Another Bloomberg Education Failure

From NY1:

It's half school, half extracurricular, all hands on. For two years, the city's Summer Quest program has provided extra learning for thousands of struggling students in the South Bronx, nine hours a day, five days a week for five weeks.

For the students, the goal is to prevent summer learning loss, a big problem for low-income kids. For the program, the goal is to prove that it works and then expand it nationally.

Back in July, the city invited reporters to tour one of the 11 sites and learn about the multi-million-dollar three-year pilot, then in its second year.

However, when NY1 asked for results from the first year, a Department of Education spokesperson told us they didn't have anything ready.

Not true, it turns out. NY1 recently discovered a 40-page report that the DOE has had for a year. Buried on page 27 were the academic findings.

"For the middle school students, both program and comparison groups experienced summer learning loss in math and English," the report says. "There was no...difference in summer learning loss between the program and comparison groups."

The report also found that while more students came to see math as useful over the course of the summer, "The proportion of middle school participants who agreed with the statement "Reading is boring" also increased."

Many education reformers think making school all year round, with lots of extra time for more reading and math learning interspersed with some extra-curricular activities, will help close the achievement gap.

Not according to the Bloomberg/DOE program.

And how much did all of this cost?

The pilot program is expected to cost more than $12 million, about $5 million in public funds and the rest raised privately.

"We're tackling something that's extremely difficult, but I'm proud of the collaborative effort," Walcott said.

With more than 35 city offices, dozens of community based organizations and several high-profile donors, a lot is riding on the results.

No wonder the DOE tried to hide the results of the program.

All that money, the mayor's prestige, the education reformers' ideology - all on the line.

And all went down - along with the results of the program.

Hey - I  know.

Maybe give the kids some time off from the drill and kill.

Don't have them constantly going to school for nine hours a day, five days a week.

Maybe then they won't hate school.

Maybe then they'll want to read and learn.

Maybe then it will be fun.

Maybe then some of the achievement gap problem would be solved.

The cynic in me says the people behind this program could care less if the kids in it learn to read and write better or improve their math skills.

The cynic in me says the people behind this program want the kids to be socialized to expect a lifetime of nine hours of drudge work a day, five days a week, no vacations.

The cynic in me says the program was a success.

Make Emanuel Pay For This Outrage (UPDATED)

That's the plan:

The board voted 6-0 to back Emanuel on closing 48 elementary schools and one high school program. The vote to close Von Humboldt Elementary was broken out, and passed 4-2. 

The board's solid support for the long, controversial slate of closings came as little surprise to his critics, chief among them the Chicago Teachers Union, which last week filed two federal lawsuits seeking to block the district from following through on its plan.

CTU President Karen Lewis said the union was still hoping courts would intervene to keep schools open but vowed to leverage voter anger over closings to block the re-election of Emanuel, who has said he was prepared to take a political hit for the closings.

"Well, he will," Lewis declared. "I'm glad he's prepared."

Emanuel held no public events Wednesday, but his office released a statement after the vote in which he acknowledged closings were "incredibly difficult" but added, "I firmly believe the most important thing we can do as a city is provide the next generation with a brighter future."

The way to make the future brighter is to beat Rahm Emanuel and send him back to his hedge fund.

That's after winning the civil suits filed to keep these schools opened.

That's the way to make the future brighter.

UPDATE: Emanuel is closing 49 schools to save money.

He's giving DePaul $100 million for a stadium.

The outrages don't stop.

Gates, Bloomberg, Buffet, Oprah And Jeb Bush Meet At Gates Foundation Conference In South Carolina

From a local affiliate in South Carolina:

CHARLESTON, SC -Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft and one of the richest people in the world, is spending time in the Lowcountry.

  WCBD  confirmed the American business magnate is at the Sanctuary on Kiawah Island.

Suspicion was raised when nearly 20 very expensive jets were seen lined up at the Charleston International Airport on Johns Island.

Officials with the Beach Company confirmed to WCBD that other big names such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, TV host Oprah Winfrey and Billionaire Warren Buffet flew into the Charleston Executive airport on Johns Island Wednesday night.

Other prominent people said to also be staying there this weekend are  Jeb Bush and Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

 The famous guests were attending a two day long conference led by Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Officials say the meeting was about the foundation Gates and his wife Melinda run.

The meeting rented out the entire Sanctuary Hotel on the gated island. Security has been high throughout the entire week, keeping the public away from the hotel.

WCBD spoke to the Mayor of Kiawah by phone who said the town is happy to serve as host to the event.

"We wish them luck with what they're doing," Mayor Charles Lipuma said. "If they want to play golf, they couldn't have picked a better weekend. We are glad we could offer them great weather."

They weren't there to play golf, you can be sure of that.

