When President Obama announced on June 9 that some financial institutions would be allowed to repay Troubled Asset Relief Program dollars, he said the massively expensive TARP bailout had made money for the federal government. "It is worth noting that in the first round of repayments from these [TARP recipients], the government has actually turned a profit," the president said. Indeed, TARP supporters have long held out the hope that the program might be profitable.
But now Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has come up with a proposal to spend any TARP profits before they can be returned to the taxpayers. Last Friday, Frank introduced the "TARP for Main Street Act of 2009," a bill that would take profits from the program and immediately redirect them toward housing proposals favored by Frank and some fellow Democrats.
In exchange for receiving TARP money, financial institutions were required to hand over shares of preferred stock that paid a dividend for the government. In theory, if a financial institution paid the dividend faithfully, and then repaid the TARP money, then the government would turn a profit. Last month, the General Accountability Office (GAO) reported that, through June 12, 2009, the government had received $6.2 billion in dividend payments. The original TARP legislation required that money made from the program "shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury for reduction of the public debt."
Frank, however, wants to spend the money before it can be used to pay down anything. First, the "TARP for Main Street" proposal would take $1 billion "from dividends paid by financial institutions that have received financial assistance provided under...the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" and apply it to a trust fund that Frank has long wanted to create for low-income rental housing. (The measure, unfunded, was part of last year's bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.) Next, Frank would take $1.5 billion from TARP dividends for a so-called "neighborhood stabilization" fund. Republican critics have charged that both measures might allow federal dollars to be distributed to activist groups like the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, or ACORN.
The "TARP for Main Street" bill would also spend $2 billion, apparently from remaining TARP funds, to subsidize people who are delinquent on their mortgages, and another $2 billion to "stabilize multifamily properties that are in default or foreclosure."
Frank's proposal comes at a time when Republicans, and some Democrats, are expressing concern about the continued use of TARP money. Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch recently complained that TARP funds are "now being used as a go-to solution to address all of our nation's economic ills." Hatch and Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln recently introduced a bill that would require that TARP money goes back to the Treasury for debt reduction.
Spending the dividend payments now, as Frank proposes, would reduce the chance that TARP might ever be a break-even deal for the taxpayers. "We don't know if TARP is going to be making any money, so taking the dividend payments going back to Treasury is pretty questionable," says one House GOP aide. Indeed, in its June report, the GAO revealed that 17 troubled institutions have not paid their dividends, much less repaid the TARP money itself. And last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that three other institutions were not paying dividends. But now, Frank is proposing that dividends be spent immediately. "It defeats the idea of taxpayer protection," says the GOP aide.
Intentionally placed under "lurid crime tales"....
#2
Last Friday, Frank introduced the "TARP for Main Street Act of 2009," a bill that would take profits from the program and immediately redirect them toward housing proposals favored by Frank and some fellow Democrats more pork to benefit Frank and his cronies.
#3
The original TARP legislation required that money made from the program "shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury for reduction of the public debt."
DeParle made millions from companies under federal investigation
Nancy-Ann DeParle, President Barack Obamas health policy czar, served as a director of corporations that faced scores of federal investigations, whistleblower lawsuits and other regulatory actions, according to government records reviewed by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University.
Several of the companies were investigated for alleged kickbacks or engaging in other illegal billing schemes, while others were accused of serious violations of federal quality standards, including one company that failed to warn patients of deadly problems with an implanted heart defibrillator. Several of the cases ended with substantial fines paid to the federal government, even though the companies admitted no wrongdoing.
Since leaving her government job running Medicare for the Clinton administration, DeParle built a lucrative private-sector career. Records show she earned more than $6.6 million since early 2001, according to a tally by the Investigative Reporting Workshop.
Much of that corporate career was built at companies that have frequently had to defend themselves against federal investigations. After leaving government, DeParle accepted director positions at half a dozen companies suspected of violating the very laws and regulations she had enforced for Medicare. Those companies got into further trouble on her watch as a director.
Now shes back in government as a leading voice in deciding the shape of health care reform. Named by Obama in March as director of the White House Office of Health Reform, making $158,000 a year, DeParle is the point person in pushing for the administration's plans for changing health care and the ways Americans pay for it changes in which her former companies have a great deal at stake.
Critics see DeParles re-emergence as a classic case of Washington revolving door syndrome, despite Obamas suggestions that he would shut that door.
