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What is shameful about education reform is we have trained a generation of public school teachers to be silent.
The endless war at home
By John Louis Meeks, Jr.
"I see the light at the end of the tunnel."
National Security Adviser Walt Rustow assured the nation in 1967 that there was an end to the calamity in Southeast Asia.
Now, we know how that story ended for a nation that declared an undeclared war on Communism abroad.
Closer to home and in our time, we are in the middle of a domestic war to reform public education. Much like the conflict in Indochina, we are blindly and aimlessly pouring resources into an effort that seems to bear no fruit for our students.
There will be no light at the end of the tunnel for us if we continue to treat our loyal foot soldiers the way that our returning heroes were treated when they returned home from miles away scarred by battles that we only half-heartedly supported.
There will never be an equivalency between the horrors that my father's generation witnessed as death and destruction were splattered across the front pages and were beamed into our living rooms on the evening news.
There, however, is a weariness that is creeping into the hearts and minds of educators who have never been called 'baby killers' but have been maligned by well-meaning politicians and bureaucrats from the comfort of their ivory towers and their cloistered offices.
The mission of education reform is noble. The strategy is questionable, but demands the attention of all education stakeholders. The tactics, in my opinion strike at the hearts of those who are silently toiling in their classrooms and their homes with no real reward but the continued derision and disrespect of those who claim to support better public schools.
What is most appalling in this current quagmire is that educators were not drafted - they volunteered. They agreed to serve a mission that will never see the glories of victory as each gain is fleeting until the next round of test results.
To borrow a phrase from Pete Seeger, we indeed are waist deep in the big muddy and our leaders tell us to march on. The allegedly foolish and stubborn gang of men and women who teach have followed their orders to a fault and will continue to do so because it is their ethical and moral obligation to do so regardless of whether the experts are wrong or mistaken.
What is shameful about this education reform is that we have successfully trained a generation or more of public school teachers to be silent. The fear of retribution trumps any freedom of speech that they would otherwise enjoy. The fear of reprisal negates any chance that educators have to speak truth to power.
There will be no real casualties in the war on ignorance, but the continued killing of the spirit and morale of those in the teaching profession should be a warning sign that this war will be one that lasts longer than any real conflict ever has or will.
The current regime of siphoning money and resources from public education makes the military-industrial complex look benevolent by comparison. Test publishers, textbook publishers, charter schools and other hands in the public till depend on the failure of public schools. They stand to lose a whole lot if we were to announce anything other than continued defeats due to legions of incompetent educators who either do not care enough or are unwilling to do what the taxpayers expect of them.
How many tests must a student take before we afford his educators with dignity and respect?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.
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Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature want teachers to fail
From the Orlando Sentinel, by Leslie Postal and Dave Weber
Seminole County schools are among the highest performing in the state. Yet hundreds of Seminole teachers could end up with poor job reviews next year under Florida's proposed system for calculating teacher evaluations.
An analysis by Seminole officials suggests that teachers across Florida could find good evaluations — and job security — harder to come by once the state finalizes its system for crunching student test score data to judge teacher quality.
That's fine with many state leaders who have questioned how some teachers could earn good yearly reviews while their students struggle to meet Florida's academic standards.
But many local educators are worried about the new evaluation system, and Seminole administrators were alarmed when they ran their data showing how their teachers would score under the new state yardstick.
"This has the potential to dismantle public education ," said Seminole Superintendent Walt Griffin. "This is not fair to our teachers."
Seminole's data shows the number of teachers falling into the two lowest evaluation categories of "needs improvement" and "unsatisfactory" would jump from fewer than 1 in 100 this year to more than 1 in 7 next year.
Officials worry hundreds of the district's 4,300 teachers could lose their jobs within several years.
That is based on a new standard for calculating test-score data that the Florida Department of Education is now hammering out, as demanded by the state's 2011 merit pay law .
Kathy Hebda, a deputy chancellor at the Florida Department of Education, said in an email that she could not comment on Seminole's findings as she had not seen them. But she said the department, which is holding a hearing on its proposal Thursday in Orlando, welcomed such feedback.
"We are so grateful that districts have been examining their data so closely," she said, adding such reviews are "key to continuous improvement of Florida's education evaluation systems."
The merit pay law, which aims to improve student learning, overhauls how teachers are to be evaluated, paid and promoted and mandates that teachers with a few years of poor evaluations should be fired.
Seminole educators say they fear good teachers will unfairly lose their jobs.
"This evaluation system is inaccurate and is not really capturing the truth about teachers," said Marie Causey, a statistics teacher at Oviedo High.
School principals and other campus-based administrators — even those at A and B rated campuses — would also struggle, with fewer earning good reviews and more getting poor ones, Seminole officials said.
The education department said it had not run a statewide analysis of the impact of its new proposal, though many expected its standards would be tougher those most districts used this past year.
Lake County schools have no firm data "but we see the same trend that Seminole County is reporting," wrote Laurie Marshall, executive director for human resources and employee relations, in an email.
The Orange County school district said it has not run any data using the state's new proposal.
At issue is the rule the department is finalizing for its "value-added model," dubbed VAM, which aims to judge how much a teacher contributed to a student's growth on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. The system seeks to determine a teacher's impact while taking into account factors outside their control, such as a student's disability or absentee rate.
The state calculated teacher VAM data for last school year, but allowed school districts to determine how to interpret it. The result: More than 96 percent of teachers did well statewide.
That led to complaints from supporters of the merit pay law who expected a change from the old teacher-evaluation system, when reviews based on administrator observations typically led to 99 percent of teachers getting good marks.
Sally Bradshaw, a member of the State Board of Education, said earlier this month that she was upset that most teachers earned "effective" or better ratings in 2012 even at F-rated schools or in districts where many students struggled on FCAT reading.
"I think something is terribly wrong," she said.
Education Commissioner Tony Bennett responded that the new value added standards, which are expected to point out more low performing teachers, would help answer her concerns.
The new standards are slated to be adopted by the State Board in June and would go into effect for the 2013-14 school year.
The Florida Education Association has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the merit pay law, which bases half of a teacher's evaluation on "student learning growth." An "unsatisfactory" on that automatically means the overall rating must be "unsatisfactory."
"We just think it's really, really not valid," said Mark Pudlow, spokesman for the statewide teachers union, who labels the state's plan "a ridiculous exercise."
The Seminole School Board is considering appeals to local state legislators, school board and superintendents' organizations and others in an attempt to stop implementation of the new evaluation rules.
"I have great concern about the science behind this," said Ron Pinnell, Seminole's human resources executive. "There are people's careers on the line."
lpostal@tribune.com or 407-420-5273. dweber@tribune.com or 407-883-7885.
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2013-02-27/features/os-merit-pay-teacher-changes-20130227_1_evaluation-system-teacher-evaluations-kathy-
The FCAT, judge, jury and executioner.
By John Meeks
The day of reckoning is near for educators in the Sunshine State. Fear is the instinctive response to the doom and uncertainty that are born inside of us the moment our students pick up their pencils or log onto their computers.
No matter how administrators and educators try to game the system, they end up getting played by the system that appears to be designed to consign public schools to a status lower than the local brothel and with much less respect from the community.
No amount of practice, preparation or previewing can ever promise success for our schools or students because the system has already been crafted to demonize, degrade and denigrate men and women who care about students but live and work with targets on their backs.
FCAT is a monster not because it was born that way. Originally intended to diagnose students' needs in the classroom, FCAT has morphed into a handmaiden for elected and appointed officials to destroy what little joy there is in the teaching profession.
Data and accountability are nice but they are used far too often by the party in power in Tallahassee because they know that opposition is toothless, impotent or in hiding. Every Election Day that comes and goes further cements the lust for power that our so-called leaders place ahead of truly serving our state and our future.
It is only inevitable that schools have become testing factories in which district and school officials are reduced to overseers who have no choice but to monitor and micromanage a chain gang busting rocks in unison for an ever-shrinking piece of hard bread and sip of tepid water.
No matter what we educators do, it will never be enough, so why bother? It is easier for suits to justify their jobs by telling us how horrible we are than it is to say that we truly are trying and need a break.
Teaching may not be as bad as being in prison, but at least the average convict gets a fair trial. FCAT, however, is our judge, jury and executioner.
Sequestration costs Florida $55.4 million in education funds alone
From the Tampa Times
Statewide, the sequestration could lead to a $55.4 million reduction in Title I funding, or a cut in service to more than 96,000 students in as many as 132 schools, according to the USDOE. And these would not be the only cuts affecting the schools. (See this administration state estimate of cuts for more details.)
Secretary Arne Duncan said in a press release that this represented a "wrong choice," and urged parents, educators and others to "urge (lawmakers) to figure out a solution to avoid this."
See also the USDOE's recent blog post on sequestration for more information.
