How To Level The College Playing Field, by my friend Harold O. Levy ... by gimleteye

A dear friend, Harold Levy, wrote the following for the New York Times. Please share widely.

New York Times, Sunday OPINION

How to Level the College Playing Field
By Harold O. Levy with Peg Tyre
Mr. Levy is a former chancellor of the New York City public schools. He wrote this article with the education journalist Peg Tyre.
April 7, 2018

This time of year, there’s a lot of optimism in the air about college. As acceptance notices come in, it seems like the smartest, hardest-working young people with the greatest potential are being matched to institutions of higher learning that will prepare them for success and promote a free and open society. We might conclude that colleges are greasing the gears of social mobility, which have slowed as of late.

It’s painful to think otherwise, especially for someone like me for whom access to a selective college was a boon and a blessing. The son of a hardware store owner, I attended New York City public schools and got both an undergraduate and a law degree from Cornell. With the support of my loving family, I prospered. In 2000, I was appointed chancellor of the New York City public schools; after that I made investments in classroom technology before being tapped to run a foundation that paves the way for high-performing, low-income students to attend college.

Jeb Bush and the Trump wrecking crew rely on the same sleights of hand: Sad! ... by gimleteye

In important ways, the phenomenon of a democracy-destroying Donald Trump has its roots in a Republican agenda that grew out of Jeb Bush/ Karl Rove initiatives in the late 1990's; among them, public education.

The point of the Bush initiatives was a) undermine funding for public education while b) using testing mandates like FCAT to drive teaching down. Instead of reforming and improving public education, the goal was to open the way for private, charter-based schools that advanced a collateral benefit: conservative, Christian theology.

In other areas of public life, Bush also "innovated" ways to turn public infrastructure -- water management is one -- into opportunities for profit; financial and political. The Republican establishment was so sure of that success, it invested nearly $150 million in Jeb's failed presidential primary. Trump seized the moment to characterize Jeb as "weak", but through his nominations to the Trump cabinet, he now reveals as more Bush, than Bush himself.

Today, two decades after Jeb Bush began tinkering with public education, the Trump administration has designated as Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, a billionaire who has no experience teaching in public schools and never put a child of her own in a public school. She has given millions to conservative political causes and candidates.

Jeb Bush called Trump "the chaos candidate" and warned, during the presidential primary, that Trump would be a "chaos president". Bush, however, has been strongly supportive of DeVos who, it is expected, will be the same kind of the "bull-in-a-china-shop" to public education as Trump is, to the executive federal branch of government.

The wrecking crew is firmly in charge. The Trump years, if they last, will be chaotic. They will be democracy-crushing. And that, finally, will be the legacy of Jeb Bush and Florida voters.


Blame Jeb's 'belly flop' for teacher shortage | Opinion
Jac Wilder VerSteeg
ORLANDO SENTINEL, Feb 14 2017

Here's a recent headline from the Sun Sentinel: "Florida lawmakers seek ways to attract, keep teachers."

Florida lawmakers just can't seem to figure out why the state is losing so many teachers. Florida lawmakers sure are slow on the uptake.

Florida doesn't pay its teachers enough, it's true. But here's the bigger deal: Florida doesn't treat its public school teachers with respect. Florida does not treat its teachers like professionals.

What conclusions to draw from Dade Medical College scandal? ... by gimleteye

Today's Miami Herald includes a virtual perp walk: photos of Dade Medical College's Ernesto Perez, recently arrested and charged with illegal campaign contributions, with some of the region's most influential politicians who gladly took his money.

For years, Eye On Miami has angrily vented against the political feeding frenzy surrounding for-profit education; the concentration of wealth under the conservative call to privatize any public service that can't be nailed down.

Red state Florida has been a national model for privatization of jails, not just education, and government infrastructure. The results have been the same: abuse trailing a litany of warning signs like a bridal couple's car dangling tin cans attached by a string.

In other words, anyone with an ounce of common sense could see the corruption spewing from for-profit education a mile away; how fiefdoms created by "entrepreneurs" exploiting the public interest would become a protection racket for incumbent politicians.

We have them in spades in Miami-Dade County. Dade Medical College is the tip of an iceberg made of the charter school movement.

The right-wing surge for charter schools -- "education choices" -- has been stimulated by the Tea Party although in Florida it has never been actually established who the Tea Party is beyond a disaffected fringe given legitimacy by the conservative message machine.

