Financial overhaul-Boxer Yes, Fiorina No

Here is the take away. The Senate passed a bill to reform the financial system to limit the kind of bankers robbery that occurred in 20008.  Senator Barbara Boxer voted yes.  Candidate Fiorina said she would have voted No.  That is a difference of substance.  If Fiorina would have been there, the Democrats could not get the 60 votes needed, and we would still be under the rules- or lack of rules- that lead to the Second Great Recession.

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday voted 60-39 to approve the most sweeping overhaul of the nation's financial regulatory system since the Great Depression, clearing the historic legislation for President Barack Obama to sign into law.

In a “historic shift of power” from Wall Street to Main Street, the Senate this afternoon approved sweeping Wall Street reform legislation and sent it to President Obama for his signature.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, says the bill, which will rein-in some of the most reckless Wall Street/Big Bank practices that shoved the nation’s economy over the cliff,

represents a historic shift of power—away from big bankers and CEOs to working families and Main Street.  For years, Big Banks have profited on the backs of working families. Millions of working families lost their jobs and still can’t find work because of the reckless and selfish actions of Wall Street and the big banks.

The 60-39 vote caps a nearly yearlong fight that pitted an army of Wall Street lobbyists against a grassroots movement of financial reform activists from union, consumer and community groups. At one time the financial industry was spending an estimated $1.4 million a day to derail Wall Street reform.

Just this April, more than 15,000 people marched on Wall Street and in May, thousands more marched on K Street in Washington, D.C., demanding Wall Street reform. We also generated tens of thousands of e-mail messages and phone calls and rallied outside banks and Wall Street financial institutions. Such mobilization helped ensure that many of the Wall Street reforms working families advocated are in the final product.

The bill includes new rules on how banks handle derivatives. Derivatives are the complex and risky financial products developed by Wall Street and Big Banks that were at the heart of the financial collapse. The bill regulates banks’ hedge fund operations and gives shareholders more of a say on corporate governance.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/15/97588/senate-votes-to-end-debate-on.html#ixzz0tsCrKJrY

Battling the Banksters

William Greider | June 30, 2010. the Nation.com

Hold the applause. The president would like us to celebrate his "Wall Street reform," but the legislation is misnamed. Barack Obama did not set out as president to reform Wall Street in fundamental ways but to restore it. Judging by the largest banks' booming stock prices and executive bonuses, he appears to have succeeded. The leading bankers expressed relief when they saw the reform package Congress cobbled together on June 25. Wall Street, loathed by citizens everywhere, dodged the bullet in Washington.
Congress followed Obama's path and rejected the sterner measures that promised to actually change things. As with healthcare reform, the White House, joined by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, spent much of its energy opposing more aggressive ideas or bargaining small-bore compromises. The president kept a low profile, saving himself for the victory celebration.
Despite the defeat of real reform, progressives should not despair—the future looks much brighter than the headlines suggest. Yes, Congress choked on the hard questions. But assuming the Dems pull together last-minute wavering votes, it will be a stronger bill than either the White House or the bankers had intended, thanks to public anger, popular mobilization and nimble pressure from reformers.
This is not the end of reform; it's the beginning of a promising struggle to cut the financial sector down to tolerable dimensions and reduced power. The forces of reform demonstrated that they have the strength and especially the ideas to win this fight—just not this year.

