Chula Vista Elementary School District website password protected, apparently to hide news of Lowell Billings' retirement

Russell Coronado (new)*, Superintendent Lowell Billings, Larry Cunningham, Pamela Smith, David Bejarano (new)*, Doug Luffborough (new)*


UPDATE:

On the same evening I published the post below, the CVESD website came back online, with no password required. The reason was not necessarily that this blog is a powerful influence over public opinion. The whole episode might have been simply an effort to keep Lowell Billings' retirement a secret until someone gave the go-ahead to publish the news.



ORIGINAL POST

Yesterday [April 24, 2010] the CVESD website was down. Today, it's back up, but all the information is missing. You have to have a password to see it.

This is a bizarre step for a public entity to take.

CVESD has apparently thinks that it's affairs must be kept secret. This is not a new development; the only thing that's new is that CVESD is letting the voters know how intent it is on keeping them in the dark.

Just keep paying your taxes, but don't expect accountability for those tax dollars.

SEC staff surfed porn sites during crisis buildup: inspector

April 23, 2010
SEC staff surfed porn sites during crisis buildup: inspector
By Ronald D. Orol
MarketWatch

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- As the 2008 financial crisis was developing, top Securities and Exchange Commission employees and contractors were using government computers on official time to view pornography, according to an SEC inspector general.

The SEC's inspector general found that 33 employees or contractors violated commission rules and policies by viewing porn, according to a memo obtained Friday by MarketWatch. The investigation was requested by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

The memo reported incidents by year:

*

2010: 3 so far
*

2009: 10
*

2008: 16
*

2007: 2
*

2006: 1
*

2005: 1

The 33 employees cited in the memo represent less than 1% of the SEC's approximately 4,000 employees. Of those employees, 17 were senior officials whose salaries ranged from $100,000 to $222,000, according to the memo. It isn't clear if the employees discussed in the memo were involved in oversight matters related to the financial crisis.

According to the memo, a regional office supervisory staff accountant admitted he frequently viewed pornography at work on his SEC computer for about a year and accessed pornography on his SEC-issued laptop computer while on official government travel.

Another regional office supervisory staff accountant admitted that he used an SEC assigned computer to access Websites containing pornography and other sexually explicit material during work hours fairly frequently, sometimes twice a day, according to the memo.

Another regional office staff accountant received 16,000 access denials for Internet websites classified by the SEC's Internet filter as "Sex" or "porn" in a one-month period. "In addition, the hard drive of this employee's SEC laptop contained numerous sexually suggestive and inappropriate images," the memo said.

A senior attorney at the SEC's headquarters in Washington admitted accessing Internet port so frequently that, according to the memo, on some days, he spent eight hours accessing Internet porn.

"In fact, this attorney downloaded so much pornography to his government computer that he exhausted the available space on the computer hard drive and downloaded pornography to CDs or DVDs that he accumulated in boxes in his office," the memo said.

Rep. Darrell Issa , R-Calif., the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said he was disturbed by the findings.

"It is nothing short of disturbing that high-ranking officials within the SEC were spending more time looking at pornography than taking action to help stave off the events that brought our nation's economy to the brink of collapse," he said in a statement. "This stunning report should make everyone question the wisdom of moving forward with plans to give regulators like the SEC even more widespread authority. Inexplicably, rather than exercise its existing regulatory enforcement authority, SEC officials were preoccupied with other distractions."

Ronald D. Orol is a MarketWatch reporter, based in Washington.

Arizonans are willing to bankrupt themselves to put undocumented migrants in jail

We created a system that encourages and relies on illegal immigration. Why not just give documents to enough workers to fill the jobs we need filled?


U.S.’s Toughest Immigration Law Is Signed in Arizona
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
The New York Times
April 23, 2010

PHOENIX — Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed the toughest illegal immigration law in the country on Friday, aimed at identifying, prosecuting and deporting illegal immigrants. The governor’s move unleashed immediate protests and reignited the divisive battle over immigration reform nationally.

President Obama at the naturalization ceremony for 24 active duty service members at the White House on Friday.

Even before Governor Brewer signed the law at a 4:30 p.m. news conference here, President Obama strongly criticized it.

Speaking at a naturalization ceremony for 24 active-duty service members in the Rose Garden, Mr. Obama called for a federal overhaul of immigration laws — an overhaul that Congressional leaders signaled they were preparing to take up soon...




Spar & Bernstein's Law Link
IPC: How Much Will Arizona’s Immigration Bill (SB1070) Cost?
by mgeffner
April 21, 2010

Source: Immigration Policy Center

Washington, D.C.- Frustrated by Congress’ failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform, states across the country continue considering legislation that relies heavily on punitive, enforcement-only measures which not only fail to end unauthorized immigration but also have the potential to dig their state’s finances deeper into a hole.