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/us-education-department-details-local-cuts-by-sequestration/2106621
Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics, the tools of the education reformer
From Modern School, by Micheal Dunn
For years, free market education reformers have claimed that the U.S. public education system is broken—some have even called it a threat to our national security (Reagan's Nation at Risk report, 1983). They have used this "crisis" to justify everything from No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top to attacks on teachers' seniority, tenure and due process rights. It has led to a decade of accountability and testing mania that has eaten up instructional time and replaced activities that foster creativity and critical thinking with rote memorization. It has taken away billions of dollars that could have been used for teacher training, recruitment and remuneration, and transferred it into the pockets of test and textbook publishers, private charter school operators, and online curriculum producers.
The claims that America's schools are failing are grossly exaggerated, if not utterly false. For example, the number of students attempting and passing SAT and AP exams has been growing every year and in every ethnic and social group (see here and here). Furthermore, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, for the first time in history, more than 30% of Americans aged 25 or older—56 million people—have bachelor's degrees, while only 5% did 70 years ago—something that would be impossible if K-12 education was not successfully preparing its graduates for college. According to Good Education, more than one-third of these degrees are now in STEM fields. The data also indicates that gender and ethnic disparities are closing, with 30% of women now holding degrees (compared to 31% of men), while the percentage of Hispanic degree holders increased 80% over the past decade, with over 14% now holding degrees.
Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
Free market reformers love testing because it seems objective and scientific (plus they can massage the statistics to suit their needs). Most people lack the time and expertise to disaggregate the numbers, examine the methodology, and identify biases and experimental errors that can skew the data and influence the validity of their conclusions. Consequently, the media typically report test results without such analyses, proliferating misconceptions and inaccuracies like the notion that U.S. students' test scores are substantially lower than those in other wealthy nations (as measured by the PISA test).
However, as the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) correctly points out in a new report (that you can read here), lower income students in every country perform more poorly on the tests than affluent students. However, because economic inequality is greater in the U.S. than in virtually every other country with which we are compared, our national average appears comparatively low. To make matters worse, there was a sampling error in the most recent PISA test, resulting in an over-representation of students from the most disadvantaged U.S. schools, thus further depressing the average U.S. scores.
When EPI re-estimated PISA scores, adjusting for the disproportionate number of economically disadvantaged students in the U.S., it found that average U.S. scores in reading and math were substantially higher than the official numbers. Using EPI's corrected numbers, the U.S. moves to sixth in reading (up from the officially reported 14th) and 13th in math (up from the officially reported 25th) compared with other OECD countries.
Although U.S. students still performed worse than those in the top three countries (Canada, Finland and Korea), the difference was markedly narrowed when adjusted for socioeconomic differences. Perhaps more significantly, economically disadvantaged students in the U.S. performed better than their social class peers in most other countries, including in these three top scoring countries.
Thus, while U.S. educational outcomes appear worse than those of its trading partners (due mostly to its greater levels of social inequity), it is actually doing a better job than its trading partners at boosting the test scores of its poorest students. Furthermore, the performance of the poorest U.S. students has been improving over time, while the performance of poor students in other similar countries has been on the decline, suggesting that U.S. schools are doing a better job addressing the needs of their economically disadvantaged students.
http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2013/02/lies-and-damned-lies-us-test-scores.html?
Today's history lesson
Note, no history:
The JPEF blames teachers for the problems in education
The JPEF is an organization dedicated to improving the lot of local education. In a recent post o their site they bemoaned if only so many teachers didn't suck it would be a lot easier.
I paraphrase some but their meaning couldn't have been clearer. There premise was if only we had more excellent teachers, i.e. we have too many bad teachers then children would be more successful.
They start their misinformation campaign by saying the US spends more per capita on education than any other nation in the world. Unfortunately they leave out the fact to get to this number they have to include what we spend on college too. http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2008/10/17/190073/bad_education_spending_stats/?mobile=nc
The next so called fact they use is how despite these vast expenditures we rank way down in the middle of the pact. What they leave out is that when you adjust for poverty our scores shoot up to the top. Not that they mention poverty at all. It's like it doesn't even exist and poverty is the number one measureable factor for determining how children do in school. Kids in poverty don't do as well as those that don't. If you didn't know, a fifth of our kids live in poverty and another fifth just above it.
If anyone is serious about improving our schools, then tackling poverty is where we NEED to start because until we do that nothing else will matter. Furthermore just so the JPEF knows the overall quality of our teachers is exemplary.
Where is the JPEF post on poverty? Where are their ideas to mitigate it? Nowhere, that's where because instead they would rather blame the teacher.
I have met several members of the JPEF staff and have found them earnest and committed people, sadly however I must now add misinformed to the list.
To read the JPEF piece, follow the link: http://www.jaxpef.org/news/2013/02/extending-the-reach-(and-increasing-the-pay)-of-excellent-teachers.aspx
Dissecting the JPEF's ideas
After blaming teachers for the malaise American Education finds itself in, (high stakes testing, poverty, people who have never been in a classroom making decisions anybody) the JPEF offered a few suggestions to right our so-called sinking ship. Below are their suggestions, my remarks and then a few suggestions of my own.
Class-size changes: Not simply increasing all class sizes to push more students into fewer classrooms, but allowing more flexibility at the school level to determine which teachers and subjects can handle a few more students without sacrificing quality, and which students and teachers would benefit most from even smaller group sizes. I don't understand why they don't get, if you give me a few more students I will be a better teacher, said no teacher ever.
Specialization: Having top teachers, particularly in elementary school, teach only core subjects while developing teachers learn by example and take care of students the rest of the time. I guess this could work, though I know there already is a lot of specialization going on in many schools especially in the upper elementary grades.
Multi-classroom leadership: Having top teachers take on a coaching and oversight role that puts them in charge of several classrooms - allowing them to expand what they know works to reach students across multiple classrooms, while rising in their own career path as well. My problem with this is a lot of these corporate reformers can't conceive that many teachers just want to teach. They don't have the desire to be principals, assistant principals or multiple classroom leaders. To them teaching is the brass ring.
Time-technology swaps: Investing in new ways to incorporate classroom technology to handle the reinforcing of basic skills lessons and practice to allow top teachers more time for small group and individual instruction with more students. Every few years teachers are forced to use a new program that experts say will revolutionize education that is quickly replaced by a new one. Thus far there has been no technological silver bullet, please do not hold your breath waiting for one.
These suggestions won't do a bit of good unless we decide to tackle poverty and then as you may have detected I am still skeptical about some of them as well. If the JPEF is serious about improvement, mitigating poverty is the route we need to take and here are some ideas.
There are many things we can do to mitigate poverty in our so-called struggling schools. We should have social workers and mental health counselors because quite often why a student doesn't try or acts up has nothing to do with school. We should hire skill, trade and arts teachers because this one size fits all, everybody is going to go to college curriculum that we force every kid into doesn't play to many children's strengths and aptitudes and because we can't continue to make school such drudgery for kids and then wonder why they perform poorly. Then we need to have more summer school opportunities because some kids need more time to learn it and less time to lose it. Finally at least in Duval many students are taking too many classes that are too long at the same time, we should get rid of the A/B block.
Is the Times Union in love with Rick Scott? Two papers, two point of views.
The headline of Kristopher Brooks' piece read: Gov. Rick Scott to send extra state money to improving Florida schools, First Coast school districts will share $12.1 million.
Well gosh isn't that nice of the governor. The only problem is the headline is not all that accurate. The money being sent to several of our schools is school recognition money and the program has been in place for years. Scott might be signing the checks but it is not his idea, not even close.
Just a little detail the Times Union left out.
The Orlando Sentinel had a different take and that's the governor may be trying to take credit for a program that has been around for longer than he has lived in Florida (14 years to 10). http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_education_edblog/2013/02/fl-schools-to-get-school-recognition-award-money-tomorrow.html
To be honest and this may not be popular with some. I think the millions spent on school recognitions funds should be spent to pay for raises for all teachers or to create programs such as art, music, trades and skills at schools where students could benefit from them. Regardless it wasn't Rick Scott who came up with the idea.
Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/florida/2013-02-25/story/gov-rick-scott-send-extra-state-money-improving-florida-schools#ixzz2M0eM5sYQ
The hypocrisy of the Charter School movement
Let me tell you about a little charter school in Sarasota. They were so poor they barely kept their kids, um, err, equipped with basic school necessities. Sorry, I was doing a Beverley Hillbillies rift there. The parents got together and decided that they were paying Imagine Charter schools too much in management fees and this led to a lack of resources that was really detracting from the quality of education that their children were getting. So they voted to get rid of the management company. Sounds suspiciously like the Parent Trigger bill that the Florida Legislature is trying to push down people's throats if you ask me.
What did the management company do? They sued. They didn't say, well the parents are making a choice about the education of their children so we'll back off. They sued. They didn't say we'll reduce the management fees which take money out of the classroom and put it into the pocket of board members. They sued. They basicaly said, parent choice, schmarent choice, we'll do what we want, and they sued.
To be honest I don't have much sympathy for the parents after all charter schools steal resources from public schools but I do find this battle interesting. It shows the hypocrisy of the charter school movement.