Moreover, although dreaded "unions" have been used as organizing tools for conservatives, what failures like Dade Medical College really reveal is the political use of privatization as a funnel or spigot for campaign contributions. Period.

Voters should push back against elected officials who are supported by scam artists proliferating around the privatization of government services. Unions should answer the call, too, for reform of rules that protect bad teachers. This is a signal weakness of Democrats.

Scam artists should not have the final say in South Florida, viewed by federal law enforcement officials as the fraud capital of the United States. They have been empowered by radical extremists within the GOP.

It is time for voters to take back our region and take back our state.

Miami's extraordinary resource on climate change: Ms. Caroline Lewis and the CLEO Institute

Caroline Lewis, an extraordinary educator based in Miami, is founder of the CLEO Institute. In a recent email, CLEO offered some interesting resources for readers:

See list of CLEO Project web resources - a diverse compilation of climate change links and resources, including one or two of those listed below

CLEANetwork - excellent, comprehensive peer-reviewed CC K-16 Educational Resources

The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic - NYTimes.com

Scientists Tell Senate Panel: Climate Change Is Here and Disaster Costs Will Be Huge | Common Dreams

4-minute Video- Bill McKibben: Even Industry-Funded Climate Change Deniers Can't Ignore Planet's Warming

Medieval Warm Period -- fact vs. fiction - YouTube


Climate Scientist Michael Mann Sues The National Review

Recognize that the collective human footprint is indeed significant - see for example Video: Human Population Growth

Global Warming and Climate Change Skepticism Examined

Climate Access | sharing what works- Home Page/Tip Sheet

Climate Access | sharing what works - CC Engagement Guides

ETOM "How to Talk to an Ostrich" video series

CRED Communications Guide – Center for Research on Environmental Decisions

State Rep. Erik Fresen: Charter School Connections. By Geniusofdespair

Erik Fresens connections are so blurred, who knows what he is doing. Head of the Pubs in Miami, lobbyist for charter school interests in Coral Gables, relative of owner of multiple charter schools, land use consultant (for a firm that builds charter schools),  legislator voting on charter school oversight...read today's report in the Miami Herald...Also read the 3 part series, this is part 2:

I-TEAM EXCLUSIVE ON CHARTER SCHOOLS

Academica: Florida’s richest charter school management firm

On The Great Lie of Florida's Growth Machine and the Free Market... by gimleteye

"It is what the market wants" was the great lie of Florida's growth machine; the rationale consuming numberless platted subdivisions in wetlands and farmland and condo canyons springing up on Florida's coasts.

The lie glides past protections for the public commons, the environment, sound transportation planning, not to mention how to account for infrastructure deficits caused when growth does not pay its own way.

In this weekend's St. Pete Times, columnist Robert Trigaux comments on a new book by Don Peck that features Tampa Bay, "Pinched: How the Great Recession Has Narrowed Our Futures and What We Can Do About It." "Peck argues that Tampa Bay — which just as easily could be Phoenix, Las Vegas or dozens of other Sun Belt metro areas — attracted blue-collar workers and families by the droves when home prices were appreciating quickly. They came here and to similar areas, Peck says, because they wanted in on a boomtown but were already priced out of more expensive housing areas like Washington, D.C., Boston and many cities in California. The trick, Peck says, is that when the housing bubble burst, this region lacked the depth and range of decent-paying jobs to sustain thousands of families armed with only high school educations or perhaps a few community college courses. They came here expecting housing appreciation to serve as their piggy bank."

The point is well made: that the construction and development sector cannot sustain the economy. This will come as a surprise to county commissioners across the state of Florida or to Gov. Rick Scott and his pledge to speed "jobs" by eviscerating growth management.

It is hard setting aside the memories of Miami-Dade's county commissioners, like Natacha Seijas or Joe Martinez or Pepe Diaz, puffed up by lobbyists as they sped through zoning decisions: the same lobbyists who huddle and chomp cigars in the hallway today outside the County Chamber, dapper in their generously sized suits.

Housing is a component but not the foundation of economic growth. Period. What attracts higher paying jobs to a region is quality of life. (Ask Jon Huntsman to explain 1) how that is true in Utah whose national parks and public lands attracted employers from Silicon Valley and 2) why Utah tolerates suburban sprawl and pollution.) In Miami and so much of South Florida, we sacrificed our quality of life for the platted subdivision and condo farm. It was a terrible, horrendous exchange to make because jobs may come and go but once a region sacrifices the attributes of place that attracted employers in the first place, growth will leap-frog to the next green field or unspoiled region or state.