The latest example of this kind of policy nose dive is in Arizona...



Implementation Costs of SB 1070 to One Arizona County
April 23, 2010
Immigration Policy Center

Today, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer may sign into law a bill that has the potential to sink her state much deeper into the red than it already is...

In Arizona, when a bill is introduced in the state legislature, a "fiscal note" is attached which lays out the cost of implementation. In the case of SB 1070, the accompanying fiscal note is shockingly lacking in detail, concluding that "the fiscal impact of this bill cannot be determined with certainty...

In the absence of any current fiscal data on the cost of SB 1070's implementation, some Arizonans are pointing to a fact sheet produced by Yuma County Sheriff Ralph E. Ogden in response to similar legislation proposed in 2006. Yuma County is one of Arizona's 15 counties, with a population of about 200,000.

The 2006 fact sheet estimates the costs of a bill which would have authorized the police to arrest illegal immigrants on trespassing charges if they were simply present in the state (the bill was eventually vetoed by then Governor Janet Napolitano). The Yuma County Sherriff's fact sheet shows a staggering potential cost to Yuma County law-enforcement agencies. The Sherriff estimated:

* Law-enforcement agencies would spend between $775,880 and $1,163,820 in processing expenses;
* Jail costs would be between $21,195,600 and $96,086,720;
* Attorney and staff fees would be $810,067-$1,620,134;
* Additional detention facilities would have to be built at unknown costs.


Furthermore, in an email between Yuma County Attorney Jon Smith ... noted that his county was already struggling with a budget deficit by furloughing employees and forcing days off without pay. He wrote:

"It was also noted that the Superior Court, Justice Courts and Municipal Courts would also realize increased costs if that legislation passed..."

Ten years later, Water Station work continues

Sometimes siblings can be very different. The Hunter brothers remind me of the Negroponte brothers, Nicholas and John (see below).

Ten years later, Water Station work continues
By EDWARD SIFUENTES
April 7, 2010

OCOTILLO ---- For 10 years, John Hunter of Escondido and a small group of volunteers have spent most of their spring and summer weekends in the hot, dry desert east of San Diego trying to save lives.

Volunteers, with federal government permission, place jugs of drinking water in the remote desert in an effort to reduce the number of people who die attempting to cross the border illegally each year.

Admittedly, it's not much, but it could be enough to keep a person from dying of thirst in an area where the temperature regularly exceeds 110 degrees in summer, members of the group said.

Despite the dangers, thousands of illegal immigrants choose to cross the border in the desert to avoid intense patrols to the east around the town of Calexico and to the west in San Diego.

The group, founded by Hunter in 2000, is called the Water Station project. Its name springs from water stations the group builds a few miles north of the U.S. border with Mexico.

John Hunter, a physicist who has helped design and build war-fighting hardware, is the brother of former U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, and the uncle of U.S. Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-El Cajon...

As many as 5,607 illegal immigrants have died along the border over the last 15 years...

In the stretches of remote desert that surround the Ocotillo area in Imperial County, about 100 miles east of San Diego, nearly two dozen illegal immigrants die each year, Hunter's group says. Many get lost, disoriented and die of dehydration in the unforgiving heat.

"What we do is really simple," said Ben Cassel, a high school teacher and president of the organization. "We know that there are thirsty people there, and we take water to them."

When the group started, it operated on a shoestring budget of about $5,000, including money out of Hunter's pocket and some donations...



John Negroponte
Negroponte Tries to Cloud Intelligence Analysis on the War on Terror
September 25, 2006
Ivan Eland
The Independent Institute

John D. Negroponte, President Bush’s Director of National Intelligence, is now busy undermining a National Intelligence Estimate which concluded that the U.S. invasion of Iraq has worsened radical Islamic terrorism around the world. He previously had approved the document. According to the New York Times, the highly classified estimate, a consensus view of the 16 spy agencies of the U.S. intelligence community, finds that the U.S. invasion of a Muslim land has motivated the radical Islamic jihadist movement to metastasize and spread around the world. Yet, Negroponte, the president’s political appointee who is in charge, nominally at least, of the 16 agencies, came up with the usual twisted Bush administration phraseology to undercut his own estimate.

Negroponte, in what can only be termed Washington gobbledygook, said of the estimate, “The conclusions of the intelligence community are designed to be comprehensive, and viewing them through the narrow prism of a fraction of judgments distorts the broad framework they create.” That fraction of judgments appears to be 100 percent of the 16 intelligence agencies, because the National Intelligence Estimate represents the consensus view of that community. If instead Negroponte means that leaks of the report by intelligence officials misrepresent the actual classified report, such distortion is unlikely, because the New York Times interviewed more than a dozen officials from various government agencies and outside experts, a sampling of both supporters and critics of the Bush administration.