The administration faces a balancing act, said Steve Ellis of the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense. Obama must find leaders with the proper expertise, but who are not so conflicted that they cannot engage in all facets of the debate.
Advocates of a single-payer coverage plan say that DeParle may be indebted to the companies she served, and more broadly to the health care industry.
This woman owes her fortune to the corporations that she is making decisions about, said Dr. David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard University and a co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program.
She cashed in really big on her previous role in government and made millions and millions of dollars. Then she divests and all of a sudden shes Snow White. Its ridiculous.
Among DeParles corporate connections:
*DaVita Inc., which owns and operates kidney dialysis centers, has been the subject of several government probes into its billing and drug-prescribing practices, most recently in December by Justice Department investigators in Georgia. DeParle joined the DaVita board in May 2001 and resigned in July 2008 to devote more time to her other business activities, according to the company. She earned more than $2 million in compensation and stock sales, according to records at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
*Boston Scientific Corp. reported to the SEC that it received five state or federal subpoenas during 2008, including ones from the Justice Department and Health and Human Services, which oversees the Medicare agency. In addition, Defense Department criminal investigators are looking into the companys marketing interactions with doctors at a U.S. Army hospital in Tacoma, Wash. DeParle joined the Boston Scientific board in April 2006 and resigned on March 4 of this year, two days after she was appointed to the White House post. She earned more than $1.4 million in compensation and stock sales from her years at Boston Scientific and a company it bought, the Guidant Corp.
*Guidant, which already was in legal trouble for failing to disclose 12 patient deaths when DeParle joined the board in 2001, has since then faced new problems. After a college student died in 2005 when his implanted defibrillator failed on a biking trip, his doctor told Congress that Guidant officials had known of similar problems for three years, but failed to tell the public.
Read details of DeParles industry connections.
Five of the corporations whose boards DeParle served on have paid a total of $566 million since 2003 to settle fraud or product liability cases, often involving tax dollars paid by Medicare.
#1
boy, howdy! Now we know how the single-payer system will save money. The Feds aren't gonna regulate or fine themselves, so it's bottom-of-the-barrel treatment time
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2009 18:43 Comments ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declares a fiscal emergency as lawmakers failed to pass a budget to close the state's $ 24.3 billion gap.
The emergency means that the state may start issuing IOU's instead of checks as soon as Wednesday. Schwarzenegger also ordered state workers to take a third unpaid day of leave every month, to help save the largest state in the US some 1 billion dollars annually.
Schwarzenegger declared the emergency after lawmakers failed to agree on a balanced budget prior to the start of the fiscal year which began on Wednesday morning. The Democratic majority did pass a bill, but Schwarzenegger vetoed it because it contained tax increases and not the roster of cuts and political reform that the former action movie star had advocated.
Schwarzenegger vowed to veto every bill until a budget is passed.
In Washington, White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs said the administration was eyeing California's crisis but had no plans to intervene. He touted the 144 billion dollars that went to struggling states as part of broader economic stimulus package approved in February.
"There are a number of states that find themselves at the end of the fiscal year and required to pass budgets. We're certainly watching," Gibbs said in Washington.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2009 00:00 ||
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ION LITTLE GREEN FOOTBALS > GLEN BECK AND MICHAEL SHEUER [former CIA Agent]> GLEN BECK Prog > [Sheuer]OSAMA MAY HAVE TO ATTACK AND DETONATE A NUCLEAR BOMB IN THE USA TO SAVE IT FROM ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.
#7
No $hit Arnold. The genie has been out of the bottle for some time. After decades of liberal policies, run away government, rampant government spending, the fleeing of businesses, providing government welfare and services to everyone legal and illegal,in California, you are surprised? I don't know what will fix California or if it can be fixed.
#8
Beware the Fed Repo Man: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed closing 220 state parks. But the National Park Service warned in a letter to Schwarzenegger that six of those parks are on former federal land that could revert to the U.S. government if they are not kept open as parks.
#9
Doesn't the government pay for the courts?
if so try cutting judges pay, and the screaming will reach deafening levels, issue them IOU"s instead of pay.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/02/2009 17:13 Comments ||
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California after Man.... you wouldn't know we'd been there.
