Friday
Tuesday
American Dream Out of Reach for Most Americans
American Dream Still Alive But Out of Reach for Most Americans
Thursday, March 10, 2011
New Survey Shows Widespread Concern About Wages, Healthcare, Gas Prices
WASHINGTON, DC -- A majority of working Americans now believe their children are going to be worse off economically than they are, according to a poll of 800 non-supervisory workers released today by Change to Win (CtW). This, along with other striking results, reveals that on Labor Day 2006, the American Dream is slipping away. Among the key findings:
- A majority of workers say the number one issue they face is that the wages they are paid are not keeping up with the cost of living.
- More than half expect to have to work longer before retiring than they thought they would five years ago.
- More than a third have been forced to go into debt in the last year just to pay for basic necessities like food, utilities, and gasoline.
The survey also found a substantial majority believe that by joining together with other workers in unions, workers can help restore the American Dream.
The "American Dream Survey: Hope and Fear in Working America" was conducted by Lake Research Partners, a Washington, DC-based polling firm.
Change to Win chair Anna Burger said CtW commissioned the Labor Day survey to see how the country is contributing to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of working Americans -- the people who contribute most to the nation's strength, prosperity, and well-being.
"We've known for a long time that working Americans are being squeezed," said Burger. "But these results tell us that five years into an economic recovery working families are feeling battered, and are losing hope for the future."
The survey found that while the ideal of the American Dream is still very much alive for working families, most see it slipping away. Also, more than eight out of ten non-supervisory workers in America say that that no matter what you hear about the economy, working families are falling behind.
Survey participants were asked to describe the American Dream and the vast majority spoke about being able to make ends meet, not worrying about debt or meeting basic expenses, and ensuring a good future for their families. When asked to rate attributes of the American Dream, the top scorers were: being proud of the work you do, being able to ensure a better future for your children, owning a home, having affordable health care, having a secure and dignified retirement, and feeling secure in your job.
"The American Dream for American workers is simple, direct, and powerful," said Burger. "It is not driven by personal greed, and its fulfillment is not great individual wealth, but core American values."
More than half of working Americans believe that the American Dream is still achievable, but only 14% believe they have obtained it. Among the top economic concerns of the majority of working Americans: keeping up with the cost of living, rising gas prices, and rising health care costs.
On the issue worrying most workers, health care, they feel strongly (61%) -- and 82% overall agree -- that America cannot rely on the marketplace for health insurance; government has a responsibility to make sure Americans have health insurance.
Burger said the findings should set off alarm bells for Congress and urged them to focus their attention on the very real issues facing the majority of American families -- good jobs, decent wages, affordable healthcare, and retirement security.
She also said the survey findings confirmed Change to Win's belief that while the American Dream is at risk in an economy that fails to respect or reward work, workers are ready for change, and see joining together as the way to make change happen.
"Our challenge," concluded Burger, "is to move forward and build on the hope that workers have and increase our efforts to unite more workers in their industries. The challenge to America -- from the corporate boardroom to Congress -- from Wall Street to Pennsylvania Avenue -- is to remain true to the workers who do the jobs that make the profits. Working Americans are the foundation of our country and our economy. We must keep the dream real for them and for future generations."
The poll was conducted in August 2006, for Change to Win by Lake Research Partners, and surveyed a random national sample of 800 non-supervisory American working adults.
Monday
LA Teacher layoffs
LA Teacher layoffs - coming to a district near you
Monday, April 25, 2011
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- LAUSD employees who are set to be laid off are speaking out at a Monday hearing about how the budget cuts are affecting the students.
The district is facing a massive budget deficit and the loss of federal stimulus dollars, meaning thousands of jobs are on the line. However, the district says it is committed to keeping teachers in the classroom.
The LAUSD and the teachers union are going head to head over notices that would send thousands of Los Angeles Unified School District teachers to the unemployment line.
Monday's Reduction in Force hearing was set to involve attorneys from the district and the United Teachers Union of Los Angeles. An administrative law judge will decide if the district followed policy when giving out the layoff notices.
"Morale obviously is very down since the March 15 pink slip distribution. It's a humiliating experience," said teacher Jennifer Preuss.
Meanwhile, the students are stuck in the middle of the battle.
"It's taking away the food for the mind. You can't cut from the inside out. It just doesn't make any sense," said Preuss.
