By Keith R. Schmitz
Every documentary series that Ken Burns offers up on PBS is poetry in motion pictures. His latest on National Parks is no exception.
Burns was on Morning Joe this morning and Mike Barnicle posed the question would it be possible for the national parks to come into being in today's political climate.
Think of it. People are now throwing hysterical screaming fits over health care reform, something that could benefit them directly. Imagine someone proposing taking land out of private ownership and using government money to make these expanses available to the public. FOX "News" would be bursting out of your TV screens. Not that the right wing isn't doing their lion's share to starve the national parks that we do have now to death.
It was brought up that government can't do anything right. Burns proceeded to reel off a list of benefits that we have enjoyed from our government starting with the Declaration of Independence all the way up to the federal highway building programs. But of course the townhall screamers would call Burns a socialist Nazi commie vegetarian fruitcake.
It is no doubt that the ideological blindness of the right would not perceive the beauty of the national parks, overlooking of course crunchy conservatives. No wonder we are not the man on the moon generation. Too busy worrying about how taxes would affect our IRA's has blasted away at the greatness of this country. Tax cuts have built nothing and if we were in charge the national parks would be laced with cul de sacs.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
WPRI FAIL
by folkbum
Christian Schneider, writing at WPRI, fails to prove his thesis:
Schneider uses the experience of Wisconsin and BadgerCare to "prove" that this happens. Because BadgerCare enrollment exceeds what was expected when the program was passed (in arguably unusually strong economic times) in 1997, Schneider implies, that must mean that employers have shed coverage like crazy here in Wisconsin. And, he goes on, any further reform of health care, at the national level, for example, would lead to employers doing the same.
Pesky facts! It turns out that Wisconsin has not seen a massive shift from private to public insurance since the advent of BadgerCare! Scroll down to tables 7 and 8 of this report. Table 7 notes the percentage change in coverage provided by employers in all states between 2000 (when, coincidentally, BadgerCare took effect) to 2004 (which is the year Schneider notes BadgerCare saw peak enrollment). While Wisconsin declined at a slightly higher rate that nationwide (6.5% vs, 4.6%), Wisconsin still handily beat the national average, with, in fact, the 7th highest rate of employer-provided coverage in the country in 2004.
Is it possible that some of the people who lost coverage in that period did so because employers dumped them onto BadgerCare? We can't rule that out. However, it is pretty clear from Wisconsin's continued high rates of employer-provided health insurance, even in the face of BadgerCare, that Schneider's theory of mass shifts to the "public plan" never happened. Wisconsin employers still, overwhelmingly and at a much higher rate than the national average, offer insurance coverage to their workers.
Christian Schneider, writing at WPRI, fails to prove his thesis:
At the center of the debate is the idea of a “public option:” a government-run health program that liberals say would merely compete with private plans for customers. Conservatives counter that historically, when a generous government plan is instituted, private businesses tend to scale back or even drop their health plans, so their employees can save them money by going on the public plan.On the one hand, this seems moderately logical--employers will shirk their traditional responsibilities to let someone else do it. On the other hand, it is completely disproved by the facts. Pesky things, those facts.
Schneider uses the experience of Wisconsin and BadgerCare to "prove" that this happens. Because BadgerCare enrollment exceeds what was expected when the program was passed (in arguably unusually strong economic times) in 1997, Schneider implies, that must mean that employers have shed coverage like crazy here in Wisconsin. And, he goes on, any further reform of health care, at the national level, for example, would lead to employers doing the same.
Pesky facts! It turns out that Wisconsin has not seen a massive shift from private to public insurance since the advent of BadgerCare! Scroll down to tables 7 and 8 of this report. Table 7 notes the percentage change in coverage provided by employers in all states between 2000 (when, coincidentally, BadgerCare took effect) to 2004 (which is the year Schneider notes BadgerCare saw peak enrollment). While Wisconsin declined at a slightly higher rate that nationwide (6.5% vs, 4.6%), Wisconsin still handily beat the national average, with, in fact, the 7th highest rate of employer-provided coverage in the country in 2004.
Is it possible that some of the people who lost coverage in that period did so because employers dumped them onto BadgerCare? We can't rule that out. However, it is pretty clear from Wisconsin's continued high rates of employer-provided health insurance, even in the face of BadgerCare, that Schneider's theory of mass shifts to the "public plan" never happened. Wisconsin employers still, overwhelmingly and at a much higher rate than the national average, offer insurance coverage to their workers.
Future of MPS forum Thursday
by folkbum
If you don't have Great Big Sea tickets, as I do, you can head to Riverside High School for a forum-slash-debate on the idea of Mayor Tom Barrett taking over the Milwaukee Public Schools. The event kicks off at 5:30 with a presser from those opposed; at 6:00 the Mayor will debate Milwaukee Board of School Directors member Larry Miller, whose district includes Riverside and who opposes the idea.
Also start making plans now to attend the 4th Street Forum on Thursday October 15--or at least to watch that week on TV--as your humble folkbum will be a panelist on a show entitled "MPS + X = Success?"
If you don't have Great Big Sea tickets, as I do, you can head to Riverside High School for a forum-slash-debate on the idea of Mayor Tom Barrett taking over the Milwaukee Public Schools. The event kicks off at 5:30 with a presser from those opposed; at 6:00 the Mayor will debate Milwaukee Board of School Directors member Larry Miller, whose district includes Riverside and who opposes the idea.
Also start making plans now to attend the 4th Street Forum on Thursday October 15--or at least to watch that week on TV--as your humble folkbum will be a panelist on a show entitled "MPS + X = Success?"
Sunday, September 27, 2009
RIP, William Saffire
by folkbum
I never liked his politics, and he did as much to demonize the Clintons--Hillary in particular--as anyone in the 1990s, but I respected him as a wordsmith and language maven.
I never liked his politics, and he did as much to demonize the Clintons--Hillary in particular--as anyone in the 1990s, but I respected him as a wordsmith and language maven.
I would like to retract part of my Oklahoma post from last week
by folkbum
I stand by a lot of what I wrote in that post last week: There is inherent value in empowering workers and in educating our children well, and that a better-educated workforce is more likely both to be organized and to be good at what it does.
However, I cited in that post the results of a survey done by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs suggesting that Okie high school students are impossibly dumb. The impossibility of that should have made me more skeptical--indeed, I quote my wife's incredulity--and I regret using the results, especially given some new information.