Man's environmental footprint would, according to a report in New Scientist, begin to deteriorate almost immediately, with light pollution the first to go as power stations ceased to provide energy.
By tomorrow, street lights and house lights left on by their former occupants would start to go out.
Streets and cultivated fields would be the next to go.
Within 20 years, village streets and rural roads would have vanished under a thick matting of weeds; fields would be overgrown within months.
Urban streets would take a little longer, but even in huge man-made sprawls such as London and Sydney, plants would have taken over within about 50 years. Buildings would decay rapidly. Wooden structures would collapse first, assaulted by bugs and grubs. All such homes would be gone in a century.
Glass and steel tower blocks that create city skylines would mostly fall down within 200 years.
Brick, stone and concrete structures would last longer.
With exceptions - the pyramids are already 3000 years old - by the next millennium there would be little more left than ruins.
#11
Sounds like an "envirionmentalist's" wet dream, B.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/02/2009 17:41 Comments ||
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#12
They're ignoring massive earthworks, like dams (Solid concrete, acts like solid rock) Interstate and other major highways where they cut through small hills, and railroad cuts.
Those would remain.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/02/2009 19:18 Comments ||
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#13
as would the bridges I work on
/full of shit bravado
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2009 19:30 Comments ||
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#14
Ya know Ahnauld, your movie Commando* had a very satisfactory solution for a spendthrift legislature.
* I think Commando had the highest BPM (Bodycount Per Minute) of any movie.
Posted by: ed ||
07/02/2009 22:16 Comments ||
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AP White House Correspondent= WASHINGTON (AP) â President Barack Obama said Thursday the Supreme Court was "moving the ball" on affirmative action in this week's decision favoring white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., but he added that the court had not ruled out the use of racial preferences in the future. Why must he always speak in sports jargon? It's what he knows ...
In a White House interview with The Associated Press, the president also said, "I don't think that hiring on the basis of race ... alone is constitutionally possible." Obama, a former teacher of constitutional law, said, "I've always believe that affirmative action was less of an issue or should be less of an issue than it has been made out to be in news reports." Former teacher was he? A Bill Ayers recruited, untenured 'guest lecturer' is more accurate.
Scheduled to depart next week on a trip to Russia, Italy and Ghana, Obama praised Moscow for its cooperation in attempting to persuade North Korea and Iran to abandon their nuclear development programs. The United Nations recently approved "the most robust sanction regime that we've ever seen with respect to North Korea," he said. Praising the bloody communists again. Does he ever tire of it?
The president said his agenda in Russia includes talks on a new treaty to curtail long-range nuclear missiles. Asked why he intends to meet with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the former president, Obama said he "still has a lot of sway." Putin now is nominally the second-in-command in the Kremlin. Yes of course, please continue to believe that Puttie is second in command.
Chiding the former president, he said Putin "has one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new."
Obama also is to meet with the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, and said it is important that both Medvedev and Putin hear the same message from the United States, the U.S. president said.
Obama expressed reservations about his recently announced policy that could leave some detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison indefinitely. "It gives me huge pause," he said, to the point where he may not see it through. He also ruled out establishing a system on his own by executive order if Congress refuses to pass legislation.
"We're going to proceed very carefully on this front, and it may turn out that after looking at all the dimensions of this that I don't feel comfortable with (it)," Obama said. The president has pledged to close the prison in Cuba and hopes to send most of those currently held there to other countries.
With joblessness rising, the president said he was "deeply concerned" about unemployment and conceded that too many families are worried about "whether they will be next." Still, he said that since he took office almost six months ago "we have successfully stabilized the financial markets," and "started to see some stabilization on housing."
"But what we are still seeing is too many jobs lost," said Obama, commenting after new government figures showed the unemployment rate had risen to 9.5 percent last month.
Since Obama signed the $780 billion economic stimulus bill in February, the economy has shed more than 2 million jobs. That's an additional two million on top of the 3-4 million he promised to create during the campaign.
Asked if he was resigned to Iran's possession of nuclear weapons, he said, "I'm not reconciled with that, and I don't think the international community is reconciled with that."
In his comments on the Supreme Court case, Obama said the 5-4 ruling was written narrowly, and "didn't close the door to affirmative action" to help minorities.
