Cuomo's New York - Full Of SUNY Debt Slaves

Here it is:



And of course Cuomo is making sure that tuition goes up every year, for the next five years, so that his bankster buddies can make even more money off the kids:

Students at state colleges and universities will see their tuition go up over the next five years, after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed historic legislation Tuesday.

The new law allows State University of New York campuses to raise tuition $300 a year for five years.

...

Over five years, SUNY tuition will rise from its present $4,970 annual charge to $6,470 for in-state, undergraduate students.

It will be even more at SUNY’s four research centers—University at Buffalo, Albany, Binghamton and Stony Brook—which will be able to implement a rational “plus” tuition plan. That includes charging an additional $75 fee and raising tuition for out-of-state students up to 10 percent.

The new revenue is good news for campuses that faced steep budget cuts the past few years.

Uh, huh - some of those budget cuts were made so that Cuomo could cut the millionaire's tax.

Because Cuomo's hedge fund buddies pay too much in tax.

Better that middle and working class kids go $75,000 in debt for a SUNY degree that sees them working at Starbucks than raise taxes on Rupert Murdoch.

FULL STORY HERE.

Chicago Police Threaten To "Come Looking" For NATO Protesters Next Week (UPDATED)

Former Obama chief of staff and current mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel continues to make the city into his kind of town:

Chicago police accused of intimidation as Nato demonstrations planned

Video appears to show officers asking protesters about Nato summit plans, adding that they would 'come looking for' them.

Chicago police have been accused of intimidating protesters ahead of the Nato conference next week.

A video posted to YouTube appears to show officers saying they would "come looking for" protesters after a traffic stop in the city.

Thousands of protesters are expected to gather in Chicago when the city hosts the Nato conference on 20-21 May. Police have been criticised for spending some $1m on riot gear ahead of the demonstrations.

YouTube user NewsPowerTV posted the three-minute video, which it said was "anonymously submitted" on Monday. It said the video showed officers "intimidating and threatening physical violence against protesters arriving in Chicago on May 9th, 2012". The user later posted a 30-minute, unedited, version of the encounter.

In the footage an officer is heard asking: "You guys got something planned for next week?" Before one of the protesters says they are heading to Occupy Chicago.

As the video continues, at the 12-minute mark a man's voice, apparently a police officer, says: "You like that, he knows, see these guys know, '68 … you guys all know '68", in an apparent reference to riots in Chicago during that year's Democratic National Convention, which resulted in more than 500 arrests.

The same voice continues: "What did they say back in '68?"

"A billy club to the fucking skull," another voice responds.

One of the protesters contends that the riots were related to "a race issue", prompting a voice to respond: "Ok, now we'll beat your white ass."

Later in the video, at around the 27-minute mark, an officer says: "Wait for the protest day. Save it up for then."

"We'll see you on Nato," a protester says.

A police officer apparently responds: "We'll come looking for you. Each and every one of you."

Obama's America - same as Bush's.

UPDATE: The Guardian reports Rahmbo has gone on a Police State spending spree:

Police in Chicago have spent $1m on riot-control equipment in the last few months ahead of next month's Nato summit, which is expected to attract thousands of anti-war protesters.

Protesters from a coalition of organisations including unions, anti-war and Occupy groups are expected to descend on the city. National Nurses United, the largest nurses' union in the US, is providing free buses to Chicago for activists from across the country even as its own plans to demonstrate were vetoed by the city of Chicago on Tuesday.

While protesters insist demonstrations during the Nato conference – the main action is planned for Sunday 20 May – will be peaceful, police appear to be leaving nothing to chance. Records show that since it was announced the Nato conference would be held in Chicago, police have purchased improved riot gear for both officers and horses. Officers are also preparing to use the controversial long-range acoustic device, or LRAD, during the operation.

Chicago police confirmed to the Guardian that they will have a LRAD available at the 20 May protest, "as a means to ensure a consistent message is delivered to large crowds that can be heard over ambient noise".

"This is simply a risk management tool, as the public will receive clear information regarding public safety messages and any orders provided by police," said Chicago police spokeswoman Melissa Stratton.

However while the device can be used simply to transmit voice messages, it also has a "deterrent tone", emitted at a volume which is painful to the human ear and which can be used to disperse crowds.

LRADs have been purchased by the US army and navy, and have also been used in commercial shipping as an attempt to drive away pirates. The device was first used at a protest in the US at the G20 Pittsburgh summit in September 2009, however there are ongoing complaints that its use there caused some people to suffer permanent damage.

Karen Piper, a university lecturer, claims she suffered irreversible hearing damage that day, and is currently bringing a legal case against the city of Pittsburgh. "This is a device that has the capability to inflict permanent hearing loss on people," Piper's lawyer, Vic Walczak, told the Guardian, adding that the device is "more dangerous than a Taser".

"We don't believe it should be used against demonstrators. It should not be used outside the battlefield."

Rahmbo is planning on going to war.

Against Americans.

Here's video of the LRAD:

Bloomberg Will Grade Schools On How Well Students Do In College

But there few jobs for those who graduate college:

In post-recession America, it’s a coin toss whether college graduates will wind up fully employed.

Nearly 50% of grads over the last five years are unemployed or underemployed, according to a Rutgers University study released Thursday.

The research compared the job outlook for “post-recession” grads with that of graduates before the U.S. economic collapse in 2008.

Declining opportunity for even top students is squashing optimism in today’s youth, most of whom worry the American Dream is beyond their reach, researchers found.

Only one in five college graduates said they expected their generation would be more successful than the generations before them.

...

Students from the Class of 2008 and later faced a significantly bleaker future than grads from prior years, according to the study. Less than half were able to find jobs within one year of graduation, down from 73% before 2008.

Those who did find work were often disappointed with the jobs and salaries they wound up accepting. The average starting salary dropped from $30,000 to $27,000, the study found.

The 1.4 million graduates from 4-year colleges who will enter the workforce this spring face a U.S. unemployment rate of 8%, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And the gloomy outlook is confounded by the fact that tuition prices for higher education keep going up, forcing student debt up, too. The majority of graduates left school about $20,000 in debt, the Rutgers study found.

As a result, recent grads are likely to delay getting married, having children or buying a house, are are more likely to go back to graduate school to better their career chances, said Van Horn.

Well, I guess some of these college graduates who can't find work outside of Starbucks can go to grad school and increase their job opportunities and earning potential, right?

Uh, maybe not:

In this economy, even having multiple degrees isn't a guarantee against poverty.

The number of PhD recipients on food stamps and other forms of welfare more than tripled between 2007 and 2010 to 33,655, according to an Urban Institute analysis cited by the Chronicle of Higher Education. The number of master's degree holders on food stamps and other forms of welfare nearly tripled during that same time period to 293,029, according to the same analysis.

The boost in PhD recipients receiving food stamps is just the latest indication of how Americans are struggling in a down economy. Overall, the number of Americans on food stamps rose 43 percent over the past three years to 46.3 million Americans as of February 2012, according to the Department of Agriculture.