Bob Sykes of Scathing Purple Musings has done several pieces about the battle between these charter school parents and the management company. To read more check out the links below:
http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/for-profit-charter-school-fights-back-against-parents-who-rejected-them-in-sarasota/
http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/charter-school-parents-pull-trigger-then-get-sued-by-charter-school-management-corporation/
More McKay Scholarship abuses
Do high stakes tests develop a love of learning?
To be fair, they never claimed that high-stakes tests would develop a love of learning. On the other hand, they never mentioned the tests would develop a loathing for school and a fear of failing. -Chris Spiliotis
Money should never follow the student or why do the parents of charter school students think they are special?
Let me ask you a question. Is it just the parents of students who attend charter schools or who go to private schools that pay taxes? Are they the only ones that foot the bill? What, you say, even people without kids have to pay taxes, and people whose kids have grown up have to pay taxes too? Then why is it voucher and charter school proponents think their taxes should follow the money to the school that they are sending their kids too?
Let me ask you another question. Are parents forced to home school their kids or to send them to charter schools or private schools? What, you are saying that is their choice? Then why should the public subsidize those choices? Also did you know very few parents pay in taxes what the state pays to educate their child? The system depends on people without children or whose children have graduated to chip in too.
I believe if some people don't like the public option they are presented and want to opt out then they not the public should be responsible for that choice and it is a choice that they are making. Furthermore we all pay into a public education system, whether we have kids in it or not is because that is one of the institutions that benefit us all. The stronger it is the better all of society is and once again that applies whether we have kids attending public schools or not.
I bring this up because of the chutzpah that some of the parents have demanding that their tax money follow their children and the nerve of charter school operators to demand local public school systems tax money. Nobody has forced parents to send their kids to charter schools and nobody forced charter schools to open and certainly owner operators knew what they were getting into when they took the task upon their shoulders. Or you would hope so anyways.
Since 1992 of the 6700 charter schools that have opened over a thousand have failed and of those about half was because of financial reasons. I wonder of those how many were paying their principals, usually the owner operator too, hundreds of thousands of dollars, or who were paying their relatives high salaries for no show jobs or jobs that traditionally pay a lot less.
Here in Florida we don't have any idea because of the lax accountability standards the Florida Legislature has bestowed upon charter school. Remember it was just in 2011 that the operator of a failed charter school with an enrollment of about 120 took home 800 grand after years of taking home salaries higher than most public school superintendents. Furthermore you can't go a week without reading the story if this charter school or that closing, having financial irregularities or demanding more taxpayer dollars.
And this is where we want our money to go?
What teachers are doing wrong!
John Meeks, the danger of professional learning communities (PLC)
It only takes a public school system to turn the word 'community' into a bad word.
We are born into communities, we choose communities, and we support communities that foster our humanity and growth.
My running assumption is that communities are like families, but transcend the blood ties that we inherit. In a community, we are all brothers and sisters who have the same vision and the same values - if not the manner in carrying them out.
You might ask why I believe that community is somehow an issue with the public school system. I would answer in the affirmative.
There is a new movement in public education that is called "Professional Learning Communities." It was created to connect teachers within a grade level or department to help them work well as a team. This teamwork, I believe, is necessary. I remember when I first began teaching in 2002 and felt like an island unto myself where I had to produce lessons and assignments independently of the veteran educators who could be of assistance to a rookie teacher.
The Professional Learning Communities (PLC) movement is the cure to this sense of disconnect among educators of all ability levels. Department and grade levels collaborate in PLC meetings on a regular basis and they meet to find ways to make the grade for our students and our schools.
The pursuit of professional growth through using best practices and proven practices is most beneficial to educators as they make the best use of their time, talent and treasure for the common good.
I like to begin my criticism with an inventory of the good before I list the 'deltas' - or areas where I believe can be improved. I have three deltas with regard to the darker side of the PLC movement:
1.) PLC = Professional Learning Conformity. Many administrators use the PLC movement as a guise under which they can mandate conformity among their faculty. The sharing of resources, in my opinion, should be up to the teachers who do the sharing. When we have administrators demanding to know why lesson plans are not identical and demanding to know why teachers are not doing the exact same thing at any given moment, we are losing an important autonomy that we trust other professionals with when they do their work.
2.) Differentiation only applies to students. Speaking of lack of autonomy, we are deluding ourselves when we demand that teachers behave like Cathy and Patty Lane the famous identical cousins on The Patty Duke Show who laughed alike, they walked alike and sometimes they even talked alike. We are very mindful of the different ways that students learn. We are equally stubborn in expecting teachers to set aside their talents to teach exactly the way their peers teach. The problem with PLC, in my opinion, that the voting majority in any grade level or department can impose their will on the minority simply because they agree that their way is better. As the old maxim goes, democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what is for dinner.
3.) When we meet, who will bring the cookies? The nature of data and accountability is to meet regularly to count the beans. The downside to the meetings and collaboration that they are supposed to foster is that many educators are required to meet for the sake of meeting. In this age of electronic communication, we still have schools that demand that teachers schedule time for meetings as often as once a week to set aside their planning and working to help the school prove that they indeed are having meetings. This, in my opinion, is the most wasteful aspect of PLCs. We expect educators to step away from their actual work to organize meetings that may or may not have a purpose not for the sake of helping students but to show the bureaucrats that the school is pledging its ongoing fealty to the almighty PLC.
The best way to organize a community of teachers is to be faithful to the vision and mission of the PLC movement without forgetting the aspects of community that actually inspire us to belong and serve.
Folow John on:
Jeb Bush has done enough damage to our schools
By Jac Versteeg, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Former Gov. Jeb Bush has an undeserved reputation as an education reformer. Florida's recent education progress has come not from implementing Mr. Bush's policies but from cleaning up after them.
Mr. Bush has been visiting legislators in Tallahassee to talk about education policy. Get out the mops and buckets. Taxpayers also should reach for their wallets, since the former governor's new big ideas involve transferring more public dollars to the for-profit companies behind him.
Mr. Bush's biggest idea, enacted immediately after taking office in 1999, was to give each school an A-to-F grade based on student scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. That misuse of the the FCAT continues. The test's many shortcomings were even more serious when Gov. Bush initiated FCAT tyranny. The test covered only a few subjects, students took it long before the end of the school year, and half of elementary and high-school students didn't even take it. Yet the entire school received a grade, on which parents, students and Realtors fixated.
Gov. Bush also instituted one voucher program the courts ruled unconstitutional and another "corporate voucher" program that, ironically, lets low-income students avoid taking the FCAT.
The Legislature gradually is replacing the FCAT with end-of-course exams. In yet another revision to the grading formula Gov. Bush perversely and prematurely treated as infallible, Florida made FCAT scores count less in some school grades. Still, Florida in 2011 also required teachers to be evaluated based on FCAT scores, even if a teacher had no students who took the FCAT.
This is not "creative destruction." It's harassment, and it has created enormous ill will. Gov. Rick Scott's frantic reversals in preparation for a reelection run — he has called for teacher raises not linked to the FCAT — show how unpopular Mr. Bush's education legacy is.
With the FCAT writing test looming this week, a Palm Beach County school board member spoke for many educators when she lamented that "this is one test on one day that means more than it should." But urging students and parents not to stress out is futile. Failing the FCAT still has out-sized consequences — such as no diploma.
Mr. Bush's fans note that Florida's education rankings and results have improved. The dubious rankings give Florida credit simply for having "accountability," systems even if those systems are bogus. Improving test results and graduation rates are incremental and could have been achieved — and surpassed — more quickly without the turmoil Mr. Bush inflicted.
Now Mr. Bush heads several foundations pushing for a rapid expansion of charter schools and virtual schools. His Foundation for Excellence in Education accepts donations from private companies that would profit from lax new laws that Florida and other states are rushing to enact. The sort of careless "reform" Jeb Bush advocates will end up with taxpayers fleeced and students and parents cheated. He has a reputation for reform. He has a record of making messes.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/opinion/editorial-florida-needs-no-advice-from-jeb-bush-on/nWYCy/
John Romano asks, why charter schools?
1. If a majority of parents are on board with this rapid expansion, why are so many charter schools closing due to low enrollment?
2. If charters are such a wonderful alternative, why were they four times more likely to receive an F in the statewide grading system last year?
3. If accountability is important, why are the rules so lax that the salary of a charter school's principal can be double the size of the school's entire education budget?
To read the whole piece check out this link: http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/legislature/remedial-lessons-on-charter-school-expansion-
SB 744, A Charter School bill even I can get behind
Its been no secret that the Florida Legislature has been full speed ahead with their privatization agenda the last few years and their main mechanism has been the charter school. They have not so subtlety stacked the deck in their favor and this despite inferior quality, dubious results, and scandal and charter school closing after scandal and charter school closing. It's shameful.
However this year maybe there is a bit of a push back going on and a few legislators have introduced a bill to hold them accountable or what I like to call, the bill least likely to pass the Florida legislature.