Obama, a former teacher of constitutional law, said of affirmative action, "It hasn't been as potent a force for racial progress as advocates will claim and it hasn't been as bad on white students seeking admissions or seeking a job as its critics say." No bias here...as the absolute ultimate benefactor of all time, precisely how would he hope to know?
On other totally useless and unrelated topics:
He said Michael Jackson was "one of our greatest entertainers" and "I still have all his stuff on my iPod." But he said Jackson's life had been tragic and in many ways sad. So let me get this straight. His personal hero, certainly not mine.
The president spoke enthusiastically of the White House pastry chef. "Whatever kind of pie you want, he will make it," Obama said, adding ruefully that that was a problem for him and wife Michelle in regard to their weight. Yes, we've all noticed. The pastry chefs appear to be working around the clock./span>
Asked whether he was a bigger fan of Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan, one the reigning MVP of the National Basketball Association and the other a retired superstar, the basketball-playing president said without hesitation: "Michael. I haven't seen anybody match up with Jordan yet. Someone please tell me why this is important to anyone.
This is a good summary of how Franken won his Senate seat
The unfortunate lesson is that you don't need to win the vote on Election Day as long as your lawyers are creative enough to have enough new or disqualified ballots counted after the fact.
Mr. Franken trailed Mr. Coleman by 725 votes after the initial count on election night, and 215 after the first canvass. The Democrat's strategy from the start was to manipulate the recount in a way that would discover votes that could add to his total. The Franken legal team swarmed the recount, aggressively demanding that votes that had been disqualified be added to his count, while others be denied for Mr. Coleman.
But the team's real goldmine were absentee ballots, thousands of which the Franken team claimed had been mistakenly rejected. While Mr. Coleman's lawyers demanded a uniform standard for how counties should re-evaluate these rejected ballots, the Franken team ginned up an additional 1,350 absentees from Franken-leaning counties. By the time this treasure hunt ended, Mr. Franken was 312 votes up, and Mr. Coleman was left to file legal briefs.
What Mr. Franken understood was that courts would later be loathe to overrule decisions made by the canvassing board, however arbitrary those decisions were. He was right.
If the GOP hopes to avoid repeats, it should learn from Minnesota that modern elections don't end when voters cast their ballots. They only end after the lawyers count them.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/02/2009 12:26 ||
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So they kept counting until they got the result that was desired. Sounds a little like Iran elections...except in Iran they never counted them in the first place, they just announced the results.
#2
Gore came close in 2000. Franken must've learned from that and then went on to perfect the method. They'll squeal like stuck pigs if Republicans ever pull this kind of crap.
Wattsburg, Pa. -- Vice President Joe Biden visited a small town on the outskirts of Erie today to talk to rural folks about federal stimulus money that can be used to expand broadband access to the Internet for rural areas that typically have poor connections.
Apparently stimulus money and broadband are not all that interesting to the local folk here: Only around 100 or so people have showed up so far to hear Biden talk at noon at Seneca High School off Route 8 in Wattsburg.
The room looked so sparse that about 30 or so chairs were removed by volunteers to give the illusion of a full house.
The effect didn't exactly work.
Pittsburgh native and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper are also on hand to talk about access to high speed internet as an essential tool for success in business and in school in our struggling economy.
#1
...to talk to rural folks about federal stimulus money that can be used to expand broadband access to the Internet for rural areas that typically have poor connections.
Does that mean that they these rural areas typically have poor connections with the BO government but votes and money will change that?
#3
Since Biden is usually seen as the court jester in the kingdom of Bambi, maybe this small turnout is a reflection of and reaction to Bambi's campaign comments ... "they (Pennsylvanians)cling to their guns and religion"... Just sayin', ya' know.
When House Democratic leaders were rounding up votes Friday for the massive climate-change bill, they paid special attention to their colleagues from Ohio who remained stubbornly undecided.
They finally secured the vote of one Ohioan, veteran Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo, the old-fashioned way. They gave her what she wanted - a new federal power authority, similar to Washington state's Bonneville Power Administration, stocked with up to $3.5 billion in taxpayer money available for lending to renewable energy and economic development projects in Ohio and other Midwestern states.
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat, included the Kaptur project in a 310-page amendment to the legislation unveiled at 3 a.m. Friday, just hours before the bill was to be debated on the House floor. The amendment was packed with other vote-getting provisions, both large and small, that had been sought by dozens of wavering Democrats.