In reality, Negroponte, without much of a defense for the colossally horrendous ill–effects of the Iraq invasion, is attempting the age–old Washington trick of throwing out arguments, no matter how lame or twisted, to muddy the waters when really bad news has hit the media. A good intelligence professional would stand by and defend the best judgment of his trained intelligence analysts and himself, but alas, Negroponte is also one of the president’s political appointees...

Programs Train Teachers Using Medical School Model

Programs Train Teachers Using Medical School Model
NPR
by Claudio Sanchez
April 22, 2010

What if we prepared teachers the same way we prepare doctors?

As school reformers lurch toward more innovative ways for training classroom teachers, this idea is getting a lot of attention. A handful of teacher "residency programs" based on the medical residency model already exist. Boston was one of the first to create one in 2003.

Tom Payzant had been Boston Public Schools superintendent when he founded the Boston Teacher Residency program. Payzant, who now teaches at Harvard University, says the city desperately needed to attract more talented teachers, especially for hard-to-fill positions like math, science and special education. But it wasn't just about the numbers, Payzant says. It was about the quality of teachers coming out of colleges of education.

"Most teacher training institutions focus more on content and less on practice and how people teach," Payzant says...

Environmental firm accused of 'egregious' overcharging of L.A. Unified School; Two school officials involved

It looks like the issues examined in "The Cartel" go well beyond New Jersey. (The movie is currently playing in Los Angeles at this theater.) I'm not the least bit surprised to discover corruption among school officials.

Environmental firm accused of 'egregious' overcharging of L.A. Unified School District
April 21, 2010

Officials have abruptly halted work with the firm that managed environmental work in the $19.5-billion school construction program of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The move arises from a critical district audit alleging that Palm Desert-based Questa Environmental Consulting repeatedly overcharged and that L.A. Unified managers looked the other way, resulting in more than $2.5 million in questionable billing.

The negative report comes in the wake of an unrelated indictment of a regional construction director on conflict-of-interest charges, tarring the nation’s largest school construction and modernization effort. Officials continue to characterize the overall construction program as clean and successful. To date, 87 of 131 new schools have been completed as well as thousands of modernization projects.

The audit from the office of the inspector general, quietly posted online earlier this month, accused Questa of billing for time unrelated to its district contract, charging higher hourly rates than justified and exceeding maximum annual billings, among other things.

The conduct was “so egregious,” said district Inspector General Jerry Thornton, that his office took the unusual step of recommending Questa’s termination as well as the discipline of two supervising district employees...

Auditors singled out two district managers for particular criticism. L.A. schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines suspended them with pay March 1 for more than a month, district officials said. A district spokesman confirmed the substance of the action, though not the specific details. Both employees have since returned to work pending further possible disciplinary action. ...

Will Facebook win the war against Google and control the Internet?

See also Comcast opposes Internet freedom.

How Facebook Could Organize The Internet
Niraj Chokshi
The Atlantic
Apr 22 2010

Given its scale, Facebook could end up completely transforming the web and may have even won the war against Google. If enough sites buy in, Facebook would have helped set a standard that would usher in a long-awaited, new era, writes Newsweek's Barrett Sheridan:

Computer scientists have long envisioned a Web 3.0, a smarter Internet that understands the difference between objects, people, places, animals, etc. In other words, computers and servers should know that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is an object, and in particular it's a film, and in particular a film by Michel Gondry, who is a person. Right now computers see words like "Michel Gondry" only as dumb, meaningless text. Facebook wants to change that--which is great. But it also plans to own that information--which is scary.

Privacy concerns abound and could block Facebook's march to control the web. So could other companies if they refuse to participate. But Facebook's plans are ambitious and, if it succeeds, it could become more than just a social network...

Sunshine is good: Lawsuit demands Vatican name priests accused of sex abuse

Lawsuit demands Vatican name priests accused of sex abuse
By Alan Duke
CNN
April 22, 2010

An Illinois man is suing the Vatican and Pope Benedict XVI for allegedly covering up sexual abuse by a priest at a Catholic school in Wisconsin.

The lawsuit demands the Vatican release the names of thousands of Catholic priests that the suit says have "credible allegations of sexual misconduct" against them...

Bilingual Education, Immersion Found to Work Equally Well

April 20, 2010
Education, Immersion Found to Work Equally Well
Students Were Assigned Randomly to Programs, With Some Followed Five Years
By Mary Ann Zehr
Education Week

In the first randomized-assignment study in which English-language learners were followed for as long as five years, researchers have found that Spanish-speaking children learn to read English equally well regardless of whether they are taught primarily in English or in both English and their native language.