That pretty much describes the impoverishment of the Everglades and reckless development of hundreds of thousands of homes at the edges, built in "cheap" farmland and wetlands and elsewhere. Today they are called ghost suburbs and the houses can no longer serve as piggy banks or personal ATM's because the financial system is awash in mortgage debt.

Scanning the landscape for villains, if there are "liberals" to blame, they bear the disguises of conservative right-wing Republicans who turned the values of conservatism and the GOP inside-out through the housing bubble. They elected Jeb Bush, governor, and George W. Bush, president. It is all history, now.

Today's rush to condemn environmental protections is the latest mania to infect the so-called right: it certainly wasn't environmentalists who destroyed the economy.

By deliberately suppressing the costs of growth, Florida's political interests walked hand-in-hand with the Growth Machine; providing for new arrivals to lend their tax dollars to the unabsorbed costs of growth. During the decades leading up to the housing bubble, anyone challenging "jobs" by blocking projects in wetlands -- like environmentalists-- were ridiculed or set aside.

Today, Florida lost the jobs and the wetlands, water quality, and quality of life. Has there been any effort to hold the Ponzi schemers accountable, in the mainstream media or otherwise? Nope.

These days, in Miami-Dade, the same lobbyists who shilled for the development industry when there was money being printed to gin up the housing bubble are now working to pass casino licenses. At least with gambling casinos there is no 'fig leaf' that was attached to homebuilders and condo kings who used zoning decisions and permits as exchangeable currency like real or simulated casino chips, to be cashed at another time and place than County Hall or city offices or at election time.

That's why, any glorification of the "free market" related to housing, construction and rock mining ought to be accompanied by a blinking red light. (click 'read more' for Trigaux's editorial)

President Obama with Jeb! in Miami: who is schooling, who? by gimleteye

Politico reports this morning, "Jeb Bush to take Obama to school". Regular readers of EOM have a pretty good idea what that means: "mean" as in angry, petulant, and overdosed with certainty. That's Jeb! to a T.

Nationally, Jeb! is competing with Newt Gingrich for the grand old man of the Republican party. They are planning on the electorate's ultra-short memory span to propel them past their legacies of public policy errors. Gingrich, with his new found religion and values, is destined for a fast fade. It is not just age. It is history, which he teaches.

Jeb!, on the other hand, benefits from the full support of the Karl Rove/Grover Norquist School of Thieves. History is not fact, it is what you make it to be. If not for the miserable record of George W. Bush in the White House, he would have a shot at the presidency. As it is, Jeb! has successfully dodged his history in Florida, including the mess he made of public education and the mean politics of Florida's charter schools, through which politically influential entrepreneurs are institutionalizing conservative ideology in formative education of the next generations.

Politico is right, that Obama's appearance alongside Jeb! in Miami today is meant to appeal to independents and moderates. Who can be against removing bad principals and moving bad teachers out of the rank and file in public schools? The dilemma, here, is not so much for Obama-- so far, if he can raise the money he looks good in 2012-- as it is for the unions. Protecting the worst parts of a bad, broken public education system does not serve the unions' interests. So long as the unions are unclear about their responsibility to help fix what's broken, they are leaving President Obama out on a limb.

And it wouldn't be Obama sawing off the limb that holds him, up. It wouldn't necessary be Jeb!, either. But the interests behind Jeb!? Their chain saws are already revv'ing. Can you hear them in Miami? (Click, 'read more' for the Politico article)


Jeb Bush to take Obama to school
By: Abby Phillip
March 4, 2011 04:44 AM EST

Just the other day, President Barack Obama bestowed a Medal of Freedom on former President George H.W. Bush. But it’s not every day that he spends time with a member of the Bush family whose national political career could still be ahead of him.

On Friday, however, the president will tour a Miami high school with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a rare moment of bipartisan collaboration on an education reform agenda that, at least in vague terms, the two can agree on.

There’s an upside for both.

For Obama, his 2012 reelection platform will be shaped by how his reform agenda is received in swing states like Florida. And while Bush’s political ambitions remain largely unknown, an education-focused event keeps him squarely on message, if his long-term goal is using his signature issue to broaden his appeal beyond the Florida border.