In addition, even graduate degrees that many used to consider a guarantee to a life of wealth and success are going down in value. The sluggish economy has pushed graduates with law degrees to look for jobs outside of the legal profession, according to U.S. News and World Report.

The situation is particularly dire for faculty working outside the tenure track as cuts to funding for public colleges have squeezed their salaries. Many adjunct faculty members are likely to be on welfare, since they live on "poverty wages," the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

Meanwhile, secure tenure-track jobs are disappearing as adjunct faculty positions become more the norm, according to several news sources. While more than half of all university faculty members were tenured or on the tenure track in 1975, that percentage has plunged to less than a third of all faculty members as of 2007, according to Department of Education data cited by the Chronicle of Higher Education in a separate report.

All of these factors, plus a less-than-stellar job market, have forced many PhDs to work in menial jobs. There are 5,057 janitors with PhDs, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data cited by the Houston Chronicle.

Janitors with PhD's.

With a hundred thousand in loan debt, of course.

Now there's an emblem for the Obama Age.

How come nobody grades Bloomberg on whether he creates a job market for all these people he's pushing to go to college?

How come nobody grades Obama on that either?

It seems the teachers who have taught these people are blamed for the problem, and of course the schools they went to are blamed as well.

But nobody blames the politicians and business leaders and corporations who have created the very economic environment that is going to make it so hard for the current youth generation to make a viable living.

South Africa On The Hudson

More on P.W. Bloomberg and his two-tiered justice system:

More young black men were stopped and frisked by police last year than actually live in the city, according to an analysis by the New York Civil Liberties Union.

About 168,000 black men between the ages of 14 and 24 were stopped under the controversial NYPD program in 2011 -- compared to the 158,406 who live in the five boroughs.

The startling statistic is part of a harsh critique of the NYPD’s stop, question and frisk program based on 685,724 encounters between cops and citizens in 2011.

The analysis of the hot button issue was based in part on information the NYCLU obtained from the NYPD, which says the stops have been instrumental in recovering guns and driving crime down to record levels.

NYCLU also revealed that although blacks and Hispanics comprised just 14 % of the population in six precincts, they still accounted for more than 70 % of the stops there.

For instance, in the 6th Precinct, which covers Greenwich Village and Soho, 77 % of the stops involved blacks and Latinos - even though they comprise just 8 % of the population.

The number is almost as high - 71 % - in the 19th Precinct that covers the Upper East Side, where blacks and Latinos are just 9 % of the population.

...

The NYCLU also found that while stops soared by more than 524,000 between 2004 and last year, the number of guns recovered increased by only 176. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has in the past said the controversial tactic has forced criminals to think twice about leaving home with weapons.

"We don't buy that notion and it's unacceptable,” said Donna Lieberman, the NYCLU's executive director. "The bottom line is the police department is required to judge people based on what they're doing. If what they're doing is perfectly legal and not suspicious of criminal activity then why on earth is the Police Department subjecting them to be thrown up against the wall."

Because Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly are racists and fascists.

That's why.

A Full-On Civil Rights Crisis In NYC

From The Guardian:

Police in New York City disproportionately stop black and Latino people even in low-crime areas, leading to a "two-tiered" policing system that divides along racial lines, according to civil rights campaigners.

A new analysis of NYPD figures by the New York Civil Liberties Union challenges the police's assertion racial disparities in stop-and-frisks reflect the geography of New York's high-crime areas.

Using the department's figures, the report revealed that in six out of the 10 precincts with the lowest numbers of black and Latino people in the city, black and Latino citizens represented over 70% of those stopped.

In all, there were more stops of young African American men than the total of population of that group in the city. Nine out of ten of them had committed no crime.

Drawing on the NYPD's own figures, the NYCLU argues the department's controversial policy of stopping and frisking hundreds of thousands of citizens each year has done little to change the number of guns on the street, presenting a direct challenge to the justification for the practice frequently provided by mayor Michael Bloomberg and the NYPD.

Rather than making the streets safer, the abuse of stop-and-frisk has created a "two-tiered" system in which African Americans and Latinos are disproportionately targeted, the NYCLU claims.

...

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU, speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, said the report offered "the most comprehensive analysis yet of NYPD stop-and-frisk activity in 2011".

"This analysis paints the most vivid and damning picture yet of how the police department routinely abuses the stop-and-frisk tactic, and it sends a call to the mayor, to the police commissioner and to the city council and the justice department, and to all the mayoral candidates in New York City," Lieberman said. "We, as a city, are in the throes of a full on civil rights crisis."

New York City Mayor Wallace, er, Bloomberg loves data.

Well, the NYCLU has a ton of data for his data-loving ass:

The NYCLU's report is drawn from analysis of an NYPD database that stores detailed information on stops, frisks, the use of force and weapons recovery. Accessing the database allowed the organization to review the practice on a precinct to precinct basis. Lieberman said the findings revealed a "tale of two cities".

"Let me be clear: under this administration we have come to see a two-tiered system of policing in New York. There's a kinder, gentler policing that we see on the Upper East Side or in Park Slope, and the up-against-the-wall policing that we see in Brownsville and Harlem," Lieberman said.

"This cannot stand. Real people's lives are in the balance. Whole generations of boys and girls are growing up afraid of the very people that are supposed to be keeping them safe."

According to NYCLU's findings, there were a total of 685,724 stops in 2011, a marked increase from 2002, when 97,296 were reported. The stops were distributed unevenly throughout the city's precincts, with the highest total – 31,100 – reported in the impoverished, predominantly black neighborhood of East New York and the fewest – 2,023 – reported in the increasingly gentrified neighborhood of Greenpoint.

Black and Latino New Yorkers accounted for more than half of the stops in 70 out of 76 of the city's precincts, while in 33 precincts they accounted for more than 90%. In five precincts that figure climbed to 98%.

The NYCLU report raised a challenge to the NYPD's claim that racial disparities in in the figures match areas of high crime New York City. Using the department's figures, the report revealed that in six out of the 10 precincts with the lowest numbers of blacks and Latinos in the city, black and Latino citizens represented over 70% of those stopped.

"Virtually everyone who's getting stopped is black and Latino," the NYCLU's legal director, Chris Dunn, said at Wednesday's press conference. "That shows that targeting is happening of blacks and Latinos, even in low-crime, low-minority precincts."

We have a racist mayor who has empowered a racist police commissioner to turn New York City into a racist police state.

Bloomberg and Kelly don't belong in positions of power.

They belong in jail.

Tisch Defends Using Error-Riddled Tests For High Stakes Teacher Evaluations

Merryl Tisch continues to stand behind the error-riddled state tests and states they WILL be used for high stakes decisions like holding students back, firing teachers and closing schools:

After revelations nearly 30 flawed questions appeared on state exams, Chancellor Merryl Tisch bashed the mistakes as “really disturbing" and “inexcusable.”

But despite her strongest condemnation to date

, Tisch said the tests’ scores would still be used for high-stakes teacher evaluations because experts maintain the errors had not “contaminated” results.