SB 744, by Sens. David Simmons, R-Maitland, and Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, would require an applicant wanting to establish a charter school to submit information on annual employee compensation and to demonstrate financial capability to open, operate and maintain a high-quality charter school.
You would think above would just be common sense but sadly here in Florida when it comes to education common sense is extremely rare. It is way past time Florida if it insists on going down the charter school route makes sure they are putting in place financially accountable high quality schools or what I like to call the opposite of what we have been doing up till now.
Good luck Simmons and Montford, you are going to need it.
Just who wants the Parent Trigger again?
Apparently just the republicans in the Florida legislature, Jeb Bush and charter school operators who are salivating at the prospect of a free school. Since this is the case it shows the hypocrisy of the situation.
Why? Look who has come out against it.
Teachers and their representatives, the democrats in the Florida legislature, the civil rights organizations the NAACP and the LULAC and they have been joined by the PTA, SOS, Fund Education Now and several other parents groups.
Jeb Bush's response, parents should have lots of choices as long as they choose what I am offering.
Only in Florida can a bill be so reviled by all the stakeholders have a better than good chance of passing.
It is not the interests of parents and children that the state legislature is concerned with but the pocketbooks of charter school operators and their own campaign accounts.
John Meeks: "Student-centered" learning is a joke!
"Student-centered" learning is a joke. The problem is that there is nothing humorous about this new piece of education jargon that seems to be more designed to frustrate and intimidate teachers who are working to serve our students.
George Orwell would be proud of how education leaders and bureaucrats define "student-centered." In reality, students do not appear to be served much by forcing teachers to put on the dog for the sake of keeping up appearances.
What is frustrating most to me as an educator is not that we are not trying. The trouble is that there are legions of educators who sacrifice their time to follow orders only to scrap their work when someone with a wild hair decides that something else better has come along.
It is foolish and silly for professionals in any field to put in the time to comply with directives that will only give way to something else the next week, month or year. This capricious and arbitrary leadership, in my opinion, is abusive and would not be tolerated in any other sector of employment.
The refrain from on high, however, is that we have to do this for the students. This is a cheap shot that implies that educators do not care about their students when they fail to see the value of investing time and effort into labor that will be disrespected and discarded. This is a cheap shot that fails to trust teachers to do the right thing for their students.
In this age of data-driven instruction, we all find ourselves fretting over the numbers. When the statistics rear their ugly head, everyone from principals down to paraprofessionals must jump like servants answering their master's bell.
And, where are the students in this equation? They are consigned to being used as weapons with which to condemn the good work of those whom the public trusts to help. It should be no surprise that bullying is increasing in schools because the metrics in modern education do not give any reason for administrators or teachers to care. Evaluations are centered around student performance, but not student morale, happiness or safety.
While we cannot paper over student test scores, we can easily ignore and under-report student discipline because it is convenient to focus solely on the math and reading scores. The failing of this mindset is that students who do not feel safe on campus and do not feel supported by their schools are the same students whose families will eventually opt to remove them from public schools.
Parents and families of public school students should be alarmed that educators are being trained either overtly or covertly to look the other way because any sincere attempts to protect their students is perceived as distracting from the mission to create employees for the workforce.
In my opinion, the school system is currently designed and organized around benign neglect of the social and mental needs of students who come from broken homes, abusive families, low-income circumstances, and other situations that will never factor into why our schools face challenges. To speak up about this horrible situation is to be dismissed for making excuses.
Can I afford to stick my head into the ground like an ostrich? I would benefit greatly from doing so as it helps my numbers and gives my superiors the impression that I am a busy beaver. Perhaps I am wrong, but I have a different idea of what "student-centered" means.
Follow John on:
Florida outgains students in other large states, but why?
Let's string some statements from an article about the improvement in the Tampa Times, together with my observations about them.
First, when talking about Florida's improvement over the last decade, including a 16 point improvement for 4th graders, Jack Buckley commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics said, I am fairly confident in saying there is something real going on there.
He later added, he was "skeptical" of anyone who ventured to link these scores to policy decisions. Not that hasn't stopped Florida's policymakers from doing so.
Then in response to the improvement Tony Bennett, Florida's education commissioner pointed to the state's third-grade reading retention policies and A-F school grades as two causes of the growth.
"While there may not be a strict causal relationship between these actions and Florida's steady improvement, we cannot ignore that prospect" Let's look at the inverse of that statement which would be, but if the causal reasons are something else we can ignore them. Which is interesting because Mr. Bennett left something out, they same thing Jeb Bush, Gary Chartrand and every other corporate education reformer does and that's the class size amendment.
The final statement is, critics of Florida's education reforms have typically credited smaller class sizes for performance increases.
Perhaps the critics are a little hasty too. I think the A-F grading system has been a disaster but I also think that there is something to be said for holding kids back that haven't mastered the material. I would say the improvement definitely has to do with Florida's third grade retention policy. I don't think retaining kids is a bad thing because I think education should be a journey to prepare kids, not a race to do it in 12 years. I however personally feel an extended school year for some is the way we should go.
But at the end of the day what do we really have here? There has been improvement and we can't just ignore it, now we have to have an honest data driven conversation as to why things have improved. Unfortunately to paraphrase Bennett he and his ilk aren't interested in causal data, they are interested only in sound bites and anything that can potentially back up their corporate reform minded policies. Getting it right isn't their objective, seeming to get it right so they can continue to privatize public education is.
The thing is, shouldn't we make sure we are getting it right? Isn't that what should be important?
http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/testing/report-florida-students-out-gain-peers-in-other-large-states/1276044
Charter Schools in Ohio cost twice as much as public schools
Not the value I am sure they were sold at. I mention this here in a blog mostly dedicated to Florida education issues because as more and more evidence becomes available people are beginning to realize charters aren't that great of a value here either.
To see the study click this link: http://innovationohio.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Unfair-Funding-IO-charter-schools-report-1.pdf
When is good news not good news? When we are talking about education in Florida.
Good news, the town crier yelled as the results from all our kids A.P. tests came out. Florida first in the amount of kids taking A.P. tests for years is now among the leaders in kids passing them too. All is right in the world and this is proof that the education reforms are working. Except it isn't.
Last year 27.3 percent of students passed an A.P. exam, both up from the previous year and above the national average of 19.5 percent. Furthermore last year more than twice as many kids graduated with at least one AP test passed (4 year career) than did in 2002. That's good news right?
Here however is the problem, in Florida over half of our kids take A.P. tests, a score which is inflated because if you are in an A.P. class you have to take the test whether you think you will pass it or not. What's the rate of the rest of the nation? 32.4%
That's right friends in the rest of the country less than a third of their students take A.P. classes while here in Florida partly because A.P. classes give schools cover and easy points in the school grading formula over half of our kids do. Could the sheer volume of students taking A.P. classes have led to some of our improvement? Yeah I think so too.
Oh, did you know the state pays for the tests too? Which means since we pump so many kids into A.P. classes and then make them take the test, the state spends tens of millions of dollars a year on failed tests. Tests which more than few have no business taking and do so knowing they will fail.
One last thing, ask an A.P. teacher, preferably one who has been doing it for a while what they think about the progress we have made, if they think what we have been doing is good news or not. I think you may be surprised.
So yeah, I guess there is some good news here but at the end of the day it's more cherry picked, inflated stats that come with serious questions and reservations. Welcome to Florida.
Follow up, below is from the Miami Herald: And despite the state's overall success, there are some troubling concerns about AP Florida's high schools.
Fifty-six percent of the exam scores from last year's class were 1s or 2s, with more than 32 percent of those at the lowest level. That shows students did not master the concepts and skills taught in the class. In recent years, some educators have questioned the value of students taking classes they are not ready to tackle.
Florida high schools routinely schedule ninth-graders into some AP classes, though the practice is discouraged by the College Board because the failure rate is so high. Many Florida schools, for example, enroll freshmen in AP human geography, where nearly 49 percent of students scored a 1, recent data shows.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/20/3244221/florida-ranks-4th-for-student.html
Teacher job satisfaction at 25 year low!
From the Hechinger Report
Job satisfaction among public school principals and teachers has decreased in the past five years, with teacher satisfaction reaching its lowest levels in 25 years, according to survey results released Thursday. Only 39 percent of teachers reported being very satisfied in their job, and more than half said they felt under "great stress" several days a week, the 29th annual MetLife Survey of the American Teacher found.
The findings come at a time when nearly every state around the country has adopted some sort of significant education reform in the past two years, including revising academic standards and implementing new teacher evaluation systems. Advocates say that many of these reforms, such as merit pay and the elimination of seniority-based layoffs, will help attract a higher-quality candidate to the profession.
But Michael Cohen, president of Achieve, a nonprofit group that promotes higher academic standards, said he was concerned by the job satisfaction numbers and what they said about the general public's view of educators. "What struck me most," he said during a conference call hosted by MetLife to discuss the findings, "[is that] they are operating in an environment of public discourse that is often focused on blame."