The survey was contracted out to an outfit called Strategic Vision LLC, a polling and public relations firm that, among other things, does a lot of polling in Wisconsin, too. However, it seems that Strategic Vision has been coming under fire lately for its lack of transparency (Mark Blumenthal at Pollster.com has a good rundown of the matter) and Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com has come close to suggesting that Strategic Vision just makes up its numbers out of thin air.
Yesterday, Silver also went after that Oklahoma survey I used in that post:
I stand by a lot of what I wrote in that post last week: There is inherent value in empowering workers and in educating our children well, and that a better-educated workforce is more likely both to be organized and to be good at what it does.
However, I cited in that post the results of a survey done by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs suggesting that Okie high school students are impossibly dumb. The impossibility of that should have made me more skeptical--indeed, I quote my wife's incredulity--and I regret using the results, especially given some new information.
The survey was contracted out to an outfit called Strategic Vision LLC, a polling and public relations firm that, among other things, does a lot of polling in Wisconsin, too. However, it seems that Strategic Vision has been coming under fire lately for its lack of transparency (Mark Blumenthal at Pollster.com has a good rundown of the matter) and Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com has come close to suggesting that Strategic Vision just makes up its numbers out of thin air.
Yesterday, Silver also went after that Oklahoma survey I used in that post:
When I first saw these results a couple weeks ago, they really got my spidey sense tingling. Forget about the overall level of knowledge being low -- what I found strange was that there were no students, out of 1,000, who answered as many of eight out of the ten questions correctly. Isn't there some total nerd in Tulsa, some AP Honors student in Stillwater, who was able to answer at least eight of these ten very basic questions correctly? The distribution seems to be too compact.Strategic Vision is often described as a partisan (Republican) pollster and it does a lot of work for Republican candidates and conservative causes. I would be very concerned, if I were a conservative in Wisconsin relying on Strategic Vision for anything, about whether or not I was getting real results--or just something the pollster made up.
[glossing over the part with math and graphs]
I'm not sure if there's any a priori way to know what the underlying distribution of responses "should" be. [. . .] It seems quite strongly possible, nevertheless, that the students polled for this survey don't exist anywhere in Oklahoma but instead on a hard drive somewhere in Atlanta. This is a valuable exercise undertaken by the OCPA. But they owe it to the hardworking students of Oklahoma to make sure that their contractor, Strategic Vision, didn't flunk its own citizenship test.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
The new death panels: "Buy insurance or go to jail"
by folkbum
The brain-challenged on the right have taken this Politico story and gone haywire:
In a hearing this week, Ensign demanded to know what would happen to people who don't pay their penalty. It seems obvious to me--if you don't pay your taxes, there's a law for that already, right? Apparently Ensign is too lazy or too stupid to look up what that penalty is. It took me about four seconds on google; it turns out there's a section of the tax code--and this is existing law, mind you, not some provision wedged into the pages of a new health care bill--titled "Willful failure to file return, supply information, or pay tax" that spells out the exact penalties Barthold explained in his note.
In other words, the Baucus bill says, buy health insurance or pay a fine on your taxes. (The House bill, HR 3200, has a similiar provision, but at a smaller amount.) The tax guy says, pay your taxes or go to jail.
For the wingnutoverse, they of the "death panels" and "private health insurance will be outlawed" and whatever other lies they hope the people are gullible enough to swallow, this has become "buy insurance or go to jail." Which is, of course, not true. However, I think we've seen pretty clearly that these people have even less regard for the truth than they do a sense of shame, so we should not be surprised that they're willing to spout the lie.
Now you may not believe me, since "buy insurance or go to jail" is so obviously, head-slappingly wrong that no one could be so stupid. But just check out our local wingnuts. Here's Peter "I'd put a bounty on Obama's melon" DiGaudio: "Refuse To Buy Health Insurance? Go To Jail." Peter has declined to publish my rebuttal comments.
Or Fred "watermelon seeds" Dooley: "And if you don't buy health insurance? Go to jail."
Kathy "apparently smart enough to get elected" Carpenter: "No healthcare, go to jail [. . .] You guys think I am goofing around here, but I am not."
The Asian Badger calls it "fascism," demonstrating that he clearly doesn't know what that word means.
Okay, you may be saying, those are the certifiably crazy local wingnuts. What about the sane ones? The normal ones? The ones who usually demonstrate reading comprehension and don't go off half-cocked? They needed more cocking on this one, too. Owen Robinson: "Obamacare will force people to buy health insurance or go to jail." Kevin Binversie: "[F]ailure to purchase health insurance under the proposed Senate bill will warrant those who are in non-compliance (as deemed by the IRS) with either a year in jail or a fine of $25,000."
(You can see the national crazies spouting the lies by following the links to the stupid from memeorandum. Even ABC News's "The Note" headlines the story "Buy Insurance or Go to Jail?" hoping, perhaps, that the question mark saves them. Ugh.)
Look, I'm not a fan of the individual mandate in the Baucus bill or in HR3200. It ends up being a corporate giveaway (hey, look, 40 thousand new paying customers!) to the insurance companies, as individual policies are always more expensive than group policies employers can buy. It's even worse in the Baucus bill because his bill lacks a public option, meaning individuals won't have the choice of a low-cost but high-quality plan like that offered for purchase from the government in HR3200.
But there are cost advantages to risk-pooling, and if a fine now helps pay for the cost to taxpayers of your emergency room visit later after you get hit by a bus, then, well, that's something. For my money, I'd much rather forgo the individual mandate entirely, unless we went with something like the Wyden plan which eliminates all employer-provided insurance entirely.
However, as I have been arguing all freaking year now, if you have legitimate concerns about the proposals to reform health care, talk about those. It doesn't serve any good purpose to just make stuff up--like "buy insurance or go to jail"--since we can't debate fantasy.
The brain-challenged on the right have taken this Politico story and gone haywire:
Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.Some context: The Senate Finance Committee's bill (or the "Baucus bill" as some are calling it), imposes an individual mandate on people to buy insurance if they don't get it from work or a government program like Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, or, in Wisconsin, BadgerCare+. This fine is small for poor people, and capped at $1,500 for wealthy people ($3,800 for families) (and no, I don't know where $1,900 came from, because I'm looking at page 29 of the Baucus bill (pdf) and it clearly says $1,500), and assessed as a tax penalty via your return filed with the IRS.
Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it "Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold."