“I would like everyone to know here that yes, New York State plans to go on and use these tests for the accountability system and for the initial implementation of the teacher evaluation system,” Tisch said at a Crain’s New York breakfast Wednesday.

It is not actually clear who these "experts" Tisch is standing behind are or whether they actually have conducted a rigorous and thorough review of the tests and how the errors have affected the scores since, as the Daily News article notes, it takes five weeks for the scores to be completed.

Would these be the same "experts" who decided administering these error-riddled tests was a good idea in the first place?

Even if they're a different set of "experts," let's see the analysis they have conducted that has helped assure Ms. Tisch that the tests have not been "contaminated" by the numerous errors.

The reality is, the Regents and the NYSED have conducted no such analysis.

Merryl Tisch is winging her excuses, trying to divert attention from the fact that in the first year the new "objective" and "scientific" teacher evaluation system is implemented, they are going to be using tests with more errors than the 1962 Mets.

But Tisch's attempts at diversion won't work anymore.

People already know that the emperors at the Regents and the NYSED have no clothes.

NYSED Commissioner King has already lost his credibility on this issue after he claimed the "Hare and the Pineapple" passage was just fine, then blamed the teacher panel that rubber stamped it for the state rather than taking responsibility for the garbage tests himself.

And Tisch has lost all credibility by admitting these tests are horrendous but insisting they WILL be used to make high stakes decisions to leave students back, close schools and fire teachers.

If these two people were honest, they would admit there are tremendous problems with these tests and the evaluation system they have created around the tests, they would admit they have rushed everything and they would admit that at best they need to slow down before they implement this system across the state.

But neither John King nor Merryl Tisch are honest about this.

Instead they are playing their parts to continue the BLAME TEACHERS FIRST movement even as the system they are using to scapegoat teachers is coming undone right before them (and more importantly, right before the public.)

Now I'm not naive enough to think Governor Cuomo, who respects nothing in this world so much as people with a ton of money, would actually have anyone named "Tisch" fired over this.

But Merryl Tisch should be forced out as chancellor, as John King should be fired as NYSED Commissioner.

They have both proven that they cannot be trusted to lead at the Regents or the Education Department.

They have both proven they care nothing for children, students or schools - they only care about promoting their Endless Testing agenda.

When Will NYSED Commissioner King And Regents Chancellor Tisch Be Held Accountable For The Test Mess?

It's time for Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and NYSED Commissioner John King to be fired from their positions.

Even as this year's state tests have been revealed as error-riddled embarrassments, they continue to defend the "validity" of the tests and push for these scores to be used for high stakes decisions to close schools, fire teachers and hold students back.

The Daily News reports the state has had to throw out even more questions this week:

STATE OFFICIALS tossed out 20 questions from the foreign-language versions of the state math exam, citing sloppy translations, the Daily News has learned.

The latest revelations brought the total number of discredited state exam questions this year to 29, including six related to the infamous talking pineapple passage.

The foulups point to problems with the state’s $32 million contract with testing company Pearson, which is already taking heat over the previous mistakes.

The state offers the high-stakes math test in five foreign languages, so that elementary and middle-schoolers who are still learning English can take it.

The Chinese, Haitian Creole, Korean, Russian, and Spanish versions all had at least one question disqualified.

“When children are taking a test and come upon a badly worded question, it can . . . affect their performance on the rest of the test,” said Advocates for Children executive director Kim Sweet.

In addition to the mistakes on the foreign language exams, state officials have disqualified three questions on the English-language version of the math test.

That’s far more errors than before Pearson took over the test this year.

And on the reading tests and English-language math exams, there was only a single typo in the past three years.

So how does Merryl Tisch, Regents chancellor and promoter of teacher accountability, respond to this mess?

She defends the validity of the tests despite all the errors:

“I’m not going to excuse mistakes,” she said but added, “Do these errors detract from the validity of the tests? No, I don’t believe so.”

NYSED Commissioner King, who you can't miss when he's on a "Teacher Accountability" tour around the state promoting the tying of teacher evaluations to test scores and the like tends to disappear when these stories about problems with the state tests come out.

And sure enough, the Daily News couldn't reach King for comment and instead got this from a flunky at the NYSED:

“Together with Pearson, we are reviewing proofreading protocols to improve these outcomes in the 2012-13 test cycle,” said state Education Department spokesman Tom Dunn. “In every instance where errors were identified, they were fully addressed to minimize impact on children.”

No, they weren't. Had Leonie Haimson not posted about the Pineapple and Hare debacle, the NYSED never would have thrown out that section of the test and forced Pearson to stop using it in the future.

And because these tests are now "secret" and will not be published after they're administered to students, we have to trust the NYSED and Pearson to find all the mistakes themselves.

Given the error-riddled nature of the tests and the defensive reaction both Pearson and the NYSED have had over these tests, and given how badly King and Tisch want to use these tests to fire teachers and close schools so that they can help their charter cronies open up in new markets, neither the state nor Pearson can be trusted to handle this anymore.

In fact, NYSED Commissioner King and Regents Chancellor Tisch, two people who are so big on test-based accountability for teachers that they have happily upended the entire state education system to promote their accountability system on the backs of these flawed, invalid tests, cannot be trusted to lead on any education issues anymore.

It is quite clear from this test mess that neither one of them care a whit about students, teachers or schools.

If they did, they would take real responsibility for this mess and declare these error-riddled tests invalid.

No, King and Tisch care only about the politics of this, which is to use the tests to fire teachers and close schools, upend the education system around the state and bring the charterized chaos we in NYC have experienced via Bloomberg and Klein to the state as a whole.

It is time for both King and Tisch to go.

The governor, another accountability bully who has acted the part of a coward on this testing issue, needs to take a stand on this.

He's got a big mouth and usually won't shut up about teacher and school accountability.

But somehow he has nothing to say when the tests that the accountability movement is based upon are error-riddled crap.

You can call Governor Cuomo here and leave him a message:

(518) 474-8390

And you can call Shelly Silver here and leave him a message.

518-455-3791 or 212-312-1420

Merryl Tisch and John King must lose their jobs over this.

They cannot be trusted to lead on education policy.

Who knows what other mistakes these people are making that they haven't been caught on yet?

And if this is how bad they have made the tests, how bad are they going to be make the value-added measurements that they're going to use for teacher evaluations?

Vive La France

Europe just might need Victor Laszlo in the fight against the evil austeritarians...

Klein And Murdoch - A Model In Cronyism And Corruption

The Times takes a closer look at the role Rupert Murdoch's scandal "fixer," Joel Klein, has had in News Corporation's hacking scandal response and how it has "hurt" his education portfolio in the company.

The overall gist you get from the piece?

Klein is compromised.