The survey also found that three-quarters of principals said that their job was too complex. "We're asking principals to do a lot more with – at best – the same, or fewer resources," Mel Riddile, an associate director at the National Association of Secondary School Principals, said on the call. "They're encountering a perfect storm of Common Core implementation, new teacher evaluations and state accountability systems."
Both Riddile and Cohen stressed that full implementation of the Common Core State Standards, a new set of k-12 academic standards that 48 states have adopted, would be a huge shift for virtually all schools.
Ninety percent of principals and 93 percent of teachers reported that teachers in their schools had the skills necessary for implementing the new standards, according to the survey. They were less sure, however, of the impact Common Core would have. Just 22 percent of principals and 17 percent of teachers said they were very confident the standards would increase student performance.
"Different surveys produce different findings of how supportive teachers are of the standards," Cohen said. "None of this is going to happen quickly. These are long term changes."
http://hechingered.org/content/teacher-job-satisfaction-at-25-year-low_6076/
Florida plans to abandon its most vulnerable children.
They will anyway if people like Senate President Don Geatz, state board of education member Sally Bradshaw and Education Commissioner Tony Bennett and get their way.
The first two can't understand how teachers at supposedly poor performing schools, re: don't do well on standardized tests can get effective or higher evaluations. The last says when we have a system that links school grades to teacher's evaluations then the system will exhibit more common sense.
Let's do something we should never do and forget for a moment that school grades and teacher evaluations are not designed to sync up and let's forget for a moment that teachers are playing by a system that was developed in Tallahassee to the chagrin of most of them and instead let's just focus on where the vast majority of these supposedly poor performing schools are located and who attends these schools.
The vast majority of these so called underperforming schools are in neighborhoods wracked with poverty and lacking opportunity. Crime is higher in these neighborhoods than in the suburbs or the more affluent areas of town where you will find your high performing schools, re: does well on standardized tests. Poverty by the way, is not an excuse, it is the number one quantifiable measurement in determining how students do in school. Those kids that live in poverty as a group don't do as well as those that don't.
Many of these children live with extended family members or come from one parent households. Some are homeless and others live in foster care. Many of these students don't have enough to eat and worry where their next meal is coming from. Some of their parents don't see the value of education and some of the ones that do are too tired from working their low paying jobs to be very involved. Many of the students at these schools have to worry about violence in their neighborhoods and have had the classes they enjoy like art and music eliminated, because rich kids get to take them and poor kids only get tested. Then every one of them is shoved into a one size fits all curriculum regardless of their desire or ability. Now because a few politicians in Tallahassee don't understand how evaluations work they want to take away their teachers, for some the only stable adult in their lives, too.
Who is going to want to work at one of these schools, with our most vulnerable children if they know they can be let go because of how they do on a test score? People forget that five years ago we were recruiting in Canada, India, and the business world because we couldn't find enough teachers. There won't be enough Teach for Awhile, make that America recruits to fill the classrooms, not that we should want them to anyways because putting them there is the exact opposite of best practices. I am not saying we shouldn't have any accountability. I am saying we shouldn't blindfold teachers, tie their hands and then ask them to build a bike.
Some people might say charter schools are the answer as many have set up shops in these poor neighborhoods and siphoned both resources and children away from the public schools there. The problem is charter schools don't do any better than our public schools do and many do worse. In Florida last year according to State Impact if your child were to have attended a charter school they were 7 times more likely to have attended a failing school. Furthermore charter schools are often manned by an ever rotating door of neophytes or once again what we know to be the opposite of best practices. No the answer is not more charter schools many of which are operated by corporations far more interested in the bottom line than educating our children.
I have an idea, why doesn't the state legislature pass a law telling districts they have to flip the staffs at the best performing school, re: does well on standardizes tests with the worst performing school, re: doesn't do well on standardized tests. The state has already seized local control when they started over riding charter school decisions and telling districts how to evaluate teachers. By the states logic the children at the low performing school will see their grades sky rocket, except we all know that will not happen. Well everybody but those actually pulling the strings that is. I guess there is a chance that if staffs switched Mr. Geatz and Mrs. Bradshaw would realize that teaching even great teaching can only take a child so far if a child is hungry, afraid and doesn't have a parent who cares. Though who knows they might want this new set of teachers fired too when the inevitable happens and their scores say stagnant. By the way, I' m not saying these schools can't improve. I am saying if we want them to then we need to stop tackling the wrong problem.
If Geatz, Bradshaw and Bennett were really interested in improving the schools in our poorer neighborhoods they would give up their obsession with evaluating and punishing teachers and would instead come up with ways to mitigate poverty.
We need to put social workers and mental health counselors in our struggling schools because quite often why kids act up or do poorly in school has nothing to do with school. We need to make school year around for many of our children by providing legitimate summer school opportunities and I am not talking about throwing kids in front of computers. That way kids can make up losses and have less time to lose gains. Then we need to make school more relevant to children by offering multiple curriculums (skills, trades and arts) that play to their strengths and desires and are less drudgery to them, furthermore every kid should have one elective of their choosing on their schedule. And speaking of schedules we must adjust them to meet our student's needs and abilities, right now for many of our kids, not only are they taking too many classes at a time, but they are too long and meet too infrequently.
Sadly however instead of tackling the real problem and coming up with real solutions, these powers-that-be are more interested in fixing a problem that isn't there. Geatz, Bradshaw and Bennett are truly doing our students, especially are most vulnerable ones a disservice and maybe that was their plan all along.
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The Hypocrisy of charter school supporters
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The problem with teaching creationism as science.
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Onclusive Raises $8 Million Series C Financing – Bolsters Platform With the Release of Author Intelligence™ Solution
by Team Onclusive
San Francisco, December 17, 2018 – Onclusive (www.airpr.com), the data science company for communication and public relations, today announced the closing of its Series C financing of 8 million dollars. Pereg Ventures, along with all three of the company's largest existing institutional investors, Wildcat Ventures, Storm Ventures, and Correlation Ventures, participated in the round. The financing will fuel investment in engineering, data science and product development and accelerate the expansion of the company's international footprint.
Tae Hea Nahm of Storm Ventures, an early investor in Marketo, shared, "I see significant parallels between how companies like Marketo and others took marketing to a new level based on data and analytics and what Onclusive is doing for PR and the communication function."
The next new Onclusive solution to be released will be Author Intelligence™, a media relations tool that provides insights around the journalists and bloggers who can have the biggest impact on a business. Author Intelligence helps PR, communication, and content marketing teams understand how to connect with those authors in the most meaningful way by providing a detailed profile of each author, including their publication activity, social amplification, and social sentiment. The solution leverages artificial intelligence to recommend similar authors based on common attributes and characteristics.
To support Onclusive's continued expansion, the company recently augmented its leadership team with the addition of experienced data, PR, and marketing technology veterans:
Dan Beltramo, CEO of Onclusive, founded Vizu (acquired by Nielsen) and subsequently ran Nielsen's global marketing effectiveness business, including attribution, marketing mix modeling, and advertising effectiveness products
Sean O'Neal, President of Onclusive, previously led commercial operations at Adaptly (acquired by Accenture) and Vizu (acquired by Nielsen)
Judy Luk-Smit, VP of Product at Onclusive, previously product management at Dell
Doug Miller, VP of Customer Success at Onclusive, previously marketing analytics leader at Adobe and Rocketfuel
Enid Maran, Managing Director at Onclusive, previously Managing Director of Nielsen's Marketing Effectiveness business
Jeremy Longinotti, VP of Sales and Business Development at Onclusive, previously Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at TruSignal, the big data and predictive analytics company
Andy Cunningham, Board of Directors at Onclusive and former Head of Corporate Communication at Apple. Currently CEO of Cunningham Collective, and formerly CMO of Avaya, CMO of Reardon Commerce, CEO of CXO Communication, and CEO of Bite.
"In addition to industry-leading technology and data products, what I am most excited about is the breadth of talent and experience which we are bringing to bear to this opportunity", said Dan Beltramo, CEO of Onclusive. "We have brought on a team with a unique blend of marketing, communication, analytics, and software experience."
"The PR and communication function, on the whole, has been losing ground relative to the advances in marketing technology. Onclusive is leading the digital transformation of the industry and elevating the science behind communication," says Andy Cunningham. "Earning a seat at the executive table is all about being able to tie one's efforts to real business outcomes in a credible manner."
Onclusive is the data science company for communication and public relations. We connect content to business outcomes for the first time, and leverage artificial intelligence to reveal which communication strategies drive actual brand engagement. Onclusive developed the Power of Voice™ metric as a way to measure the quality of a brand's media coverage in relation to its competitors, and invented PR Attribution™ to measure the real impact that content is having on a company's bottom line. Onclusive was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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SAINt JHN Releases Electrifying 'Borders' Music Video With Lenny Kravitz
New York, NY – This summer, SAINt JHN unleashed his sophomore effort Ghetto Lenny's Love Songs which is home to a sultry track titled "Borders" featuring legendary Grammy Award-winning musician Lenny Kravitz.