In a hearing this week, Ensign demanded to know what would happen to people who don't pay their penalty. It seems obvious to me--if you don't pay your taxes, there's a law for that already, right? Apparently Ensign is too lazy or too stupid to look up what that penalty is. It took me about four seconds on google; it turns out there's a section of the tax code--and this is existing law, mind you, not some provision wedged into the pages of a new health care bill--titled "Willful failure to file return, supply information, or pay tax" that spells out the exact penalties Barthold explained in his note.
In other words, the Baucus bill says, buy health insurance or pay a fine on your taxes. (The House bill, HR 3200, has a similiar provision, but at a smaller amount.) The tax guy says, pay your taxes or go to jail.
For the wingnutoverse, they of the "death panels" and "private health insurance will be outlawed" and whatever other lies they hope the people are gullible enough to swallow, this has become "buy insurance or go to jail." Which is, of course, not true. However, I think we've seen pretty clearly that these people have even less regard for the truth than they do a sense of shame, so we should not be surprised that they're willing to spout the lie.
Now you may not believe me, since "buy insurance or go to jail" is so obviously, head-slappingly wrong that no one could be so stupid. But just check out our local wingnuts. Here's Peter "I'd put a bounty on Obama's melon" DiGaudio: "Refuse To Buy Health Insurance? Go To Jail." Peter has declined to publish my rebuttal comments.
Or Fred "watermelon seeds" Dooley: "And if you don't buy health insurance? Go to jail."
Kathy "apparently smart enough to get elected" Carpenter: "No healthcare, go to jail [. . .] You guys think I am goofing around here, but I am not."
The Asian Badger calls it "fascism," demonstrating that he clearly doesn't know what that word means.
Okay, you may be saying, those are the certifiably crazy local wingnuts. What about the sane ones? The normal ones? The ones who usually demonstrate reading comprehension and don't go off half-cocked? They needed more cocking on this one, too. Owen Robinson: "Obamacare will force people to buy health insurance or go to jail." Kevin Binversie: "[F]ailure to purchase health insurance under the proposed Senate bill will warrant those who are in non-compliance (as deemed by the IRS) with either a year in jail or a fine of $25,000."
(You can see the national crazies spouting the lies by following the links to the stupid from memeorandum. Even ABC News's "The Note" headlines the story "Buy Insurance or Go to Jail?" hoping, perhaps, that the question mark saves them. Ugh.)
Look, I'm not a fan of the individual mandate in the Baucus bill or in HR3200. It ends up being a corporate giveaway (hey, look, 40 thousand new paying customers!) to the insurance companies, as individual policies are always more expensive than group policies employers can buy. It's even worse in the Baucus bill because his bill lacks a public option, meaning individuals won't have the choice of a low-cost but high-quality plan like that offered for purchase from the government in HR3200.
But there are cost advantages to risk-pooling, and if a fine now helps pay for the cost to taxpayers of your emergency room visit later after you get hit by a bus, then, well, that's something. For my money, I'd much rather forgo the individual mandate entirely, unless we went with something like the Wyden plan which eliminates all employer-provided insurance entirely.
However, as I have been arguing all freaking year now, if you have legitimate concerns about the proposals to reform health care, talk about those. It doesn't serve any good purpose to just make stuff up--like "buy insurance or go to jail"--since we can't debate fantasy.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Typical Mainstream Media
by bert
This very weekend there is a (an?) ukulele festival in Milwaukee. Like ACORN, this is being conveniently overlooked by the state-run media.
Is there any doubt any more that those playa-haters are in the tank for mandolins?
This very weekend there is a (an?) ukulele festival in Milwaukee. Like ACORN, this is being conveniently overlooked by the state-run media.
Is there any doubt any more that those playa-haters are in the tank for mandolins?
If They Can We Can
By Keith R. Schmitz
Jared L. Cohon with Carnegie Mellon University explains how Pittsburgh remade itself.
Hint -- a CTL F for "tax cuts" in the article comes up empty.
Jared L. Cohon with Carnegie Mellon University explains how Pittsburgh remade itself.
Hint -- a CTL F for "tax cuts" in the article comes up empty.
Friday of Folk
by folkbum
Monsters of Folk:
Monstresses of Folk (plus Buddy Miller):
Plus a preview of tonight's entertainment:
Monsters of Folk:
Monstresses of Folk (plus Buddy Miller):
Plus a preview of tonight's entertainment:
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Who's running the better crap-on-Milwaukee Guv campaign, Walker or Barrett?
by folkbum
I've been working on a post--in my head, mostly, but I've been working on it--which is sort of a "what would it take for me to support Mayor Tom Barrett's plan to take over the Milwaukee Public Schools?" post. I figured, you know, I oppose the idea, and see nothing but bad things ahead if it goes through, but I'm a reasonable man and I am seldom completely unpersuadable. So I have started imagining what else the Mayor could say or do or offer to make a takeover palatable.
At the top of the list, literally, number one on my list, is "Don't run for governor." If you're going to do this, I was planning to write, make a real, full, and absolute commitment to the voters of this city that you will see this transition through.
And yet with news today that US Rep Ron Kind is not running for governor, it seems much more likely that Tom Barrett is. In the first days after Jim Doyle announced he was not running, the word was that Kind and Barrett, former colleagues in the House, would not run against each other. Kinds non-entrance makes Barrett's entrance that much more certain.
And, as we all know, you can't get elected Governor of Wisconsin if you're from Milwaukee. However, much like last year's presidential election bucked the "you can't get elected while a sitting senator" rule by pitting two sitting senators against each other, the 2010 governor's race may well pit two Milwaukeeans against each other. And both--Barrett and Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker--are hard at work on building their anti-Milwaukee cred, Barrett through this takeover nonsense and Walker through, well, being Walker.
This makes me much less likely to get around to finishing that "what would it take" post. The takeover talk suddenly seems a lot more like Barrett and Doyle (who us no great fan of Lt. Gov. Barb Lawton, the only announced Democrat so far) setting the stage for a state-wide campaign.
I've been working on a post--in my head, mostly, but I've been working on it--which is sort of a "what would it take for me to support Mayor Tom Barrett's plan to take over the Milwaukee Public Schools?" post. I figured, you know, I oppose the idea, and see nothing but bad things ahead if it goes through, but I'm a reasonable man and I am seldom completely unpersuadable. So I have started imagining what else the Mayor could say or do or offer to make a takeover palatable.