The finding from the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University may take some fuel out of the fire in the national debate over which is best for teaching children from immigrant families to read: English immersion or bilingual education.

“People have been fighting for years and years about the language of instruction, thinking that it was either terribly important to teach in English the whole time or terribly important to teach in Spanish and then English. Both groups were wrong,” said Robert E. Slavin, the director of the center, in Baltimore, and one of the researchers...

Obama to Wall Street: ‘Join Us, Instead of Fighting Us’; Steve Schwartzman doesn't get it

This related story seems an apt introduction to Obama's words:

Wall Street's know-it-alls can't tell right from wrong
By Steven Pearlstein
Washington Post
April 23, 2010

I know you'll all be comforted, as I was Wednesday, by the public vote of confidence from Steve Schwartzman, chief executive of private equity giant Blackstone Group, when he said that his firm would continue to do business with Goldman Sachs and that he's never had a shred of doubt about the investment bank's ethical character.

So let me get this straight. Goldman Sachs is now relying on the character reference of a Wall Street sharpie who notoriously snookered investors into buying non-controlling shares of a private equity firm at the very moment when a credit-induced takeover bubble was about to burst...



Obama to Wall Street: ‘Join Us, Instead of Fighting Us’
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
By PETER BAKER
April 22, 2010

President Obama challenged some of the nation’s most influential bankers on Thursday to call off their “battalions of financial industry lobbyists” and embrace a new regulatory structure meant to avert another economic crisis.

Speaking in the bankers’ backyard, at the Cooper Union in Manhattan, Mr. Obama castigated a “failure of responsibility” by Wall Street for having led to the financial crisis of 2008, and he pressed his case for what he called “a common-sense, reasonable, non-ideological” system of tighter regulation to prevent any recurrence. He took issue with the claim that his proposal would institutionalize the idea of future bailouts of huge banks.

“That may make for a good sound bite, but it’s not factually accurate,” Mr. Obama said. “It is not true. In fact, the system as it stands is what led to a series of massive, costly taxpayer bailouts...

The teachers union in SDUSD, called SDEA, throws its support to--a former Lincoln Club spokesman!?

My theory is that San Diego has some of the least-principled union leaders in the country. First the Metropolitan Employees Association (MEA) and other unions worked to save the secret pension deal that San Diego still hasn't recovered from (bankruptcy still looms as a possibility); now it's the SDEA.

San Diego Education Association (SDEA) is a local affiliate of the California Teachers Association, an organization that seems to be controlled not by members, but by Beverly Tucker, the head counsel. It makes sense that Tucker, the lawyer for CTA who has been in power as union elected officials have come and gone, would be the real power in the union. I used to think that executive director Carolyn Doggett had some real power, but I've found that she defers to Ms. Tucker regarding both cover-ups of internal matters and the union's public stance regarding improving teacher quality.

The Race to Unseat a Veteran -- And Very Loud -- Voice
Scott Barnett, a budget analyst who once led the county Taxpayers Association, says he'd keep a closer eye on the business workings of the school district if elected.
Voice of San Diego
April 21, 2010
By EMILY ALPERT

...Barnett is one of two candidates who are taking on de Beck this spring, but the other one is actually a de Beck fan. School psychologist Michelle Crisci said she originally thought that de Beck wasn't going to run. Now she hopes that by sticking in the race, she can knock Barnett out of the running. Only two candidates will move on from the June primary.

"My hat is in the ring to make sure on the November ballot that it's John and myself," Crisci said.

...Seven years ago, Barnett was quoted in San Diego CityBeat saying that labor unions are "basically about enriching one class of society at the expense of the citizens in general."

Yet Barnett has won the teachers union support.

Barnett says he wouldn't say that about labor unions now, but was speaking for the conservative Lincoln Club at the time. His push to cut waste in the massive school district, he says, can only help employees by redirecting money back to classrooms.

Camille Zombro, president of the teachers union, said they may not always agree with Barnett, but he's someone they can work with.

"He's not going to run out and say nasty, untruthful things about us on talk radio," Zombro said...

[Maura Larkins' comment: Barnett might not care about educating children, but Camille Zombro isn't focused on that. She is focused on power and prestige for the union, and, particularly, the officials in the union.]

De Beck was long known as a labor ally on the school board, but in recent years, the former union leader has become one of its most bitter foes.

While cuts have strained relationships between the union and the whole school board, de Beck has clashed with them most publicly and most often. He argued that the school district should throw in the towel on bargaining with teachers and impose cuts. He argued that the union had sacrificed the youngest teachers when they agreed to furloughs. And he lobbed the toxic charge that they didn't care about kids.

