SIX INNINGS giving up NO RUNS. But, we don't work with people who aren't perfect anymore.
Unless they are
1) Completely washed out (Pavano)
2) Highly neurotic and tempermental (Mussina)
3) Over 40 and semi-retired (Clemens)
They're still my team. But, to steal from ex-Yankee David Wells, "Perfect, they're not!" (Wells is pitching well this year...of course, we only buy people over 40 who are semi-retired or in decline...)
I don't want them to be perfect.
I'd settle for good.
24 May, 2007
22 May, 2007
18 May, 2007
Bill Moyers does PBS special on secret deal tonight
check www.pbs.org for your local stations' times....
17 May, 2007
16 May, 2007
Obama leary of bad business
Sirotablog
Real-world wisdom from outside the beltway.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
SECRET TRADE DEAL - DAY 6: Senator Says K Street Getting "Wink & Nod" From Bush
This is another in a series of ongoing posts following the announcement of a secret free trade deal on May 10, 2007 between a handful of senior Democrats and the Bush administration.
Six days after the press conference announcing a secret free trade deal between Democratic congressional leaders and the Bush White House, a full-scale revolt appears to be brewing on Capitol Hill. Rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers have demanded an immediate debate about the deal, and Democratic leaders have responded by rejecting such a request. A top Democratic senator says K Street is receiving a "wink and nod" from the White House that the final legislative language - which has not been made public - will allow the Bush administration to avoid enforcing any of the much-touted standards in the deal. GOP leaders, meanwhile, are signaling that the deal will not be incorporated into the core text of trade agreements at all. And, of course, almost every news outlet has refused to report that top K Street lobbyists have said they have received "assurances" that the deal's provisions on labor and the environment will be unenforceable. Here's today's full news report.
EMANUEL NIXES DEMS' DEMAND FOR OPEN DEBATE ON THE SECRET DEAL: As first reported on this website yesterday, Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) nixed a bid by rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers to hold a Democratic Caucus meeting to discuss the secret trade deal. The request, first made by lawmakers in a letter to Emanuel last week, was initially "rebuffed," then accepted, and then at the last minute, Emanuel pulled the plug. Emanuel was one of the key players in pushing NAFTA through Congress as an aide to President Clinton in the early 1990s. Responding to the reporting of this story, a spokeswoman for Emanuel's office this morning emailed me to say that the cancellation of the trade debate occurred because of "time constraints" and that Emanuel has now promised the caucus "we would continue with our plan to have a trade-focused caucus meeting soon." He did not set a date certain for that meeting.
GOP AND WHITE HOUSE SAY TRADE DEALS WILL NOT BE RE-WRITTEN AS PROMISED: Yesterday afternoon, industry newsletter Inside U.S. Trade reported that House Ways and Means Ranking Member Jim McCrery (R-LA) "said it is his preference and that of U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab that the new obligations for free trade agreements announced last week not lead to a reopening of the Peru free trade agreement." This follow's McCrery's claim yesterday that the secret deal can be completed "in a way that does not require Peru's political system to revisit the deal all over again." In laymans terms, the enforceability of the promised labor and environmental provisions hinge on the Peru and Panama free trade agreements being reopened so that their texts can be modified. As NAFTA has shown, so-called "side agreements" that are not written into the text of the actual trade texts have proven entirely unenforceable because they are not part of the core agreement. If the Peru and Panama deals are not, in fact, going to be reopened and renegotiated, then the highly touted promises of adding enforceable labor and environmental provisions to the core texts of trade agreements appear to be in question. This may explain why the Bush-connected head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has told reporters he has received "assurances that the labor provisions [in the deal] cannot be read to require compliance."
KOREAN GOVERNMENT SAYS IT WILL REFUSE TO RENEGOTIATE: The Korea Herald reports that "South Korean negotiators are not going to give in to a possible request by U.S. trade negotiators for renegotiations of their recently concluded bilateral free trade agreement." The secret deal would supposedly require South Korea to add labor and environmental provisions to a previously negotiated - but not yet ratified - trade agreement with the United States. But "the Korean government firmly says renegotiations are out of the question." An official with the Korea-U.S. FTA Negotiation Division at the Korea Trade Ministray said, "The Korean government is adamant about having no renegotiations." Korea currently abides by just one of the seven ILO core provisions. Will the U.S. back down in the face of such bullying?
BROWN - K STREET IS GETTING 'WINK AND NOD' FROM WHITE HOUSE: In an exclusive interview with CNN's Lou Dobbs on Tuesday, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) said he is most concerned with the secret deal's lack of teeth, saying "I see no sign yet that [the Bush administration] wants to enforce" the labor and environmental standards supposedly included in the deal. Responding to comments by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers who have said the stasndards will be unenforceable, Broown said "they're kind of getting a wink and a nod" from the White House that the standards "are not going to be enforced." Brown is the author of the book "The Myths of Free Trade" and ran his successful Senate campaign against lobbyist-written trade deals. He is considered one of Congress's top leaders on trade, yet was kept in the dark about the details of the deal.
WSJ - FAIR TRADERS "LOST" IN THE DEAL: The conservative editorial board of the Wall Street Journal applauded the secret deal, saying it represents a major defeat for the progressive movement. Fair traders ""wanted the U.S. to abide by the core principles of the International Labor Organization" and "wanted third parties -- such as the AFL-CIO -- to be able to file trade complaints" but "they lost on both counts." The deal asks the White House "to abide only by...general aspirations about curtailing forced labor and the like, rather than specific legal obligations." International tribunals, which have the power to overturn U.S. local/state/federal environmental and consumer protection laws when corporations file suits, will "have no power to alter U.S. law" when similar complaints are brought up on labor concerns.
MSNBC - OBAMA "SOUNDS WARY OF THE DEAL": MSNBC reports that in public appearances this week on the presidential campaign trail, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) "sounded wary of this deal." He said, “We haven’t actually seen the details…. I want to wait and see what exactly the language is” and make sure the union provisions are strong and enforceable.
MACHINISTS OPPOSE DEAL, SLAM SECRECY: In a press release, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) announced "it will vigorously oppose any trade deal that fails to fully incorporate internationally recognized labor standards as defined by the International Labor Organization." IAM President Tom Buffenbarger said, “The actual text of the agreement has not yet been made available and widely varying reports of its contents raise serious and troubling questions." IAM said it "is highly suspicious that the trade deal is seriously deficient" not only because of its potentially unenforceable standards, but because of other "procurement and investment issues." The Politico reports that "several unions are already mobilizing to defeat" the deal.
CITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION SIGNALS CROSS-OVER OPPOSITION TO CURRENT TRADE POLICIES: Public Citizen reports that the Hermiston, Oregon City Council unanimously passed a “Resolution to Retain Local Jobs” last night, in a vote of 7-0. The resolution calls on Congress to “oppose international trade agreements that facilitate to the offshoring of Oregon jobs” and to replace Fast Track trade promotion authority with “democratic” and “inclusive” trade policymaking procedures. Area residents, many of whom had lost jobs when the Simplot processing plant moved abroad under the North American Free Trade Agreement, testified in support of the resolution at last night’s City Council meeting. Loaded Orygun notes that "Hermiston is nestled in Umatilla County, which is a very RED area of Oregon" represented by archconservative Rep. Greg Walden (R) - "a willing participant in voting yes for these free trade agreements." Could 2008 be another year where complicity in our current trade policy proves to be a critical election issue
Real-world wisdom from outside the beltway.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
SECRET TRADE DEAL - DAY 6: Senator Says K Street Getting "Wink & Nod" From Bush
This is another in a series of ongoing posts following the announcement of a secret free trade deal on May 10, 2007 between a handful of senior Democrats and the Bush administration.