At the top of the list, literally, number one on my list, is "Don't run for governor." If you're going to do this, I was planning to write, make a real, full, and absolute commitment to the voters of this city that you will see this transition through.
And yet with news today that US Rep Ron Kind is not running for governor, it seems much more likely that Tom Barrett is. In the first days after Jim Doyle announced he was not running, the word was that Kind and Barrett, former colleagues in the House, would not run against each other. Kinds non-entrance makes Barrett's entrance that much more certain.
And, as we all know, you can't get elected Governor of Wisconsin if you're from Milwaukee. However, much like last year's presidential election bucked the "you can't get elected while a sitting senator" rule by pitting two sitting senators against each other, the 2010 governor's race may well pit two Milwaukeeans against each other. And both--Barrett and Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker--are hard at work on building their anti-Milwaukee cred, Barrett through this takeover nonsense and Walker through, well, being Walker.
This makes me much less likely to get around to finishing that "what would it take" post. The takeover talk suddenly seems a lot more like Barrett and Doyle (who us no great fan of Lt. Gov. Barb Lawton, the only announced Democrat so far) setting the stage for a state-wide campaign.
Dear Ms. Jordahl,
by folkbum
We've never met, although I do feel like I kind of know you, as you've been a part of the Cheddarsphere a long time now.
I am sorry to hear about your daughter's condition. I can't imagine what it must be like. My father's experience last year, with his chronic problems since, is probably only a fraction of the challenges you face as a parent of an epileptic child.
However, I hate to see that you've turned your situation into such an ill-conceived and factually challenged attack on the health insurance reforms being pushed by the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress.
You tell your story using the device of an open letter to Obama advisor David Axelrod, whose daughter also has epilepsy. You say to Axelrod,
Look, I have no doubt that over the last months, your mind has run the full gamut of nightmarish what-ifs--mine sure did with my father, and I have a hard time thinking anyone in a similar spot wouldn't react the same way. But there's a difference between the nightmares grounded in reality and the nightmares born of spiteful Republican talking points.
I mean, despite conservative hyperbole and bluster, there isn't a plan on, under, or anywhere near the table that lets "government take[] over our health care system." No bill in Congress, no administration talking point, would put one more doctor or nurse on the federal payroll, or deed over one new clinic or hospital to the government. There is government-run health care now--the V.A.--but no one is offering that as a model for universal reform. To attack Axelrod for a plan he hasn't proposed, his boss won't sign, and his party doesn't support in Congress is just an awful thing to do.
In addition, no one is talking about putting anyone new between any patients and their doctors. I imagine you've already dealt with the insurance company bureaucrats, the ones who, depending on your plan, may very well have dictated parts of your daughter's treatment outside of her doctor's best judgment. Don't worry: If the current proposals in Congress pass, those same insurance company bureaucrats will still be there to try to influence your daughter's care.
"How can we possibly improve treatment options," you ask Axelrod, "or make progress toward a cure if patients are no longer evaluated and monitored immediately following their seizures?" This is just one of many such questions you ask without offering even an iota of evidence to suggest that your daughter or his will not be tested and monitored, that a reformed health care system will write off epileptic patients as not worth the bother. This is ridiculous. Even the UK, with fully socialized medicine--that "government-run health care" that you so dread and that no one, again, no one is proposing for the US--beats us in per-capita epilepsy mortality. I'm sure that hasn't happened because the bureaucrats have written off their patients the way you assume will happen after some modest--and in my opinion, weak--insurance industry reforms.
Ms. Jordahl, I think you owe it to your daughter--and to the Daughter Axelrod and my father and the millions of other people in this country with difficult, chronic illnesses--to at least debate the issue honestly, rather than resorting to scare tactics and straw-man arguments. My father was working full-time, in a hospital!, with health and disability insurance, and my parents nearly had to declare bankruptcy to get out of the bills, some of which they're still fighting to get paid more than a year later. No one should have to do that, to go broke or declare bankruptcy because they get sick. And that's all Axelrod wants. It's all Obama wants. Why don't you want that, too?
We've never met, although I do feel like I kind of know you, as you've been a part of the Cheddarsphere a long time now.
I am sorry to hear about your daughter's condition. I can't imagine what it must be like. My father's experience last year, with his chronic problems since, is probably only a fraction of the challenges you face as a parent of an epileptic child.
However, I hate to see that you've turned your situation into such an ill-conceived and factually challenged attack on the health insurance reforms being pushed by the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress.
You tell your story using the device of an open letter to Obama advisor David Axelrod, whose daughter also has epilepsy. You say to Axelrod,
I don’t believe increasing public awareness and funding for epilepsy research will improve the quality of life for either one of our daughters if the federal government takes over our health care system.And there's more, with cold, impatient government bureaucrats, long waits for specialists, a so-sad-for-you kiss off, and other such dystopian imaginings.
Perhaps it’s wrong for me to impose, after everything [your] family has endured, but imagine for a moment that you are back at the beginning of your quest to find a suitable treatment for your daughter’s seizures. Only this time decisions about which specialists to consult and which tests, medications, and procedures to pursue are no longer made by you in consultation with the doctor of your choice.
Look, I have no doubt that over the last months, your mind has run the full gamut of nightmarish what-ifs--mine sure did with my father, and I have a hard time thinking anyone in a similar spot wouldn't react the same way. But there's a difference between the nightmares grounded in reality and the nightmares born of spiteful Republican talking points.
I mean, despite conservative hyperbole and bluster, there isn't a plan on, under, or anywhere near the table that lets "government take[] over our health care system." No bill in Congress, no administration talking point, would put one more doctor or nurse on the federal payroll, or deed over one new clinic or hospital to the government. There is government-run health care now--the V.A.--but no one is offering that as a model for universal reform. To attack Axelrod for a plan he hasn't proposed, his boss won't sign, and his party doesn't support in Congress is just an awful thing to do.
In addition, no one is talking about putting anyone new between any patients and their doctors. I imagine you've already dealt with the insurance company bureaucrats, the ones who, depending on your plan, may very well have dictated parts of your daughter's treatment outside of her doctor's best judgment. Don't worry: If the current proposals in Congress pass, those same insurance company bureaucrats will still be there to try to influence your daughter's care.