His rocky relationship with the teachers union only adds to his appeal for some voters, including some of his former opponents. Local Democrats have thrown him their support anyway. And de Beck has earned loyalty from other observers simply by showing up, asking questions and being a stickler for details...

We need more regulation of financial industry: Lehman Examiner to Testify That S.E.C. Sat on Its Hands

Lehman Examiner to Testify That S.E.C. Sat on Its Hands
Stephen Crowley
The New York Times
By SEWELL CHAN
April 19, 2010

The court-appointed examiner who dissected the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy is expected to criticize the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday for its decision to “stand by idly” as the investment bank veered toward collapse.

The S.E.C. knew that Lehman did not have adequate liquidity and had exceeded its own limits on risk-taking but in essence did nothing, the examiner, Anton R. Valukas, will say in testimony released in advance by the House Financial Services Committee.

One of the most damning findings in Mr. Valukas’s 2,209-page report last month — that Lehman used accounting gimmicks to hide the extent of its indebtedness — was not known to the S.E.C. He wrote: “I saw nothing in my investigation to suggest that the S.E.C. asked even the most fundamental questions that might have uncovered this practice early on, before Lehman escalated it to a $50 billion issue.” ...

We're learning when we're idling (as long as we studied hard before we took a rest)

When I was a college freshman I couldn't stay up all night, so I thought I was at a disadvantage to my fellow students who engaged in all-night cram sessions before an exam. I was puzzled as to why I scored higher than they did on the test. Now I know:

Studies: An Idle Brain May Be Ripe for Learning
By Anita Hamilton
Jan. 29, 2010
Time

Why is it so hard to remember even things we don't want to forget? The problem, suggests a growing body of research, may be that we're thinking about them too much in the first place.

Popular wisdom once held that a mind at rest was like an engine idling — not much going on under the hood. To glean insights into how the brain worked, scientists would study only volunteers in action, measuring their physiological or biochemical responses as they completed specific mental tasks. But more recently, thanks in large part to the proliferation of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which precisely maps brain activity based on changes in blood-oxygen levels, neuroscientists have found that important activity in the brain — related in particular to memory and learning — may occur when it is at rest.

Many studies over the past decade have suggested that sleep is crucial to the consolidation of memories and learning; people who take a nap after learning a new task, for instance, remember it better than those who don't snooze. And now a small but compelling new study from the lab of New York University (NYU) cognitive neuroscientist Lila Davachi finds similar evidence that the brain at rest, even while remaining awake, is conducting meaningful activity. "Your brain is doing work for you even when you're resting," says Davachi, who just published a study in Neuron showing that certain kinds of brain activity actually increase during waking rest and are correlated with better memory consolidation. "Taking a rest may actually contribute to your success at work or school," she adds...

The purpose of the scans was to compare the relative levels of spontaneous neural activity in two key brain regions involved in memory — the hippocampus and visual cortex — during rest, both before and after the visual tasks... That suggests that the visual-learning tasks had affected the brain's seemingly random firings during rest, and perhaps that the brain was conducting memory-consolidating activity during that time...

The brain activity in those who were best at finding the hidden pattern onscreen was most strongly related...

While the NYU, Washington University and Harvard studies all used different approaches, their overall findings were remarkably similar. "The brain is trying to weave ideas together even when you don't think you are thinking of anything," notes Johns Hopkins behavioral neurologist and memory expert Dr. Barry Gordon. That's something to keep in mind the next time you catch yourself daydreaming in a meeting or idly surfing Facebook when you should be studying.

Tentative Rulings in SDCOE Fringe Benefits Consortium, Dan Puplava, Diane Crosier lawsuit

All tentative rulings heard on April 9, 2010 were finalized.

The judge didn't give any litigant everything he wanted without a trial. Judge Styn made the following Tentative Rulings:

1. Dan Puplava will have to answer for unfair competition, but not
conversion or interference. LINK

2. Puplava motion for summary judgment denied: "Puplava fails to cite authority providing for summary adjudication of whether a duty was breached. Absent such authority, there is no basis to summarily adjudicate the claims for breach of duty as requested by Puplava. Even if there was such authority, Puplava's separate statement fails to identify the specific breach of duty and the undisputed facts as to each breach of duty for which summary adjudication is sought.