“When Bush was governor he stood out as far as the reforms he put forth and still advocates for,” a Florida Republican official said.

Friday’s event is more of what Bush has done since leaving office in 2007, advocating for education reform across the country. And it provides almost no new clues about what he plans to do in the future.

As governor, Bush pushed an aggressive, and polarizing, education reform agenda that focused on testing, charter schools, merit-based pay and school vouchers. But since the state legislative battles that raged throughout his terms have died down, he has enjoyed a reputation of having been one of the nation’s strongest education governors.

“Because of high expectations for students, hard-edge policies that focus schools on learning and an array of choices for families, the Sunshine State is leading the nation in rising student achievement,” Bush said in a statement this week, adding that he looked forward to sharing the state’s “model for student success” with Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

In theory, Obama’s education reform agenda makes room for many of the same ideas.

His Race to the Top program, which requires states to produce aggressive education reform plans in order to compete for billions in federal money, has pushed states to eliminate charter-school caps, open their educational charters to merit-based-pay systems, and raise student performance standards.

But as evidence of how tricky an issue education can be for a Democratic president, Obama has also actively disavowed support for school vouchers as a “solution” to the country’s education problems and has worked hard to persuade skeptical teachers unions to support merit-based pay and the lifting of charter-school caps.

By courting Bush, Obama is aligning himself with a politician who has no regard for constituencies such as teachers, but whose overt opposition in 2012 could damage Obama’s own hard-earned credibility on education reform.

From the perspective of some of Florida’s traditional Democratic constituencies, Bush’s education reform agenda leaves a lot to be desired. Four years after Bush left office, critics see a legacy of tension with teachers unions, underfunded schools and just moderate gains in student performance.

“I think [Bush] has a very positive persona when it comes to public education outside of Florida, but the experiment has been a failed experiment in Florida,” said Dan Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida.

Miami Central Senior High School, where Obama and Bush will visit, is a school the Obama administration believes exemplifies the success of the “turnaround model” for failing schools. Bush selected the school as an example of a school that has made gains through reform.

But its approach will also be an integral part of how Obama seeks to “fix” the No Child Left Behind education reform bill that Bush’s older brother, President George W. Bush, championed.

Changing No Child Left Behind will be Obama’s next major foray into education reform, an issue on which Republicans historically have maintained a strategic advantage.

If the White House pushes Congress to take up overhauling that bill this year, as Obama says he plans to do, that debate could define Obama’s reelection platform on education.

Obama’s connection with Bush can be seen as an effort to win over independents and moderate Republicans — in the same vein as December’s tax-cut compromise — even as he soothes anxieties in his own party. Obama’s speech in Florida on Friday will very likely be geared toward striking that same balance.

“I don’t think the president standing with Jeb Bush is an endorsement of everything Jeb Bush has done as governor,” said Steve Shale, the 2008 Obama campaign’s Florida director. “The president is pointing out that there are things that were done in Florida that we can all learn from.”


© 2011 Capitol News Company, LLC

Obama in Miami: into the den of thieves ... by gimleteye

A blogger writes: "... at this point in time, when teachers in Wisconsin and elsewhere feel besieged, I’m wondering why Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are flying to Florida to be with Republicans who have been part of the attack force. Why, when teachers are fighting for union rights, does the president decide to spend time with anti-teachers union school reformers?" Click, 'read more'
Posted at 5:00 AM ET, 03/ 2/2011
Obama's mistimed Miami school visit -- with Jeb Bush
By Valerie Strauss
At a time when Wisconsin teachers are protesting to keep their collective bargaining rights, President Obama is traveling to Florida to share a stage with former governor Jeb Bush, the king of corporate-driven, standardized test-obsessed school reform that devalues teachers and their unions .

What a tag team.
Obama is scheduled to speak to the students and faculty of Miami Central Senior High about the importance of out-educating the competition to secure America’s future. (That’s highly unlikely, with states cutting billions of dollars out of school budgets and with a reform agenda that is focused on expanding charter schools, assessing teachers based on students’ standardized test scores and the like, but never mind.)

Obama is appearing in Florida as state legislators move toward passing legislation (Senate Bill 736 , HB 7019) that:
* Ties at least half of a teacher’s salary to how well his/her students perform on standardized tests
* Prevents consideration of many advanced degrees and special training to be considered in determining a teacher’s salary

* Eliminates tenure for teachers hired after the summer of 2014
* Requires the creation of new standardized assessments for all courses, though it doesn’t suggest where the money will come from to pay.