They were there to continue destroying the public education system, among other policy goals

Shame they had to go to such lengths to try and keep their meeting secret.

Reminds me a little of these guys.

Or these guys.

At any rate, I love the line in the story about suspicion being raised that something was up when 20 "very expensive jets" were seen lined up at the Charleston Executive airport on Johns Island.

I wonder how that Save The World From Global Warming initiative Gates and Bloomberg are heading is going?

Private jets are good for the environment, yes?

Stop-And-Frisk Deemed Failed Policing Policy, Though It Is A Fantastic Control Policy

From the Daily News:

Stop-and-frisk has removed thousands of guns from the city’s streets — but the NYPD detained millions of innocent New Yorkers to find them
.
A Columbia law professor testified Wednesday that just one gun was recovered for every thousand people stopped from 2004 through June 30, 2012.

“The NYPD hit rate is far less than what you would achieve by chance,” Jeffrey Fagan said in Manhattan Federal Court.

Testifying in the federal class-action lawsuit against the city and the NYPD’s controversial tactic, Fagan said his analysis of paperwork from 4.4 million stops found guns were confiscated at a rate of roughly one-tenth of 1 percent, or 5,940 firearms.

Knives and other contraband were nabbed in about 1.5% of stops, taking 66,000 weapons off the street, the professor said.

And 12% of the 4.4 million stops during that time period — roughly 528,000 — led to an actual arrest or a summons, Fagan said.

And the rest were “just let go?” asked Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin.

“Yes, your honor,” Fagan replied.

You'd find as many guns on the street by chance as they do by Sop-And-Frisk.

And yet the mayor and the commissioner continue to defend the policy as necessary to get illegal guns off the street.

 

It is quite clear from the numbers that there is another agenda at work here.

As State Senator Eric Adams testified to on Monday, Kelly and the Bloomberg want every young black and Latino man in the city in fear.

That's the agenda, that's the rationale behind Stop-And-Frisk.

They use the guns thing as an excuse.

This is about power and control, pure and simple.

Change ALEC Can Believe In

Devastating:

CHICAGO—School officials here said Thursday they plan to close 53 elementary schools and one high school, one of the largest mass school closings in the nation's history, as Mayor Rahm Emanuel seeks to fill a gaping budget hole.

Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the chief executive of Chicago Public Schools, said the closings would not be easy, but the city "must make tough choices," and by consolidating schools, "we can focus on safely getting every child into a better-performing school close to their home."

The move to close about 11% of the 472 elementary schools in the nation's third-largest school district this fall sparked anger from the teachers union, some elected aldermen, parents and neighborhood groups who vowed to fight the move. The Chicago Board of Education, appointed by Mr. Emanuel, a Democrat, must approve the final plan.

They're using "consolidation" as the excuse for privatization.

Tim Furman posted the following at Diane Ravtich's blog:

Diane, this is all terrible enough on its own, but I want to point out an interesting sidebar. As you know, the states now have established charter commissions as part of Race to the Top, and Illinois has one of these appointed commissions, which can overrule school districts’ charter decisions.

The Illinois commission only a couple days ago approved a new charter for Illinois, overriding the Chicago Public Schools board’s earlier decision not to approve this particular charter.

The charter has already applied for a zoning variance right down the street from one of the public schools on this closure list! There’s a community meeting tonight about the zoning.

In the midst of an historic attack on public education, the state steps in an adds another charter into the mix.

Just for icing on the cake, the charter is a Concept school— one of the Gulen school networks that you wrote about some time ago.

Wow - opening a Gulen charter in the same zone that they close a public school for being underutilized.

How's that for gall?

And let's all remember, while the playbook for these closures comes from Milton Friedman, Wall Street and ALEC, it's Democrats carrying out the neo-liberal program - Barack "Race to the Top" Obama at the federal level, Rahm Emanuel at the municipal level.

This is the end game for education reform - create crisis, close schools, fire unionized teachers, open charter schools, hire non-unionized at-will employees, privatize the entire system.

Tax Cap Is Meant To Put Districts Into Crisis

From a commentary by Fred LeBrun in the Times-Union:

It is irrefutable that the effect of the incomplete tax cap passed in June 2011, while politically popular and a contributor to the governor's high standing, has been disastrous for school districts and local governments. School districts have two sources of revenue: state aid and local taxes. The share of school budgets that is state aid has declined nearly 10 percent over the last decade, and the tax cap makes it far more difficult, especially in poorer districts, for localities to make up the difference from property tax levies. One of the arguments in the lawsuit is that because 60 percent of voters are needed to override the tax cap in a local school budget election, 41 percent of the voters saying no have more power than 59 percent who want to spend more. That totally distorts local control.