"How can we possibly improve treatment options," you ask Axelrod, "or make progress toward a cure if patients are no longer evaluated and monitored immediately following their seizures?" This is just one of many such questions you ask without offering even an iota of evidence to suggest that your daughter or his will not be tested and monitored, that a reformed health care system will write off epileptic patients as not worth the bother. This is ridiculous. Even the UK, with fully socialized medicine--that "government-run health care" that you so dread and that no one, again, no one is proposing for the US--beats us in per-capita epilepsy mortality. I'm sure that hasn't happened because the bureaucrats have written off their patients the way you assume will happen after some modest--and in my opinion, weak--insurance industry reforms.
Ms. Jordahl, I think you owe it to your daughter--and to the Daughter Axelrod and my father and the millions of other people in this country with difficult, chronic illnesses--to at least debate the issue honestly, rather than resorting to scare tactics and straw-man arguments. My father was working full-time, in a hospital!, with health and disability insurance, and my parents nearly had to declare bankruptcy to get out of the bills, some of which they're still fighting to get paid more than a year later. No one should have to do that, to go broke or declare bankruptcy because they get sick. And that's all Axelrod wants. It's all Obama wants. Why don't you want that, too?
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Oklahoma workers may be cheaper, but at least they're uneducated
by folkbum
It wasn't that long ago in real time--though ages ago in blog time--that Mercury Marine of Fond du Lac made waves (pun intended) by announcing its intention to screw hard-working Wisconsin folk and move hundreds of manufacturing jobs, followed by hundreds more white-collar jobs, to Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Oklahoma, see, is a right-to-work state, a state that does not value workers and unions in the same way we traditionally have here in Wisconsin. The workers at the Stillwater facility were being paid so much less than the workers in Fond du Lac that it was almost worth the expense for Merc to bubble-wrap the plant and FedEx it southwest.
Now, I've got nothing specifically against Oklahoma. I have a lot of family there, including cousins educated by the Oklahoma public schools in one of the house-farmy suburbs of Oklahoma City who seem to have turned out all right and are making a living in the non-unionized trades down there. So it is with mild dismay--and not as much braggadocio as you might think--that I post this.
The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs commissioned a survey of 1000 random Oklahoma high-school students, asking them ten questions from the US Immigration Citizenship exam. These are not hard questions--the answers were things like "George Washington" and "the Atlantic Ocean." Yet only 2.8% of OK students could get six or seven of the ten questions right. None of the students got eight, nine, or all ten right.
My wife was incredulous: "There's not one history nerd in Oklahoma who could get them all?" Apparently not among the 1000 surveyed.
I could not find a project of similar scale for Wisconsin, but I did find this story noting that six UW-Marathon County students averaged 90% right in an embarrassingly unscientific media story.
But there is, in fact, a moderate correlation between union membership and education spending, if you count education spending as a rough surrogate for educational achievement--or at least the importance a state ascribes to educating its children. There are advantages to being in states that value workers, both before and after they hit the workforce. And I'm proud to be in one.
It wasn't that long ago in real time--though ages ago in blog time--that Mercury Marine of Fond du Lac made waves (pun intended) by announcing its intention to screw hard-working Wisconsin folk and move hundreds of manufacturing jobs, followed by hundreds more white-collar jobs, to Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Oklahoma, see, is a right-to-work state, a state that does not value workers and unions in the same way we traditionally have here in Wisconsin. The workers at the Stillwater facility were being paid so much less than the workers in Fond du Lac that it was almost worth the expense for Merc to bubble-wrap the plant and FedEx it southwest.
Now, I've got nothing specifically against Oklahoma. I have a lot of family there, including cousins educated by the Oklahoma public schools in one of the house-farmy suburbs of Oklahoma City who seem to have turned out all right and are making a living in the non-unionized trades down there. So it is with mild dismay--and not as much braggadocio as you might think--that I post this.
The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs commissioned a survey of 1000 random Oklahoma high-school students, asking them ten questions from the US Immigration Citizenship exam. These are not hard questions--the answers were things like "George Washington" and "the Atlantic Ocean." Yet only 2.8% of OK students could get six or seven of the ten questions right. None of the students got eight, nine, or all ten right.
My wife was incredulous: "There's not one history nerd in Oklahoma who could get them all?" Apparently not among the 1000 surveyed.
I could not find a project of similar scale for Wisconsin, but I did find this story noting that six UW-Marathon County students averaged 90% right in an embarrassingly unscientific media story.
But there is, in fact, a moderate correlation between union membership and education spending, if you count education spending as a rough surrogate for educational achievement--or at least the importance a state ascribes to educating its children. There are advantages to being in states that value workers, both before and after they hit the workforce. And I'm proud to be in one.
"If I had a million dollars, I would buy my grandmother a kidney."
by folkbum
I had a good conversation yesterday afternoon with Erin Richards, who's taken on the Milwaukee Public Schools beat at the Journal Sentinel since Alan Borsuk took the buyout.
She's got a series coming up starting with an article in Sunday's paper about the intersection of poverty and education, which I am looking forward to, as the topic is an interest of mine. (UPDATE: Richards has let me know that the series will run starting Sunday, 10/4, instead.)
One of the things we talked about really got me thinking: Should teachers organize, Richards wondered, around a goal like eradicating poverty or improving the neighborhood and the community? If teachers see, as we do, the effects of poverty in the classroom, what responsibility do we have to take leadership roles in the community and actively try to change the conditions outside the classroom? And if this is a necessary task for teachers, who organizes it? Who trains us? How do we maintain such activism without affecting the time we already have to put in before and after school to do what we do well?
I don't have an answer for that. On the one hand, it seems to me that one group should not be responsible for fighting the battle on every front; on the other, it makes sense to organize from among a group that has a vested interest in the results.
Which leads me to the quote at the top of the post. This was the first sentence--the first sentence!--of one of my students' pre-test essays from a couple of weeks ago. And it went on from there--her uncles who were sick, her mother who couldn't pay the bills, and so on. She never even got to the "and I would spend some of that million on nice stuff for me" part of the essay that you have to expect. Such pressure! How do you go through your life at 17 with that kind of weight and responsibility on your shoulders? And while her paper was by no means representative, it was also not the only million-dollar fantasy constructed around helping family overcome the effects of poverty and the bad economy and lack of health care.
It's overwhelming, really, to start thinking about the effort it would take within the community to change these conditions. Is it our place as teachers to do it? If no one else is stepping up, it may be.