Similar legislation passed last year but was vetoed by then-Gov. Charlie Crist. The new governor, Rick Scott, not only supports the legislation but had dangled the idea of taking apart the way public education is financed in Florida and handing money over to all parents in a new “voucher” system that would have made it virtually impossible to maintain local public schools. Scott has put that idea aside for now.

Obama has gone out of his way to be bipartisan in the education reform arena, which would be good if the Republicans were right about reform, but they aren’t either. Rather than eliminate the most egregious parts of No Child Left Behind, the signature education initiative of Jeb Bush’s brother, former president George W. Bush, Obama is building on some of them, making them even worse.

For example, instead of using standardized test scores to evaluate only schools and students, they now will be linked to how much a teacher is paid (even though we all know that a teacher isn’t solely responsible for how well a kid does on a test). It’s a bad idea, not championed by assessment experts and not borne out by research, but it’s the reform idea du jour, backed by Gates Foundation money and Obama’s policy agenda.

Breaking bread with Jeb Bush on school reform should be a questionable proposition for a president from a party that has traditionally championed public education (which is not to say it doesn’t need reform) and teachers unions (which is not to say that they should not reform).

Florida is increasingly being looked to as a national model of education reform, and we have Jeb Bush to thank for that. The state began to overhaul its public education system after Jeb Bush became governor in 1999, and it has been a leader in reforms centered around standardized tests, the expansion of charter schools, virtual education and merit pay. He long tried to reduce the power of teachers unions -- being very vocal about his aims -- and last year campaigned for legislation that would eliminate teacher tenure.

Under Bush, the state did make progress early on by focusing on reading and creating a statewide reading research center while hiring reading coaches.

The biggest improvement in Florida’s scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the nation’s report card, were in elementary reading, which suggests that this focus worked. The achievement gap for different demographic groups between 1998 and 2009 also shrunk for fourth- and eighth-grade reading between students who were in the federal lunch program (low-income families qualify) and those who do not qualify, according to a post by Florida educator Sherman Dorn .

But the achievement gap didn’t budge for 8th-grade writing or for math in any grade. Here’s the main point: Bush doesn’t talk about his reading initiative when he talks about his success, instead crediting his standardized testing regime.

The scheduled Obama-Jeb Bush fest is symbolic of how far afield Democrats have gone with school reform.
Obama last month expressed support for the Wisconsin teachers, who have been protesting to keep the collective bargaining rights (and that of other public employees) that the governor, Scott Walker, is intent on taking away. Wisconsin teachers already made concessions on monetary issues.

Obama said: "Some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where you’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain, generally seems like more of an assault on unions. And I think it’s very important for us to understand that public employees, they’re our neighbors, they’re our friends. These are folks who are teachers and they’re firefighters and they’re social workers and they’re police officers.”

So, at this point in time, when teachers in Wisconsin and elsewhere feel besieged, I’m wondering why Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are flying to Florida to be with Republicans who have been part of the attack force. Why, when teachers are fighting for union rights, does the president decide to spend time with anti-teachers union school reformers?

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By Valerie Strauss | March 2, 2011; 5:00 AM ET

GOP: time to deliver the knock-out blows ... by gimleteye

Couldn't help but notice how, even before the Scott administration has taken office, the long knives are out on the GOP side. Ryan Houck, coordinator of the Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries and Big Sugar campaign to defeat Amendment 4, appears in the Orlando Sentinel letters page noting the "crushing defeat" of supporters of growth management and bleats, quoting Friedrich Von Hayek, "the more the state 'plans', the more difficult planning becomes for the individual'. Houck takes aim-- as the GOP legislature is ready to do-- at the Florida Department of Community Affairs; the agency that, among other tasks, holds local government zoning decisions to consistency with planning initiatives like Miami-Dade's Urban Development Boundary (under attack, again, by Homestead land speculators).

Houck is only a bit player, delivering the message. It is being incorporated, too, in the plan to quickly and radically expand the school voucher program throughout the state of Florida. And not just Florida. The fire exploding on the education front is overwhelming. In the past 48 hours, legislation similar to that proposed for Florida has also been introduced in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Wisconsin. The demise of public education and of teacher unions is the goal of this massive GOP push. When parity and equity in education are diced and divided into a thousand pieces, with children funneled into for-profit schools answerable to shareholders or remaining public schools that shelter the rest, it will be so much easier for corporations to roll up the remainders and to make sure that creating a passive consumer is the highest order of democracy. 1984 wasn't far off the mark. In the United States, the road to serfdom is going to have a lot of exit ramps, for the wealthiest. Click, 'read more'.