Sadly, we are watching a catastrophe unfold that will deeply affect many of our children at their most vulnerable ages, and which will have consequences for the rest of their lives.

The State Education Department has warned that between 100 and 200 school districts will be insolvent within two years.

That's up to a quarter of the state's school districts, with more predicted to follow. That means those schools won't be able to meet their obligations and will very likely be broken as teaching institutions as well. The multi-year highway to insolvency for many of them will be already littered with discarded teachers and administrators, dropped programs and advanced placement courses required for college admission, and cuts, cuts and more cuts impacting the core teaching mission.

I think the tax cap has been devised, in part, not just to keep taxes down, but to bring about the destruction of many schools districts.

Even as Cuomo and the state (and the feds) are ratcheting up the mandates, the state is cutting the aid to districts and keeping localities from increasing funding by raising taxes.

In the end, once they go belly-up financially, some of these districts look ripe for the kinds of takeovers we've seen in Michigan, where entire districts are put into receivership and handed over to some state-appointed administrator who brings in the education management organization to run the thing.

 

Just another example of neo-liberalism at work from our Wall Street-funded governor - and just another example of disaster capitalism at work.

Create the disaster, declare the disaster, sell the pieces off.

The same thing is happening in city after city across this nation - from Detroit to Philadelphia.

And of course Barack Obama's former right hand man, Rahm Emanuel, is trying to pull the same thing off in Chicago.

Bloomberg Wants To Demolish Public Libraries Before He Goes

All in the name of "progress," of course:

Mayor Bloomberg refuses to adequately fund our public libraries unless they sell off assets including crown jewels of the system, a plan that is wrong-headed and counterproductive.
 
We are in a period of steadily increasing use of libraries by all sectors of New York’s population, attendance is up 40% and circulations are up 59%, while the amount required to properly fund libraries is a pittance compared to other city expenditures.   
 
Public libraries enrich their communities and are an important part of the tax base and a stable economy, providing jobs, community space and serving as a buffer against economic downturn.   They provide a safe haven for seniors during the day, teens after school, for parents with young children, for job seekers needing computers, for the growing number of freelance professionals, and for those needing literacy and technical skills.
 
Bloomberg’s plan would eliminate irreplaceable and historic crown jewels, such as the research stacks underneath the main 42nd Street library, and demolish Brooklyn Heights Art Deco style building, housing 62,000 square feet of library space replacing it with only 15,000 square feet of space in a developer’s high rise.  The removal of the Brooklyn Business Library from Brooklyn’s central business district in downtown Brooklyn, the hub of commerce, transportation, and next to universities is a travesty.  These are just two examples of a scheme to shrink New York’s public library system, eliminating resources that communities depend on.
 
We need to immediately halt real estate deals that involve selling any more branches to private developers until the libraries have been properly funded and until the needs of the public’s library system are the first priority.

Libraries should not be hostages for development.  The city should cease the practices of bribing the public into approving bigger and denser development and pressuring communities into accepting libraries housed in smaller spaces with fewer services.

Developer-driven partnerships that put developers in the driver’s seat and render competitive bids meaningless are bad public policy that must be avoided.  The practice of using developers who specialize in insider deals, who treat the communities poorly and have a record of failing to deliver promised benefit violates the public trust.

There should be no elimination or sale of irreplaceable assets such as the crown jewel research stacks under the 42nd Street main library or elimination of the Business and Career Center Library on the border of Brooklyn Heights and downtown Brooklyn.

There should be no premature library closings such as Donnell library, closed in 2008 and still awaiting a replacement.  Any library closing should have a binding contract for its prompt replacement with solid assurances, including full up-front payments and financing in place.
 
There should be no mass sell-offs of libraries.  Sales of library properties, if any, should be sequenced so that multiple libraries are not closed at the same time and only when it is in the best interest of the public's library system.

“The knowledge of different literature frees one from the tyranny of a few”
 -Jose Marti   Plaque on 41St Library Walk
 
New York’s libraries, the lifeblood of a democracy, have contributed to making our city economically vital and a cultural powerhouse.  We must not sacrifice it to shortsighted planning and the interests of powerful developers. We demand protection for public libraries, the city’s trusted place to learn, grow, be inspired, and connect with great minds.
 
Relevant articles:

• New York Times: Critic’s Notebook- In Renderings for a Library Landmark, Stacks of Questions, by Michael Kimmelman, January 29, 2013. 

• Wall Street Journal: Undertaking Its Destruction, by Ada Louise Huxtable, December 3, 2012.

• Noticing New York: New City-Wide Policy Makes Generation Of Real Estate Deals The Library System’s Primary Purpose, by Michael D. D. White, January 31, 2013.
 