Here are some key quotes:

Mr. Klein’s political instincts may have helped News Corporation, but his involvement has delayed his own ambitions within the company. He was hired by Mr. Murdoch to lead his company’s aggressive push into the education market. But just over six months into his tenure, the news broke that the company’s News of the World tabloid in Britain had hacked into the phone of a murdered 13-year-old, Milly Dowler, and suddenly, Mr. Klein became Mr. Murdoch’s legal compass in the ensuing British firestorm.

Mr. Klein, who declined to comment for this article, has slowly returned his attention to parts of his education portfolio, but prospects for success may have been damaged by the investigation. In 2010, News Corporation paid $360 million for a 90 percent stake in Wireless Generation, a company based in Brooklyn that specializes in education software, data systems and assessment tools to help teachers analyze student performance and customize lessons.

Last year, New York State rejected a $27 million contract with Wireless Generation, citing “the significant ongoing investigations and continuing revelations with respect to News Corporation.”

More recently, there has been criticism of Mr. Klein’s seemingly contradictory roles within News Corporation, both investigating wrongdoing inside the company and advising Mr. Murdoch on handling public relations and his appearances before the British Parliament.

...

He emerged as one of Mr. Murdoch’s most trusted advisers, along with Chase Carey, president and chief operating officer of News Corporation; and David F. DeVoe, the chief financial officer. Mr. Murdoch put Mr. Klein in charge of the internal investigation into the hacking case, reporting to Viet D. Dinh, an independent director on News Corporation’s board. But Mr. Klein also advised on handling the scandal, sitting behind Mr. Murdoch during his first testimony before a parliamentary panel in summer 2011 and spending hours in London helping Mr. Murdoch prepare for a second round of questions last month.

Shareholder groups have expressed concerns about Mr. Klein’s independence in leading the investigation. His compensation package at News Corporation was more than $4.5 million last year, according to company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“His salary was a huge bump, so he’s clearly beholden to Murdoch and should not be running an internal investigation,” said Michael Pryce-Jones, a spokesman for the CtW Investment Group, a shareholder advocacy group based in Washington that works with pension funds for large labor unions. (British investigators have said they believe the internal review led by Mr. Klein was independent.)

The Times also looks at the curious acquisition Murdoch made of Wireless Generation after Klein signed contracts with the company as chancellor:

Mr. Klein’s education unit is now one of the few areas within the company that is currently growing, both through investment in Wireless Generation and potential acquisitions. The company is looking at several small education-related companies, though no deals are imminent, according to a person knowledgeable about News Corporation’s preliminary strategy.

Wireless Generation had come under fire before the dropped New York bid. The company had been a key Education Department partner on two efforts that Mr. Klein had championed as chancellor. The timing of News Corporation’s acquisition, two weeks after Mr. Klein said he would join the company, prompted accusations that he had violated the city’s conflict-of-interest rules. At the time, a News Corporation spokeswoman said the deal had been developing for several months and Mr. Klein had no involvement in it. A spokeswoman for the Education Department said Mr. Klein recused himself from all business between the city and Wireless Generation as soon as he knew News Corporation had acquired it.

Sure, I believe the News Corporation spokeswoman who says Klein - the man who talked "frequently" with Rupert Murdoch about the state of the school system - had no involvement in News Corporation's acquisition in Wireless Generation.

Just like I believe News Corporation when they say the illegal phone hacking at the News of the World was relegated to one "rogue reporter" only.

The article goes on to say that Klein is now working on education issues 2/3rds of the time, hacking scandal cover-up 1/3rd of the time and has hired a bevy of education reformers to help carry out his dream of corporatizing public education and handing it over to Rupert Murdoch.

Of course, given how the scandal continues to grow in Britain, I'm not sure I believe that job description for Klein.

And given how the scandal has jumped the Atlantic to these shores, with Mark Lewis set to file hacking cases against News Corporation in New York and California, I suspect Klein's education portfolio work at News Corp. isn't going to become any less damaged any time soon.

But that's all right.

As Merryl Tisch told the Times, “Joel has a huge amount of respect and admiration for Mr. Murdoch and what he’s accomplished in his life."

Since Klein admires Murdoch - the man declared unfit to lead an international corporation in a Parliamentary report released last week - so much, I bet Klein doesn't mind turning his evil genius from destroying public education to "fixing" Rupert Murdoch's hacking/bribery/piracy/corruption scandals.

Certainly he is being well-compensated to do just that.

Arne Duncan Supports Gay Marriage - But Only If It Can Be Tested

Jumping on the Biden bandwagon, President Obama's Secretary of Education Privatization Arne Duncan came out in favor of gay marriage today:

When asked Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” if same-sex couples should be allowed to marry in the United States, Mr. Duncan said matter-of-factly, “Yes, I do.” He added that he didn’t think he’d ever been asked that question publicly.

Duncan went on to tell Morning Joe that he favors a gay marriage test, developed by Pearson Education and tied to the Common Core State Standards, that will ensure America becomes competitive in a globalized economy once again.

Secretary Duncan said he also favors testing for heterosexual married couples.

In order for states to get Defense of Marriage Act waivers, Duncan said, they will have to agree to new evaluations of marriages. Pearson will develop tests for couples of all orientations, as well as the value-added measurement formulas that will tell Duncan whether each couple is adding value or not to America's competitiveness.

Couples found not to be adding value via these Pearson tests two years running will be declared "ineffective" and sent to Vegas for a "It's Your Fault" divorce.

Duncan told Morning Joe he has modeled this program, called Race to the Altar, on his controversial Race to the Top education program.

He said we have an obligation to make sure every marriage, no matter the orientation, is making profits for Pearson Education.

David Axelrod, a spokesman for the Obama administration, said Secretary of Education Privatization Duncan was speaking for himself and not the administration as a whole.

"We don't mind scapegoating teachers for all the problems in the country, and Arne is just the guy who can get that message out there via shows like Morning Joe. But we don't support gay marriage, we do not support state waivers for the Defense of Marriage Act and we certainly do not support giving the Secretary of Education Privatization power over what is essentially a state issue."

The spokesman went on to say that the Obama administration does support allowing Pearson to issue marriage licenses and divorce agreements.

"What the hell, we let them run everything else," Axelrod said, "Why not this?"

So Much For Her Midas Touch

Oprah's not adding value to her investors' portfolios:

The losses at Oprah Winfrey’s stumbling cable channel are approaching a staggering $330 million, according to a report over the weekend.

And now industry insiders are predicting the Oprah Winfrey Network will not be able to survive another year if it does not find a hit show and make a dramatic turnaround.

Discovery, which partnered 50-50 with Winfrey to launch the network and has been underwriting its costs, has invested nearly $600 million in it since 2008, according to an extensive report in Businessweek magazine.

But since it started on the air in January 2011, “OWN may have lost as much as $330 million,” the magazine reports.

The magazine quotes one Wall Street media analyst calling the channel the most “successful failure in television today.”

David Zaslav, the chief executive officer of Discovery Communications who talked Oprah into the idea of OWN, is famously impatient with money-losing operations within his company.

He closed a channel Discovery operated with the New York Times in 2008 and just last month killed Planet Green, an eco channel.


...