Six days after the press conference announcing a secret free trade deal between Democratic congressional leaders and the Bush White House, a full-scale revolt appears to be brewing on Capitol Hill. Rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers have demanded an immediate debate about the deal, and Democratic leaders have responded by rejecting such a request. A top Democratic senator says K Street is receiving a "wink and nod" from the White House that the final legislative language - which has not been made public - will allow the Bush administration to avoid enforcing any of the much-touted standards in the deal. GOP leaders, meanwhile, are signaling that the deal will not be incorporated into the core text of trade agreements at all. And, of course, almost every news outlet has refused to report that top K Street lobbyists have said they have received "assurances" that the deal's provisions on labor and the environment will be unenforceable. Here's today's full news report.
EMANUEL NIXES DEMS' DEMAND FOR OPEN DEBATE ON THE SECRET DEAL: As first reported on this website yesterday, Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) nixed a bid by rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers to hold a Democratic Caucus meeting to discuss the secret trade deal. The request, first made by lawmakers in a letter to Emanuel last week, was initially "rebuffed," then accepted, and then at the last minute, Emanuel pulled the plug. Emanuel was one of the key players in pushing NAFTA through Congress as an aide to President Clinton in the early 1990s. Responding to the reporting of this story, a spokeswoman for Emanuel's office this morning emailed me to say that the cancellation of the trade debate occurred because of "time constraints" and that Emanuel has now promised the caucus "we would continue with our plan to have a trade-focused caucus meeting soon." He did not set a date certain for that meeting.
GOP AND WHITE HOUSE SAY TRADE DEALS WILL NOT BE RE-WRITTEN AS PROMISED: Yesterday afternoon, industry newsletter Inside U.S. Trade reported that House Ways and Means Ranking Member Jim McCrery (R-LA) "said it is his preference and that of U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab that the new obligations for free trade agreements announced last week not lead to a reopening of the Peru free trade agreement." This follow's McCrery's claim yesterday that the secret deal can be completed "in a way that does not require Peru's political system to revisit the deal all over again." In laymans terms, the enforceability of the promised labor and environmental provisions hinge on the Peru and Panama free trade agreements being reopened so that their texts can be modified. As NAFTA has shown, so-called "side agreements" that are not written into the text of the actual trade texts have proven entirely unenforceable because they are not part of the core agreement. If the Peru and Panama deals are not, in fact, going to be reopened and renegotiated, then the highly touted promises of adding enforceable labor and environmental provisions to the core texts of trade agreements appear to be in question. This may explain why the Bush-connected head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has told reporters he has received "assurances that the labor provisions [in the deal] cannot be read to require compliance."
KOREAN GOVERNMENT SAYS IT WILL REFUSE TO RENEGOTIATE: The Korea Herald reports that "South Korean negotiators are not going to give in to a possible request by U.S. trade negotiators for renegotiations of their recently concluded bilateral free trade agreement." The secret deal would supposedly require South Korea to add labor and environmental provisions to a previously negotiated - but not yet ratified - trade agreement with the United States. But "the Korean government firmly says renegotiations are out of the question." An official with the Korea-U.S. FTA Negotiation Division at the Korea Trade Ministray said, "The Korean government is adamant about having no renegotiations." Korea currently abides by just one of the seven ILO core provisions. Will the U.S. back down in the face of such bullying?
BROWN - K STREET IS GETTING 'WINK AND NOD' FROM WHITE HOUSE: In an exclusive interview with CNN's Lou Dobbs on Tuesday, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) said he is most concerned with the secret deal's lack of teeth, saying "I see no sign yet that [the Bush administration] wants to enforce" the labor and environmental standards supposedly included in the deal. Responding to comments by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers who have said the stasndards will be unenforceable, Broown said "they're kind of getting a wink and a nod" from the White House that the standards "are not going to be enforced." Brown is the author of the book "The Myths of Free Trade" and ran his successful Senate campaign against lobbyist-written trade deals. He is considered one of Congress's top leaders on trade, yet was kept in the dark about the details of the deal.
WSJ - FAIR TRADERS "LOST" IN THE DEAL: The conservative editorial board of the Wall Street Journal applauded the secret deal, saying it represents a major defeat for the progressive movement. Fair traders ""wanted the U.S. to abide by the core principles of the International Labor Organization" and "wanted third parties -- such as the AFL-CIO -- to be able to file trade complaints" but "they lost on both counts." The deal asks the White House "to abide only by...general aspirations about curtailing forced labor and the like, rather than specific legal obligations." International tribunals, which have the power to overturn U.S. local/state/federal environmental and consumer protection laws when corporations file suits, will "have no power to alter U.S. law" when similar complaints are brought up on labor concerns.
MSNBC - OBAMA "SOUNDS WARY OF THE DEAL": MSNBC reports that in public appearances this week on the presidential campaign trail, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) "sounded wary of this deal." He said, “We haven’t actually seen the details…. I want to wait and see what exactly the language is” and make sure the union provisions are strong and enforceable.
MACHINISTS OPPOSE DEAL, SLAM SECRECY: In a press release, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) announced "it will vigorously oppose any trade deal that fails to fully incorporate internationally recognized labor standards as defined by the International Labor Organization." IAM President Tom Buffenbarger said, “The actual text of the agreement has not yet been made available and widely varying reports of its contents raise serious and troubling questions." IAM said it "is highly suspicious that the trade deal is seriously deficient" not only because of its potentially unenforceable standards, but because of other "procurement and investment issues." The Politico reports that "several unions are already mobilizing to defeat" the deal.
CITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION SIGNALS CROSS-OVER OPPOSITION TO CURRENT TRADE POLICIES: Public Citizen reports that the Hermiston, Oregon City Council unanimously passed a “Resolution to Retain Local Jobs” last night, in a vote of 7-0. The resolution calls on Congress to “oppose international trade agreements that facilitate to the offshoring of Oregon jobs” and to replace Fast Track trade promotion authority with “democratic” and “inclusive” trade policymaking procedures. Area residents, many of whom had lost jobs when the Simplot processing plant moved abroad under the North American Free Trade Agreement, testified in support of the resolution at last night’s City Council meeting. Loaded Orygun notes that "Hermiston is nestled in Umatilla County, which is a very RED area of Oregon" represented by archconservative Rep. Greg Walden (R) - "a willing participant in voting yes for these free trade agreements." Could 2008 be another year where complicity in our current trade policy proves to be a critical election issue
15 May, 2007
Bad Business
Sirotablog
Real-world wisdom from outside the beltway.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
THE SECRET DEAL - DAY 5: Health & Enviro Advocates Slam the Deal
This is another in a series of ongoing posts following the announcement of a secret free trade deal on May 10, 2007 between a handful of senior Democrats and the Bush administration.