• Center For An Urban Future: Report - Branches of Opportunity, by David Giles, January 2013

I tried to get a copy of Gone With The Wind at the NYPL last week - there were 55 holds on the four copies the NYPL still has in circulation.

That's right - 55 holds.

Not only does NYC have Third World income inequality, a Third World infrastructure and a Third World ruling class, we have a Third World library system too.


And if Bloomberg gets his way on the additional destruction before he goes, it will only get worse.

I put a hold on that book and I should be able to get it in a little under 42 weeks if all goes well.

And that's Gone With The Wind we're talking about.

Try finding a copy of something a little more obscure at the NYPL.

It's like trying to find a warm heart at Bloomberg LP.

Just another legacy from our Mayor of Money.

Missing The Forest For The Trees

From Andrew Hartmann:

TFA exists for nothing if not for adjusting poor children to the regime otherwise known as the American meritocracy. Kopp’s model for how teachers should help poor students acclimate to the American meritocracy is the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), a nationwide network of charter schools. Founded by TFA alums Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, and currently lead by CEO Richard Barth, a former TFA staff member who also happens to be Kopp’s husband, KIPP now runs over 100 schools, typically in cities that staff a multitude of TFA corps members, such as Houston, New Orleans, and New York City. Many KIPP teachers began their careers in education as TFA corps members, and an even higher percentage of KIPP administrators are TFA alums. KIPP schools are in such high demand that students must win lotteries for the opportunity to attend. The pièce de résistance of Waiting for Superman chronicles one such dramatic lottery drawing.

Slots in KIPP schools are in short supply because, unlike most charter schools, they have a track record of actually improving student performance and of helping poor children gain acceptance into college. Their methodology consists of nothing novel: teachers and students work very hard. But more than that, KIPP students and their families must sign contracts committing to a rigorous program of surveillance—the only way to ensure that underprivileged students overcome lives that otherwise drag them down. As one KIPP administrator described the philosophy: “At every moment, we asked ourselves, what about this moment of the day is or is not fostering college readiness in our students?” While visiting a KIPP school in New York City early one morning, where fifth graders were busy with drills at 7:00 a.m., Kopp quietly lamented, without a touch of irony, that her own child of the same age was still in bed. Thus, in the KIPP model, we are presented with the solution to the nation’s educational inequalities: for poor children to succeed, they must willingly submit to Taylorist institutionalization. This is made starkly evident in the concluding scene of Waiting for Superman, when young “Anthony,” one of the lucky few, arrives at his charter school with suitcase in hand, since his particular school boards its students. Anthony is rightly ambivalent about giving up his life with his grandparents and friends in order to attend a SEED Foundation school—the prototype in education reform—where 24-hour supervision is the only way to ensure that poor children have a chance at success.

In working to perfect their approach to education, TFA insurgents miss the forest for the trees. They fail to ask big-picture questions. Will their pedagogy of surveillance make for a more humane society? Having spent their formative years in a classroom learning test-taking skills, will their students become good people? Will they know more history? Will they be more empathetic? Will they be better citizens? Will they be more inclined to challenge the meritocracy? Or, as its newest converts, will they be its most fervent disciples? What does it mean that for children born in the Bronx to go to college they must give up their childhoods, however bleak?

What kind of psycho looks at test prep drilling kids at 7 AM and says "Gee, I wish my kid was doing this..."?

Seriously.

Beware This Second Term

President Obama talked about reaching out to Republicans and working in a bipartisan manner to solve the deficit problem last night during his speech.

DANGER!  DANGER!

If the first term is any indication, this means a "Grand Bargain" between the president and Republicans in Congress to "improve" Social Security and Medicare.

Boehner decided it wasn't in his party's interests to complete that Grand Bargain back during the first term, but with exit polls showing some voters supporting Dems over the GOP because they viewed the Republicans as intransigent and too extreme, it is much more likely a Grand Bargain gets done this time around.

The last "Grand Bargain" was a sell-out of Social Security and Medicare.

Expect President Obama to sell out Social Security and Medicare again and dismiss any criticism from the left of his sell-out as "whining."

On education, they'll double down on Race to the Top and make all kinds of claims about its success - claims that cannot be borne out by any data.

And again, any teachers or parents or education activists who complain about their neo-liberal, privatization agenda will be slammed as "whiners".

Or worse - not for the kids.

On foreign policy, Obama will continue to murder hundreds of people a month through his drone bomb campaign in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere. 

The "kill list" will continue, of course - as will the surveillance at both home and abroad.

All to keep us "safe".

WCBS analyzed the election as a loss for Wall Street because Obama's re-election means more regulations on business.

Not if the first term is any indication - even after nearly driving the economy into disrepair, the Big Banks are still around with just a few watered-down regulations added.

Nothing they can't get around.

I am not looking forward to this second term.