“I really can’t see Zaslav losing this kind of money for much longer,” one longtime business associate said last week.

Winfrey appeared before advertisers two weeks ago to, in effect, ask for more time.

“I am in the climb of my life,” she told them. “I am climbing Kilimanjaro.”

Though Winfrey herself has relatively little money invested in the channel, her image as the most successful TV star of her generation is on the line.

E-mails to OWN and Oprah’s production company, Harpo, were not returned yesterday.

I know most of this problem stems from Oprah's inability to clone her own (now off-the-air) show.

But I do wonder if just a few teachers who used to watch Oprah stopped after Oprah's teacher-bashing.

In the end, I have to conclude that Oprah's teacher-bashing didn't cause this, but it sure doesn't help her either.

Greece Punishes Austerity Politicians

Unfortunately, one of the parties that has benefited from Greeks turning against the ruling coalition that sold the country out to the bankers is the fascists.

Still, the leftist, anti-bailout party appears to be "the biggest winner," according to the NY Times:

ATHENS — Greek voters appeared to radically redraw the political map on Sunday, bolstering the far left and neo-Nazi right in a wave of protest against the dominant political parties they blame for the country’s economic collapse.

The parliamentary elections were the first time that Greece’s foreign loan agreement had been put to a democratic test, and the outcome appeared clear: a rejection of the terms of the bailout and a fragmentation of the vote so severe that the front-runner is expected to have extreme difficulty in forming a government, let alone one that can either enforce or renegotiate the terms of the bailout.

The elections were seen as a pivotal test, determining both the country’s future in Europe and its prospects for economic recovery and the outcome, along with that in France, could resonate far beyond Europe, possibly leading to more upheaval in the euro zone. The early results were also a clear rebuke to European leaders that their strategy for Greece had failed.

An exit poll made public just before 9 p.m. nearly two hours after the polls closed, indicated that center-right New Democracy party was in first place with 19 to 20.5 percent of the vote, much less than the 34 percent it won in 2009. But in a major shift, the Socialists, who dominated for decades, won 44 percent of the vote in 2009 and were in power when Greece asked for foreign aid in 2010, appeared to have 13 to 14 percent of the vote, putting them behind the Coalition of the Radical Left, called Syriza, which opposes Greece’s agreement with its foreign lenders. Syriza appeared to be drawing 15.5 to 17 percent of the vote.

A projection by the Interior Ministry based on votes counted at a quarter of the country’s 20,000 polling stations broadly reflected the results of the exit poll.

...

Exit polls also showed the far-right Golden Dawn party, whose symbol resembles the swastika and whose members perform Nazi salutes at rallies, attracting 5 to 8 percent of the vote, enough to enter Parliament for the first time. The ultimate expression of a protest vote, the party has gained ground by campaigning on the streets of Athens, where many residents fear a sharp rise in illegal immigration and where politicians from mainstream parties have had trouble walking for fear of violent attacks from angry voters.

In a triumphant televised statement issued after the exit polls, the party’s leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, pledged to “fight the memorandum of the junta inside and outside Parliament,” a reference to the country’s debt deal with creditors.

...

The biggest winner in the elections appeared to be Syriza, a coalition of leftist parties founded in 2004, which included splinter groups from Greece’s more hard-line Communist Party. Its campaign slogan was “They chose without us, we’re moving on without them,” and it appeared to receive the bulk of the Socialist protest vote. Led by Alexis Tsipras, an energetic 38-year-old, the party is in favor of Greece remaining in the euro zone and the European Union, unlike the Communist Party, but has opposed the loan agreement.

Describing the elections as “probably the most critical ever,” Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, a technocrat installed in November to help Greece push through changes promised to creditors by the Socialists, called for voters to think about the implications of their decision. “We must all think carefully as we are not only deciding who will govern, we are determining the country’s course for decades,” he said.

One possible outcome could be a government composed of small parties opposed to the onerous terms of a second debt deal hashed out between the previous government and creditors in February in exchange for about $170 billion euros in loans and a restructuring of the country’s privately held debt.

In any case, with up to 10 parties expected to enter Greece’s 300-seat Parliament it will be difficult to form a stable government.

Austerity took a drubbing in France, Greece and England this week.

The left, such as it is, was the beneficiary in France and England.

Greece is a little more complex, but the message there is clear too - "No!" to banker bailouts and enforced austerity.

If only we had a "left" here in the U.S. to turn to.

But we don't.

We have a right wing party that bails out the banks, drops thousands of drone bombs on innocents across the world, vilifies unions and looks to privatize everything in sight, including public education.

And we have the Republicans...

Sarkozy Loses In France

This is good to see - the odious, fascist Sarkozy has lost:

François Hollande has won power in France, turning the tide on a rightwards and xenophobic lurch in European politics and vowing to transform Europe's handling of the economic crisis by fighting back against German-led austerity measures.

The 57-year-old rural MP and self-styled Mr Normal, a moderate social democrat from the centre of the Socialist party, is France's first leftwing president in almost 20 years. Projections from early counts, released by French TV, put his score at 51.9%.

His emphatic victory is a boost to the left in a continent that has gradually swung rightwards since the economic crisis broke four years ago.

Nicolas Sarkozy, defeated after one term in office, became the 11th European leader to lose power since the economic crisis in 2008.

...

The defeat of the most unpopular French president ever to run for re-election was not simply the result of the global financial crisis or eurozone debt turmoil. It was also down to the intense public dislike of the man viewed by many as the "president of the rich" who had swept to victory in 2007 with a huge mandate to change France. The majority of French people felt he had failed to deliver on his promises, and he was criticised for his ostentatious display of wealth, favouring the rich and leaving behind over 2.8 million unemployed. Political analysts said anti-Sarkozy sentiment had become a cultural phenomenon in France.

Turnout was high in the election - The Guardian reports it was 80%.

AFP puts some perspective on Sarkozy:

PARIS — Nicolas Sarkozy's defeat on Sunday marked the end of a five-year presidency during which he divided a France that had put its hopes in him to break with a history of timid government complacency.

Never has a French president been so disliked, as much for his personal style as for his austere deficit-busting policies, and the right-wing leader vowed months ago to quit politics if defeated.

...

At the height of his powers, he was the most popular president since General Charles de Gaulle.

"I have no right to disappoint," he said. But disappoint he did. First with his overbearing manner and then through his actions.

The first faux pas came on the very evening of his election, when he feted his victory in fine style in the glitzy Paris eatery Fouquet's with some of France's richest people, setting the seal on an image of tasteless excess.

One of his worst decisions was to allow his son Jean, a 23-year-old local councillor who had not yet graduated college, to try to take charge of the powerful public development agency in the La Defense business district.

He also struggled with the 2008 credit crunch and the subsequent financial crises.

Sarkozy tried to rise to the occasion as a global statesman, staging crisis summit after crisis summit, but his high-rolling Rolex and Ray-Ban image sat ill with an age of austerity, and French voters turned their backs on him.