It is now five days since a handful of senior Democrats joined with the Bush administration to announce a new "deal" on free trade, while refusing to release the actual legislative language of the deal. Today, environmental and health advocates have come out slamming the deal, noting like other grassroots groups that what the deal doesn't cover says as much about its potential problems as does the secrecy the deal is shrouded in. Additionally, trade experts at Public Citizen issued a backgrounder on the deal, available for download here. Here's today's update.
MCCRERY - PERU AND PANAMA WILL BE RAMMED THROUGH CONGRESS BY AUGUST: CongressDaily reports that House Ways and Means ranking member Jim McCrery (R-LA) "said last week's bipartisan agreement on a framework for trade agreements smoothes the way for trade deals with Peru and Panama to pass with strong House majorities." He said, "My hope is we will have the two on the floor before we leave for the August break, but that may be ambitious." Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is still saying he thinks he can only attract at most less than a majority of his own caucus, even though he is pushing forward with the secret deal. Inexplicably, McCrery additionally said that the Peru trade agreement - whose text is being kept secret - would have to be changed and approved by Peru in a legally binding way, but "in a way that does not require Peru's political system to revisit the deal all over again" (so much for that thing called "democracy" when it gets in K Street's way).
NAM URGES RANGEL TO "STAND UP TO THE LEFTIES": The National Association of Manufacturers, which has long pushed for trade deals that incentivize job outsourcing, published a blog post on its website congratulating Rep. Charlie Rangel (D) for negotiating the secret deal, and specifically urging him to "stands his ground against the withering barrage he'll get from some of the lefties."
LEADING ADVOCATE FOR PATENT REFORM RAISES RED FLAGS: James Love, one of the nation's leading advocates for drug patent reform, issued a press release through his organization Knowledge Ecology International raising significant red flags about the secret deal. He said that many of the most important provisions are "unfortunately bound to a poorly drafted side letter, rather than a plain language [in the trade deals' text] that makes it clear that countries can waive or limit the exclusive right when it is necessary to protect patient interests." Additionally, he said the deal "does not address the current problem of USTR attacking countries for actually using such measures as compulsory licensing of patents" when trading partner countries (such as Thailand) face public health crises.
AIDS GROUPS DECRY SECRECY OF DEAL, DEBUNK MYTHS: A group of organizations that fight AIDS in the developing world issued a press release decrying the secretive process by which the deal was negotiated and the concealment of the trade deals' legislative language, nothing that "details and specificity are of crucial importance." The groups also note that "it is not true, as some news accounts have suggested, that the May 11 deal will limit brand-name drug companies' patent and related monopolies."
LEADING ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS SAY DEAL IS "NOT SUFFICIENT": Leading environmental groups Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, Friends of the Earth, Sierra Club issued a joint statement saying that "although last week’s agreement reflects progress on environmental issues in the Peru and Panama FTAs, it is not a sufficient template for trade agreements generally or for presidential trade negotiating authority." The groups said the secret trade deal "will still provide foreign corporations the right to directly attack public health and environmental measures, and will not fully protect environmental laws from other trade challenges."
DLC ATTACKS TRADE CRITICS, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES RESPOND BY FLOCKING TO DLC CONFERENCE: The Memphis Commercial Appeal reports that the Democratic Leadership Council, which endorsed the secret deal and which has long pushed lobbyist-written trade deals like NAFTA and China PNTR, just released an op-ed attacking free trade critics. Days after the report was made public, the group announced that leading Democratic presidential contenders will be speaking at the DLC's annual conference this year in June.
Posted by David Sirota at 4:50 AM
Real-world wisdom from outside the beltway.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
THE SECRET DEAL - DAY 5: Health & Enviro Advocates Slam the Deal
This is another in a series of ongoing posts following the announcement of a secret free trade deal on May 10, 2007 between a handful of senior Democrats and the Bush administration.
It is now five days since a handful of senior Democrats joined with the Bush administration to announce a new "deal" on free trade, while refusing to release the actual legislative language of the deal. Today, environmental and health advocates have come out slamming the deal, noting like other grassroots groups that what the deal doesn't cover says as much about its potential problems as does the secrecy the deal is shrouded in. Additionally, trade experts at Public Citizen issued a backgrounder on the deal, available for download here. Here's today's update.
MCCRERY - PERU AND PANAMA WILL BE RAMMED THROUGH CONGRESS BY AUGUST: CongressDaily reports that House Ways and Means ranking member Jim McCrery (R-LA) "said last week's bipartisan agreement on a framework for trade agreements smoothes the way for trade deals with Peru and Panama to pass with strong House majorities." He said, "My hope is we will have the two on the floor before we leave for the August break, but that may be ambitious." Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is still saying he thinks he can only attract at most less than a majority of his own caucus, even though he is pushing forward with the secret deal. Inexplicably, McCrery additionally said that the Peru trade agreement - whose text is being kept secret - would have to be changed and approved by Peru in a legally binding way, but "in a way that does not require Peru's political system to revisit the deal all over again" (so much for that thing called "democracy" when it gets in K Street's way).
NAM URGES RANGEL TO "STAND UP TO THE LEFTIES": The National Association of Manufacturers, which has long pushed for trade deals that incentivize job outsourcing, published a blog post on its website congratulating Rep. Charlie Rangel (D) for negotiating the secret deal, and specifically urging him to "stands his ground against the withering barrage he'll get from some of the lefties."
LEADING ADVOCATE FOR PATENT REFORM RAISES RED FLAGS: James Love, one of the nation's leading advocates for drug patent reform, issued a press release through his organization Knowledge Ecology International raising significant red flags about the secret deal. He said that many of the most important provisions are "unfortunately bound to a poorly drafted side letter, rather than a plain language [in the trade deals' text] that makes it clear that countries can waive or limit the exclusive right when it is necessary to protect patient interests." Additionally, he said the deal "does not address the current problem of USTR attacking countries for actually using such measures as compulsory licensing of patents" when trading partner countries (such as Thailand) face public health crises.
AIDS GROUPS DECRY SECRECY OF DEAL, DEBUNK MYTHS: A group of organizations that fight AIDS in the developing world issued a press release decrying the secretive process by which the deal was negotiated and the concealment of the trade deals' legislative language, nothing that "details and specificity are of crucial importance." The groups also note that "it is not true, as some news accounts have suggested, that the May 11 deal will limit brand-name drug companies' patent and related monopolies."
LEADING ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS SAY DEAL IS "NOT SUFFICIENT": Leading environmental groups Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, Friends of the Earth, Sierra Club issued a joint statement saying that "although last week’s agreement reflects progress on environmental issues in the Peru and Panama FTAs, it is not a sufficient template for trade agreements generally or for presidential trade negotiating authority." The groups said the secret trade deal "will still provide foreign corporations the right to directly attack public health and environmental measures, and will not fully protect environmental laws from other trade challenges."
DLC ATTACKS TRADE CRITICS, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES RESPOND BY FLOCKING TO DLC CONFERENCE: The Memphis Commercial Appeal reports that the Democratic Leadership Council, which endorsed the secret deal and which has long pushed lobbyist-written trade deals like NAFTA and China PNTR, just released an op-ed attacking free trade critics. Days after the report was made public, the group announced that leading Democratic presidential contenders will be speaking at the DLC's annual conference this year in June.