Mainly, the legislation gives government regulators explicit authority to take tougher measures to curb Wall Street's dangerous behavior, but only if the Fed and Treasury decide it's a good idea. Don't hold your breath. These same agencies failed massively to confront the rampant recklessness that led to collapse (many of them claimed not to have seen the trouble coming).
Once again, the risk-taking is assigned to unwitting citizens and the economy. Washington saved big-dog bankers from failure, but it has not saved the rest of us from the bankers. Some reformers want to make the best of mixed results. The Consumer Federation of America says the banks "won a few battles; they lost the war." I would say it is the other way around: reform won some battles but lost the war.
Some valuable improvements, like the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, can lead to tougher rules, but even such worthy accomplishments were diluted in the fine print. The supposedly "independent" consumer agency is to be a "bureau" within the Federal Reserve, where hostile central bankers can find ways to smother the infant in its crib.
The improved controls on dangerous derivatives were likewise weakened in last-minute deal-making that gave bankers much of what they wanted—a free hand to keep the casino open for the gamblers. Bottom line: key elements of financial abuse that contributed to the breakdown have not been eliminated. And taxpayers are still on the hook for bailing out "too big to fail" banks.
Yet despite disappointing results, the losing issues revealed reasons for optimism. Think of this as Round One. We witnessed a surprisingly strong preview of Round Two in the aggressive reforms pushed by some Democratic senators. These proposals could someday—maybe sooner than we imagine—constitute the platform for authentic reordering of the banking system.
In the trenches the legislative battle was Democrats against Democrats (Republican senators were united in opposing everything). These roll calls made visible the deeply conflicted purposes of the party—the awkward straddle Democrats have maintained for three decades. Is it the party of working people or the party of big money? Democrats have for some time wanted to be both, but this year's action exposed the contradiction more starkly and put the two sides into repeated collision.
Senator Byron Dorgan's amendment would have outlawed the exotic "naked" credit default swaps, which let bankers and others bet on assets they do not own (like buying fire insurance on your neighbor's house, then lighting the match). Other Democrats decided to table Dorgan's measure rather than choose between Wall Street and public anger at Wall Street. Dorgan's issue lost big, thirty-eight to fifty-seven, but it won among Dems, thirty-six to eighteen.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's amendment on usury would have repealed the federal pre-emption that prevents states from enacting their own limits on consumer interest rates. Whitehouse got thirty-three Democrats for, twenty-one against. Roughly speaking, these roll calls joined old liberals and younger, newer senators against the party's center-right establishment, which is typically closer to financial patrons.
Senator Sherrod Brown's amendment followed the same pattern but on a far more fundamental issue—forcing the largest, most dominant banks to get smaller, breaking up concentrated financial power. Brown won among Democrats—thirty yes, twenty-seven no—though not enough to overcome Republican naysayers. Still, the Ohio senator came away remarkably optimistic about eventually winning.
"We got a majority of Democrats on the floor but almost nobody on the banking committee," Brown said. "It reminded me that this institution was built to protect the status quo—to protect the powerful against the people. In this chamber, we all sing with an upper-class accent, so to speak."
Yet Brown sees the path by which breaking up the banks will be forced back before Congress. "In the long term, we are going to win this issue," he said. "I can't say what the long term is, but the business community is eventually going to be for it." That's because the legislation implicitly awards privileged status to the very largest financial institutions, which means the disadvantages of "too big to fail" will fall upon smaller banks and other corporations. That, Brown thinks, will build the support among them for decisive reform. "The biggest banks get a built-in advantage because capital markets understand, or believe, that these big banks will never be allowed to fail," the senator explained. "Therefore, they get a lower interest rate when raising capital—seventy basis points or so—and therefore businesses naturally want to deal with them. So these big banks will get bigger and bigger."
The logic did not persuade this time around. "The argument against my amendment, implicitly, was, It's a radical thing to break up the banks—we can't go that far," Brown says. "The explicit argument was, We can't do that because it would disarm the country in global finance. That doesn't make any sense. You don't need $50 billion banks to get economies of scale."
Brown's spirit of confident optimism is the model for sustaining reform politics. As he sees it, liberal advocates can win if they do the hard work of explaining and recruiting not just among kindred spirits but among normally conservative business interests and ordinary apolitical citizens who don't call themselves liberal or progressive. Both groups are deeply angered and feeling threatened by the swelling concentration of Wall Street power. "It will not take another financial crisis to get back to breaking up the banks," Brown predicted.
A similar strategy is being taken up by labor and citizen reform groups, especially those outside the Beltway, like National People's Action. They intend to aim direct action at banks and focus on people's concrete grievances. That starts with the foreclosure crisis, which Washington has shamefully neglected.
Instead of congratulating Democrats for enacting timid measures, we should show them what we have in mind for Round Two.

---

Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/article/36905/battling-banksters

Reform the California Constitution ?

That California government is in a financial crisis is not news – but it is in  crisis.  And, that only 13% of Californians think that the legislature – both Republican and Democrats are doing a good job, indicates a that an opportunity exists to throw the baby out with the bath water.  Or, as Rahm Emanuel says, “don’t allow a good crisis to go to waste.”