My Word: Cut, don't create, red tape
By Ryan Houck
12:00 AM EST, December 14, 2010
Advertisement

Only weeks after Florida voters tossed Amendment 4 into the dustbin of bad ideas, Jane Healy has managed to misread the most obvious of signals. In her column "Will Scott and Cannon play games with growth?" (Orlando Sentinel, Nov. 28), she calls for new growth controls in the midst of a devastating recession while neighboring states aggressively compete for Florida jobs. Only Healy could imagine that the 67-percent-to-33-percent defeat of Amendment 4 means that Floridians have an appetite for new regulation.
From an armchair seemingly stuck in the outdated attitudes of the 1980s, Healy calls on Gov.-elect Rick Scott to form yet another growth commission and urges the Legislature to extend the life of Florida's renegade Department of Community Affairs — a bloated and predatory agency that aspires to centrally plan major sectors of our economy.
The overwhelming defeat of Amendment 4 suggests that a majority of Florida voters do not share Healy's opinion that more regulation is the answer. Voters made that clear on Election Day by soundly dispatching Amendment 4 at the polls and handing antigrowth activists the most crushing defeat in recent memory.
In "The Road to Serfdom," free-market philosopher Friedrich von Hayek wrote that "the more the state 'plans,' the more difficult planning becomes for the individual." Hayek's point is that government efforts to manipulate the free market through central planning — telling individuals what to produce and where to produce it — create uncertainty and higher costs. These economic hazards invite more central planning, creating an ever-growing, never-sufficient morass of regulation that worsens the problems it is intended to fix.
A legacy of that misguided approach, the DCA has long since strayed beyond its original planning purview and now meddles in issues outside its jurisdiction. Less of a growth guide and more of a growth nanny, DCA presides over a hopelessly byzantine planning process decipherable only to the agency's technocrats and incomprehensible to most of the small businesses and local governments forced to navigate it.
Healy's views and the DCA in its present form are relics of a "Tallahassee-knows-best" mindset — a Soviet-style regulation scheme that has no place in the highly competitive global economy of today. As local leaders work to diversify our economy, attract innovative industry and add high-paying jobs, it is past time to drop the 1980s mindset with its emphasis on planning Florida's economy.
It's time to cut red tape, not create more. Policymakers should abandon the DCA — at least in its current form — and let locals lead. Taxpayers will pocket the savings, and job-hunters will reap the rewards.
Ryan Houck of Orlando is the executive director of Citizens for Lower Taxes and a Stronger Economy.

Our Drinking Water Comes From....? Ask Your Kids. By Geniusofdespair

I was at a booth at Miami River Day at Lummus Park on Saturday, where kids and parents circled the booths to get stars so they could get a gift. The question I asked, so the kids could earn a star, was: "Where does Miami-Dade drinking water come from?" Out of all the kids and and all the parents, only one parent knew that the water came from underground: The Biscayne Aquifer. Most of the parents thought drinking water came from rivers (the hopelessly polluted Miami River?) and most of the kids thought our drinking water came from the ocean. Hmmm. The River Day kids couldn't make the connection that water had to seep underground. When I asked them where the water would have a better chance to seep underground, 1) on the road, or 2) on the dirt, about half thought the pavement would do a better job. Hmmm yet again. Let's continue teaching to the FCAT, boy, is that working well for our kids! The children aren't taught how lucky we are to have an aquifer here in Miami-Dade, and the Everglades, to supply them with drinking water.

On a brighter drinking water note, we are saving 34,000,000 million gallons of our precious water a day, since 2007, according to Miami Dade Water and Sewer. They attribute the saving to 1) Conservation, 2) Irrigation restrictions, 3) New construction standards and 4) Lack of population growth.

The Teacher's Bill Passes. By Geniusofdespair

Cartoon By Jim Morin
According to the Miami Herald, the discussion in the Florida House went until 2:30 a.m.:

The vote was 64 for and 55 against the measure, which would overhaul the way teachers are evaluated, compensated and fired in Florida. Eleven Republicans joined Democrats in voting no.