Posted by David Sirota at 4:50 AM
13 May, 2007
09 May, 2007
06 May, 2007
Roger Clemens and the long run
The Yankees have been patching their pitching staff up for years. Unless they intend to build up and train those young pitchers we saw, we'll be in the same place next year we are now--and how many times can Roger Clemens return?
The real story is: What will happen with Rasner, Wright, DeSalvo... Are THEY the future?
The real story is: What will happen with Rasner, Wright, DeSalvo... Are THEY the future?
More about Teacher Punishment
read the Village Voice article
http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/0717,altman,76433,15.html/full
http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/0717,altman,76433,15.html/full
The Parents Speak Out
Also, it appears the May 9th action is off.
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2007/05/tim-johnson-on-mayoral-control-and-more.html
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2007/05/tim-johnson-on-mayoral-control-and-more.html
04 May, 2007
On students like those at BCNHS
Note: Brooklyn Comprehensive Night High School had a graduation rate higher than those quoted here and nowhere near the budget of South Brooklyn High School WHICH HAS A VAN TO PICK STUDENTS UP. But, godspeed to the future schools who do the important work described in the article below.
From Time magazine
Thursday, May. 03, 2007
Stopping the ExodusBy Claudia Wallis
Kids who quit school don't just suddenly drop out; it's more of a slow fade.Typically it begins in the ninth grade, if not earlier, often when life hitsa particularly nasty patch and racking up credits in class no longer seemsespecially compelling or plausible. Ernestine Maisonet started fading ineighth grade, when the grandmother who had raised her died. "She was a womanwho worked wonders," murmurs Maisonet, who says she doesn't know her motherand isn't close to her dad. After the death, her family of six siblings fellapart. Maisonet has lived sometimes with an aunt, sometimes with aboyfriend, and sometimes she had no place to go. "I was a good student untilmy grandmother passed away," says the 19-year-old redhead from the Bronx.Though she was enrolled in high school, she earned just three credits in twoyears: "I completely shut down. I didn't do good at all."Tanya Garcia, 19, of Brooklyn also went off track at the end of middleschool. A fire destroyed her family's apartment and left them homeless forfour months. She landed in a large, impersonal high school, and quicklybecame disengaged. "I started getting into drugs--weed, drinking, cocaineand heroin." After two years of mostly cutting class, she had accumulated agrand total of one credit. When she tried to transfer to another school,"the dean pretty much laughed in my face," she says. At 16, she stoppedgoing to school. "I didn't see myself having any kind of future. I would getsome job I hated and just survive."Against all odds, Maisonet and Garcia are slated to graduate in New YorkCity's class of 2007. They are among some 13,000 students who dropped out orwere on the verge of doing so but have been recovered in the public schoolsystem. The city's secret? Finding out who was dropping out and why andoffering a variety of paths--complete with intensive social support andpersonalized instruction- -back to school.Nationally about 1 in 3 high school students quits school. Among black andHispanic students, the rate is closer to 50%. For decades, school districtsobscured the hemorrhaging with sleight of hand--using misleading formulas tocalculate graduation rates and not bothering to track the kids who fellthrough the cracks. Getting a more honest accounting became a top priorityfor the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which was instrumental inpersuading the Governors of all 50 states to agree in 2005 to startmeasuring graduation rates in a fair and consistent way. Ask Melinda Gatesto name the foundation's top achievement in education so far, and shedoesn't hesitate to answer, "Getting the nation to look at graduation ratesin the right way."In 2005, New York used Gates funding to commission the Parthenon Group, aBoston-based consulting firm, to dig deep into its graduation data. Theresulting 64-page report, released last October, enabled the nation'slargest school district to discern how many kids it was losing, which onesand when. Just as important, it showed what was working to salvage high-riskkids like Maisonet and Garcia.New York asked Parthenon to focus on students who were two or more yearsbehind their peers in accumulating credits toward graduation. "We had ahunch that these overage, undercredited kids were the bulk of the dropouts,"says Leah Hamilton, executive director of the city's Office of MultiplePathways to Graduation. That turned out to be more correct than anyone hadimagined: 93% of dropouts had a history of being overage and undercredited.In fact, once students fell into this category, they had just a 19% chanceof finishing high school or getting a graduate equivalency diploma (GED).The groundbreaking study--which is being emulated in Boston, Chicago andPortland, Ore.--was full of surprises. Among them was the sheer size of NewYork's problem: 70,000 students from 16 to 21--more than one-fifth of thecity's high school population-- were two or more years behind their peers inaccumulating the 44 credits needed for graduation. An additional 68,000 hadalready dropped out. All told, New York's 138,000 lost and vulnerable kidsmade up a population larger than the combined public high school enrollmentof Philadelphia, Houston and Boston.Some of the biggest surprises in the midst of this enormous crisis were thesmall bright spots. The study showed that a number of existing programs wereremarkably effective in propelling dead-end students toward a diploma.Transfer schools--small, personalized high schools specially designed forkids who have fallen seriously behind--had a 56% graduation rate, comparedwith 19% for such high-risk kids at ordinary high schools, and some transferschools were graduating nearly 70%. Another program, Young Adult BoroughCenters (YABCs), which operates in the late afternoon and evening forstudents 17 or older, was enabling about 40% of these last-chance studentsto graduate.New York discovered that its most vulnerable ninth-graders- -the weakreaders--were much more likely to stay on track toward graduation at thecity's newer and smaller high schools than at its large conventional ones."A big aha," says Hamilton, "is that a single strategy was not going towork. You need a portfolio of strategies." In the wake of the report, thecity has examined what the best transfer schools, YABCs and GED programswere doing right and is trying to replicate them citywide.It's easy to spot what's going right at South Brooklyn Community High, thetransfer school that Garcia attends. It's obvious the minute the doors open.Waiting in the bright, airy reception area are six advocate-counselors , orACs. Each counsels 25 or so kids, whom they greet individually, often withelaborate, personalized handshakes or fist pounds. These close relationshipsare cemented by daily meetings and twice-weekly group sessions. When any ofthe school's 150 students fail to show up in the morning, the AC makes aphone call to find out why. Freddie Perez, 17, compares this with thecheck-in procedure at the big high school he used to attend: "I'd swipe myID at the beginning of school and then go back out the door," he says.The ACs are not school-district employees; they work for a nonprofitorganization called Good Shepherd Services. Every New York transfer schooland YABC is paired with a community-based organization that focuses on thesocial, emotional and family issues that tend to weigh down these students."We don't have the expertise for these complex challenges," explains schoolschancellor Joel Klein, who heads the New York City Department of Education.The academic staff is also enthusiastic about the partnership. "Teachers canfocus on the best way to educate students," says South Brooklyn's principal,Vanda Belusic-Vollor. "That's huge!"Classes at South Brooklyn have 18 to 25 students, as opposed to as many as34 in the city's large high schools. Students call their teachers by theirfirst name. Because the school runs on a trimester system, kids can rack upcredits more quickly than they could at an ordinary high school--part of theplan to keep them moving briskly toward graduation day. The teachers favor ahands-on approach; there's very little chalk and talk. Perez says he used tohate U.S. history. "In my old school, they'd just give you a page number andtell you to answer questions in the text." At South