At an interesting conference, “Getting to Reform: Avenues to Constitutional Change in California,” on October 14, at the Sacramento Convention Center,  Prof. Kimberly Nalder, an associate professor of Government  at Sacramento State said California voters are like a person  who contracts with a personal trainer to lose weight, then says, “but I don’t want to do any exercise and I don’t want to go on a diet.”  and then blames the trainer for not producing results.  The conference was sponsored by the Center for California Studies at CSU-Sacramento and others. 

New Field Poll figures released Wednesday Oct.14, at the  conference show that voters think the state needs fundamental reform. And, majorities would favor a constitutional convention to propose revisions.

However, they  tend to oppose commonly discussed changes such as reducing the two-thirds voting threshold to pass a state budget or raise taxes, modifying or eliminating term limits and altering the state tax system.

"The rub is, what are we going to reform?" Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo said. "With these results, it's going to be a tall order to put a package before voters that they will support."

            There are two major groups promoting fundamental change, Repair California a mostly business interests group that plans to place a measure on the ballot for November 2010 calling a convention ( http://www.repaircalifornia.org/),  and California Forward ( http://www.caforward.org/), a mostly business interest group –along with the State Building and Construction Trades Unions and other bipartisan advocates- who prefer to change the constitution with a series of concrete proposals rather than a convention.  For example, a proposition could be placed on the ballot calling for a majority rule in the legislature rather than the current 2/3 requirement to pass a budget or to raise taxes.  The Repair California convention approach assumes that delegates to a convention would be selected rather than elected and the 2/3 vote requirement would be off the agenda of the convention. See prior post on June 23,2009. 

             Scholars and advocates at the conference noted that California voters want more services and to pay less taxes, and some hope that a Constitutional Convention will achieve this improbably end.  R. William Hauk, of the California Roundtable ( a business lobbying power house), the pre eminent Capitol insider argued that  “the sky really is falling,” and that excessive partisanship prevented the legislature from fixing the very real financial problems of the state.  This is a position- it should be noted- frequently taken when your side is not winning.

            Prof. Amy Bridges of U.C. San Diego gave a historical analysis of the last time a constitutional convention revised the California Constitution in 1879 and Glen Gendzel, of  History at San Jose State U.  reported on the reform efforts of 1911 which brought us the initiative, the referendum, and the recall processes.

The history was informative, however it failed to note that the 1879 constitution replaced the 1849 constitution, and in so doing it eliminated the protections of bilingualism, of Mexican American political and property rights, and established a regime of  White Supremacy.  They did note  the infamous efforts to ban Chinese immigration.   These issues continue to resonate as recently as California Prop. 187 and 227.  Proposition 187 itself was somewhat inaccurately described at the conference as having no practical effect because of the federal court injunction. That is partly correct.  However, as those of us who were active in the campaign for No on Prop. 187 know, most of the provisions of  California Prop. 187 went on to be included in the Immigration Reform and Control act of 1996 and thus apply throughout the nation.  So, for ethnic minorities, the constitutional convention route may be fraught with peril.  Noticeably, the conference was almost 90% Anglo with an roughly equal distribution of men and women participants.  California’s registered voters are 65% White, 21% Latino, 5.8 % African American, and 8.2 % Asian and other.

There was a significant presence of English speaking media participating on panels so I anticipate that readers will soon see essays based upon the polls and the presentations at the conference. For details on the many aspects of the reform efforts  see http://www.ReformCalifornia.org.

The precedings of the conference will be on line at http://igs.berkeley.edu/events/reform2010.html. And will be broadcast on the California Channel.

Obama on schools, teachers, and education

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/10/AR2009031000146.html?hpid=topnews
Obama Pitches Strategy to Improve Teaching Corps, Overhaul U.S. Education

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 10, 2009; 1:55 PM
President Obama today sharply criticized America's public school system, and he outlined a strategy to reward good teachers and fire bad ones, establish uniform academic achievement standards and increase spending on the first and final stages of a person's education.
In a speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Obama called on teachers unions, state education officials and parents to change a "relative decline of American education" that "is untenable for our economy, unsustainable for our democracy and unacceptable for our children."

"For decades, Washington has been trapped in the same stale debates that have paralyzed progress and perpetuated our educational decline," Obama said. "Too many supporters of my party have resisted the idea of rewarding excellence in teaching with extra pay, even though it can make a difference in the classroom. Too many in the Republican Party have opposed new investments in early education, despite compelling evidence of its importance."