I had a good conversation yesterday afternoon with Erin Richards, who's taken on the Milwaukee Public Schools beat at the Journal Sentinel since Alan Borsuk took the buyout.
She's got a series coming up starting with an article in Sunday's paper about the intersection of poverty and education, which I am looking forward to, as the topic is an interest of mine. (UPDATE: Richards has let me know that the series will run starting Sunday, 10/4, instead.)
One of the things we talked about really got me thinking: Should teachers organize, Richards wondered, around a goal like eradicating poverty or improving the neighborhood and the community? If teachers see, as we do, the effects of poverty in the classroom, what responsibility do we have to take leadership roles in the community and actively try to change the conditions outside the classroom? And if this is a necessary task for teachers, who organizes it? Who trains us? How do we maintain such activism without affecting the time we already have to put in before and after school to do what we do well?
I don't have an answer for that. On the one hand, it seems to me that one group should not be responsible for fighting the battle on every front; on the other, it makes sense to organize from among a group that has a vested interest in the results.
Which leads me to the quote at the top of the post. This was the first sentence--the first sentence!--of one of my students' pre-test essays from a couple of weeks ago. And it went on from there--her uncles who were sick, her mother who couldn't pay the bills, and so on. She never even got to the "and I would spend some of that million on nice stuff for me" part of the essay that you have to expect. Such pressure! How do you go through your life at 17 with that kind of weight and responsibility on your shoulders? And while her paper was by no means representative, it was also not the only million-dollar fantasy constructed around helping family overcome the effects of poverty and the bad economy and lack of health care.
It's overwhelming, really, to start thinking about the effort it would take within the community to change these conditions. Is it our place as teachers to do it? If no one else is stepping up, it may be.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Two ACORN posts in one
It's About Time They Defunded Northrop-Grumman
by folkbum
Brilliant! Congress finally passes a law prohibiting the distribution of any funds to "any organization that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency."
That means, of course, the $53 million in the last 15 years that we sent to ACORN will be cut off (whew!), but so will the hundreds of billions we've sent to the fraudsters at Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman and Xe (née Blackwater) and Haliburton and ...
They Fired the Wrong Guy
by folkbum
Guy A: Doing his job when an Ashton Kutcher wannabe shows up with a hidden camera and eight miles of bull including a story about human trafficking. Guy A calls his cousin, a police detective, to report the conversation and seek help about the human smuggling--only to follow-up later that he'd been duped and there was no longer a need to investigate.
Guy B: Runs a website purporting to be "news," and had in fact worked for a long time as an editor on a popular news aggregator site and should know what he's doing. He gets the tape from said wannabe and does not follow up with Guy A, Guy A's boss, the police department in Guy A's city, or anything to find out if Guy A had attempted to stop the illegal activity he'd been told about. Guy B runs the tape without the due diligence, creating the impression that Guy A supported the law-breaking rather than reported it, which he actually did.
You can probably guess that hapless Guy A, who tried to Do The Right Thing, is the one who got fired. Guy B is making money hand over fist at the expense of honest guys like Guy A.
(Guy B also didn't run the footage from other cities, like Philadelphia, where the police were called in real time on the wannabe. No money to be made in that, either.)
by folkbum
Brilliant! Congress finally passes a law prohibiting the distribution of any funds to "any organization that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency."
That means, of course, the $53 million in the last 15 years that we sent to ACORN will be cut off (whew!), but so will the hundreds of billions we've sent to the fraudsters at Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman and Xe (née Blackwater) and Haliburton and ...
They Fired the Wrong Guy
by folkbum
Guy A: Doing his job when an Ashton Kutcher wannabe shows up with a hidden camera and eight miles of bull including a story about human trafficking. Guy A calls his cousin, a police detective, to report the conversation and seek help about the human smuggling--only to follow-up later that he'd been duped and there was no longer a need to investigate.
Guy B: Runs a website purporting to be "news," and had in fact worked for a long time as an editor on a popular news aggregator site and should know what he's doing. He gets the tape from said wannabe and does not follow up with Guy A, Guy A's boss, the police department in Guy A's city, or anything to find out if Guy A had attempted to stop the illegal activity he'd been told about. Guy B runs the tape without the due diligence, creating the impression that Guy A supported the law-breaking rather than reported it, which he actually did.
You can probably guess that hapless Guy A, who tried to Do The Right Thing, is the one who got fired. Guy B is making money hand over fist at the expense of honest guys like Guy A.
(Guy B also didn't run the footage from other cities, like Philadelphia, where the police were called in real time on the wannabe. No money to be made in that, either.)
Autumn? I Hardly Know Him!
by folkbum
Happy equinox, all. (I think only two people who read this blog will get the title.)
Happy equinox, all. (I think only two people who read this blog will get the title.)
Who Speaks for Health Insurance Companies
By Keith R. Schmitz
There will be many contributors to this site who perhaps won't know why this is funny.
UPDATE -- The National Economic Council has come out with a report that lays out the numbers. From 1999 to 2009 premiums rose, depending upon state, from 88% to 148% (that would be Alaska). During the same period wages and inflation went up 38% and 28%. Bet middle class wages went up a lot less.
Could you imagine the screaming from the right if government spending went up that much?
Well, it didn't. According to the venerable Heritage Foundation, federal spending during that period went up 66%, with a huge role being played by the skyward increases in health insurance.
So why is it OK for that one sector in business be allowed to have an adverse affect on all the other businesses in this country? When are the right and right-leaning business groups going to give health insurance the same regard they give government?
A dollar spent is a dollar spent, no matter who gets their mitts on it.
There will be many contributors to this site who perhaps won't know why this is funny.
UPDATE -- The National Economic Council has come out with a report that lays out the numbers. From 1999 to 2009 premiums rose, depending upon state, from 88% to 148% (that would be Alaska). During the same period wages and inflation went up 38% and 28%. Bet middle class wages went up a lot less.
Could you imagine the screaming from the right if government spending went up that much?
Well, it didn't. According to the venerable Heritage Foundation, federal spending during that period went up 66%, with a huge role being played by the skyward increases in health insurance.
So why is it OK for that one sector in business be allowed to have an adverse affect on all the other businesses in this country? When are the right and right-leaning business groups going to give health insurance the same regard they give government?
A dollar spent is a dollar spent, no matter who gets their mitts on it.
How is this controversial?
by folkbum
How is it that there's not broad agreement across both parties for these basic reforms?
How is it that there's not broad agreement across both parties for these basic reforms?