I have come to despise this president and his dishonesty - he talks about helping middle and working class Americans, but his actions aid Wall Street and screw the rest of us.

He talks about freedom and liberty, but he puts together a security apparatus and surveillance state that is rapidly approaching Big Brother.

He talks about ethics and morality, but he murders innocents every week as collateral damage with his drone bombs.

It's going to be another rough four years.

At least this time around, I didn't vote for it.

It's Come To This

Sad:

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — Struggling Indiana public school districts are buying billboard space, airing radio ads and even sending principals door-to-door.

It's an unusual marketing campaign aimed at persuading parents not to move their children to private schools as the nation's largest voucher program doubles in size.

The promotional efforts are an attempt to prevent the kind of student exodus that administrators have long feared might result from allowing students to attend private school using public money. If a large number of families abandon their local districts, millions of dollars could be drained from the state's public education system.

The Indiana voucher program is the biggest test yet of an idea sought for years by conservative Republicans. They say it offers families more choices and gives public schools a greater incentive to improve.

And of course the money that used to go to into the public school system will now go to the edu-entrepreneurs and the for-profits.

That's what education reform has always been about.

Squeezing labor costs, chopping off whole segments of the system and making them for-profit, garnering tax breaks for their "philanthropy" and making money hand over fist.

We're getting pretty close to the end game when a public school system has to take out ads begging parents to not abandon it.

Bloomberg Helps Goldman Sachs Profit From NYC Prison Scheme

Always be privatizing:

Mike Bloomberg, still the mayor of New York after all these years, has announced a new four-year program to keep prisoners from reoffending after their sentences, funded by $9.6m from Goldman Sachs. When we said we wanted to see the bankers in the clink, this is not what we meant.

It may sound like a nice philanthropic gesture, but that $9.6m sum isn't a donation; it's a loan. As City Hall explained, Goldman is being incentivized to produce results – if recidivism drops by 10%, Goldman gets the money back, and if it drops further then the GS boys will turn a small profit.

...

New York's foray into cash-for-results social services is part of the voguish infatuation with "social impact bonds", in which a private investor invests in a public service and makes a positive return only if things improve. They are currently all the rage in Britain, whose coalition government espouses a hazy ideology called "the big society" to obscure a much clearer ideology of across-the-board cuts. And they've begun to seduce US policymakers. The Goldman-Rikers deal is the first social impact bond in America, though governments from Massachusetts to Ohio are preparing to jump on board.

You might wonder why, since reducing crime and offering better lives to past offenders are obvious social pluses, the government doesn't just pay for such a program itself. (The usual cries about public sector inefficiency don't apply. The ex-offender education scheme isn't a state program; it's administered by a nongovernmental social enterprise.) Alas, this is the nature of Bloombergism. There is no social problem that can't be reduced to metrics, no public function that an unaccountable private undertaking can't perform better, and no incentive like the profit motive.

How much does Bloomberg believe in this new plan? So much so that he is personally guaranteeing to make Goldman whole if the program doesn't work. Our billionaire mayor's own philanthropic foundation will cut a $7.2m check to the social service provider with which Goldman is contracting if the bank needs to be repaid. Say what you like about risk and reward; the plan announced Thursday is an exceedingly safe bet for the bank but a giant gamble for us.

...

If this goes well, the Bloomberg team has said, it'll be the model for all sorts of for-profit social initiatives. Corporations could make money if an adoption agency finds a home for a child, or if you survive a heart attack, or if your kid's reading scores on one of his five thousand exams increase by such and such percent. This latest neoliberal swindle is the stuff of a million MBA case studies, and the wet dream of a new crop of young, pseudo-beneficent capitalists who think their guilt at profiting from inequality can be assuaged by "humanizing" their businesses.

Jason Farrago really gets Bloombergism:

There is no social problem that can't be reduced to metrics, no public function that an unaccountable private undertaking can't perform better, and no incentive like the profit motive.

That's it, in a nutshell.

And of course Goldman Sachs, one of Bloomberg LP's biggest clients, is on the other end of this deal.

BREAKING NEWS: Bloomberg, City Council Agree To Change Name Of NYC To NYU

It was really only a matter of time.

In other news, the 2013 NYC mayoral election has been canceled by Dear Leader Bloomberg.

Great Leader Quinn will assume power when Dear Leader Bloomberg steps down on December 31, 2013.

If Dear Leader Bloomberg steps down.

Remember, he's got his own army, and that army has missiles, so don't try and fuck with him.

It's Bloomberg's world.

He let's you live in it - for now.