Obama's speech, his first devoted to education since he became president, had a tone of urgency at a time when the public education system is scheduled to receive about $100 billion of new federal money under the recently passed stimulus plan. The money might give Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, more power to change a public education system traditionally guided more at the state and local levels than by the federal government.

Although many of the ideas he outlined have been proposed before or are in the works, Obama used the speech to offer a sense of his priorities, linking many of them to the success of the U.S. economy. He encouraged experimentation in the public school system, including lifting the limits on the number of charter schools allowed in some states and considering longer school days to bring U.S. classroom hours in line with some Asian countries where students are scoring higher on standardized tests.
The president signaled a willingness to take on some traditional Democratic constituencies, including teachers unions, which in the past have been skeptical of some merit pay proposals. Senior administration officials, who declined to be named because they were describing the speech before it was delivered, said Obama would include the unions in discussions about any incentive plans.

He said he intends to treat "teachers like the professionals they are while also holding them more accountable." Good teachers will be given pay raises, he said, and "be asked to accept more responsibility for lifting up their schools."

But Obama also said stated that school systems must be "taking steps to move bad teachers out of the classroom."

"Let me be clear: If a teacher is given a chance but still does not improve, there is no excuse for that person to continue teaching," Obama said. "I reject a system that rewards failure and protects a person from its consequences."

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, a union with more than a million members, said in a statement that "teachers want to make a difference in kids' lives, and they appreciate a president who shares that goal and will spend his political capital to provide the resources to make it happen."

"As with any public policy, the devil is in the details," Weingarten said. "And it is important that teachers' voices are heard as we implement the president's vision."

Obama's call for states to adopt uniform academic achievement standards is likely to anger many Republicans, who generally favor giving local school systems the ability to design curriculum and set testing standards. To make his point, Obama said, "Today's system of 50 different sets of benchmarks for academic success means fourth-grade readers in Mississippi are scoring nearly 70 points lower than students in Wyoming -- and getting the same grade."

Obama chose the venue, senior administration officials said, to emphasize the growing proportion of Latinos entering the public school system. Obama said a quarter of public-school kindergartners are Latino, adding that they "are less likely to be enrolled in early education programs than anyone else." He said the stimulus plan includes $5 billion to expand the Early Head Start and Head Start programs.

He also noted that Latino students are "dropping out faster than just about anyone else," a national problem that cuts across ethnic lines he said must be resolved. He noted that "just 2,000 high schools in cities like Detroit, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia produce over 50 percent of America's dropouts."

Regarding higher education, Obama said he would expand several federally funded grant programs, including allowing Pell Grants to rise at the rate of inflation and take on "wasteful student loan subsidies." The goal, he said, was to make "college affordable for 7 million more students."

"So, yes, we need more money. Yes, we need more reform. Yes, we need to hold ourselves accountable for every dollar we spend," Obama said. "But there is one more ingredient I want to talk to about. The bottom line is that no government policies will make any difference unless we also hold ourselves more accountable as parents."

Reclaiming Education

Reclaiming Education: How to Resist the Growing Threat to Public Education
By Susan Harman and Deborah Meier (online)


AMERICANS HAVE settled on the idea that many of our nation’s problems can be blamed on our school system and that the only way to solve them is through “school reform.” It’s an old story, but it's become the bipartisan line in 1983 with the publication of A Nation at Risk (ANAR). An odd alliance pulled this story together, led by corporate lobbyists, neoconservatives, and the media, and joined by civil rights organizations, union leaders, activists, some institutional liberals (like Ted Kennedy), and some school leaders eager for the attention that brings money. Together they have relentlessly sold a story that has wasted our time, energy, and resources, and pointed us in the wrong direction.

No matter what the question is, these alarmists have the answer. Why is the economy in bad shape? Look at the lousy math scores of U.S. students in the international competitions. Why are so many young African-Americans and Latinos in prison? They didn’t learn how to read in school. Why do poor and minority children score so much lower on tests than better-off white children (the notorious “achievement gap”)? Teachers are engaging in the “soft bigotry of low expectations” and have allowed some students to fail to meet high standards without any consequences. Why are students unprepared to accept the responsibilities of adult citizenship (voting, earning a good living, taking care of their children)? Schools help promote a bleeding heart, welfare state mentality and we need to reform our accountability measures.