Monday, September 21, 2009
Criticism of Obama 'Not About Race,' Says New Poll of White People
By Keith R. Schmitz
h/t -- Andy Borowitz
Foreign Birth, Resemblance to Hitler Cited
People who criticize President Obama do so for reasons that have "nothing to do with his race," a new poll of white people indicates.
According to the poll, which was conducted by the University of Minnesota's Opinion Research Institute, those who take issue with the President do so because of his "questionable birth certificate," his "love of socialism," and his "Hitler-like health plan," but "not because of race."
A significant number of Mr. Obama's critics "strongly agree" with the statement, "I don't have any problems with Obama being black, but I do have a problem with him being a socialist from Kenya who is trying to kill my grandmother."
Professor Davis Logsdon, who conducted the survey, says that the poll is "full of good news" for Mr. Obama: "It indicates that race is no longer an issue in America, but a foreign-born president trying to institute a Nazi-slash-socialist euthanasia plan is."
Elsewhere, Fox News host Glenn Beck called for stricter limits on the nation's IQ.
h/t -- Andy Borowitz
Foreign Birth, Resemblance to Hitler Cited
People who criticize President Obama do so for reasons that have "nothing to do with his race," a new poll of white people indicates.
According to the poll, which was conducted by the University of Minnesota's Opinion Research Institute, those who take issue with the President do so because of his "questionable birth certificate," his "love of socialism," and his "Hitler-like health plan," but "not because of race."
A significant number of Mr. Obama's critics "strongly agree" with the statement, "I don't have any problems with Obama being black, but I do have a problem with him being a socialist from Kenya who is trying to kill my grandmother."
Professor Davis Logsdon, who conducted the survey, says that the poll is "full of good news" for Mr. Obama: "It indicates that race is no longer an issue in America, but a foreign-born president trying to institute a Nazi-slash-socialist euthanasia plan is."
Elsewhere, Fox News host Glenn Beck called for stricter limits on the nation's IQ.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
When the second sentence is a bald lie, why should we read further?
by folkbum
Here are the first two sentences of this morning's editorial--not op-ed, mind you, but the piece bearing the imprimatur of the editorial board of the largest daily newspaper in the state--in favor, again, of wresting control of the Milwaukee Public Schools from the people and giving it to the mayor:
The fourth sentence of the editorial isn't much better; after describing the immediate effects of a mayoral takeover--Mayor Barrett's appointment of a new school board and superintendent--the editorial says, "In other words, this would dissolve a system that has allowed for far too long one of the widest achievement gaps in the country between blacks and whites."
No, no, no. It would not dissolve the system. The system is teachers, principals, students, parents. The system is curricula, textbooks, buildings, programs. The system is thousands of dedicated professionals fighting against the overwhelming influence of poverty, unemployment, poor health, unstable families, and more. All of that stays. The change the editorial board supports is ten people at the top. The ten most talented, charismatic, and effective leaders in the state--in the country!--would have a very hard time fixing the academic achievement gap while the mayor and other city leaders allow Milwaukee's nation-leading racial gaps in housing, employment, crime, income, and imprisonment rate to fester.
Sentence six is a bother, as well: "The sweeping changes needed to prepare graduates for a global economy are not attainable under the current structure," the editorial board somberly intones. In an ideal world, they might then go on to name some specific changes that they hope to see implemented by the mayor, or at least to detail some of the proposed changes scuttled by the "current structure" leaving our graduates unprepared. But they offer no specifics, suggest no changes, propose no new course of action.
Which is kind of funny, because that's exactly the same level of detail we've gotten from the mayor, Governor Doyle, and state Superintendent Tony Evers. Beyond "put the mayor in charge," there's a great deal of nothing. If the mayor were out there saying, "Put me in charge, and I'll do X, Y, and Z," then maybe we'd have something to talk about. But the mayor, et al., and his backers on the MJS editorial board presume that ten new people at the top is the only change worth planning for.
Today's editorial goes on to offer "rebuttals" to arguments against mayoral control, and some of those rebuttals themselves are iffy. For example, they do try to rebut the "no plan" argument, and they just sound ridiculous doing so. "In our book, getting a traditionally ineffectual board out of the way is a plan," they say, their italics. They trust the mayor to "hire the best educator possible" to run the system, and then let that guy come up with a plan.
Never mind, of course, that current MPS superintendent William Andrekopoulos was widely viewed as "the best educator" in Milwaukee for his work as principal at a city middle school, and he has largely been given free reign by the board over the last seven years. His immediate predecessor fit the same profile--successful principal, bold reform plan, free reign from the board. Clearly, "hire the best educator" is also not a plan.
The editorial board attempts to rebut the fix-the-city-first argument that I make so often. Watch the squirming:
"Barrett," they go on, "whether he deserves it or not, gets the blame. Give him the responsibility." Blame for what? For the schools? He most certainly does not take the blame for the problems in our schools; no, that's usually teachers like me. For city crime? poverty? economics? I don't believe I have ever seen this editorial board lay one ounce of blame at the mayor's feet for those things. He's a freakin hero now, don't you know that? Blame. Hah!
The editorial board also claims that other mayor-controlled school districts are successful. The problem is that Chicago (pdf) has not improved, New York increased its per-student spending by 1/3 to spur results, Boston has needed bailouts from the city to make its budget balance. And they don't mention notable failures like Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Detroit.
Finally, the editorial board avoids the race issue by saying, "wouldn't it be racist to allow [non-white] children to continue under a system that has failed them so often for so long?" However, a bunch of white guys--and I am a white guy, so I got nothing against white guys in general--a bunch of white guys taking over a mostly minority district, with the help of the white (and over the objections of the non-white) guys and gals of the legislature is not going to be seen as benign, whatever the intent. The rifts are already starting to form, with current school board President Michael Bonds walking away from the mayor's MPS advisory group and legislators like Polly Williams, Pedro Colon, and Gwenn Moore staking out opposition.
Any significant change to the structure within MPS, let alone its governance, will have to come with the support and cooperation of the community and its leaders. This is not the way to secure that cooperation. The fabric of this community will be torn by a takeover and it will not be an easy thing to repair.
This certain division, by the way, is perhaps the strongest argument against the takeover, from where I sit. A takeover is not a prerequisite for or guarantee of federal funds; the history of such takeovers is at best mixed; and the conditions in Milwaukee that produce low academic achievement are generally outside of schools' control--these suggest no great benefit to the takeover. And yet we know the significant negative effect, the deepening of racial divides in this already-segregated community.