The music video for "Borders" made its debut on the MTV Billboard in New York City's historic Time Square November 29 and was also plastered on the YouTube and Staple Center billboards located in Times Square as well.
3 BILLBOARDS IN ONE WEEK??!! For the BORDERS video ft @lennykravitz Thank you @youtubemusic The middle of TIME SQUARE New York THO 🤦🏾♂🤦🏾♂🤦🏾♂ & on SUNSET BLVD in LA 😭😭😭. If I wasn't on tour right now I might do some ratchet sh*t in front of one…. I can't even see them in person 😩😩 still littttttt 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤💋💋💋💋💋💋
A post shared by Ghetto Lenny (@saintjhn) on Dec 3, 2019 at 2:47pm PST
The black and white visual was filmed in Paris and features the Brooklyn artist and Lenny showing off chiseled abs behind silk shirts, while dancers dance to the rhythm of the song.
SAINt JHN is currently on the last leg of his North American Ghetto Lenny's Ignorant Tour with plans of heading overseas to embark on a European and Australian tour in 2020.
Watch the music video for SAINt JHN's "Borders" featuring Lenny Kravitz up top.


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Alex Christy
CNN's Poppy Harlow Tries to Use Bush's Bullhorn Speech After 9/11 to Support Gun Control
September 11th, 2019 11:57 PM
Former George W. Bush's Bullhorn Speech is one of the most defining and iconic moments in modern American history, the only thing that compares to it is Franklin Roosevelt's Day of Infamy speech. Unfortunately, CNN Newsroom co-host Poppy Harlow tried to use the sense of national unity in the circumstances of Bush's speech on the eighteenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to push gun control.
Harlow was joined on Wednesday by Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen and the segment started off well enough, with Harlow asking Van Hollen to reflect on what 9/11 means eighteen years later. Van Hollen gave an equally appropriate answer talking about how he used to represent a district that consisted of many Pentagon workers and how the attacks united the country.
It was then that Harlow tried to transition into contemporary controversies, "Well, we'll all remember that moment when President Bush walked up on that pile of rubble near Ground Zero with that bullhorn and really worked to unite the country and on that point of uniting the country around something, so many Americans, Senator, Democrats, Republicans, independents are calling on Congress to do something on guns."
She then listed a number of policy proposals the White House is considering and asked Van Hollen if they would make a difference. Van Hollen responded by giving the standard Democratic lines about closing "the gun show loophole" and condemning Mitch McConnell for "contracting the Senate's decisions out to the White House."
When President Bush told the first responders at Ground Zero and the whole world that "the people who knocked these buildings down will hear from all of us soon" he was uniting the country for war, not some partisan domestic cause. Bush's iconic address on September 14, 2001, should stand on its own as an iconic moment in history and not be used by partisan journalists to achieve a partisan end.
Here is a transcript of the September 11 show:
CNN Newsroom with Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto
POPPY HARLOW: Let's begin on what today is. It's the 18-year mark after the 9/11 terror attacks. It feels like yesterday. It's a similar September morning, clear blue sky, crisp morning. We have learned a lot. We have grown a lot as a country since then. What do you think about when you think about today?
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Well, Poppy, like you, it feels like it was just yesterday. I remember being at home when the planes flew into the towers and then shortly after the hit at the Pentagon and I represented at that time a congressional district in Maryland. A lot of employees work at the Pentagon lived in our district: Montgomery County, Maryland rescue operations were sent to support the operations at the Pentagon. So, look, this was a moment where the country came together at a terrible hour. But we were united and again even today, at this moment, the country stand united. We are going to have a moment of silence in the United States Senate within the next few hours.
HARLOW: Well, we'll all remember that moment when President Bush walked up on that pile of rubble near ground zero with that bullhorn and really worked to unite the country and on that point of uniting the country around something, so many Americans, Senator, Democrats, Republicans, independents are calling on Congress to do something on guns. The president says he's reviewing options. We don't know specifically what he supports and what he does not. But what we're hearing from sources is improving the national background check system, looking at straw man purchase, funding mental health programs, implementing capital punishment for mass murderers. Overhauling domestic terror law, actually something Adam Schiff proposed. Are any of those things you are backing that you think make a difference?
VAN HOLLEN: Poppy, there are a whole range of options we need to take action on and we really should have taken action long ago on many of these issues. As you indicated on this question of doing something on gun safety and gun reform, the country is united. There was a national poll showing 90% of the American public, all political parties and backgrounds support a common sense universal background check. Right. Let's close the gun show loophole. The West Texas shooter had originally been denied access to firearms because of the normal rules, but then used the loophole, the private sale loophole. We have a bill in the Senate right now that was passed by the House well over 100 days ago that would close that loophole. The country's overwhelmingly in support of it. Mitch McConnell should not be contracting the Senate's decisions out to the White House, we're a separate branch of government, let's take this up, let's vote. If McConnell wants to vote no, that's his choice, but don't bar the Senate from acting.
Chris Van Hollen
Poppy Harlow
CNN Newsroom


A Texas doctor apologized for saying the gender wage gap in medicine exists because female doctors "do not work as hard" as male physicians, a comment that sparked outrage and went viral.
"This is because they choose to, or they simply don't want to be rushed, or they don't want to work the long hours," he continued.
The comments were published as part of a feature that included medical professionals' thoughts on the wage gap, in response to a study that found female doctors are paid around two-thirds as much as their male colleagues, according to Dallas News.
After the remarks began spreading online, drawing widespread criticism, Tigges apologized on Plano Internal Medicine Associates' website. Tigges is one of three physicians at the practice, one of whom is a woman.
Tigges also said his comments were in response to an email from the Dallas County Medical Society, and he did not know they would be printed in the journal, the Dallas News reports.


text:
Disco Files 1973–78, the
Enjoy / Survive
In celebration of the Red Bull Music Academy's 15th Anniversary, the progressive institution has paired up a compelling selection of top artists and industry insiders, curating conversations on some of the most relevant topics in music today. Featured artists include Nile Rodgers, Martyn Ware, Daft Punk, David Bowie, Madonna, Erykah Badu, Lee Scratch Perry and more. In a similar fashion, For the Record also explores the topics of live performance, instruments/interfaces, conceptualism, drumming, rhythm, and many more. Together with stunning visual design by Chris Rehberger's Double Standards agency, the results make for one of the most insightful publications on the current state of music and the music industry.For the Record includes conversations between luminaries such as Nile Rodgers and Martyn Ware - the forces behind some of the biggest tunes in disco and pop from the likes of Chic, Daft Punk, David Bowie, Madonna, The Human League, and Heaven 17 - who compare notes on the best way to create chart-topping hits. Erykah Badu, one of neo-soul's defining voices, shares career advice and psychedelic wisdom with up-and-coming New York rap duo The Underachievers. DJ Harvey and Ben UFO, two different generations of DJs, talk about the good old days, the present day, and the uncertain future of selecting records for a living. Jamaican visionary Lee 'Scratch' Perry is paired with UK dub producer Adrian Sherwood. Those familiar with Perry's unique worldview will not be disappointed by this surprising and funny conversation.
ISBN 9783899555073. Die Gestalten Verlag.
15 Conversations with People Who Have Changed the Way We Listen to Music
400 pages. full colour. 24 x 28 cm.


text:
Asset Search & Recovery
Enhanced Due Diligence
Physical & Cyber Security
The Interfor Difference
Threat Intelligence and Sentiment Monitoring
The primary objective of the Physical Security Vulnerability Assessment is to observe and analyze areas of potential and/or actual vulnerability, to define causes, and to recommend means to reduce or eliminate exposure. In conducting the assessment, Interfor utilizes a specialized process known as The Interfor Method. The Interfor Method ensures that the assessment will be catered to the client's individual and specific needs and allows for the most comprehensive analysis available on the market.
The assessment includes a review of: access control systems and procedures; ingress/egress procedures, intrusion detection systems; application of electronic control systems; employee and visitor identification procedures; IT procedures; employee/vendor background investigations; and, general personnel policies and procedures.
The Interfor Method
The Interfor Method involves an extensive system designed to assess, analyze, report and test areas of potential or actual vulnerability. The method can be scaled easily and implemented within small businesses, middle-market companies and large corporations. Although the following reflects a framework of the method, given that no two assessments are identical, it should only be regarded as a guide.