Dissent plans on setting this record straight with "Reclaiming Education," a series of articles that will appear in print and online. Many researchers have carefully examined, challenged, and refuted various aspects of this radical reform agenda, and their arguments have appeared in a variety of academic journals and books, but only rarely have they been published in magazines aimed at a general public. As a result, the fact that much of this research calls into question the rationale behind No Child Left Behind remains a well-kept secret.

In these pages, we intend to connect the dots between the many pieces of research and demonstrate that the educational crisis is not what the public has been led to think it is, that there is virtually no research that supports ongoing corporate and federal policies, that the media has been irresponsible and complicit in hiding the truth, that the proposed solutions are unsupported and dangerous, and that the devastating consequences we are now seeing are not "unintended." To the contrary, these radical reforms were intended by a powerful, well-funded wing of the reform agenda to dismantle our public education system and replace it with precisely the kind of marketplace reforms that are by their nature untrustworthy and unaccountable. We hope these articles will mobilize policymakers and citizens to join us in resisting this attack on our public education system and democracy.

The 1983 assault of ANAR is the subject of Gerald Bracey’s opening critique in Dissent's forthcoming fall issue. Meanwhile, Kathy Emery will document the agenda of the corporate wing of the reform juggernaut for the Web.

The corporate agenda was implemented quite effectively under Governor George W. Bush in Texas and came to be known hyperbolically as the “Texas Miracle” because it apparently resulted in high test scores, high graduation rates, low drop-out rates, and a narrowing “achievement gap” between students of color and whites. The “miracle” turned out to be a mirage, as Linda McNeil will argue in her contribution to this series, but before we knew this, Bush exported his “miracle” to Washington, D.C. and forced it on the entire country as the 2001 authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as No Child Left Behind. False stories lead to false solutions; this is the history of NCLB. There will be other online pieces documenting the destructive impact and current disarray of the coalition that brought us NCLB.

For instance, when President Bush brags about how much money he’s given to education, he is talking about the $6 billion that has come through Reading First grants, a part of No Child Left Behind. The awarding of these grants has been the object of investigation by the Education Department’s Office of the Inspector General. Reading First’s results (or lack thereof) have been well-documented, and Congress has just cut off the project’s funding. In our first Web article, Stephen Krashen provides a critique of Reading First. Soon to follow is another article by Gerald Bracey on international comparisons of test scores and what they do and don’t mean about our schools.

We hope that each of the author’s accounts will help readers make connections between the current wave of education reform and the larger attack on public institutions and life. We believe that while schools cannot do it all there is a great deal to be learned from research about what a progressive agenda for school reform might look like. The slogan about leaving no child behind may be grandiose, but it’s surely worthwhile pursuing such an ambition.

Please check Dissent's Web pages often for this ongoing series that aims to help impact future educational policy and rescue our schools and democracy.

Read Stephen Krashen on Reading First


Susan Harman is a semi-retired principal, teacher, psychologist, and writer, and the Coordinator of CalCARE, the California Resistance to the standards and testing madness. Deborah Meier is currently a senior scholar at New York University, and has spent the past 45 years as a public school educator, activist and writer. Homepage and Feature Photo: A classroom at Detroit Holy Redeemer High School (Wikicommmons).

A bolder approach to education reform

There's an interesting full-page ad in today's Washington Post and New York Times, entitled "A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education": http://www.boldapproach.org/bold_approach_full_statement.pdf. It's signed by a list of luminaries, including several Clinton Administration appointees, but also people like Deborah Meier, Diane Ravitch, and Richard Rothstein , Lawrence Mishel, William Julius Wilson, Ernesto Cortes and others.

While criticizing NCLB for focusing solely on school improvement, the statement calls for a greater emphasis on addressing out-of-school factors like children's health, as well as early-childhood education, and a saner approach to accountability. "Broad" it certainly is. Not very many specifics. But I suspect it will have a significant impact in reframing the debate over NCLB reauthorization -- from how to "fix NCLB" to a comprehensive discussion of the federal role in education. Assuming that the Democrats retain control of Congress (whether or not they win the White House), I expect that these will be the parameters of the debate next year.