Brooklyn, he says,"we'll study a court case for a week, and the second week, we act it out.When it's test time, you remember it."Students are pushed toward New York State's demanding Regents diploma, whichmeans passing seven exams, and toward higher education. They mustparticipate in the city's Learning to Work program, which teaches employmentskills, provides college and career counseling, and offers subsidizedinternships. While not everyone loves his or her internship, Garcia was soinspired by her stint at a youth newspaper that she now hopes to studyjournalism in college.Most of the same elements are at work at the YABC in Lehmann High School inthe Bronx, where Maisonet spends her evenings. There are small classes ledby dynamic teachers, a Learning to Work program and close relationships withcounselors from a health and social-services group. The atmosphere here is abit more no-nonsense. The 250 students are all over 17, and many haveweighty daytime responsibilities. "They have kids at home. Some arepregnant. Some are homeless," says assistant principal Martin Smallhorne, anenergetic young administrator who works hard to create a personalizedprogram inside one of the city's larger and less intimate high schools.The clock is ticking for his 310 students. The goal: get them to graduationbefore they hit 21 and age out of the system. YABCS stress efficientscheduling. To attend, students must have spent at least four years in highschool and have accumulated at least 17 credits. "Their transcripts tend tobe a mess," says Michele Cahill, who helped create the Multiple Pathwaysprogram and is now at the Carnegie Corporation. Students might be missingthe second half of algebra and three years of phys ed. "Ordinary highschools are not set up to deal with these kinds of gaps," says Cahill, but agood YABC can sometimes get the job done in a year. New data show that aboutone-quarter of students at YABCS and transfer schools go on to college.Klein plans to greatly expand the number of transfer schools and YABCS overthe remaining 2 1/2 years of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration.Replicating successful programs is always tricky, but in this case there's apeculiar obstacle. Under state- and federal-accountabil ity rules, schoolsfull of students who don't graduate on time are labeled failing. By thatdefinition, YABCS and transfer schools fail no matter how brilliant a jobthey are doing. "It's hard to get partners to invest and hard to attractstrong leaders when the school is labeled failing," says Hamilton.New York will also have to stem the tide of students who fall behind in thefirst place. Ninth grade is a major pitfall. Parthenon found that 78% ofkids who become overage and undercredited had to repeat freshman year. Onekey is improving reading skills in middle school--a challenge nationally.Last year 37% of the city's eighth-graders were proficient in reading, upfrom 30% in 2002 but still a long way from ideal. Another key, Kleinbelieves, is continuing to replace big, impersonal high schools with smallerschools that offer a sense of community and a variety of programs. SaysKlein: "You want to create a really robust set of options."Providing more choices is paying dividends for New York. In the past threeyears, the city has raised its on-time graduation rate from 44% to 50%,though how states measure such figures continues to spur debate. Five- andsix-year graduation rates are also up. "We think it's powerfully importantto increase all these rates," says Klein. "It may take a kid a couple ofyears longer, but if the kid gets the diploma, the economic consequences arehuge."Maisonet is thinking about a job in veterinary care and possibly college,but without all the support she has had at the YABC, it won't be easy tomove on. When Maisonet suffered a late miscarriage in March, Smallhorne senttwo outreach staff members to find her, and she was back in school two weekslater. "I love YABC," she says. "The teachers say, Come on, you have tograduate--we don't want you here no more. But I'm going to cry when Ileave."
From Time magazine
Thursday, May. 03, 2007
Stopping the ExodusBy Claudia Wallis
Kids who quit school don't just suddenly drop out; it's more of a slow fade.Typically it begins in the ninth grade, if not earlier, often when life hitsa particularly nasty patch and racking up credits in class no longer seemsespecially compelling or plausible. Ernestine Maisonet started fading ineighth grade, when the grandmother who had raised her died. "She was a womanwho worked wonders," murmurs Maisonet, who says she doesn't know her motherand isn't close to her dad. After the death, her family of six siblings fellapart. Maisonet has lived sometimes with an aunt, sometimes with aboyfriend, and sometimes she had no place to go. "I was a good student untilmy grandmother passed away," says the 19-year-old redhead from the Bronx.Though she was enrolled in high school, she earned just three credits in twoyears: "I completely shut down. I didn't do good at all."Tanya Garcia, 19, of Brooklyn also went off track at the end of middleschool. A fire destroyed her family's apartment and left them homeless forfour months. She landed in a large, impersonal high school, and quicklybecame disengaged. "I started getting into drugs--weed, drinking, cocaineand heroin." After two years of mostly cutting class, she had accumulated agrand total of one credit. When she tried to transfer to another school,"the dean pretty much laughed in my face," she says. At 16, she stoppedgoing to school. "I didn't see myself having any kind of future. I would getsome job I hated and just survive."Against all odds, Maisonet and Garcia are slated to graduate in New YorkCity's class of 2007. They are among some 13,000 students who dropped out orwere on the verge of doing so but have been recovered in the public schoolsystem. The city's secret? Finding out who was dropping out and why andoffering a variety of paths--complete with intensive social support andpersonalized instruction- -back to school.Nationally about 1 in 3 high school students quits school. Among black andHispanic students, the rate is closer to 50%. For decades, school districtsobscured the hemorrhaging with sleight of hand--using misleading formulas tocalculate graduation rates and not bothering to track the kids who fellthrough the cracks. Getting a more honest accounting became a top priorityfor the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which was instrumental inpersuading the Governors of all 50 states to agree in 2005 to startmeasuring graduation rates in a fair and consistent way. Ask Melinda Gatesto name the foundation's top achievement in education so far, and shedoesn't hesitate to answer, "Getting the nation to look at graduation ratesin the right way."In 2005, New York used Gates funding to commission the Parthenon Group, aBoston-based consulting firm, to dig deep into its graduation data. Theresulting 64-page report, released last October, enabled the nation'slargest school district to discern how many kids it was losing, which onesand when. Just as important, it showed what was working to salvage high-riskkids like Maisonet and Garcia.New York asked Parthenon to focus on students who were two or more yearsbehind their peers in accumulating credits toward graduation. "We had ahunch that these overage, undercredited kids were the bulk of the dropouts,"says Leah Hamilton, executive director of the city's Office of MultiplePathways to Graduation. That turned out to be more correct than anyone hadimagined: 93% of dropouts had a history of being overage and undercredited.In fact, once students fell into this category, they had just a 19% chanceof finishing high school or getting a graduate equivalency diploma (GED).The groundbreaking study--which is being emulated in Boston, Chicago andPortland, Ore.