Neo-Feudal America

This is the future for many of us if the corporate Republicans and corporate Democrats get their way:

They want jobs. They need to work. From Laguna Boulevard in Elk Grove to Sunrise Boulevard in Citrus Heights, job seekers lined up before dawn Tuesday and crowded McDonald's restaurants across the region late into the afternoon on the restaurant chain's national hiring day.

The fast-food chain hoped to hire 50,000 employees for its more than 14,000 U.S. locations, including about 600 employees at its 165 sites in the Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto area Tuesday.

That averages to less than three jobs per outlet nationally, although some local sites said they were planning to hire as many as 15.

...

McDonald's didn't have a complete count on how many applicants showed up Tuesday, but so many arrived on some local McDonald's doorsteps that restaurant owners were nearly overwhelmed.

"At one point, we had 120 people outside the door, but we were able to get all 120 interviewed," said Courtney Ristuben at her Citrus Heights location on Sunrise Boulevard and Old Auburn Road.

Halfway through her four-hour afternoon hiring session, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., Ristuben and her team had seen 300 job seekers. She anticipated another 300 by dinner time.

"We've seen 15- and 16-year-olds looking for their first job to people 50, 55 and over, first-time high schoolers to 20 years' experience looking for anything we have to offer," Ristuben said.

It's a sobering sign of the times in Sacramento and across the country.

McDonald's and other fast-food chains, once a first job for teenagers, appear to be turning into an employer of more adults: The average age of a fast-food worker is 29.5, up from 22 in 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

For many older job seekers, a job with health benefits is as important as the paycheck. Medical insurance, prescription drug coverage, 401(k) retirement and educational assistance are offered at some McDonald's locations.

John Ritchey Jr., part owner of a McDonald's at Arden Way and Howe Avenue, had made his way through 35 interviewees Tuesday afternoon and 80 more were waiting for face time.

"We're committed to getting everybody down the list," he said.

Steve Ramirez, owner of a McDonald's at 8282 Laguna Blvd. in Elk Grove, anticipated as many as 300 applicants to fill five openings.

About 50 would-be employees, some of whom had been there for hours, were waiting by 11 a.m., and Ramirez started conducting interviews at that point, two hours earlier than their scheduled 1 p.m. start.

"It's going to be tough when it comes to making a decision," Ramirez said. "There are so many talented folks who are willing to work. I wish I had more jobs."

The scenes were repeated across the nation and throughout California, where unemployment remains stubbornly stuck at 12 percent.

The fast-food jobs looked particularly inviting in a Sacramento region where unemployment is 12.7 percent, and there's no sign that things will improve anytime soon.

That was punctuated by a report released Tuesday by the Business Forecasting Center at University of the Pacific. The report predicted more grim economic news for the region, noting that the "housing-dependent Sacramento economy remains the only area in Northern California still mired in recession."

Grim. Mired. Recession. The words have become synonymous with the economically battered region, and they resonated Tuesday.

"In a year where employment opportunities are limited, it's affected all ages and walks of life," said Jake Mossawir, a Sacramento-area McDonald's spokesman.

"The numbers of people looking for jobs is overwhelming, it runs the gamut," he said. "There's a wide range of stories of how they got here."

Nancy Blanchard of Elk Grove retired from her state job a year and a half ago after 34 years as an analyst, only to find out that "retirement doesn't pay for the food bill."

With two children in college and a car payment, Blanchard was at the Laguna Boulevard McDonald's, waiting for her name to be called.

Kheyland McNeil, a 17-year-old Franklin High School senior from Elk Grove, wants to become an engineer someday, but first things first.

"I really want to work at McDonald's. I want to get the experience and interact with people," he said.

McNeil might just get the chance. Ramirez, owner of the Laguna Boulevard location, was impressed.

"He looks you straight in the eye. He knows what he wants and that's exactly what we're looking for," Ramirez said.

And there was John Davis of Sacramento, on unemployment for nearly a year at 59 after a long ride in auto sales, succinctly summarizing the life of the Sacramento job seeker.

"They're not hiring or they're out of business," he said at the McDonald's at 30th and K streets. "First, you've got to find who's hiring, then you've got to be the one they pick."

A few minutes later, he sat down for an interview.

Depressing - but with all the attacks on unions and the working and middle classes, this will undoubtedly be the future for many of us.

59 years old, out of work for a year and interviewing at McDonald's with little chance of getting the job.

CEO's Increase Their Own Pay, Cut Worker Pay And Benefits

The New Feudal Order rolls on:

After shrinking during the 2008-9 recession, paychecks for top American executives are growing again — in many cases, significantly so.

Rarely has the view from the corner office seemed so at odds with the view from the street corner. At a time when millions of Americans are trying to hang on to homes and millions more are trying to hang on to jobs, the chief executives of major corporations like 3M, General Electric and Cisco Systems are making as much today as they were before the recession hit. Indeed, some are making even more.