Initial Meeting
Introduction to client's corporate structure, services and identity
Identification of key personnel
Creation of a cross-functional Assessment Team (usually comprised of senior-level personnel within pertinent groups, divisions or business units)
Pre-Assessment Meeting/Survey
Determination of the scope of the Interfor Assessment
Discussion of perceived threats and historical incidents
Classification of industry-wide threats
Identification of key assets (i.e. personnel, facilities, material)
Discussion of process for reporting and gathering information
Establishment of timeline for entire process
Identification of deliverables
Identification of required tools and documentation (i.e. protocols and procedures)
Clearance obtained for Interfor personnel
Comprehensive Onsite Assessment
Implementation of the agreed-upon plan including physical assessments of facilities during both daytime and evening hours
Review of current protocols and procedures and a determination of the level of compliance throughout the organization
Comprehensive interviews with identified key personnel
Aggressive testing of current security precautions and barriers through various prearranged means
Evaluation of emergency planning and mitigation procedures and policies
Analysis of business continuity plans
Evaluation of security training and education procedures
Data Analysis and Initial Report Generation
Professional analysis of collected data
Design and development of report outlining observations and recommendations
Preliminary Briefing
General and specific observations of vulnerabilities throughout the organization
Specific recommendations highlighting areas of critical concern as well as areas in need of improvement
Discussion of the needs for further evaluation or testing
Presentation of Findings and Recommendations
All findings and recommendations will be reported in a manner which fits the needs of the organization
Presentation of all updated, rewritten or modified policies and procedures
Recommendations for the implementation of training or awareness programs
Testing of Implemented Recommendations
Prearranged audits to determine if the improvements have been implemented correctly
Findings report and further recommendations
Recurring evaluations and/or audits on a predetermined schedule
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DANIEL ZAFFRAN- Vice President, Intelligence & Operations
Daniel has a strong track record in the fields of intelligence, security and business development. After obtaining a master's degree in Middle East affairs he deployed as a cultural field analyst for the U.S.Army in both Iraq and Afghanistan. On his return to the United States, Daniel worked as a consultant and analyst on private sector projects related to counter-terrorism, terror financing, and related security matters. Prior to joining Interfor, Daniel was the U.S.-based liaison for a premier French physical security company, where he focused on developing visibility for the firm within the North American market and creating strategic partnerships.
At Interfor, Daniel applies his analytic and operational background in meeting the needs of our clientele, whether it's case management, development of sources, or project execution. Daniel is also the regional director for a volunteer security organization. He is an avid traveler and fluent in French
LYNNE FRIEDMAN, Ed.D. - Vice President, Director of Research
Dr. Friedman joined Interfor, Inc. in early 1991. Dr. Friedman has more than thirty years of experience in corporate investigations. She has provided research and investigative management to in-house staff, field personnel and confidential sources for due diligence background investigations, litigation support fact finding and international asset investigations. Her research and experience include coordinating and managing numerous large-scale international investigations, corporate takeover investigations and asset searches. B.A. and M.S. Queens College, Ed.D. Columbia University.
TODD YOUNG - Vice President, Senior Investigator
Mr. Young has been an international corporate investigator for more than thirty years. He now heads Interfor's asset detection division. He participated in the high profile asset searches of Ferdinand Marcos and Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. Mr. Young received his B.A. from Ithaca College where he studied history.
BENJAMIN KUNDE, CFE - Director of International Investigations
Mr. Kunde oversees complex investigations, cross-border asset searches, and international due diligence analyses. A Certified Fraud Examiner, he leverages over nine years of deep industry experience, bringing significant analytical, research, and management skills to each client matter. Mr. Kunde is the lead liaison to Interfor's German clients and partners. Further, he is responsible for implementing Interfor's international growth strategy – advising in-house counsel, attorneys, and dealmakers. As a senior investigator, he led investigative teams in hundreds of fraud, litigation support and high-profile asset/sovereign debt investigations. Mr. Kunde ran Interfor's Los Angeles office and opened the firm's Singapore branch, marking its first operations in Asia. Mr. Kunde earned his M.B.A. from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University, specializing in Economics, Business Law, and Management. Following his military service in Berlin, he also received a B.A. in Political Science and an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Rostock, Germany.
THOMAS M. SUOZZO - Sr. Vice President
Thomas M. Suozzo, Esq. is Senior Vice President, Business Development & Marketing at Interfor International. Mr. Suozzo oversees the business development, marketing and public relations efforts of the firm. Prior to joining Interfor, Mr. Suozzo was in private practice for more than ten years, specializing in civil litigation. In addition, he has served in an executive capacity with public and private companies in the legal service and medical device industries. His combined expertise in law, litigation services and business development is a valuable addition to the executive team at Interfor and provides an opportunity to expand new venture initiatives at the firm. He graduated with a B.A. from Rutgers University and a J.D. from the Syracuse University College of Law.
Tom Suozzo is an expert in the field of corporate crime and fraud and recovering misappropriated or embezzled funds. He is available for interviews or speaking engagements.
DON AVIV - President
Don Aviv, CPP, PSP, PCI, is the President and Director of the Physical Security Group for Interfor International, where he is responsible for day-to-day operations. He has extensive experience in physical security, risk management, crisis mitigation and investigations.
Prior to joining Interfor, Mr. Aviv was the Global Security Manager for Parametric Technology Corporation, an international software company, where he was responsible for the security and safety of company assets and personnel within 138 global field offices. During that time, he was an Executive Member of the Local Emergency Planning Committee in the Town of Needham, Massachusetts. Mr. Aviv previously worked as an undercover and field investigator for a regional investigative firm.
Mr. Aviv is a Certified Protection Professional (CPP) and a Board Certified Physical Security Professional (PSP). He is also a certified New York State Private Investigator and Security Officer and most recently attained certification as a Professional Investigator (PCI, Professional Certified Investigator). He holds a B.A. from the University of Rochester and a Alpha Phi Sigma M.S. in Criminal Justice from Suffolk University. Mr. Aviv is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland University College.
Don Aviv is an expert in the field of physical security. He is available for interviews and speaking engagements.
JUVAL AVIV - Chairman & CEO
Juval Aviv is Chief Executive Officer & President of Interfor International.
Before founding Interfor, Mr. Aviv served as an officer in the Israel Defense Force (Major, retired) leading an elite Commando/Intelligence Unit and was later selected by the Israeli Secret Service (Mossad) to participate in a number of intelligence and special operations in the late 1960s and 1970s. In 1984, a true account of one mission he led was published in a book entitled Vengeance, by George Jonas. The book became a best seller and was the basis for the HBO film Sword of Gideon and Steven Spielberg's Munich.
Mr. Aviv's bona fides have been verified by government and media sources. According to documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI, after investigating Mr. Aviv in the early 1980s, concluded that although not currently working with Israeli Intelligence, Mr. Aviv did have ties to the Mossad. Mr. Aviv has also been thoroughly vetted many times by lawyers for some of the largest corporations in the world before becoming Interfor clients.
As head of Interfor, Mr. Aviv calls upon more than 35 years of experience conducting international investigations into white-collar crime at scores of multinational companies. He has personally solved numerous cases of fraud, counterfeiting, embezzlement, anti-competitive behavior, and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in the banking, insurance, aerospace, entertainment, pharmaceutical, and aviation industries, to name just a few.
A leading authority on terrorist networks and their inner workings, Mr. Aviv served as lead investigator for Pan Am Airways into the Pan Am 103-Lockerbie terrorist bombing. In addition, while working as a consultant with El Al Airlines, Mr. Aviv conducted a survey and update of its security program that has made El Al the safest airline in business today.
Mr. Aviv has been a speaker and panel participant for many organizations including the FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice – Office of the U.S. Trustee, the Internal Revenue Service, The Ontario Securities Commission, Smith Barney, Aon Insurance, INSOL and the American Bankers Association. In addition to his speaking engagements, Mr. Aviv has been a frequent contributor to articles and programs on U.S. preparedness relative to various forms of terrorism. He has served as a consultant on counterterrorism for the FOX News Channel and has been a frequent guest on ABC's Nightline and many other news programs and has been featured in numerous articles in major magazines and newspapers worldwide, including The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Financial Times, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Toronto Sun, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, and The Economist.
Mr. Aviv is a leading expert on the subjects of terrorism and white collar crime and fraud. He is available for interviews and speaking engagements.
http://www.interforinternational.com/physical-security-vulnerability-assessment">


When I agreed to write a cancer survivor account, I never imagined it to be this hard. And it is hard because of the loss of Kimberly Ann Batchelor, a 13-year-old Hampstead youth, who lost her battle with cancer. What an impact she had on so many and this entire community. To this end, I dedicate this to her memory and the memory to those we all have lost to cancer and to honor all those who are still fighting.
I received my breast cancer diagnosis in July 2002. I found the lump myself in April, but since I had planned to go to Disney World with my daughter, Audrea George and her family, I kept the finding to myself. Once we got back from our vacation I contacted the doctor. After my initial doctor visit, I was sent to Dr. Gregory Bebb. Little did I know that Dr. Bebb was a Christian and a physician who believed in the Great Physician. His words of cancer hit hard, but not so shocking. Breast cancer was on both sides of my family and I had lost an aunt, to whom I was very close, to breast cancer. The next step of telling my daughter was very hard. At the time my son was living in California, so I kept this low-key for him.