The wheeling and dealing proved successful. Mr. Waxman and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, backed by the personal lobbying of President Obama, won over enough lawmakers to pass the bill narrowly Friday evening, 219-212.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2009 00:00 ||
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Wow, and we (Israelis) complain endlessly about governmental corruption.
#4
For every government mandated "green" job, more than 2 jobs are lost in the productive economy to pay for it. Wost of all, that green job goes away when when government funding runs out, leaving Ms. Kaptur's constituents with nothing.
Posted by: ed ||
07/02/2009 10:01 Comments ||
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#5
Remember these politicians who are so cavalier with the spending of taxpayer monies and don't forget the Tea Parties scheduled for July 4th and the elections of 2010.
#6
I suspect Barry and Rahm have something up their oily sleeves to overtake the upcoming July 4th Tea Party media coverage and poor unemployment news.
Sen. Tom Davis, Gov. Mark Sanford's former chief of staff, said Wednesday he has spoken with both the governor and First Lady Jenny Sanford about the governor's future. Davis, in a statement, said only after those conversations and conversations with Attorney General Henry McMaster and SLED Chief Reggie Lloyd will he take a public position on Sanford's future.
"Obviously I have tremendous concern for my friends, Mark and Jenny Sanford and their family, but I also have a job to do as an elected official," said Davis, a Beaufort Republican. "Before any important decision I make comes due diligence, and I owe it to my constituents to perform that due diligence before taking a public position on an issue as important as whether to call for the resignation of a duly-elected statewide official."
"Accordingly, I have met today with the governor and members of his staff; I have had telephone conversations with my friend, Jenny Sanford; I have talked with the governor's legislative supporters and opponents; and I have talked with key reform leaders who have been fighting for the issues I believe in -- fiscal responsibility, limited government, market principles and individual liberty."
On Wednesday afternoon, Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell became the latest -- and one of the most significant -- members of the S.C. legislature to say the governor should consider stepping down after admitting to an affair.
In a statement, McConnell encouraged Sanford to do the right thing: "Neither I nor my colleagues in the General Assembly can require that the Governor resign," McConnell said in his statement. "That decision is his alone. I do believe, however, that the Governor has lost the support of the people that is needed to govern. Therefore, I would ask the Governor to look in his heart and decide whether with his family situation and the public uproar over what he has done and said locally and nationally whether he can lead our state for the remainder of his term."
Ten Republican state senators have asked the governor to step down, while others say they are leaning in that direction. The Associated Press is reporting that 14 Republican state senators are supporting a resignation, which is a majority of the 27 GOP members.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2009 00:00 ||
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You stay right where you are, Sanford. Doing a clinton is not strange for the political class even as sad as it is. Just stay off the cameras for a while. Could you afford to just do governer work for awhile? And shut up and lay low and fix infrastructure and stuff?
#3
So, just because it is 'common enough' behavior, it's ok? I am sick and tired of the hypocrisy in this country. Than man is scum. Besides the infidelity, he vanished for several days. The fucking governor of a state was just gone, no one knew where he was. Not only that, he was using TAXPAYER money to fund his little affair. Sickening. And more sickening that people are defending him. If he was democrat you hypocrits would be demanding that he step down. And he should step down. He is a disgrace.
#4
Man up, conduct a professional handover, step down and end the sophomoric drama. You're doing the party and the State of South Carolina no good, no good at all. Worst of all, Barry and his cadre love it!
One state senator's urge for a Coca Cola led to the latest fracas inside the New York State Capitol building in Albany on Tuesday.
As state Democrats convened around noon to hold a one-party session, Republican Sen. Frank Padavan of Queens walked through the chamber on a hunt for the soda machine -- a caffeine quest that would later result with him being tallied as voting with the Democrats.
Padavan reportedly claimed he was taking a short-cut to the members' lounge, but the 31 Democrats seized the opportunity to count him as their 32nd vote and unanimously passed 125 bills in three hours with Republicans absent -- the latest attempt to break the 3-week-old stalemate that has caused a power struggle in Albany.
Democrats won a majority in New York's state Legislature in January following years of Republican control over the state Senate. But in an effort to toss power back to the GOP, two rebellious Democrats -- Sen. Pedro Espada of the Bronx and Sen. Hiram Monserrate of Queens -- switched parties June 8 to join the Republicans. Monserrate, however, has since rejoined the Democrats, creating a 31-31 stalemate in the Senate.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2009 00:00 ||
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Why does New York elect morons to state office?