Good for those 11, among them were: Representatives Marcelo Llorente, J.C Planas, Julio Robaina, and Juan Zapata. I think the bill sucks, like its sponsor the asshole, Sen. John Thrasher, also head of the Florida Republican Party. I believe that if Crist doesn't sign it, he will have to become an Independent because the Radical Pubs will be mad as hell.

M-D Teacher Everett Evansky corresponds with Mayor Carlos Alvarez on pay raises in the Mayor's Office ... by gimleteye

The second most famous pronouncement of Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chief, next to disavowing his confidence that markets self-correct before they crash was his conviction that improving the education of Americans is critical to our role as a superpower and maintaining our standard of living. It is along this line that one irate citizen-- Everett Evansky, a Miami-Dade achool teacher-- addressed Mayor Alvarez recently on the controversy over staff pay raises.

"Dear Mayor Alvarez:

Thank you for replying to my letter regarding the pay raises you gave your employees. You are correct that technically MDCPS and Miami-Dade County are two separate entities. However, please take a moment to consider how your conduct - as not only an elected official but the leader of our county - appears to many Miami-Dade residents.

I concur with your statement that "there are rare occasions where you find a particular salary is out of whack." For example, the average teacher salary in the US is currently $47,602. In Florida, on average, teachers earn $43,302. The National Association of Realtors recently calculated the median single family home price in Miami at about $285,000. The closest city is Portland, Oregon at $280,000. Teachers in Oregon average $50,044." (please click, 'read more')

You claim to have decided to offer your staffers raises “more than a year ago” and that such decisions “came way before I was forced to propose a budget.” The current recession in which we now find ourselves started well over a year ago. Technically, we’ve been in a recession since December 2007.

Claiming your actions “were personnel decisions, not personal ones” renders your constituency little consolation. As an elected official, as Mayor of a large metropolitan area, as an adult, you are personally responsible for all your deeds. This was not a compulsory act.

Yes, “Our Board of County Commissioners ultimately are the ones who adopt the budget.” However, you were the one who retroactively gave your aides hefty raises during one of the worst economic crises to hit your constituents since the Great Depression. Shifting the blame will not help your cause.

Mr. Mayor, it is with profound respect, that I take deep exception to your claim, “There are fewer people doing more with less.” Yes, you trimmed $2 million dollars from your Executive Office. Your county’s Public Schools slashed its budget by close to $300 million.

My salary has been frozen for two years and we actually had to donate two days of salary just to keep your schools from going bankrupt. Even Superintendent Carvalho voluntarily docked himself – and his cabinet – up to six days pay. My Assistant Principal just worked all summer for free.

We can’t make photocopies. I can’t replace the toner cartridge in my laser printer to print up attendance sheets and take roll. This is an issue because my 3rd and 4th period science classes both have over 40 students.

The 8th grade students in these overcrowded classes will be required to take the state mandated Science FCAT this Spring. FCAT scores will not only be used to determine their advancement towards high school and college, but will also be held up as an indicator of my competence as a professional educator. While you were adjusting the salaries of your closest advisors to make sure they were fairly compensated for their “additional responsibilities,” do you know how much money was allocated for the students in my classes to buy lab equipment and supplies?

$0

You see, Mr. Mayor, it’s not just teachers who are “undervalued” in Miami. It’s also students.

With all due respect Mr. Mayor, you never actually answered my question. If your aides are “doing more with less” then please explain what it is that they actually do? As a teacher I could easily look any taxpayer in the eye and say, “For about $47,000 dollars that you have provided I have helped about 125 kids each year learn about the world around them. I have inspired them to better themselves and work hard to pursue their dreams. I have encouraged dozens of kids to go to college. Far fewer kids will start smoking cigarettes. Hopefully, I’ve helped to avoid a few teen pregnancies.”

Thank you for your attention to this matter,

Everett Evansky


Subject: Response of Mayor Alvarez - Speak Up - Suggestions to Improve Government
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:47:24 -0400
From: CALVARE@miamidade.gov
To: everettevansky@hotmail.com


Dear Everett:

Thank you for sharing your opinion and giving me an opportunity to respond. I understand your frustration. I have tremendous respect for the public education system and believe so many educators are underpaid and undervalued in society. Unfortunately, Miami-Dade County government and the Miami-Dade Public School System are two separate entities.