Over 5,000 layoff notices were handed out to balance the brimming $400 million budget deficit - a solution that not everyone is willing to swallow.
"We talk about, you know, continuity, consistency, and these kids are going to get so many teachers, just like a revolving door," said teacher Anita Hawatin.
If the layoffs go through, it would mean students would see, among other things, an increase in class size. Many teachers say they are already at full capacity in the classroom.
"There's just no other place. I couldn't even imagine where I would put that many extra children," said another teacher.
Superintendent John Deasy says there is a way to save most of these jobs. He proposed a one-year emergency fix that includes 12 furlough days and borrowing a sum from a surplus. He said the plan would rescind 80 percent of the layoff notices for at least one year. However, he said the teachers union has yet to accept that offer.
"I think one year of employment is better than unemployment," said Deasy. "We need our teachers and we need our principals and our classified workers. We need our union to come to the table in partnership and save their membership."
The teachers union says other options need to be explored. Some said that they would be willing to take 12 furlough days if it meant they could keep their jobs.
If the layoff notices hold, thousands of teachers and school professionals will be let go effective June 30.
Friday
Will Japan become home to the worst Nuclear disaster known to man?
The seasoned experts-those that survived the '85 meltdown of the number four reactor in the city of Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union-are desperately trying to convince the Japanese Government to accept their help before it's too late. Scientists from around the world are weighing in but may agree that the Japanese situation at the Fukasami Plant will likely out strip the initial destruction that still exists in the radioactive ghost town of Chernobyl. Please click on the appropriate news page above.
Tuesday
New Age Bullying and Why Parents often contribute - a four part series
Prelude.
Looking back on the experiences of my youth, it used to require a certain set of characteristics to thrive as a bully. At the core it took face to face threat of Violence and an aggressive confrontational persona. But today the internet makes it simple for almost anyone to graduate from cowering weakling to kicking virtual sand in the face of friends and strangers in no time. All done in the comfortable anonymity of cyberspace.
But it was Jimmy Wong, a 24 year-old singer that showed me a great example of creativity that can be deployed with the same tools that the so-called cyber bullies are exploiting so freely. The 24 year-old singer, and up-and-coming YouTube sensation, wrote and recorded "The Asians in the Library Song" in response to Alexandra Wallace's video. Here's part of the chorus.
Looking back on the experiences of my youth, it used to require a certain set of characteristics to thrive as a bully. At the core it took face to face threat of Violence and an aggressive confrontational persona. But today the internet makes it simple for almost anyone to graduate from cowering weakling to kicking virtual sand in the face of friends and strangers in no time. All done in the comfortable anonymity of cyberspace.
But it was Jimmy Wong, a 24 year-old singer that showed me a great example of creativity that can be deployed with the same tools that the so-called cyber bullies are exploiting so freely. The 24 year-old singer, and up-and-coming YouTube sensation, wrote and recorded "The Asians in the Library Song" in response to Alexandra Wallace's video. Here's part of the chorus.
I pick up my phone and sing...
Ching Chong, it means I love you
Ling Long, I really want you
Ting Tong, I don't actually know what that means
Ching Chong, it means I love you
Ling Long, I really want you
Ting Tong, I don't actually know what that means
the lrics are funny and good-spirited, and effectively turn the tables on the original rant. And the song itself has a catchy hook, has been viewed about 800,000 times, and is now for sale on iTunes.
When I was a kid, here's one thing I never thought of saying to a bully who was about to pummel me:
"Hey, don't mess with me. I've got a quirky sense of humor, a great singing voice, and I know how to code!"
Jimmy Wong and many others are proving those types of creative skills could be a decent way to put up a defense.
I am a middle school counselor and in the weeks to come I am going to address (rant) on this most salient of school issues. One that parents complain about more than any other
When I was a kid, here's one thing I never thought of saying to a bully who was about to pummel me:
"Hey, don't mess with me. I've got a quirky sense of humor, a great singing voice, and I know how to code!"
Jimmy Wong and many others are proving those types of creative skills could be a decent way to put up a defense.