"The most important factor is the way in which he vulgarised politics and lowered the status of the presidential office for his own ends," said political scientist Stephane Rozes of the Cap Institute.

Chirac was never happier than when greeting farmers, tasting food and admiring prize cattle at the Paris agricultural show. Sarkozy was famously filmed there telling a grumpy bystander: "Get stuffed, you stupid bastard."

His supporters point to the reforms that he managed to push past a dubious parliament and public -- an unpopular increase in the retirement age from 60 to 62 and a measure to ensure the independence of universities.

He had an impact on the international stage, helping negotiate an end to Russia's drive into Georgia and leading the NATO intervention that helped Libyan rebels topple Moamer Kadhafi.

Those most disappointed are those who believed in his slogan "work more to earn more" -- unemployment is approaching 10 percent and he did not live up to his promises to tackle tax loopholes and discrimination.

And of course there was his embrace of fascism:

He shocked some by pushing far-right themes, increasingly so between the April 22 first round presidential election and the run-off as he sought to claw back votes from the National Front.

He linked crime to immigration, expelled EU citizens of Roma descent and launched a debate on the threat Islam supposedly poses to French national identity

Good riddance to Sarkozy.

Murdoch/Cameron/Hacking Update

Lots of things happening in the ever-growing Murdoch/Cameron/News Corporation scandal - here's a rundown:

Former News of the World editor and Cameron aide Andy Coulson and former News International chief Rebekah Brooks will testify before the Leveson inquiry this week. Coulson has been arrested once in the hacking case, Brooks twice.

The Independent is reporting that a News Corporation lobbyist who has bragged about his close working relationship with Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has also worked closely with David Cameron as well, undercutting Tory excuses that the lobbyist was making empty claims:

David Cameron agreed to a meeting with one of Rupert Murdoch's senior executives that was arranged by the lobbyist now at the centre of the Jeremy Hunt scandal, The Independent on Sunday has learnt.

Frédéric Michel, whose numerous emails to Mr Hunt's special adviser have put pressure on the Culture Secretary to resign, set up the secret talks between Mr Cameron and Jose Maria Aznar, the former prime minister of Spain and a member of Mr Murdoch's News Corporation board.

The involvement of Mr Michel, the head of public affairs for News Corp, in such a top-level meeting severely undermines his portrayal by Mr Hunt and the Prime Minister as simply a lobbyist and "Walter Mitty" fantasist.

The previously undisclosed meeting in November 2009 also shows how Mr Cameron was being assiduously courted by News Corp executives beyond the Murdoch family, as the company was gearing up for its bid to take over BSkyB.

George Osborne and William Hague were also present at the talks, The IoS understands.

The Prime Minister is under increasing pressure over the Leveson inquiry ahead of the appearances this week of the former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks and Mr Cameron's ex-communications chief, Andy Coulson.

At the same time, Mr Cameron is struggling to contain open revolt among Conservative MPs over the direction of his party, including pressure from some figures to sideline George Osborne as election strategist, following Boris Johnson's securing of a second term as London Mayor. Mr Johnson's double victory exposes Mr Cameron's weakness as a leader who never crossed the finishing line, say some MPs.

The Daily Mail reports David Cameron has reason to dread Rebekah Brooks' testimony before Leveson:

David Cameron faces the embarrassment of highly personal text messages and emails to and from former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks being revealed this week.

Mrs Brooks and the Prime Minister’s ex-No 10 spin doctor, Andy Coulson, who resigned as editor of the News of the World newspaper over phone hacking, are both due to give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into the scandal.

It has been claimed that Mr Cameron was so close to Mrs Brooks that he texted her up to a dozen times a day – and that Mrs Brooks has kept all the communications.

Mr Cameron and Mrs Brooks are said to sign-off some of their text messages to intimate friends with the friendly ‘x’ preferred by many habitual phone texters.

If they did so in messages to each other, it could add to the Government’s growing discomfort over the Leveson disclosures.

According to some sources, Mr Cameron sent text messages of support to Mrs Brooks and her husband, race-horse trainer Charlie Brooks, before she was forced to resign over the phone-hacking affair.

So much for Cameron's claims that he wasn't all that close to News Corporation executives.

The Independent also reports that former Cameron aide Andy Coulson owned News Corporation shares while working for the prime minister at a time when News Corporation was trying to buy up the rest of BSkyB:

Andy Coulson held shares in News Corporation while he was David Cameron's head of communications at Downing Street, at a time when the Government was deciding whether to approve the company's takeover of BSkyB, it is revealed today.

Mr Coulson, who faces a tough time when he gives evidence to the Leveson inquiry this Thursday, was awarded the blue-chip shares as part of his pay-off when he resigned as editor of the News of the World over the phone-hacking scandal in 2007.

The revelation raises difficult questions for the Prime Minister over whether he knew about Mr Coulson's financial interests.

An Independent editorial wonders if Cameron is "competent" enough to stand as prime minister.

And it seems the rest of Britain is wondering the same. Local elections in Britain saw Conservatives and Liberal Democrats swept from power, indicating patience with and support for the coalition government is waning and (perhaps) support for a Labor Party led by Ed Milliband is growing. Hard to know how much loss of support Cameron and the Tories had over the hacking scandal (it's probably very little, actually) but you'd have to say the fallout from the scandal is not helping them much at a time when the economy has fallen into recession again.

And finally, The Guardian says Cameron dare not cast Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation adrift despite the bad smell emanating from the relationship:

The greatest fear is among the Conservatives. Murdoch's decision to release emails that showed how Jeremy Hunt's adviser was facilitating News Corporation's takeover of BskyB was a taste of what may come. Not just Hunt, but Cameron and George Osborne were complicit in promising sweetheart deals to News Corporation. Coulson, Brooks, James Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch know it. What is more, the Tory leadership suspects they can prove it.

We are in the absurd position where the Conservatives dare not stop fawning over Murdoch now for fear that he will reveal how they fawned over him in the past.

Should be another interesting week in the News Corporation scandal.

Obama Fails Value-Added Test On Jobs, Economy

The unemployment rate fell to 8.1% last month, not because more people have found jobs but because lots of people have just stopped looking for work.

In fact, labor force participation is at the lowest level since the beginning of the Reagan administration.

The Washington Post puts this into context:

If the same percentage of adults were in the workforce today as when Barack Obama took office, the unemployment rate would be 11.1 percent. If the percentage was where it was when George W. Bush took office, the unemployment rate would be 13.1 percent.

The Post article says part of the drop in labor participation comes from baby boomer retirements and the trend predates Obama (thus Bush's even poorer numbers.)

Nonetheless, Barack Obama promised that if the Congress passed his economic stimulus package, unemployment would never go above 8% and would drop down to well below 6% by mid-2012.

Well, here we are, almost at mid-2012 and unemployment is not only still above 8% after hitting as high as 10% early in the administration, but the rate has largely fallen because people have given up looking for work.

Obama wants all teachers in this country evaluated using a value-added measurement that gauges how much "value" a teacher has added to students' test scores.