The disparity is especially stark as companies are swimming in cash. In the fourth quarter, profits at American businesses were up an astounding 29.2 percent, the fastest growth in more than 60 years. Collectively, American corporations logged profits at an annual rate of $1.678 trillion.

So far, this recovery has not trickled down. After two relatively lean years, C.E.O.’s in finance, technology, energy and beyond are pulling down multimillion-dollar paychecks. What many of these executives aren’t doing, however, is hiring. Unemployment, although down from its peak, stood at 8.8 percent in March. And few economists predict the jobless rate will drop substantially anytime soon.

For the average C.E.O., however, the good times have returned. The median pay for top executives at 200 major companies was $9.6 million last year. That was a 12 percent increase over 2009, according to a study conducted for The New York Times by Equilar, a compensation consulting firm based in Redwood City, Calif.

Many if not most of the corporations run by these executives are doing better than they were in the downturn. Many businesses were hit so hard by the recession that even small improvements in sales and profits look good by comparison. But C.E.O. pay is also on the rise again at companies like Capital One and Goldman Sachs, which survived the economic storm with the help of all those taxpayer-financed bailouts.

At Gannett, workers are asked to take unpaid furlough weeks while management swim in cash:

Just in case Gannett employees thought 2011 might bring better news after years of layoffs and furloughs, the year was just four days old when a note landed in the in-box of people who work for the community news division saying, once again, they were required to take an unpaid week off.

After explaining that revenues at the newspaper giant continued to be soft and the outlook was uncertain, Robert J. Dickey, Gannett’s president of U.S. Community Publishing, said, “I know furloughs are very hard on you and your families and I thank each of you for the continued commitment and great work.”

Mr. Dickey make it clear that not only did the company’s executives feel their pain, they would share the sacrifice, noting that he too would take a furlough and that Craig A. Dubow, the chief executive, and Gracia C. Martore, the president and chief operating officer, “each will be taking a reduction of salary that is equivalent to a week’s furlough.”

But as it turns out, the buck stopped just short of Mr. Dubow and other executives. Mr. Dubow had agreed to lower his salary by 17 percent through 2011, but then again, last month he received a cash bonus of $1.75 million for 2010 and Ms. Martore received $1.25 million. For 2010, they were also awarded stock, options and deferred compensation that would bring their combined packages to $17.6 million if the company and its stock hits certain targets.

A company spokeswoman pointed out that 70 percent of their compensation was noncash and dependent on future performance. In fact, the top six executives at the embattled publishing company would receive 2010 compensation packages of more than $28 million if the company does very well, which seems unlikely, but the symbolism remains.

The savings from two years of mandatory furloughs for the rest of Gannett employees: $33 million. Well, that didn’t go very far, did it?

Next up on the list - public employees.

Bloomberg hands out $500 million to outside tech consultants, lays off 6,166 teachers to save $300 million.

Makes total sense - if you're a CEO.

Cory Booker Operates Shadow Government Funded By Billionaires In Newark

Newark Mayor Cory Booker finally offered some information on just who is funding education "reform" in Newark other than Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg:

Newark Mayor Cory Booker Thursday provided his most detailed accounting yet of private donations made to bolster reform efforts in the state’s largest school district.

There is $25 million from a New York investor, $10 million from a venture capitalist, $5 million from a team of husband-and-wife bankers and $3 million from one of the world’s most prominent philanthropists.

The disclosure comes amid a week of questions about just how much Booker has raised to match Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million gift to the city schools, what the money is being used for and in what amounts.

It also comes days after revelations of acting state Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf’s relationship with a consulting firm hired by Booker to audit Newark schools. The firm, Global Education Advisors, produced a controversial plan to close or consolidate low-performing, under-enrolled schools and provide space for charter and new high schools.

"There is no hiding going on here with the Zuckerberg grant/Match," Booker wrote in an e-mail.

Ah, but there is LOTS of hiding going on, Mayor Booker.

You still won't say who in your administration gave the go ahead to hire an education reform company started just a few months back by newly appointed New Jersey Education Commissioner Chris Cerf and STILL run out of his Montclair, New Jersey house to lead an audit of Newark's schools.

You kept other officials in the Newark education establishment in the dark about these plans so that they didn't realize who was running the audit until they actually met with someone from the group.

And of course you keep saying you have sought public opinion on these plans and gotten consensus even as the announcement that you plan to close schools and replace them with charters - a plan that will DIRECTLY benefit Global Education Advisors, the group that created the plan - has inspired community outrage and anger.

Why not just be open about all of this and say "Listen, I don't give a shit what anybody thinks. I'm going ahead with what my corporate overlords who dole out my money want me to do."

Because that's essentially what you're doing, only you don't have the guts to be open about it.