This is a positive development, in my view, and it's consistent with other efforts now under way. One involves the Forum on Educational Accountability (http://edaccountability.org/), the coalition of 140-odd education and civil rights groups whose Joint Statement the Institute has endorsed. It's now working on more detailed papers.

Perhaps most important is work by the Forum on Education and Democracy, which released a paper a few weeks ago ("Democracy at Risk") that does offer quite a few specifics about the federal role: http://www.forumforeducation.org/foruminaction/index.php?page=31&item=430.

NCLB needs change

No Child law's authors work on a revision

Respond to complaints

By Susan Milligan, Boston Globe | July 16, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The landmark No Child Left Behind law, which has drawn impassioned criticism from educators and parents unhappy with its stringent requirements for public schools to raise students' test scores, is being rewritten on Capitol Hill to fix what the bill's authors now acknowledge are flaws.

Lawmakers say they will not abandon the basic tenets of the legislation, which requires yearly testing of elementary and some secondary school students, and holds schools and districts accountable for poor test scores.

But after five years of complaints -- followed by sit-downs in recent months with teachers, administrators, and civil rights leaders -- Congress and the Bush administration are ready to change the way schools and students are rated.

They say the changes will help states and school districts identify more clearly which students need extra help, while avoiding labeling entire schools as failing because they have students who are harder to teach, such as those with learning disabilities or limited English skills.

The original authors of the bill, Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Representative George Miller, are looking at a slew of changes, including expanding the way "adequate yearly progress" is calculated, so schools that barely miss the testing thresholds are not put in the same failing category as schools with across-the-board learning problems.

Other proposals include giving schools more time to improve test scores before schools are forced to take corrective action.

"Everything's up for review," said Miller , Democrat of California and chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. "I've always said I was the proud co author of No Child Left Behind. . . . Now, I'm determined to be the proud author of a No Child Left Behind that works."

Kennedy, who worked closely with President Bush in writing the law, has for years said the much-reviled measure would work if the administration provided the money schools need to develop good tests and help struggling students, especially those in poorer school districts.

But the Massachusetts Democrat said in a Globe interview that he now believes the law itself must be changed as well. Many of the presidential candidates in both parties have called for changes in the law, and several -- including Democratic Senators Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Hillary Clinton of New York, and Barack Obama of Illinois -- have introduced legislation.

"We still have to have the concept of accountability," said Kennedy, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. But "what we need to do is get away from labeling, get away from the punitive aspects, and give help and assistance to the neediest schools. We're now on a pathway to make some sense on this."

Miller and Kennedy said they hope to begin work this month on writing the revised version of No Child Left Behind. The law is up for reauthorization this year, which means Congress must vote on whether to extend it.

Miller said he was pessimistic only six weeks ago that he could rally his Democratic colleagues to extend the controversial law, but has recently convinced fellow lawmakers that the law can work well if it is rewritten to address the complaints from constituents.

The law requires yearly testing in math and reading for students in grades 3 through 8; students are also tested once in high school to gauge their academic progress. Schools can be labeled as in need of improvement -- and eventually, as a failing school -- if students' scores do not meet what the law calls "adequate yearly progress."

The law provides for additional help for students needing assistance, and parents can also send their children to another public school if a school is deemed unsuccessful. In extreme cases, a school can be closed for poor performance.

Educators have complained mightily about the law, saying the testing rules do not fully measure whether a student is learning. School administrators say they are being wrongly punished for lower test scores from students with learning difficulties, and some parents are unhappy with schools' decisions to curtail art and music education to focus on meeting testing thresholds in math and reading.

Funding, too, is a major complaint from both educators and congressional Democrats, who say that No Child Left Behind has never been given all the money authorized in the law by Congress. The Bush administration said that funding for elementary and secondary schools has increased each year since Bush took office, often by more than it did under President Bill Clinton -- a fact Kennedy acknowledges.

But states are still not getting the money they need to develop appropriate tests and provide the extra help students need to make the test-score improvements demanded in the law, Kennedy said.

Nonetheless, complaints from teachers have been so strong that some say it is unclear whether the changes under consideration will appease educators, and some political leaders, unhappy with No Child Left Behind.

While teachers say they share the goals of providing a high-quality education to all children, regardless of race, economic background, or disability, many fear that the rules might undermine public education and send more students fleeing into private schools.