Applying Obama's cherished value-added measurement to his economic record, you can see that Obama is an "ineffective" president who continues to subtract value from the job market and the country.

Our country is not alone in this mess, of course.

Greece is so depressed that it is veering toward fascism, The Economist recently declared the Eurozone in a depression and the U.K. has just fallen into a double dip recession.

So there are plenty of mitigating factors for why the job market is as poor as it is that have nothing to do with Obama.

Just the way there are plenty of mitigating reasons for why students don't always perform so well on tests that have nothing to do with teachers.

But since Barack Obama gives no quarter for teachers (he's a "No excuses! We know what works!" man), we should give Barack Obama no quarter for his economic stewardship of the country.

Ineffective, Mr. President.

You're fired.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Ray Kelly Wants Every Black And Latino Man To Fear Leaving Home

From The Guardian:

The New York City police department will be forced to defend in court its controversial practice of stopping and questioning hundreds of thousands black and Latino citizens every year against accusations that it amounts to an unconstitutional system of racial profiling.

A federal lawsuit filed by four men who found themselves on the receiving end of the department's so-called stop-and-frisk policy has passed key legal hurdles, and a decision is now awaited on whether the case should be ruled as a class action.

The resulting trial would throw a spotlight on a policy that the city's police commissioner, Ray Kelly, once described as "dubious", and which critics say has resulted in a culture of fear in New York's minority populations.

One New York state senator, Eric Adams, alleges Kelly even told him in 2010 he wanted to "instil the fear in black and Hispanic youth that every time they leave their homes they will feel that they could be stopped".

The number of reported encounters has soared under Kelly and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. In 2002, NYPD officers recorded 97,296 stop-and-frisks. Nine years later, that figure increased to a record-breaking total of 684,300.

Every year the vast majority of those stopped – generally 85% or more – have been African Americans or Latinos, and about nine out of 10 were released without a charge or a summons. The NYPD says the stop-and-frisk policy has reduced crime; this is disputed by its critics, who say it has increased racial tensions in the city. In one of her rulings, the judge in the federal case said the links are "not clear".

The corporate media have been cheering for a Commissioner Kelly run for mayor in 2013.

I am hoping for one too.

That would give us all an opportunity to take a closer look at this police commissioner who has his boot on the faces of many in the city and the "policing" techniques he utilizes.

Bloomberg's $2 Billion Dollar 911 Boondoggle

Yesterday the city released an "edited" version of a report on the city's 911 system conducted by an outside consultant group and it did not paint a pretty picture:

For months, Mayor Bloomberg has shamefully held back on releasing a consultant’s report on the city’s revamped, $2 billion 911 emergency response system, a review ordered after the disastrous response to the 2010 snowstorm.

Now we know why: The findings paint a terrible picture of what happens when a New Yorker picks up the phone and calls for help.

Virginia-based Winborne Consulting found that:

1. NYPD and FDNY 911 dispatchers waste time asking callers duplicate questions and taking down identical information;

2. multiple conflicting databases — which Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway acknowledged date to the 1960s and ’70s — result in dispatchers sending some units to the wrong address;

3. the city doesn’t count response time from the beginning of a 911 call, and

4. response time averages include many calls that are actually the result of that scourge of the cell phone age: mistaken butt-dialing.

All this raises truly disturbing questions about an operation that is challenged daily during routine calls for help and would be supremely tested in the event, God forbid, of another terrorist attack. Implicated is not only the supposedly state-of-the-art call center — for which City Hall spent $680 million alone — but the management of the switchover and the instruction required to make the technology work.

As I noted yesterday, the city has been sitting on this report for awhile and STILL refuses to release the whole unedited thing.

Bloomberg claimed the report is not finished and may contain errors, which might lead New Yorkers to make erroneous conclusions about the state of the system and Bloomberg's handling of it.

This same problem did not bother Bloomberg when it came to the error-riddled Teacher Data Reports - you know, the ones with the maximum margins of error of 87%.

Those he got out as soon as he possibly could because, as he said,

no evaluation system is every gonna be perfect...Parents have a right to know every bit of information that we can possibly collect about the teacher that's in front of their kids. This is about our kids' lives. This is not about anything else.

But an unedited version of the 911 report - that he can't release because it might contain errors.

That information people don't have the right to know.

Even though that information is, quite literally, about people's lives.

The difference between the TDR's and the 911 report, of course, is that this time if there are errors in the data the city is releasing, the errors might make him look bad, as opposed to teachers.

But the reality is, this report doesn't contain errors - it contains unvarnished truth about how much money Bloomberg has wasted to develop as system that is no better than what came before, that is STILL costing much more money than it should and what is much, much worse, costing lives of people who could have been saved.

$2 billion down the drain so far and counting.

We don't know how many lives have been wasted because of this system because Bloomberg refuses to release the data and tell us.

When does Bloomberg get held accountable for this mess?

When?

Bloomberg Releases "Edited" 911 Report That Still Shows How Woefully Unprepared City Is To Handle Emergencies

The edited report is really, really bad - what could be in the full report that Bloomberg refuses to release?

NEW YORK (AP) — The city's overhauled 911 system is beset by delays and errors that could leave callers without help for crucial seconds in an emergency, while the fire and police departments aren't collaborating on how to handle a surge in calls from a massive crisis such as a terrorist attack, a report said.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office released an edited version of a consultants' report on Friday. His administration is fighting legal efforts to force it to release earlier versions. When the New York Post first wrote about the report last month, it described a 216-page document, but the version released Friday had 133 pages.

Cas Holloway, the deputy mayor for operations, said the city would immediately adopt two of the report's 14 recommendations and would soon adopt others. Bloomberg will create a working group to consider the report's suggestions and will issue an executive order establishing an ongoing process to improve the system, Holloway said.

...

The report, initially prepared by outside consultants hired by the city, found that call operators waste time on duplicative questions and employ inconsistent questioning procedures. The system, it found, sends some responders to the wrong address and slows fire and medical dispatchers' efforts to give instructions to callers.

The report follows a yearslong overhaul of the system that included a new $680 million call center that combined the operations of police, fire and medical dispatchers. City officials have said the update improved response times, eliminated inefficiencies and reduced confusion for callers, but Friday's report seemed to call some of that into question.

"Statistical information provided to City Hall management to demonstrate the success of the (Unified Call Taking) project contained errors and does not provide a clear picture of the effectiveness of UCT related business processes," the report said. Holloway said that comment referred largely to the city's practice of not tracking how long it takes from the moment an emergency call is placed until the moment responders are dispatched.

The data is phonied up, the response times are phonied up - but the deputy mayor says fatalities are down 20%, so everything's good.

But do you trust them when they say fatalities are down?

They have phonied up the budget, phonied up the crime stats, phonied up the test scores and graduation rates - why should we believe anything - seriously, anything - a city official who works for Michael Bloomberg says?

In any case, given how bad this "edited" report is, the full report must be a doozy.

Hey Bloomberg - you couldn't wait to release the Teacher Data Reports with the 87% margins of error.