It is not worth it. And when the idea's supporters are reduced to outright lies when pushing the idea, well, that's a bad sign, too.
Here are the first two sentences of this morning's editorial--not op-ed, mind you, but the piece bearing the imprimatur of the editorial board of the largest daily newspaper in the state--in favor, again, of wresting control of the Milwaukee Public Schools from the people and giving it to the mayor:
Over the next couple of months, the state Legislature will decide whether to change the governance of Milwaukee Public Schools to mayoral control. This would allow the state's largest district to snag much needed Race to the Top funding.As the title of this post suggests, that second sentence is flat-out false. First, the "Race to the Top" funds are to be distributed to states, not to individual school districts like MPS. Second, mayoral control of urban districts is not a precondition to getting the funds. Milwaukee's Congresswoman Gwenn Moore has tried to publicize this fact, but the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel seems not to care.
The fourth sentence of the editorial isn't much better; after describing the immediate effects of a mayoral takeover--Mayor Barrett's appointment of a new school board and superintendent--the editorial says, "In other words, this would dissolve a system that has allowed for far too long one of the widest achievement gaps in the country between blacks and whites."
No, no, no. It would not dissolve the system. The system is teachers, principals, students, parents. The system is curricula, textbooks, buildings, programs. The system is thousands of dedicated professionals fighting against the overwhelming influence of poverty, unemployment, poor health, unstable families, and more. All of that stays. The change the editorial board supports is ten people at the top. The ten most talented, charismatic, and effective leaders in the state--in the country!--would have a very hard time fixing the academic achievement gap while the mayor and other city leaders allow Milwaukee's nation-leading racial gaps in housing, employment, crime, income, and imprisonment rate to fester.
Sentence six is a bother, as well: "The sweeping changes needed to prepare graduates for a global economy are not attainable under the current structure," the editorial board somberly intones. In an ideal world, they might then go on to name some specific changes that they hope to see implemented by the mayor, or at least to detail some of the proposed changes scuttled by the "current structure" leaving our graduates unprepared. But they offer no specifics, suggest no changes, propose no new course of action.
Which is kind of funny, because that's exactly the same level of detail we've gotten from the mayor, Governor Doyle, and state Superintendent Tony Evers. Beyond "put the mayor in charge," there's a great deal of nothing. If the mayor were out there saying, "Put me in charge, and I'll do X, Y, and Z," then maybe we'd have something to talk about. But the mayor, et al., and his backers on the MJS editorial board presume that ten new people at the top is the only change worth planning for.
Today's editorial goes on to offer "rebuttals" to arguments against mayoral control, and some of those rebuttals themselves are iffy. For example, they do try to rebut the "no plan" argument, and they just sound ridiculous doing so. "In our book, getting a traditionally ineffectual board out of the way is a plan," they say, their italics. They trust the mayor to "hire the best educator possible" to run the system, and then let that guy come up with a plan.
Never mind, of course, that current MPS superintendent William Andrekopoulos was widely viewed as "the best educator" in Milwaukee for his work as principal at a city middle school, and he has largely been given free reign by the board over the last seven years. His immediate predecessor fit the same profile--successful principal, bold reform plan, free reign from the board. Clearly, "hire the best educator" is also not a plan.
The editorial board attempts to rebut the fix-the-city-first argument that I make so often. Watch the squirming:
Many of these social ills are directly tied to the district's longstanding lackluster performance. As long as more than 70% of the district's 10th-graders are not proficient in reading and fewer than 40% of MPS graduates enroll in post-secondary programs within a year of graduation, these social ills will persist. But, OK, say the reverse is more the case--that poverty causes the lack of proper educational outcomes. Forget the chicken-or-egg argument; wouldn't one person in charge best be able to handle these problems more holistically?Got that? They say, "Low achievement causes (or at least perpetuates) poverty!" But if someone were to point out the documented causative relationship between high poverty and low student achievement, they say "Forget what causes what; just put one guy in charge!"
"Barrett," they go on, "whether he deserves it or not, gets the blame. Give him the responsibility." Blame for what? For the schools? He most certainly does not take the blame for the problems in our schools; no, that's usually teachers like me. For city crime? poverty? economics? I don't believe I have ever seen this editorial board lay one ounce of blame at the mayor's feet for those things. He's a freakin hero now, don't you know that? Blame. Hah!
The editorial board also claims that other mayor-controlled school districts are successful. The problem is that Chicago (pdf) has not improved, New York increased its per-student spending by 1/3 to spur results, Boston has needed bailouts from the city to make its budget balance. And they don't mention notable failures like Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Detroit.
Finally, the editorial board avoids the race issue by saying, "wouldn't it be racist to allow [non-white] children to continue under a system that has failed them so often for so long?" However, a bunch of white guys--and I am a white guy, so I got nothing against white guys in general--a bunch of white guys taking over a mostly minority district, with the help of the white (and over the objections of the non-white) guys and gals of the legislature is not going to be seen as benign, whatever the intent. The rifts are already starting to form, with current school board President Michael Bonds walking away from the mayor's MPS advisory group and legislators like Polly Williams, Pedro Colon, and Gwenn Moore staking out opposition.
Any significant change to the structure within MPS, let alone its governance, will have to come with the support and cooperation of the community and its leaders. This is not the way to secure that cooperation. The fabric of this community will be torn by a takeover and it will not be an easy thing to repair.
This certain division, by the way, is perhaps the strongest argument against the takeover, from where I sit. A takeover is not a prerequisite for or guarantee of federal funds; the history of such takeovers is at best mixed; and the conditions in Milwaukee that produce low academic achievement are generally outside of schools' control--these suggest no great benefit to the takeover. And yet we know the significant negative effect, the deepening of racial divides in this already-segregated community.
It is not worth it. And when the idea's supporters are reduced to outright lies when pushing the idea, well, that's a bad sign, too.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
And all over Russia ...
by folkbum
... the Russian wingnut bloggers are writing about how Putin is showing weakness to Obama, that Putin has "caved" and "abandoned" Russia's allies, and how Russia may as well just surrender to her enemies now.
... the Russian wingnut bloggers are writing about how Putin is showing weakness to Obama, that Putin has "caved" and "abandoned" Russia's allies, and how Russia may as well just surrender to her enemies now.
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