3. Triable issues of fact remain re Puplava's damages. LINK

4. Judge Styn kept alive the Breach of Written Contract charge against the Consortium as well as Breach of Contract, Interference and Unfair Competition against Crosier. He threw out Breach of Oral/Implied Contract against the Consortium. LINK

5. Click HERE for Tentative Ruling concerning the following:
1. Breach of Contract--Defendants' motion for summary
adjudication is granted.
2. Furtahdo wins: Breach of Implied Contract--Defendants' motion for summary adjudication is granted.
3. Misappropriation of Trade Secret--Defendants' motion
for summary adjudication is denied.
4. Statutory Libel--Defendants' motion for summary
adjudication is denied.
5. Intentional Interference with Prospective Economic
Advantage
Defendants' motion for summary adjudication is denied.
6. Misappropriation of Name--Defendants' motion for
summary adjudication is denied.




The judge did not favor the big dogs as blatantly as he did in Maura Larkins' malpractice lawsuit against attorney Elizabeth Schulman. In a better world, Judge Styn would have forwarded the evidence in the Schulman case to the Bar Association. Instead, he ignored it (helping Elizabeth Schulman avoid all responsibility for her wrongful acts), and then punished Maura Larkins financially for bringing the lawsuit.

The decisions of the court in the Schulman case illustrate why Elizabeth Schulman felt confident that she could get away with violating the legal requirements for an
attorney who agrees to represent a client. Schulman possessed sworn testimony that
contradicted the testimony of the witnesses appearing for Chula Vista
Elementary School District. Why did she not present it? Judge Styn’s prejudices against in pro per litigants not only protected Schulman from any legal consequences for her wrongdoing, but caused him to dismiss with prejudice a case in which the
complaint itself contained enough evidence to prove Schulman guilty of the
causes of action against her.

See all Dan Puplava posts.
See all Diane Crosier posts.
See all Lora Duzyk posts.
See all SDCOE posts.

Bravo for the ACLU and Arnold Schwarzeneger for working to keep the best teachers

Wow--at last we have bipartisanship in California to get rid of the worst teachers. My respect for the ACLU has skyrocketed. They're not afraid to challenge the California Teachers Association!

Lawsuit: Layoffs hurt minority kids
John Fensterwald
The Educated Guess
Feb. 25, 2010

Regulations for teacher layoffs are a prime example of how interests of adults are put ahead of those of children, especially minority children. Now, that system, along with state budget cuts that set it in motion, will face a court challenge.

In a case with statewide implications, the ACLU of Southern California and other public interest and pro bono attorneys are suing the state and Los Angeles Unified, charging that teacher layoffs have savaged three low-performing, low-income middle schools. All three have been thrown into turmoil since between half and nearly three quarters of their teachers got layoff notices last year. Most eventually did lose their jobs because of rules that dictate that less experienced teachers must be the first to go, regardless of how good they are with students and how well they fit in the school.

The suit, filed Wednesday in Superior Court in Los Angeles, comes less than three weeks before school districts must formally notify teachers that they may be laid off next year. With Los Angeles Unified facing a $640 million deficit, thousands of teachers are expected to get layoff notices, including yet again, many remaining teachers at the three schools named in the lawsuit. The ACLU’s next likely step is to seek an injunction preventing disproportionate numbers of teachers from those schools from being let go...




Will we finally get effective and transparent teacher evaluations? I could forgive Arnold for a lot of his budget screw-ups if he accomplished this.

Bill would end layoffs by seniority
John Fensterwald
The Educated Guess

Proposals that Gov. Schwarzenegger made during his budget speech in January to weaken teacher tenure and seniority rights have finally taken bill form.

Republican Sen. Bob Huff introduced SB 955 on the governor’s behalf last week. Its chief provisions would be to give local school boards, instead of the Commission on Professional Competence, final say over firing teachers, and to enable districts to lay off teachers based on a district’s subject needs and teacher effectiveness, instead of by seniority.

The California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers will likely fight every piece of the bill. But a civil rights lawsuit filed by the ACLU and other public-interest attorneys against the state and Los Angeles Unified, challenging seniority-based layoffs, may improve chances of at least the seniority piece becoming law. That would be a major step forward.

The lawsuit, filed earlier this year on behalf of students at three low-performing middle schools, noted the constant churn of new teachers at these schools, where seniority rules make it next to impossible for principals to hire and keep teachers they want.

SB 955 would apply not only to layoffs; it would give principals more latitude in reassigning and transferring teachers. Passage of the bill would make it imperative that districts come up with more comprehensive and transparent teacher evaluations.

Sometimes just telling your story is the best thing you can do to change the world.

Sometimes just telling your story is the best thing you can do to change the world.