Al Franken's victory in the Minnesota Senate race gives Democrats a filibuster-proof majority in that chamber, and President Obama wants to keep it that way. That's why he has been asking Democrats across the country to refrain from challenging incumbent Democratic senators in primary races. But Representatives Joe Sestak and Carolyn Maloney are disregarding Mr. Obama's request. Both have announced their candidacy for 2010 Senate Democratic primaries.
According to the Pennsylvanian Wayne Independent, Sestak said Wednesday that he will challenge Senator Arlen Specter, the Republican-turned-Democrat of Pennsylvania. Speculation about Sestak's bid has been circulating for some time now. Last week, he wrote in a fundraising e-mail saying that he believed Specter would not be reelected to the Senate and that it was "time for a change."
"The leading polling organization in the state released its latest poll that finds a strong majority -- 57% -- of Pennsylvanians now believe Arlen Specter does not deserve to be reelected to the U.S. Senate; that it's time for a change!" Sestak wrote,as Politico reports.
According to a newly released Rassmussen poll, Specter is leading Sestak 51 percent to 32 percent, although Sestak hadn't officially announced his candidacy at the time of the survey. Former potential challenger Joe Torsella has already endorsed Specter, saying that he will "work hard" on issues "most important to me and families across Pennsylvania," Talking Points Memo reports.
Specter defected from the GOP in part because it would boost his chances for reelection.
A spokeswoman for Carolyn Maloney, meanwhile, announced today that the New York representative would run against incumbent New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the Associated Press reports. "She's definitely decided to run," a senior adviser to Maloney told the New York Daily News
According to the AP, a statement by Maloney's chief strategist Paul Blank says that the representative feels New York needs a "strong, experienced and independent leader." Blank also says Maloney will make the announcement herself in two weeks. A recent Quinnipiac University poll shows Maloney leading Gillibrand among Democrats 27 percent to 23 percent with 44 percent undecided, CNN reports.
Gillibrand was appointed to the Senate by New York governor David Paterson to fill the seat vacated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2009 00:00 ||
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Is Sestak likely to run against Specter from the right? I don't know him, he's not from 'round these parts. If he does, he's probably got my primary vote. No promises about the general. Depends on whether Ridge pisses me off more than he already has these last ten years or so.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
07/02/2009 16:35 Comments ||
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Chicago Public School reform largely has failed, with the vast bulk of students either dropping out or unprepared for college and apparent gains at the grade-school level more perceived than real.
That's the bottom line of a blockbuster report released Tuesday by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club, a report that directly challenges the legitimacy of one of Mayor Richard M. Daley's major claimed accomplishments.
Titled "Still Left Behind," the report freely uses terms like "abysmal" to describe the true state of public education in Chicago. The report was prepared by committee President R. Eden Martin, a lawyer, with analytical support from Paul Zavitkovsky of the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Half of the students drop out by high school, and of those who remain until 11th grade, 70% fail to meet state standards, the report says. In fact, "In the regular (non-magnet) neighborhood high schools, which serve the vast preponderance of students, almost no students are prepared to succeed in college."
The report directly challenges widespread claims by current and former CPS officials that local students have shown substantial progress over the last decade on standardized tests.
For instance, it notes a 2006 letter from then schools CEO Arne Duncan, now U.S. secretary of education, stating that the share of CPS students meeting or exceeding state standards had leapt 15 points in one year.
In fact, it says, the change occurred because of a change in the test, not because of real educational gains. As a result, it points out, while a test cited by local officials showed that 71% of 8th graders met or exceeded state standards in 2007, a national test taken here the same year showed just 13% were up to par.
Similarly, while the test employed locally reported that the share of 8th graders meeting math standards grew from 32% to 71% from 2005 to 2007, the national test, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, showed scores effectively flat, moving from 11% to only 13%.
The report does note that the changes in the test were ordered by the state, not by CPS.
CPS officials and Mayor Richard M. Daley had no immediate response to the report, but Ron Gidwitz, former chairman of the State Board of Education, said he believes its results are on point.