I began my journey with hope and determination. Dr. Bebb had told me he was confident we could beat this, but it wasn�t going to be easy. And it wasn�t! He suggested the lumpectomy, which I did. After that I was sent to Dr. Anagnost, who confirmed that I would need chemotherapy. I traveled the entire road: lumpectomy, chemotherapy and, finally, radiation. Yes, I lost my hair; but two different wigs made that �fun.� I cried when it was time to shave my head, but a friend, Anne Troutman, handled this for me and was another blessing along my journey. At the time I worked for an agency that was a huge support group for me. My co-workers were Christians so I had their support and prayers. Along with them was the strength of my family and two great friends, Sandy Mizzelle and Thelma Padgett.
So what have I gained from this experience? Strength comes from within, but you can�t travel the journey alone. I have learned to do things when given the opportunity even if I really didn�t want to. Go places when given the opportunity and see the beauty through others. Provide support and be a great listener and mentor. Give hugs and not only say �I love you� but show your love. Most of all live and love life to its fullest and make memories. Give God the glory for all that you have and even those things that you don�t have. Pass it forward, and I can promise you will be blessed! Tomorrow is past and the future isn�t promised. Make �today� a full count! Thank you to my family and friends for all their love and support as you walked the journey with me.
And lastly, RELAY FOR LIFE! Every year walking the survivor lap is very emotional. To have so many people cheering you on touches the heart like nothing else. We have got to find a cure! CANCER MUST GO! Come out on May 3rd to the Pender County Relay for Life! We can beat cancer! Yes, we CAN!
Constance Batson is a breast cancer survivor. Hers is the third Survivor Story of the 2013 Relay Season.


Hubby left to go to Pakistan last week, and from there he will be going on hajj in sha Allah.
And I must admit I was freaking out a bit at the the thought of being alone for so long.
But you know what it hasn't been that bad.
He was at work all day and I pretty much did everything anyway; school runs, taking Munchkin to Quran lessons, going to school events…..
I was more worried about being alone in the evenings and not getting a break at all from Bee. But I have adjusted her routine slightly so she is going to sleep a little earlier than normal to get a bit of me time. (But to be honest I am just so tired these days that I generally just go to sleep anyway).
But being away from the hubby has made me realise a few things.
Before he left I was often in a foul mood, thinking I was leading the life of a single mum by doing everything. I even once phoned him in moment of hormonal anger, screaming that if he didn't come home at a reasonable hour he would find the house empty as I would have walked out.
And I was close to walking out on him on a number of occasions.
But with him currently gone I have realised that having him in my life is infinitely better than not having him in my life.
Yes I was doing all the night feeds and nappy changes.
Yes I was doing all the school runs and housework.
But whenever I wanted or needed something I just had to phone him and he would get it on his way back from home. Now I have to drag a reluctant Munchkin and a curious Bee to the shops with me all the time.
Now that in itself can me a challenge.
Cue a lot of grumbling.
And all the time trying to ensure Bee doesn't grab things from the aisle as we are passing and throwing things on the floor. She seems to have a thing about throwing things on the floor.
It was also nice to have some adult conversation in the evening. And having a bath/shower in peace while he had the girls.
He had also taken to going for a walk in the evenings if it was nice. And I could get a break and just veg out on the sofa if I wanted.
Roll on November when he is back.
As they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Asalamu alaikum, why you didnt go with him?
Hunting – Dog & Falcon have a read learn something you didnt know perhaps..
very much know the feeling on this one, my husband has been away a few times here and there for work or various travels.. and im the same I do majority for the house and kids, but as you say – u still miss them a lot! hope the time goes quick for u!
Yes, the hard part I find is the night time being alone at home! You don't realise how much the fact your hubby being home makes you relaxed to go to sleep at night. My hubby is due to go away soon – only for 10 days. I am excited a little to have some freedom to watch tv in peace and not be hassled with preparing food he likes lol but I will miss his company and be glad when he returns!


text:
Varney Raise Questions Over Biden's Planned Press Conference
News Television
The Varney and Co. host and contributor Joe Concha surmised that Biden will hand pick reporters to ask questions that will be predetermined.
Ryan Hedrick
Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney said President Joe Biden will be fed canned responses via teleprompter during next week's scheduled press conference.
"I do believe there'll be a teleprompter which you can just turn on when you need a set response," Varney said.
"Even with the low expectations going into this for Joe Biden, as it always is with this president as far as speaking outside of a teleprompter, this will not go well if reporters ask solid, tough questions with follow-ups," Concha added.
The pair wondered whether Biden would rely on staffers to deflect some of the tough questions that he is bound to face.
President Biden has come under fire for not holding regular press conferences, instead relying on Jen Psaki to communicate information to the press during her daily briefings.
Will he know the questions in advance? Will he call on friendly reporters only? What do you think it's going to look like?" Varney wondered.
Ryan Hedrick serves as the Assistant Program Director and Co-Host of the Morning News Express at WFMD. Prior to WFMD, he hosted an afternoon program at News Talk 103.7 FM in Chambersburg, PA. He has worked at Sirius XM in Washington D.C., WBEN in Buffalo, NY, and for stations in Baltimore, MD. He has also worked at WIBW-AM in Topeka KS, earning the Kansas Association of Broadcasters (KAB) award for Major Market enterprise reporting in 2016. To connect with Ryan, find him on Twitter @SureToCover.
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CNN Asks Florida Judge to Toss Out Donald Trump's Defamation Suit
Trump filed the lawsuit against CNN because he accuses the network of defaming his character during the 2020 Presidential Election.
Eduardo Razo
Former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against CNN in October; now, over a month later, the cable news channel is asking a judge in Florida to toss the case (h/t The Hill).
Trump filed the lawsuit against CNN because he accuses the network of defaming his character during the 2020 Presidential Election. Trump's attorneys argued CNN "has sought to use its massive influence — purportedly as a 'trusted' news source."
Additionally, Trump's lawyer says that CNN attempted "to defame the Plaintiff in the minds of its viewers and readers for the purpose of defeating him politically, culminating in CNN claiming credit for '[getting] Trump out' in the 2020 presidential election."
CNN lawyers have pushed back against Trump's claims saying that the former president "seeks to silence any criticism of Plaintiff's debunked claim that the 2020 presidential election was 'stolen.'"
"Any alleged association resulting therefrom are also 'rhetorical hyperbole' and 'pure opinion' under well-established principles of defamation law," CNN's lawyers added.
Eduardo Razo is the Assistant Content Editor for BNM, which includes writing daily news stories on the news media industry. He can be found on Twitter @eddierazo_ or you can reach him by email at eddie1991razo@gmail.com.
Investor Cautions Over Possible Fox-News Corp. Merger
Irenic Capital, which owns about 2 percent of News Corp., has taken issue with its potential merger between Fox and News Corp.
Rumors have swirled over Fox and News Corp. possibly merging into one entity, but Irenic Capital, which owns about 2% of News Corp., has taken issue with its potential merger.
A merger would produce a more complicated company and turn off investors rather than increase the company's lagging stock price, Irenic Capital stated in a letter to the News Corp. board.
"And even if such synergies do exist today, they would principally benefit Fox and reside in the News Media segment of News Corp," Irenic Capital said (h/t Deadline). "For example, Fox Business may benefit from greater integration with The Wall Street Journal and some of Dow Jones' other properties, but it is highly debatable whether the benefits from such an association flow both ways.
"Combining News Corp with Fox will result in a combined company that is obviously more complex than both companies left separate."
Irenic believes a unification would aid Fox far better than News Corp. and cautioned that the board has a fiduciary responsibility to investigate all possible routes to develop value beyond the one suggested by its primary shareholder.
Fox News Lights All-American Christmas Tree
The event was hosted by Greg Gutfeld, Judge Jeanine Pirro, Dana Perino, Jessica Tarlov and Jesse Watters
Fox News held its annual All-American Tree Lighting at FOX Square in New York, New York Monday during "The Five." The event was hosted by Greg Gutfeld, Judge Jeanine Pirro, Dana Perino, Jessica Tarlov and Jesse Watters
In a release, the network said it partnered with the Police Athletic League (PAL) to host a toy drive benefiting New York City's youth. The network also honored first responders by selecting representatives of the FDNY and NYPD to light this year's tree.
Guests included FOX News personalities and their families along with first responders from the NYPD and FDNY, including members of NYPD Precinct 32, who lost Wilbert Mora and Jason Rivera this year, and members of EMS Station 49, who lost EMS captain Alison Russo earlier this year.
FOX's All-American Christmas tree stands at 50 feet tall and is adorned by 12,000 ornaments and 340,000 lights. The tree has 500 branches, a star topper that is over six feet tall and more than four miles of cord wrapped throughout. Made in America, the tree features a patriotic theme of red, white, and blue decorations.
"After a busy year in America, it's nice to, let's just take a step back and celebrate traditions like this and remember how important it is to come together and focus on what truly matters," said co-host Dana Perino. "This tree is not just for us to enjoy. We want you watching at home to be able to come here and make Christmas memories with your family and friends and of course, your pets, too, of course, as you can imagine."