Kathryn Stockett, Author of The Help
By Claire Suddath
TIME
Nov. 11, 2009

Kathryn Stockett never intended to write a best-selling novel. In fact, when she started writing her debut novel, The Help, she didn't think anyone would ever read it. But since coming out in February, her story about the complicated relationships between African-American domestic servants and the white women who employed them in pre-civil rights Mississippi has spent over 30 weeks on the New York Times' best-seller list. Stockett talked to TIME about growing up in Mississippi and what it's like being a white woman from the South writing from the perspective of African-American maids...

Party Down: screwed-up rich people and the ordinary Joes who want to be like them

I watched the first season of Party Down on Netflix instant viewing. I think Netflix is awesome.


Adam Scott and Megan Mullally in "Party Down."


Apr 17, 2010
"Party Down": The best comedy you haven't heard of
Waiters follow their creative dreams to a life of drudgery, while Megan Mullally channels Sarah Palin, brilliantly
By Heather Havrilesky
Starz


Is it shameful to have dreams that might not come true? Most of us keep our dreams hidden, safe from the public's contempt. Why expose yourself and risk being called a dreamer, just another writer who boldly sends his manuscript to a publisher only to get a reject slip back in the mail, or a singer who shows up to the "American Idol" audition, only to have Simon Cowell tell her she's pathetic and untalented and she should go back to flipping burgers? (Easy enough to instruct others to stick to hard labor when you get paid to smirk and roll your eyes all day.)

But then you have the Susan Boyles and the Justin Biebers of the world, tipping the scales in the other direction, giving you hope that your dream might just come true one day. You just have to believe in it with all of your heart!

But are you just deluded?...

This is the driving question at the heart of Starz's "Party Down" (premieres 10 p.m. Friday, April 23), a brilliant half-hour comedy inhabited by creative types — actors and writers — working for a catering company in Los Angeles. The dilemma of the day job — do I keep myself afloat with this meaningless toil, or do I follow my dreams to bankruptcy and beyond? — looms ever present here.

..."Party Down" looks beyond the black-and-white messages our culture sends us about dreams and the creative life and success and failure, to show us the gray area in between. Even though we assume that the acclaimed novelist is automatically happy while the unknown, unpublished novelist is a depressed loser who's wasting his time, success brings far less of a guarantee of happiness than does an enjoyment of the work itself.

The dream may be beside the point entirely. If you enjoy the process and improve and learn every day, then success or failure is a footnote in your story. Likewise, if you're distracted by the spoils, if you're transfixed by a notion of "arriving" or being "done" with work — if you desire the ends more than the means, in other words — you may be dooming yourself to failure...

Duncan Wants 40 Percent Graduation Rate or NCAA Schools Cannot Play in Postseason

"If you can't graduate two out of five of your players, I just think your priorities are out of whack...What it tells me is there is a lack of institutional commitment...I just don't know why we tolerate those handful of places whose values are not proper," [Arne] Duncan told ABC News.

“The overall majority of these players will never go on to make a dime playing basketball, they’re making money for their universities and they’re going to have nothing to show for it.”

The interview was part of Ron Claiborne’s report tonight on “World News with Diane Sawyer.”


Education Secretary Asks NCAA Basketball Teams to Improve Academics
Duncan Wants 40 Percent Graduation Rate or Schools Cannot Play in Postseason
By BRADLEY BLACKBURN
March 19, 2010


Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has a game-changing idea to improve academics in college basketball. Some of the nation's top-seeded teams would be knocked out of March Madness next year if his rule goes into effect.



Duncan has proposed that the NCAA bar any team from participating in the post-season tournament if they fail to graduate at least 40 percent of their players. Duncan called 40 percent "a low bar" that should be easy for athletic programs to achieve, and he thinks such a rule would immediately improve academic results.



If the rules were in place for this year, 12 teams including top-ranked Kentucky, which graduated only 31 percent of its players, would not be eligible.



The other teams are Arkansas Pine Bluff, Baylor, California, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Maryland, Missouri, New Mexico State, Tennessee and Washington.



Today, Duncan made clear his belief that colleges can do better.



"If you can't graduate two out of five of your players, I just think your priorities are out of whack," Duncan told ABC News. "What it tells me is there is a lack of institutional committment."



Duncan himself was a star on the basketball team at Harvard, and he knows that sport is about a lot more than national championships.



"My father taught me a long time ago that a university has a dual mission, to educate its students and to prepare them for life," he said Wednesday on a conference call with reporters. "If a college fails to educate all of its students, then that university has failed its mission. It's time to start holding coaches and institutions more accountable for the academic outcomes of their athletes."



Study Shows Room for Improvement for College Teams



Duncan based his request on a study of graduation rates for NCAA tournament teams, conducted annually by The Institute for Diversity and Ethnics in Sport at the University of Central Florida. The study, based on data from the NCAA, found that 69 percent of this year's teams graduated at least 50 percent of their student-athletes in recent years, but 12 teams did not meet the 40 percent threshold Duncan is proposing.