"It hard to refute their conclusions when you look at the evidence," including how CPS students do on college-enrollment tests, Mr. Gidwitz said. "We haven't made nearly as much progress as people thought."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2009 00:00 ||
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If you want education you're going to have to make parents interested in their childrens learning, and that means they have to pay for it out of their own money.
#4
...almost no students are prepared to succeed in college.
Well, we identified the first problem. The vast bulk of people shouldn't be going to college. It's part of the '60s hype which witnessed all sorts of trades move their certification from apprentice-journeymen-master to paper mill subsidy for academic empire building along with the blooming of 'studies' which lack direct application to practical work other than increasing the population of instructors in colleges. It's been compounded by lazy and ineffectual personnel management in our businesses that fall back on those same pieces of paper as 'job qualifications'.
The whole practicality of what a citizen needs to know to be productive and to participate in a real democracy has been subordinated to the education industry and self protection union.
#5
If you want education you're going to have to make parents interested in their childrens learning, and that means they have to pay for it out of their own money.
When I was in Korea, I'd watch the children march off to school in the morning. Then sometime just afternoon they'd trip on back home. The official school day was done. Then after their lunch, the kiddies spent the rest of the day with a tutor paid for by the families who pooled resources for the instructor. When the families paid, you can be certain the kids were 'encouraged' to focus.
#9
Courtesy of the Ayers and Obama Chicago school "reforms".
"Calling Bill Ayers a school reformer is a bit like calling Joseph Stalin an agricultural reformer."
Posted by: ed ||
07/02/2009 10:19 Comments ||
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#10
For instance, it notes a 2006 letter from then schools CEO Arne Duncan, now U.S. secretary of education, stating that the share of CPS students meeting or exceeding state standards had leapt 15 points in one year.
#11
Today's educational system runs on what I call the "Scarecrow Principle" based on the Scarecrow of the Wizad of Oz. The Wizard told the the Scarecrow, "You don't need an education, what you need is a Diploma".
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
07/02/2009 11:05 Comments ||
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#13
Bright Pebbles and Procopius2k; parents "paying" for their child's education is not always the answer. As a retired private school teacher (Catholic School) I see the biggest hurdle to education (public or private) as the culture of entitlement and enabling endemic in our society. Too many students (enabled by parents and family) feel they are entitled to no less than a "B", or at the very least a "C", simply for showing up for class; never mind how disruptive their behavior may be to others in the class. Until we make everyone accountable for for their own success or failure, no amount of monies spent will cure the problem. Just my two cents worth.
#15
It's just not the issue of paying. These were basic working families in Korea which would be classified as 'poor' by American bureaucratic standards. Note I wrote they 'pooled' money. The kids very well understood it was their 'job' in the family to succeed. There was no sense of 'entitlement' but rather 'obligation'. It is a current within the society derived from thousands of years of Chinese cultural influences [which also has its influence in Japan] and the Han Emperor who developed the first civil service and opportunity for anyone who could pass the exam. There was the means of social mobility. That trait is something absent in some of the subcultures here in America and is reflected in their approach and appreciation for education.
#16
Trailing daughter #2 became friends with a lovely Korean girl who came over here as an exchange student. She loves it here, because she gets more than four hours of sleep each night, and gets to sleep in on weekends. According to her the pattern over there is to study until one or two in the morning, get up at five for school, then sleep through classes and lunch, due to sheer exhaustion. She found the classes much easier as well, but the student exchange people had dropped her back two years (junior to freshman) because she came over with very little English.
That sleep pattern and pressure are to me unacceptably unhealthy, even if Korean students graduate knowing more than Americans.
I agree with WolfDog's prescription. At-home enrichment is only part of the solution. The other part is demanding the kids earn their grades themselves. I've a girlfriend who spends pots of money on private tutors and SAT training programs for her three sons... but she does all their school projects for them, "because they don't do things like that well," allowing them only to choose the subject. So of course two of the three don't understand why they should do their homework and turn it in on time.
#17
...compounded by lazy and ineffectual personnel management in our businesses...
There hasn't been anything resembling "personnel management" in business since the arrival of the HR mentality. I've always considered HR to be the point where Leftism managed to infect an otherwise capitalist venture. Namely...business.
State government limped into a new budget year Wednesday without a solid spending plan and rookie Gov. Pat Quinn threatened to drag the fight out all summer until he gets an income tax increase.
For the third year in a row, Democrats who control Springfield failed to reach agreement on time, once again creating uncertainty for social service providers, public employees and others who count on the state paying its bills.