--was full of surprises. Among them was the sheer size of NewYork's problem: 70,000 students from 16 to 21--more than one-fifth of thecity's high school population-- were two or more years behind their peers inaccumulating the 44 credits needed for graduation. An additional 68,000 hadalready dropped out. All told, New York's 138,000 lost and vulnerable kidsmade up a population larger than the combined public high school enrollmentof Philadelphia, Houston and Boston.Some of the biggest surprises in the midst of this enormous crisis were thesmall bright spots. The study showed that a number of existing programs wereremarkably effective in propelling dead-end students toward a diploma.Transfer schools--small, personalized high schools specially designed forkids who have fallen seriously behind--had a 56% graduation rate, comparedwith 19% for such high-risk kids at ordinary high schools, and some transferschools were graduating nearly 70%. Another program, Young Adult BoroughCenters (YABCs), which operates in the late afternoon and evening forstudents 17 or older, was enabling about 40% of these last-chance studentsto graduate.New York discovered that its most vulnerable ninth-graders- -the weakreaders--were much more likely to stay on track toward graduation at thecity's newer and smaller high schools than at its large conventional ones."A big aha," says Hamilton, "is that a single strategy was not going towork. You need a portfolio of strategies." In the wake of the report, thecity has examined what the best transfer schools, YABCs and GED programswere doing right and is trying to replicate them citywide.It's easy to spot what's going right at South Brooklyn Community High, thetransfer school that Garcia attends. It's obvious the minute the doors open.Waiting in the bright, airy reception area are six advocate-counselors , orACs. Each counsels 25 or so kids, whom they greet individually, often withelaborate, personalized handshakes or fist pounds. These close relationshipsare cemented by daily meetings and twice-weekly group sessions. When any ofthe school's 150 students fail to show up in the morning, the AC makes aphone call to find out why. Freddie Perez, 17, compares this with thecheck-in procedure at the big high school he used to attend: "I'd swipe myID at the beginning of school and then go back out the door," he says.The ACs are not school-district employees; they work for a nonprofitorganization called Good Shepherd Services. Every New York transfer schooland YABC is paired with a community-based organization that focuses on thesocial, emotional and family issues that tend to weigh down these students."We don't have the expertise for these complex challenges," explains schoolschancellor Joel Klein, who heads the New York City Department of Education.The academic staff is also enthusiastic about the partnership. "Teachers canfocus on the best way to educate students," says South Brooklyn's principal,Vanda Belusic-Vollor. "That's huge!"Classes at South Brooklyn have 18 to 25 students, as opposed to as many as34 in the city's large high schools. Students call their teachers by theirfirst name. Because the school runs on a trimester system, kids can rack upcredits more quickly than they could at an ordinary high school--part of theplan to keep them moving briskly toward graduation day. The teachers favor ahands-on approach; there's very little chalk and talk. Perez says he used tohate U.S. history. "In my old school, they'd just give you a page number andtell you to answer questions in the text." At South Brooklyn, he says,"we'll study a court case for a week, and the second week, we act it out.When it's test time, you remember it."Students are pushed toward New York State's demanding Regents diploma, whichmeans passing seven exams, and toward higher education. They mustparticipate in the city's Learning to Work program, which teaches employmentskills, provides college and career counseling, and offers subsidizedinternships. While not everyone loves his or her internship, Garcia was soinspired by her stint at a youth newspaper that she now hopes to studyjournalism in college.Most of the same elements are at work at the YABC in Lehmann High School inthe Bronx, where Maisonet spends her evenings. There are small classes ledby dynamic teachers, a Learning to Work program and close relationships withcounselors from a health and social-services group. The atmosphere here is abit more no-nonsense. The 250 students are all over 17, and many haveweighty daytime responsibilities. "They have kids at home. Some arepregnant. Some are homeless," says assistant principal Martin Smallhorne, anenergetic young administrator who works hard to create a personalizedprogram inside one of the city's larger and less intimate high schools.The clock is ticking for his 310 students. The goal: get them to graduationbefore they hit 21 and age out of the system. YABCS stress efficientscheduling. To attend, students must have spent at least four years in highschool and have accumulated at least 17 credits. "Their transcripts tend tobe a mess," says Michele Cahill, who helped create the Multiple Pathwaysprogram and is now at the Carnegie Corporation. Students might be missingthe second half of algebra and three years of phys ed. "Ordinary highschools are not set up to deal with these kinds of gaps," says Cahill, but agood YABC can sometimes get the job done in a year. New data show that aboutone-quarter of students at YABCS and transfer schools go on to college.Klein plans to greatly expand the number of transfer schools and YABCS overthe remaining 2 1/2 years of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration.Replicating successful programs is always tricky, but in this case there's apeculiar obstacle. Under state- and federal-accountabil ity rules, schoolsfull of students who don't graduate on time are labeled failing. By thatdefinition, YABCS and transfer schools fail no matter how brilliant a jobthey are doing. "It's hard to get partners to invest and hard to attractstrong leaders when the school is labeled failing," says Hamilton.New York will also have to stem the tide of students who fall behind in thefirst place. Ninth grade is a major pitfall. Parthenon found that 78% ofkids who become overage and undercredited had to repeat freshman year. Onekey is improving reading skills in middle school--a challenge nationally.Last year 37% of the city's eighth-graders were proficient in reading, upfrom 30% in 2002 but still a long way from ideal. Another key, Kleinbelieves, is continuing to replace big, impersonal high schools with smallerschools that offer a sense of community and a variety of programs. SaysKlein: "You want to create a really robust set of options."Providing more choices is paying dividends for New York. In the past threeyears, the city has raised its on-time graduation rate from 44% to 50%,though how states measure such figures continues to spur debate. Five- andsix-year graduation rates are also up. "We think it's powerfully importantto increase all these rates," says Klein. "It may take a kid a couple ofyears longer, but if the kid gets the diploma, the economic consequences arehuge."Maisonet is thinking about a job in veterinary care and possibly college,but without all the support she has had at the YABC, it won't be easy tomove on. When Maisonet suffered a late miscarriage in March, Smallhorne senttwo outreach staff members to find her, and she was back in school two weekslater. "I love YABC," she says. "The teachers say, Come on, you have tograduate--we don't want you here no more. But I'm going to cry when Ileave."
03 May, 2007
Rich get rich...it's all so rich
from THE NATION magazine
Rich Get Richer, Poor Get Powerless
by NICHOLAS VON HOFFMAN
[posted online on April 4, 2007]
The latest figures are out on income distribution in the United States, and they are lulus. To say the spread is top-heavy is putting it mildly.
A mere 300,000 people had incomes equal to the total income of the bottom earning half of the entire population. That's 150 million people. Put another way, those 300,000 had incomes 440 times greater than the average income in the United States. Stated yet another way, the golden 300,000 sopped up more than 20 percent of all incomes.
The last time the income imbalance was so large, Calvin Coolidge was President and people were thrilled by the first talking motion pictures. In the 1930s and '40s the gaps between wealth and income were lessened thanks to war, the income tax, pro-employee legislation and labor organizations that forced a mild redistribution of the profits. That's all gone now. We're back to the good old days, and let's hope everybody, including the frayed white-collar classes, are having a good old time.
As the years pass and the imbalances grow, so also does a background wailing about the unfairness of it all. Defining "unfair" is like trying to catch a trout in a stream with your bare hands. Very slippery. Would it be fair if the rich averaged only 390 times the income of the average wage earner? 325? 250? You name it. How does one decide when one has arrived at the fair number? Or must all incomes be equal? There's an idea that leaves a lot to be desired.
You cannot successfully make public policy on the basis of fairness. The criterion must be justice, but let's leave how we decide what is just for another time and cut to one, very important form of justice: the equal distribution of power and our conviction that elections should be conducted on a one-man-one-vote basis.