"I just don't know why we tolerate those handful of places whos values are not proper," Duncan told ABC News.



An NCAA spokesman told The Associated Press today that a ban based on graduation rates unfairly penalizes current players for graduation rates of students from previous years. The NCAA already imposes academic sanctions on schools that fail to maintain education standards under a formula they call the Academic Progress Rate.

Part of the problem, study author Richard Lapchick believes, is rooted in unrealistic expectations among players for professional success.

"I think a lot of this has to do with the phenomenon of young African-American men, in particular, dreaming the dream that they're going to be able to play professional basketball," Lapchick said.


NCAA Tournament and Graduation Rates: Maryland Coach Defends Record

The dream of success in the pros comes true for some players, according to Maryland coach Gary Williams. In a radio interview this week, he defended his program's graduation rate, which at 8 percent was the lowest of all the schools in the study.

"First of all, 1999-2003, in that period we had four players leave early to go to the pros. They are all still playing professionally," Williams said on the "Dan Patrick Show." "They haven't come back and gotten their degrees yet. Hopefully, they will. But they've made millions and millions of dollars during that time that they left. In other words, they didn't have their degree, but it all depends on how you measure success in your life."

It is a sentiment Duncan disagrees with. "The overall majority of these players will never go on to make a dime playing basketball. They're making money for their universities and they're gonna have nothing to show for it," said Duncan to ABC News.

Williams said that he's proud of his school's graduation rate and added that the University of Maryland spends more than $1 million every year to support student-athletes' academics.



Solutions From a Supportive Nun

Another school in the NCAA tournament has found academic success for its players with a much smaller budget and the help of one hard-nosed nun. At Xavier University in Ohio, 77-year-old academic adviser Sister Rose Ann Fleming has supported the school's men's basketball players since 1985. Under her guidance, all 77 players who have competed as seniors have graduated from the university.

"Every team, every program around the country has an academic adviser. That's their job," said Xavier coach Chris Mack. "It's not Sister's job, it's her passion."

To Fleming, it all boils down to a team's priorities.

"My job is to make sure we don't waste the opportunity to also get a degree," she said.

Fleming makes all players attend 10 hours of study hall every week, two hours per day on top of their regular practice. She gets support from the team's coaches, and student-athletes who come to Xavier know they're expected to perform both on the court and in the classroom.

Google Searches (for Tiananmen, Hu’s Son) Still Blocked in China

See also this story of Hong Kong blogger who removed a post from her site and a San Diego blogger who didn't.

Google Searches for Tiananmen, Hu’s Son Still Blocked in China
March 23, 2010
Businessweek (Bloomberg)

Google Inc.’s decision to redirect Chinese readers to its Hong Kong-based Internet site hasn’t given China’s nearly 390 million Web surfers more access. Instead, searches that were once censored are no longer available at all.

Queries on the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on the main Google.com and the Google.com.hk Web sites aren’t executable in China, where readers using Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer are told “cannot display the webpage” or “network error.” Searches for a son of President Hu Jintao in connection with a graft case in Namibia are blocked as well.

The company yesterday said it is redirecting users from Google.cn, set up in 2006 to offer a better experience for Chinese readers. The government will likely block access through its Internet censorship system dubbed “The Great Firewall,” said Rebecca MacKinnon, a visiting scholar at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University...

Washington D.C. a bright spot in U.S. reading test data

Michelle Rhee, controversial superintendent of DC schools, will be happy to see this.

Reading scores stalled under 'No Child' law, report finds D.C. fourth-graders a bright spot in disappointing 2009 data
By Nick Anderson and Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 25, 2010

Reading achievement in D.C. public schools has climbed in the fourth grade in recent years, the federal government reported Wednesday, while progress nationwide has stalled despite huge instructional efforts launched under the No Child Left Behind law.

A report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows that fourth-grade scores for the nation's public schools stagnated after the law took effect in 2002, rose modestly in 2007 and remained unchanged last year. By contrast, the long-troubled D.C. schools have made steady advances since 2003, although their scores remain far below the national average.

The national picture for eighth-grade reading was largely the same: a slight uptick in performance since 2007, but no gain in the seven years when President George W. Bush's program for school reform was in high gear. The District's eighth-grade reading scores showed meager growth in that time.

When Bush signed the law, hopes were high for a revolution in reading. Billions of dollars were spent, especially in early grades, to build fluency, vocabulary, comprehension and a love of books that would propel students in all subjects. The goal was to eliminate racial and ethnic achievement gaps. But Wednesday's report shows no great leaps for the nation and stubborn disparities in performance between white and black students, among others...