I am a middle school counselor and in the weeks to come I am going to address (rant) on this most salient of school issues. One that parents complain about more than any other
A good solid statement served with two free sides of popular misconception
TEACHERS PUT TO THE TEST | KIM MARSHALL
IN A recent comparison of student achievement in 65 countries, American adolescents ranked 17th in reading, 23rd in science, and 31st in math. (Plate of PM no.1: Anyone with the good sense and taste to have followed this Blog understand why I believe the statistics above are comparing apples and oranges. Yet it is still thrown around as legitimate preface to anything surrounding public education. Please see American Narcissism and the Only Truly American Progressive Idea - in the archives) Within the United States, achievement gaps among racial and economic groups are widening — including in Massachusetts.
Why? Lots of factors drag down achievement, but research shows that one thing can overcome them all: good teaching. (STOP! Good teachers are incredible with the meager support and adverse political conditions that prevail but they can't weave gold from straw folks. Don't blame anything or anyone but yourselves. We are to blame. The average voter who voted Bush in 2000 bought all the tired myths and lies regurgitated by the conservatives.You Bought the thinly vialed NCLB agenda. Bush and his buddies wanted to do away with public education in lieu of private schools run like corporations. Bush Bankrupt the three corporations given to him. The Saudi Prince had to personally bail him out of loosing the Bush family's lucrative oil business. Yep and he felt himself the right wack job for the job; to corporatize public education as if kids were sprockets.) What happens in classrooms is especially important for children who enter school with any kind of disadvantage; effective teaching closes achievement gaps; mediocre and ineffective teaching widens them. (Actually when measured by the premise of selective international comparativeness - NCLB, there is no evidence that even good teachers without resources affect a difference. No studies of merit.)
Why? Lots of factors drag down achievement, but research shows that one thing can overcome them all: good teaching. (STOP! Good teachers are incredible with the meager support and adverse political conditions that prevail but they can't weave gold from straw folks. Don't blame anything or anyone but yourselves. We are to blame. The average voter who voted Bush in 2000 bought all the tired myths and lies regurgitated by the conservatives.You Bought the thinly vialed NCLB agenda. Bush and his buddies wanted to do away with public education in lieu of private schools run like corporations. Bush Bankrupt the three corporations given to him. The Saudi Prince had to personally bail him out of loosing the Bush family's lucrative oil business. Yep and he felt himself the right wack job for the job; to corporatize public education as if kids were sprockets.) What happens in classrooms is especially important for children who enter school with any kind of disadvantage; effective teaching closes achievement gaps; mediocre and ineffective teaching widens them. (Actually when measured by the premise of selective international comparativeness - NCLB, there is no evidence that even good teachers without resources affect a difference. No studies of merit.)
So how do we increase the amount of good teaching? (Faulty premise leads to irreverent question.) A good place to start is revamping our teacher-evaluation process. There’s general agreement — echoed by a task force that just reported to the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education — that the current system does a terrible job distinguishing between highly effective, effective, mediocre, and ineffective teaching. Many outstanding teachers aren’t recognized and asked to share their magic; lots of teachers who need help aren’t getting it; and all too many who shouldn’t be teaching are still in front of kids.
(Here lies PM #2)
Why is teacher evaluation in such sorry shape? First, principals are spread thin. As a school leader in Boston, I was responsible for 40 teachers who collectively taught 200 lessons a day. That’s 36,000 lessons a year! Even the most energetic principal sees only a tiny fraction of teachers’ work with students.
Why is teacher evaluation in such sorry shape? First, principals are spread thin. As a school leader in Boston, I was responsible for 40 teachers who collectively taught 200 lessons a day. That’s 36,000 lessons a year! Even the most energetic principal sees only a tiny fraction of teachers’ work with students.
Second, teachers generally have advance notice of the principal’s annual or bi-annual evaluation visits. Knowing exactly when the boss is coming, and having so few chances to show their stuff, it’s understandable for teachers to prepare a “glamorized’’ lesson that is not representative of what students are getting every day. (Teachable moment: no good teacher presents the same things the same ways to the same kids during the year. Kim sounds like an administrator who didn't keep up with her responsibilities -she doesn't mention she had assistant principals to help - and is showing her bitterness at her evaluations. Note: we have to find a way to better evaluate principals.)
Third, teacher evaluation rarely addresses the most important question: are students learning what’s being taught?
Given these design flaws, (for more on the design flaws in this article please read:) it’s easy to see why supervision and evaluation seldom improve teaching and learning — and why so much mediocre and ineffective teaching flies under the radar. The “special lesson’’ tradition is especially problematic: it’s a collusive deal in which the principal pretends the observed class is typical and writes it up — saving the time, emotional difficulty, and union hassles involved in spotting, confronting, and improving less-than-effective teaching. Struggling teachers sign the evaluations, avoiding the hard work of getting better. And all those “satisfactory’’ evaluations go into personnel files, maintaining the fiction that things are just fine. What a mess.