You will not find many people who will defend the idea that a few people should be accorded 440 votes and the rest of the electorate only one vote each. That is an idea to be found in the original, unamended version of the Constitution in which some people (the black ones) were considered to be worth only 60 percent of a white man's vote.
Naturally the slaves did not get to cast their depreciated 60 percent vote. Their masters did. Under the modern system we are allowed to cast our own vote, which is worth about 1/440th of a rich person's vote, since money is political power in America.
If you doubt that, consider the competition we have been watching as to which candidate can collect the most campaign money. The candidates who cannot get the big money lose. The selection of the two major parties' nominees is primarily in the hands of the Golden 300,000. They more or less decide who gets on the ballot: Remember the old political apothegm to the effect he (or she) who controls ballot access controls all.
Under our present political arrangement the two major-party nominees represent little more than disagreeing factions within the Golden 300,000, and we get to help choose which one is elevated to the ultimate power in the White House. Some choice, but that is what we are left with and will continue to be stuck with unless the income gap is chopped down, way down, so that the top people are hauling in only 150 times the average income of the rest of us.
Some people would call such a change Bolshevism. Others might say it is a step in the direction of democracy.
Rich Get Richer, Poor Get Powerless
by NICHOLAS VON HOFFMAN
[posted online on April 4, 2007]
The latest figures are out on income distribution in the United States, and they are lulus. To say the spread is top-heavy is putting it mildly.
A mere 300,000 people had incomes equal to the total income of the bottom earning half of the entire population. That's 150 million people. Put another way, those 300,000 had incomes 440 times greater than the average income in the United States. Stated yet another way, the golden 300,000 sopped up more than 20 percent of all incomes.
The last time the income imbalance was so large, Calvin Coolidge was President and people were thrilled by the first talking motion pictures. In the 1930s and '40s the gaps between wealth and income were lessened thanks to war, the income tax, pro-employee legislation and labor organizations that forced a mild redistribution of the profits. That's all gone now. We're back to the good old days, and let's hope everybody, including the frayed white-collar classes, are having a good old time.
As the years pass and the imbalances grow, so also does a background wailing about the unfairness of it all. Defining "unfair" is like trying to catch a trout in a stream with your bare hands. Very slippery. Would it be fair if the rich averaged only 390 times the income of the average wage earner? 325? 250? You name it. How does one decide when one has arrived at the fair number? Or must all incomes be equal? There's an idea that leaves a lot to be desired.
You cannot successfully make public policy on the basis of fairness. The criterion must be justice, but let's leave how we decide what is just for another time and cut to one, very important form of justice: the equal distribution of power and our conviction that elections should be conducted on a one-man-one-vote basis.
You will not find many people who will defend the idea that a few people should be accorded 440 votes and the rest of the electorate only one vote each. That is an idea to be found in the original, unamended version of the Constitution in which some people (the black ones) were considered to be worth only 60 percent of a white man's vote.
Naturally the slaves did not get to cast their depreciated 60 percent vote. Their masters did. Under the modern system we are allowed to cast our own vote, which is worth about 1/440th of a rich person's vote, since money is political power in America.
If you doubt that, consider the competition we have been watching as to which candidate can collect the most campaign money. The candidates who cannot get the big money lose. The selection of the two major parties' nominees is primarily in the hands of the Golden 300,000. They more or less decide who gets on the ballot: Remember the old political apothegm to the effect he (or she) who controls ballot access controls all.
Under our present political arrangement the two major-party nominees represent little more than disagreeing factions within the Golden 300,000, and we get to help choose which one is elevated to the ultimate power in the White House. Some choice, but that is what we are left with and will continue to be stuck with unless the income gap is chopped down, way down, so that the top people are hauling in only 150 times the average income of the rest of us.
Some people would call such a change Bolshevism. Others might say it is a step in the direction of democracy.
02 May, 2007
Parent's Tell Bloomberg: SURVEY SAYS "NOT!"
From the Columbia Daily Spectator
Parents to Boycott Education Surveys
Current Funding at Local Schools Unequal
By: Joy Resmovits
Posted: 5/2/07
Groups of local public school parents are planning to boycott one of the ways the Department of Education solicits their feedback, part of their work to tell Mayor Michael Bloomberg that their voices haven't been heard in his plans to reorganize school funding.As part of the mayor's plan to reorganize how public schools in New York City are funded and held accountable for their students' performances, schools will start to receive letter grades from A to F in a number of areas, including student attendance, performance, and progress. A small percentage of each letter grade will depend on a survey that parents will fill out about their child's education. Many parents say the survey won't sufficiently express their opinions and won't address the issues they feel are most important.In a message titled "The parent voice, censored from the parent survey," posted on the mass e-mail list for parents in school district three, which covers the Upper West Side and some of Morningside Heights, Leonie Haimson, mother and founder of Class Size Matters, a group that advocates for smaller classroom sizes in New York City, called for a boycott of the surveys. Haimson wrote that she was upset that important issues such as classroom size, the level of emphasis on teaching to the test, the relationship between parents and principals, and evaluating school leadership teams were not included in survey questions.According to a DOE press release, the survey asks whether schools are setting high expectations, ensuring safety in school, and creating effective learning environments.Schools that receive A-grades will be eligible for extra bonus funding while F-graded schools will be subject to potential leadership change."For any successful organization, finding out what customers and users think works-or needs work-is key to improvement," Bloomberg said in a press release. Parents will execute the boycott by crossing out the questions and writing instead, "We want real parent input-as well as smaller classes, less testing, and new priorities at Tweed [Courthouse, the seat of the DOE] to deal with the real problems in our schools."Haimson wrote in a message to the e-mail list that Bloomberg responded to the boycott by saying that parents are trying to "subvert the system and sit around and complain and not make it any better."Parents may disagree with the scope and methods of Bloomberg's plan, but there is little disagreement that the current system has led to gross funding inequities between similar schools.The Fair Student Funding report by the DOE, which set forth the new weighted per pupil funding scheme, stated that money is currently subjectively allocated from 90 disparate funding streams. The DOE released data that it calls "neither comprehensive nor perfect," along with the FSF report that demonstrated the iniquities among city schools. This data included information about P.S. 36 Margaret Douglas, a school in District 5 on Morningside Drive near 123rd Street, which has an enrollment of 473 students and a poverty rate of 86 percent. P.S. 36 receives $584 less per student from the tax levy instructional fund than P.S. 149, a school in District 3 on 117th Street near Lenox Avenue with similar enrollment. P.S. 36 received $4,229 compared to P.S. 129's $4,813, even though P.S. 36's poverty rate is 10.1 percent higher. P.S. 125, an elementary school on 123rd Street, receives even less instructional funding, with only $4,112 per pupil.It was in response to inequities like this that Bloomberg proposed Fair Student Funding, a plan that pays a base rate per student with added money for special situations such as poverty, English language learners, and special education students. It is impossible to project exactly how individual schools' funding would be affected by the reorganization."Nobody really knows until they actually put that money out there how it's going to affect anybody or if it's going to be shared properly," District 5 Community Education Council president Harriet Barnes said.