"The Bush administration was setting up the public schools to fail, and to undermine public confidence" in them, said Kevin Fleming , a teacher at Winnacunnet High School in Exeter, N.H.

At a conference late last month for the National Education Association, candidates for president slammed the law, saying the testing requirements force educators to "teach to the test" and stifle creativity in the classroom.

Further, the testing structure -- which holds schools accountable for the progress of an entire class, instead of individual students -- is unrealistic, said NEA president Reg Weaver. "Not all children learn at the same rate, at the same speed," Weaver said in an interview.

Dodd is author of the most sweeping package on Capitol Hill to overhaul No Child Left Behind. Dodd annoyed some of his colleagues when he introduced his proposal several years ago, when the education law was still new. He is now drawing support for some of the alterations he's seeking. They include easing certification requirements for teachers and giving schools more ways to show they are making students better at math and reading.

"Test scores obviously have value, but if it's the only thing you're doing, you're not making a coherent and substantial judgment of how an individual is doing or how a school is doing," Dodd said in an interview.

More than 30 pieces of legislation to alter No Child Left Behind have been introduced on Capitol Hill, by the NEA's count -- some of them from Republicans.

Senators Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Richard Burr of North Carolina -- both Republicans -- introduced legislation last week aimed at keeping the accountability and testing concepts while giving more leeway to schools. For example, the bill would give schools more time to achieve test standards among children just learning English, and treat schools with small populations of low-achieving students less harshly than those with widespread problems.

The Bush administration is also ready to make some changes in the law.

The Department of Education has launched a limited program allowing several states to use different ways of calculating a school's progress in boosting test scores.

"We shifted our national education dialogue from how much we are spending to how much children are learning," Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said in a statement. "Today, we need a new conversation about how to strengthen and improve this law."

Commission on Skills of U.S. work force

Once again a new report of the The Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce.
Once again U.S. business leaders and elected officials decry the low level of education of U.S. students. ( This has consistently been debunked by Gerald Bracey).
Once again a plea that the business community needs a better prepared workforce- not a bad thing.
However, this is a business community and their political allies who have looted the U.S. with outrageous salaries, tax benefits, bonuses and subsidies. (See United for a Fair Economy) The Wall Street Journal reports a total of 23.9 Billion dollars given in bonuses this week. How many schools would that fund?
This is a business community which has looted the public treasury by insisting upon and getting massive tax breaks, thus taking funds away from schools.
So, the report argues U.S. schools are mediocre. Yes, and U.S. funding for schools is mediocre, and California funding for schools is below mediocre.
And, when school funding is mediocre, then funding for schools in poor peoples areas is below mediocre, and they lack well prepared teachers, adequate facilities, and reasonable class sizes. I bet not one of these business leaders and elected officials would spend more than one day living and working in conditions similar to that of the average U.S. school.

Or, as school reform scholar Theodore Sizer says, “The measure of the worth of any society is how it treats its most vulnerable citizens. By this standard, America- the richest nation in the history of the world- falls visibly short….
Inadequately funded or equipped schools, however efficient, rarely provide a thorough education..
In most states, access to public education is limited by one’s neighborhood. The effect is that wealthier families have access to schools with more robust funding than do their poorer neighbors. Segregation by class is the rule, not the exception. "
Sizer, Theodore, “Preamble: a reminder for Americans,” in Many Children Left Behind, Deborah Meier and George Wood, editors. 2004.


"Just a week after Morgan Stanley chief executive John J. Mack scored an unprecedented $41.1 million bonus, there is a new record on Wall Street. Securities firm Goldman Sachs disclosed that it paid Lloyd C. Blankfein, its chairman and chief executive since June, a bonus of $53.4 million in 2006, the highest ever for a Wall Street chief executive. The payout comes soon after Goldman reported a record profit of $9.5 billion in 2006. Its stock price is up almost 60 percent for the year. And on Wednesday, Thomson Financial published preliminary 2006 results showing that Goldman once again topped the list of mergers and acquisitions advisers, taking part in global deals with a total value of more than $1 trillion.

Goldman’s compensation committee awarded Mr. Blankfein $27.3 million in cash, $15.7 million in restricted stock and options to buy Goldman stock valued at $10.5 million. Added to his $600,000 salary, the bonus means that Mr. Blankfein will make $54 million this year, up from $38 million last year." NYT.

Duane Campbell