Here's more from the Newark Star Ledger on just who those overlords are and how they allow Booker to run a shadow government in Newark that operates in secret, subverts the will of the people and enriches the corporate donors to Booker's coffers:

The potential influx of hundreds of millions of dollars into Newark’s public schools has political and education leaders calling for greater oversight of the donations and how they are spent.

"I know the mayor’s heart is in the right place, but the need for greater transparency should be obvious" Assembly Education Committee Chairman Patrick Diegnan (D-Middlesex) said.

State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen), who sits on the committee that will rule on Cerf’s nomination, said the growing trend of private dollars being spent on public schools will likely require new legislation to govern its use.

"We’re seeing a whole new cottage industry growing in the operation of quasi-public schools," Weinberg said.

"If you want to deal in the public arena, then I’m not sure you can expect anonymity."

Weinberg said she has been dealing with similar issues in gaining disclosure from private for-profit hospitals and parallels with education donations, specifically for charter schools.

"We have to find out who’s spending the money and are they getting any return on their investment other than better students," Weinberg said.

Of the $43 million raised so far, the donations came from:

• $25 million from New York investor William Ackman, head of the Pershing Square Foundation.

• $10 million from venture capitalist John Doerr, a founder of the NewSchools Venture Fund.

• $5 million from Elizabeth and Ravenel Curry, founders of the New York investment firm Eagle Capital Management.

• $3 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

So what's the problem with all of this "free" billionaire philanthropy coming into Newark? Plenty:

Rutgers School of Law-Newark professor Paul Tractenberg said he’s not aware of any state laws that require public officials like Booker to be more forthcoming about donations made to the cities they represent and said the average citizen is not aware of how many private dollars are at work in the public sector. But the lack of a statute is not an excuse for Booker to operate a "shadow government," he said.

"We have a bunch of private people having tremendous influence over education policy, and exercising that influence through public officials, in this case Booker," Tractenberg said. "It’s this notion of ‘I don’t have to act like an elected official, I can act like a private power broker’ and there’s something that really smells about that."

Booker said sending private money to public schools is nothing new, citing districts in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

"There have been millions and millions of private dollars flowing into our public school system over the last decade and years before," Booker said, noting "tremendous investments by private individuals as well as corporate foundations who have been seeking to help our children and NPS leadership in their efforts."

Former Newark Superintendent Marion Bolden said Booker’s use of foundation money to shape education policy is unlawful because he has no authority over the district. Newark has been under state control for the past 15 years and only a citywide vote could return decision-making power to the mayor or the board of education.

"The mayor has no legal role in running the schools, and yet he is acting as if has direct control of the schools," said Bolden, whose contract with the state ended in 2008.

"He would need a referendum in order to take control of the schools but he is bypassing that, pretending he doesn’t need one."

Bolden, who has criticized Booker in the past, said the lack of transparency surrounding Booker’s use of donations like those from the Gates and other foundations disenfranchises Newark residents.

She also predicted that community groups would seek a court order to prevent Booker from meddling in the schools.

Robert Curvin, a prominent education and civil rights leader, said this influx of money represents a growing national trend, but the sheer magnitude of donations in Newark is causing alarm.

"You generally have not had private money take over an entire public sector and that is what is very different here," Curvin said.

As the economy becomes more global, American students are struggling to keep up, Curvin said, which is driving private investment in schools. "Given the nature of globalization there’s thoroughly a sense of nervousness about America’s place in the global marketplace and education is the place where that nervousness is most manifested."

But according to Curvin and others, Booker’s recent handling of events, including a the secret plan to phase out numerous schools, is harming reform efforts in Newark.

"I think it’s a manifestation of a total lack of understanding of urban life," Curvin said.

"If this is the man who says he’s going to set a new standard for urban transformation he has, in my view, shown a lack of understanding of what urban transformation is."

Booker is looking to transform Newark all right - right into a feudal playground owned by the corporate overlords with a corporate school system to train obedient workers and shoppers to do just as the overlords want - WORK, SHOP, OBEY - even as the overlords devour more and more of the power, influence, real estate and wealth until Newark the city and America the country become little more than a quasi-democracy in name but a feudal corporate state in practice.

The corporate overlords need friendly faces to do this work and make no mistake, they like to have people of color like Obama, Booker, Fenty, and Patrick to do this stuff.

It looks better than if you have a bunch of white rich guys like Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, the Koch Brothers, the Walton Family and most of the financial industry doing this out front.

But make no mistake, Obama, Booker, Fenty and Patrick are just the face of the neo-urban colonialism we are seeing in places like Newark.

They are operating at the behest of the rich white guys behind them who fund them.

Booker is a crook on the take, operating in the shadows to hand over power and real estate to the corporate interests.