© Copyright 2007 Columbia Daily Spectator
Parents to Boycott Education Surveys
Current Funding at Local Schools Unequal
By: Joy Resmovits
Posted: 5/2/07
Groups of local public school parents are planning to boycott one of the ways the Department of Education solicits their feedback, part of their work to tell Mayor Michael Bloomberg that their voices haven't been heard in his plans to reorganize school funding.As part of the mayor's plan to reorganize how public schools in New York City are funded and held accountable for their students' performances, schools will start to receive letter grades from A to F in a number of areas, including student attendance, performance, and progress. A small percentage of each letter grade will depend on a survey that parents will fill out about their child's education. Many parents say the survey won't sufficiently express their opinions and won't address the issues they feel are most important.In a message titled "The parent voice, censored from the parent survey," posted on the mass e-mail list for parents in school district three, which covers the Upper West Side and some of Morningside Heights, Leonie Haimson, mother and founder of Class Size Matters, a group that advocates for smaller classroom sizes in New York City, called for a boycott of the surveys. Haimson wrote that she was upset that important issues such as classroom size, the level of emphasis on teaching to the test, the relationship between parents and principals, and evaluating school leadership teams were not included in survey questions.According to a DOE press release, the survey asks whether schools are setting high expectations, ensuring safety in school, and creating effective learning environments.Schools that receive A-grades will be eligible for extra bonus funding while F-graded schools will be subject to potential leadership change."For any successful organization, finding out what customers and users think works-or needs work-is key to improvement," Bloomberg said in a press release. Parents will execute the boycott by crossing out the questions and writing instead, "We want real parent input-as well as smaller classes, less testing, and new priorities at Tweed [Courthouse, the seat of the DOE] to deal with the real problems in our schools."Haimson wrote in a message to the e-mail list that Bloomberg responded to the boycott by saying that parents are trying to "subvert the system and sit around and complain and not make it any better."Parents may disagree with the scope and methods of Bloomberg's plan, but there is little disagreement that the current system has led to gross funding inequities between similar schools.The Fair Student Funding report by the DOE, which set forth the new weighted per pupil funding scheme, stated that money is currently subjectively allocated from 90 disparate funding streams. The DOE released data that it calls "neither comprehensive nor perfect," along with the FSF report that demonstrated the iniquities among city schools. This data included information about P.S. 36 Margaret Douglas, a school in District 5 on Morningside Drive near 123rd Street, which has an enrollment of 473 students and a poverty rate of 86 percent. P.S. 36 receives $584 less per student from the tax levy instructional fund than P.S. 149, a school in District 3 on 117th Street near Lenox Avenue with similar enrollment. P.S. 36 received $4,229 compared to P.S. 129's $4,813, even though P.S. 36's poverty rate is 10.1 percent higher. P.S. 125, an elementary school on 123rd Street, receives even less instructional funding, with only $4,112 per pupil.It was in response to inequities like this that Bloomberg proposed Fair Student Funding, a plan that pays a base rate per student with added money for special situations such as poverty, English language learners, and special education students. It is impossible to project exactly how individual schools' funding would be affected by the reorganization."Nobody really knows until they actually put that money out there how it's going to affect anybody or if it's going to be shared properly," District 5 Community Education Council president Harriet Barnes said.
© Copyright 2007 Columbia Daily Spectator
01 May, 2007
Take action
Read below and click on the link to write your representative
Action Alert
HEAD START VOTE THIS WEEK: OPPOSE CIVIL RIGHTS REPEAL!
In March, the Head Start reauthorization bill (H.R. 1429) passed the House Education and Labor Committee by a 42-1 vote. The committee-passed bill leaves in place a crucial civil rights provision, which has been a cornerstone protection in Head Start programs since 1972. That provision has, for decades, protected over 213,000 Head Start teachers and staff, and over 1,360,000 parent volunteers, from employment discrimination based on religion in federally-funded Head Start programs.
The bill is expected to be on the House floor this week and we anticipate an attempt to repeal these critical civil rights provisions through either a “Motion to Recommit,” which would send the bill back to committee with instructions to repeal the provision, or an “amendment” to the bill which would immediately repeal the anti-discrimination language before final passage.
URGE YOUR REPRESENTATIVE TO REAUTHORIZE HEAD START AND REJECT ANY ASSAULT ON CIVIL RIGHTS PROTECTIONS IN FEDERALLY-FUNDED PROGRAMS.
Religious organizations participating in the Head Start program make an invaluable contribution to the education of thousands of children. To date, these religious organizations have complied with Head Start's existing civil rights requirements. However, if the repeal of the existing civil rights protection were to become law, teachers or parent volunteers working in Head Start programs run by religious organizations could immediately lose their jobs because of religious discrimination. Therefore, children participating in Head Start could lose not only their teachers, but also the close connection with their own parents volunteering in the program. Allowing discrimination based on religion would significantly impede the important goals of Head Start, and harm children by not only separating them from their teachers and parent volunteers, but also by showing them that discrimination is acceptable.
Urge your Member of Congress to REAUTHORIZE the Head Start Improvement Act (H.R. 1429) and reject any assault on civil rights protections in federally-funded programs, especially a program as critical as Head Start. This would destroy the bipartisanship nature of a program in which the education of young children is so dependent on parent participation and on ongoing, close relationships with Head Start teachers.
http://action.au.org/au/issues/alert/?alertid=9686561&PROCESS=Take+Action
Action Alert
HEAD START VOTE THIS WEEK: OPPOSE CIVIL RIGHTS REPEAL!
In March, the Head Start reauthorization bill (H.R. 1429) passed the House Education and Labor Committee by a 42-1 vote. The committee-passed bill leaves in place a crucial civil rights provision, which has been a cornerstone protection in Head Start programs since 1972. That provision has, for decades, protected over 213,000 Head Start teachers and staff, and over 1,360,000 parent volunteers, from employment discrimination based on religion in federally-funded Head Start programs.
The bill is expected to be on the House floor this week and we anticipate an attempt to repeal these critical civil rights provisions through either a “Motion to Recommit,” which would send the bill back to committee with instructions to repeal the provision, or an “amendment” to the bill which would immediately repeal the anti-discrimination language before final passage.
URGE YOUR REPRESENTATIVE TO REAUTHORIZE HEAD START AND REJECT ANY ASSAULT ON CIVIL RIGHTS PROTECTIONS IN FEDERALLY-FUNDED PROGRAMS.
Religious organizations participating in the Head Start program make an invaluable contribution to the education of thousands of children. To date, these religious organizations have complied with Head Start's existing civil rights requirements. However, if the repeal of the existing civil rights protection were to become law, teachers or parent volunteers working in Head Start programs run by religious organizations could immediately lose their jobs because of religious discrimination. Therefore, children participating in Head Start could lose not only their teachers, but also the close connection with their own parents volunteering in the program. Allowing discrimination based on religion would significantly impede the important goals of Head Start, and harm children by not only separating them from their teachers and parent volunteers, but also by showing them that discrimination is acceptable.
Urge your Member of Congress to REAUTHORIZE the Head Start Improvement Act (H.R. 1429) and reject any assault on civil rights protections in federally-funded programs, especially a program as critical as Head Start. This would destroy the bipartisanship nature of a program in which the education of young children is so dependent on parent participation and on ongoing, close relationships with Head Start teachers.
http://action.au.org/au/issues/alert/?alertid=9686561&PROCESS=Take+Action
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