Quinn scolded lawmakers in a rare joint session of the legislature and threatened to veto an admittedly underfunded spending plan passed by lawmakers in late May.
But in a day full of inconsistencies, Quinn also praised the House for passing a pension-borrowing plan to help fill the budget gap. Hours later, he turned around and successfully lobbied against its passage in the Senate.
Democratic legislative leaders had come up with the new twist -- a measure to borrow $2.2 billion for state pension payments -- to free up money to reduce cuts in social services. It was their answer to Quinn's criticism that their earlier spending plan would require severe cuts in services for the poor, elderly, disabled and children.
Quinn used his speech on the House floor to deride lawmakers for trying to defer a decision on his proposed income-tax hike until later in the year because "that's not what adults do."
"I'm prepared to stay here all summer to get the job done," Quinn said. "I think that's what the people want. That's why we're here -- to get the job done, whatever it takes."
Yet as Quinn criticized what he called "half measures and half-baked budgets," the governor earlier in the day had pitched a one-month budget extension in a closed-door meeting with the Democratic and House leaders of the legislature. The leaders rejected the plan, contending the budget they sent Quinn gave him the authority to spend money as he saw fit and that he could shut off the dollar tap at any time to try to force legislators to reach a final budget resolution.
Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago), who had opposed a budget extension earlier in the year while lobbying for an income tax increase, said he agreed now that lawmakers should proceed with the budget to try to prevent social service cuts and to give more time to win support from minority Republicans for a tax hike. Cullerton said additional time could lead to backing by Democrats for GOP demands that include a less-costly pension plan for new state employees and managed health care to treat state-subsidized poor.
"The Republicans clearly need some time to come around to vote for the tax increase. We need their vote, can't do it without it," Cullerton said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2009 00:00 ||
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One of President Barack Obama's earliest backers, US Representative Robert Wexler, was in Jerusalem this week trying to persuade Israelis that a settlement freeze would be a win-win proposition.
Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Florida). "I want to call their bluff," Wexler told The Jerusalem Post, referring to the Arab countries.
"I want to see, if Israel makes substantial movement toward a credible peace process, whether they are willing to do it. And if they are not, better that we should find out five or six months into the process, before Israel is actually asked to compromise any significant position."
Wexler added: "And if the Arab world fails to deliver, you can rightly say that all bets are off." Betting with someone elses lives. Some might call this meddling.
The Democrat from south Florida told the Post that the Obama administration was placing America's Arab allies under heavy pressure to take substantial steps toward normalizing relations with Israel, in return for a settlement freeze. He said they were being lobbied to establish trade offices, economic links, and cultural and educational exchanges; and to permit Israeli airliners to traverse Arab airspace.
Wexler added that the US was "open to suggestions from the Israeli side" for "different indicators of normalization that would create credibility among the Israeli public."
IT IS notable that otherwise savvy Israeli and Western politicians have found themselves repeatedly out-maneuvered in attempting to "call the bluff" of their Arab interlocutors. The assumption is that if their ostensible demands are met, the Arabs will be painted into a corner and have no choice but to be accommodating.
Ehud Barak thought he had called Yasser Arafat's bluff at Camp David in 2000, offering roughly 90 percent of the West Bank, all of the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. Arafat said it wasn't enough - and launched the second intifada.
In 2005, Ariel Sharon unilaterally uprooted all Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and pulled the Israeli army out totally. He told the Palestinians: "To an outstretched hand, we shall respond with an olive branch." They replied with an onslaught of Kassam rockets against the Negev.
Rest of his useless, synchophatic drivel at the link.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
When President Obama announced on June 9 that some financial institutions would be allowed to repay Troubled Asset Relief Program dollars, he said the massively expensive TARP bailout had made money for the federal government. "It is worth noting that in the first round of repayments from these [TARP recipients], the government has actually turned a profit," the president said. Indeed, TARP supporters have long held out the hope that the program might be profitable.
Wattsburg, Pa. -- Vice President Joe Biden visited a small town on the outskirts of Erie today to talk to rural folks about federal stimulus money that can be used to expand broadband access to the Internet for rural areas that typically have poor connections.
One state senator's urge for a Coca Cola led to the latest fracas inside the New York State Capitol building in Albany on Tuesday.