Release the damned 911 report - all of it.

NY Post Columnist Suggests New Name For Nets: The New York N-----S

Nothing but class comes out of Rupert Murdoch's media:

New York Post sports columnist and out-of-touch old white dude Phil Mushnick has sparked internet outrage for suggesting in his latest missive that the new, Jay-Z-owned Brooklyn Nets basketball team rename themselves using street language that sometimes crop up in rap lyrics.

The phenomenally tone deaf sentiment was expressed, fittingly, in a column titled Don't rely on media to evaluate bad behavior.

The pundit's spurious logic hangs on the fact that the new logo is black and white, which strikes him, for some reason, as overtly "urban", an ugly code word for black:

As long as the Nets are allowing Jay-Z to call their marketing shots – what a shock that he chose black and white as the new team colors to stress, as the Nets explained, their new "urban" home – why not have him apply the full Jay-Z treatment?

Why the Brooklyn Nets when they can be the New York N------s? The cheerleaders could be the Brooklyn B----hes or Hoes. Team logo? A 9 mm with hollow-tip shell casings strewn beneath. Wanna be Jay-Z hip? Then go all the way!

Jay-Z is, of course, is one of the most popular hip-hop artists in history. He is also a producer, entrepreneur, and former chief executive officer of a major label with a net worth of over $450m. But for Mushnick, to be "Jay-Z hip" means acting like a thug.

If Mushnick wants to see thuggery up close, he should look at his boss, Rupert Murdoch, or the editorial staff at his paper, the NY Post.

They're a bunch of old greedy white dudes, and they're as thuggish as anybody.

Between the phone hacking, the computer hacking, the bribery, extortion, intimidation of witnesses and investigators and the conspiracies to cover up crimes these News Corporation people have engaged in, Mushnick can see all the thuggery he wants without ever leaving his newspaper office at the Post.

A Devastating Indictment of The State Education Leadership In New York

Sharon Emick Fougner, principal of Elizabeth Mellick Baker School in Great Neck, N.Y, sends a letter to New York State Education Department Commissioner John King:

Dear Commissioner King,

I implore you to initiate a thorough review of this year’s NYS Math Assessments in grades three through five. I have been an elementary principal for twelve years, and are quite honestly horrified by the content, format, language and presentation of this year’s exams. In addition, the scoring and reporting procedures and insistence that test items remain permanently undisclosed to the public suggest that the process is both unreliable and artificial.

The poor design of this year’s NY Math Assessments demonstrates complete disregard for the cognitive and emotional development of elementary children. Specifically, third, fourth and fifth grade test booklets have contained:

*Unfamiliar, untaught material

*Deliberately misleading questions & answer choices

*Ambiguous, poorly worded questions & answer choices

*Inconsistent directions

*Misplaced answer lines

*Omitted directional cues

*Multiple answers that could be correct

*Inappropriately sized work spaces

*Extended multiple steps (as many as 5 or 6) in single problems

*Incomplete/missing information

*Reading levels that are above grade

Each of these items has significantly impacted student performance on these tests. They have caused confusion, anxiety, miscalculations, distraction, misuse of time, and fatigue. Compounding these factors is the inordinate length of these exams, which is beyond the stamina and attention span of eight to ten year olds.

The embedded field test questions on this year’s NYS Assessments have had a particularly negative impact on the performance of our students. As the requirements for next year under the Common Core State Standards are very different from the expectations for this year, I assume that all of the unfamiliar topics are field test questions. These questions (which are very identifiable to adults familiar with the differences between current standards and the CCSS) are based on material to which children have had no exposure, thus rendering them useless as field test items. “Common Core questions” accounted for approximately 12% of the third grade, 8% of the fourth grade, and nearly 17% of the fifth grade questions. It is inconceivable as to why such a large portion of the tests should have been devoted to questions that obviously can provide no helpful information, since the topics are not currently required in NYS curriculum. (If these were not field test questions, then the test design poses an even greater problem, as the developers were not adequately familiar with current NYS Standards.) These questions caused additional anxiety for students who were already functioning under stressful conditions. Children, at all grades and ability levels, spend excessive amounts of time on these questions and became confused and agitated by their inability to answer them. Some of our brightest children reported to teachers after each day of the test that the questions made them feel stupid.

At the other end of the spectrum, the tests have been an emotional and physical assault on our special needs students and English language learners. Many of these children generally experience greater success in mathematics than reading, as they are knowledgeable and confident regarding the content and concepts. The reading levels, vocabulary and language structures made it impossible for them to access the tests and demonstrate their mathematical knowledge. In room after room, children could be seen twenty minutes into the test with their heads on their desks or staring blankly into space. When teachers checked on them, they simply said, “It’s too confusing,” or “I can’t do this,” and hopelessly gave up. Nearly half of my special education students cried at some point during these exams. It is unacceptable for eight, nine and ten year olds to be subjected to this kind of torment.

What is even more detrimental is that neither these children — nor their parents or teachers — will ever have access to their test booklets in order to understand how or why the child arrived at an incorrect answer. No benefit is extended to the child from all of these hours of testing if there is no thoughtful, comprehensive feedback. Likewise, I am unable to provide you and your department with clarification and examples regarding my initial list of concerns, as I am not permitted to speak about the content of the exams, or retain a test booklet for commentary. I find it disingenuous that you want teachers and principals to receive feedback, but want none yourself. It would seem that those of us who have spent our lives doing this work would have much insight to offer you.

I would hope that, as Commissioner of the New York State Education Department, you would aspire to an assessment system of which you can be proud. This is not that system. If you were to sit down and take each of these exams, I think you would be embarrassed that your department subjected children to them. I would expect that you, too, would see the flaws in these tests and want better for the students of New York State. This is not a testing system that should be used to evaluate students’ abilities, and certainly not a system that can determine teacher effectiveness.

I thank you for your careful consideration of my concerns, and would be happy to clarify them for you or answer any questions that you might have. Please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sharon Emick Fougner

Principal

Pc: Members of Board of Regents, NYSED

King has not responded directly Fougner's letter, though he has defended the quality of the tests and said that complaints about the them are coming from teachers who are worried about the new evaluation system based test scores

Regents Chancellor Tisch has also attacked people who are complaining about the quality of the tests, saying that they are just opposed to accountability.

If anybody is opposed to accountability, it is the testing company that made these tests (but won't respond to complaints about them), the Regents chancellor who acknowledges these tests are badly designed but still says they will be used for high stakes decisions and the NYSED Commissioner who defends the quality of the tests and attacks teachers for raising very valid issues over the design, inaccuracy, and length of these tests.

And where is the governor in all this mess?

Silent - he's too busy touting his new education panel which he created to look at how charter schools, testing and teacher evaluations and pay based on test scores will improve public education in the state.

In other words, like King and Tisch, he is a "lobbyist" for Pearson and the charter industry.

The entire educational leadership in New York State, the people who love to point fingers and hold others "accountable," refuse to be held accountable themselves.