One solution being proposed is using students’ standardized-test scores to evaluate teachers. There’s a heated debate about this idea, but one problem is obvious: MCAS scores aren’t tabulated until summer, which means that an entire school year goes by before anyone is held accountable.
Struggling teachers need tough-love feedback and support during the year. Teacher teams and administrators need to look at well-constructed assessments of student learning every few weeks to see which teaching methods are working or which aren’t. And if a teacher is having serious problems and isn’t taking suggestions and improving, the dismissal process must begin early to minimize the damage to children’s learning.
The ultimate goal is effective teaching in every classroom, every day, every year. The best way to reach that goal is to give a new set of tools to the person with the best access to classrooms and the greatest opportunity to orchestrate improvements in teaching (and remove ineffective teachers): the principal. Administrators will be far more effective when their classroom evaluation visits are:
■Unannounced, so they see everyday reality;
■Short, frequent, and systematic, so every teacher is visited at least 10 times a year and all aspects of instruction are sampled;
■Followed each time by a short, face-to-face conversations in which the principal and teacher focus on curriculum, methods, and results (struggling teachers would get more intensive supervision and support and an improvement plan.) (Most districts have systematic programs and staff for these teachers. A good principal would never have time to teach the teachers under the most ideal of circumstances. Assuming the principal was ever a decent teacher.)
■ Summed up in end-of-year evaluations with two dimensions: a rubric that gives detailed ratings at four levels — highly effective, effective, improvement necessary, and does not meet standards — and a report on each teacher team’s September-to-May student learning gains measured by high-quality during-the-year assessments.
Schools experimenting with these ideas are making dramatic progress. Let’s follow their lead, bring out the best in principals and teachers, and give all our kids the education they deserve.
Kim Marshall, a former Boston teacher and administrator, is author of “Rethinking Teacher Supervision and Evaluation.’’ 
Hey, Kim with all these over used generalities in your tool box why did you leave education. Surely, with the answers in hand you'd be driving the frontlines of change. D grade for this paper. File under more dried Bullshit for Public Consumption.
Hey, Kim with all these over used generalities in your tool box why did you leave education. Surely, with the answers in hand you'd be driving the frontlines of change. D grade for this paper. File under more dried Bullshit for Public Consumption.© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.
Monday
RECENT "INLAND EMPIRE NEWS" STORIES, VIDEO AND GALLERIES
RECENT "INLAND EMPIRE NEWS" STORIES, VIDEO AND GALLERIES
Traffic cones used to lure victim in Riverside
Monday, April 25, 2011
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (KABC) -- A teenage girl narrowly escaped a would-be kidnapper who used a fake roadblock to lure her out of her car in Riverside County.
It's fairly common to come across traffic cones along the sides of the road. They're usually placed near construction zones. But a line of cones that was used as a road block on Pourroy Road a couple of nights ago, was not set up that way. In fact, police said it's possible the cones, which were used with fishing line and duct tape, were actually some kind of trap. "It appears that the subject was using these cones to stop motorists and potentially abduct them," said Sgt. Joe Borja of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.
The girl was driving on Pourroy Road and Thompson Road in Winchester around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday when she saw traffic cones obstructing the roadway. She got out to move them and that's when a man jumped out from the bushes and tried to grab her. "She was able to get away from the subject, jump back into her vehicle and speed off. But before she sped off, the subject jumped back on top of the hood of the vehicle and was brushed away from the vehicle as she sped away," said Borja.
Officials said the victim got away uninjured, but residents in the area are concerned. "It's disconcerting to say the least. We have a whole lot of people going for walks and stuff like this. And you're never quite sure what's going to take place," said resident Sue Neumann. But could it have been some kind of prank? Authorities got a number of calls reporting kids in the area horsing around with traffic cones.
"It could be juveniles being mischievous because we did receive prior calls indicating that juveniles were placing cones on the roadway earlier in the day. But the fact that somebody physically tried to grab a subject who stopped brings us concern," said Borja.
The incident remained under investigation. Anyone with information was asked to call the Riverside County Sheriff's Department at (951) 696-3000.
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