That being said, I made a decision – more than a year ago – to adjust the salaries of a select few members of my senior staff to ensure pay equity with other government employees with comparable responsibilities. As a longtime county employee who worked his way up through the ranks, I can tell you that there are rare occasions where you find a particular salary is out of whack. Such was the case with a very few members of my staff who took on additional responsibilities as we transitioned to a new form of government. The salary adjustments were personnel decisions, not personal ones, and I have nothing to gain. The decisions also came way before I was forced to propose a budget with unprecedented service cuts and workforce reductions. I took no joy in making budget recommendations that are universally unpopular, and my proposal are likely to change. Our Board of County Commissioners ultimately are the ones who adopt the budget.

More important, the total budget and number of employees in the County Executive Office has been decreasing. The proposed budget is nearly $2 million dollars and 20 employees leaner than it was five years ago when I first entered public office. There are fewer people doing more with less.

Again, thank you for giving me the opportunity to respond.

Sincerely,
Carlos Alvarez
Mayor

Guest Blog: Is the Miami-Dade School Board Going to Help Starve Public Education? By Mom4edu

As we watch the Miami-Dade School Board make fools of all of us with some of the outrageous shenanigans that are going on there, this might be a good time to call attention to a little noticed disconnect between the needs of our children and the apparent actions or lack of action by some school board members.

I see certain conservative school board members much more interested in appeasing some of their party members in Tallahassee than looking for the funding that would help our children.

On issue after issue regarding funding and taxation, school board members have refused to take positions that would put them at odds with some of the most right wing members of the House and Senate rather than fight for money for our kids.

Thank goodness we just saw Amendments 5,7, and 9 taken off of the November ballot by the Florida Supreme Court. These proposed Constitutional Amendments would have permitted public education dollars to go to religious schools and in addition, eliminated the school funding part of property taxes with a one year hold harmless and after that--- best wishes!

Our sister county, Broward took a position against these attempts to harm our schools. Not so our Miami-Dade school board, which seems to be less passionately concerned about a huge loss of funding for our kids than staying in the good graces of the Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, David Rivera cabal. I believe that these men basically have an agenda that involves starving public education (which many of their allies refer to as “state schools” -- they do not call them public schools) and moving this state and country toward privatizing public education.

Remember, you are not paranoid, if they are really out to get you.

Guest Blog: More on Public Education by mom4edu. Posted by Geniusofdespair

I must re-state that based on the fact of a six billion dollar cut in the state budget, I believe that we need to look to Tallahassee and a philosophy that does not value public education as the basis of our economic shortfalls. Rather than attack local individuals, I am going to tell you a story.

Once upon a time a leader looked at government and decided that entirely too much money was going into it. The unions for government employees are some of the strongest in the country. Big business does not like strong unions. Education was the one area where private industry had no access to the billions spent. And thus Newt Gingrich embarked upon the policy of “starve the beast.” These are his words, not mine. Thus the continued call for lower taxes and greater privatization. But of course, strict governmental oversight of privatization means government interference in the private sector, and we can’t have that. Privatization under Jeb is a book for someone else to write. An awful lot of “friends of Jeb” got a lot of state money. We need some good research on that.

So the economically questionable reliance on a single source of revenue in the state of Florida, the sales tax became even more of a reality here. The intangibles tax was eliminated during Jeb’s reign. An unheard of higher and higher proportion of education funding came from property taxes, until for the first time in modern history, the majority of public education funding came from local sources rather than state funds.

At the same time that was occurring,
a push for vouchers was a major focus of the state legislature under Jeb. Many people are not aware that there is currently a state law that gives businesses a dollar for dollar tax credit from their state corporate taxes to put money into a fund to provide vouchers for economically deprived children. And (this is real chutzpah!) no one can know who has accepted the money or what private schools they are attending. (I love open government, don’t you?) These kids are not taking the FCAT. These schools do not have to meet tougher state standards. This is money that could have been taxes going into the state coffers for public education at a time there is dire need.

The current acrimony between the school system and the teachers’ union here in Miami Dade County must leave those of a certain philosophical bent smiling. This is just what they want. Some conservatives have always seen Miami Dade Schools as much too cozy with the United Teachers of Dade. I believe that the three year contract was entered into with the best of intentions on both sides. The fact that there is a huge budgetary shortfall this year, thanks to Tallahassee, not Rudy Crew, leaves every one in an untenable position. The Union must fight for their raises. Crew must have a balanced budget. Somewhere, Newt is happy. It is working out just the way he wanted it to.