Author: Robert I. Grundfest

I am a teacher, writer, voice-over artist and rationally opinionated observer of American and international society. While my job is to entertain and engage, my purpose is always to start a conversation.

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Domestic Policies Education George Bush News Politics

On Education: Can’t See the Forest for the Bushes

AFP PHOTO/Saul LOEB

Remember the education president? That would be George H.W. Bush, who promised that he would focus on improving schools so that the United States would be number one in educating its children for the new millennium. His Goals 2000: Educate America Act had terrific political nuggets such as:

All children in America will start school ready to learn. 

The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 percent.

United States students will be first in the world in mathematics and science achievement.

Every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.

Every school in the United States will be free of drugs, violence, and the unauthorized presence of firearms and alcohol and will offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning. 

Of course, these goals were not met because they aren’t realistic. Public institutions that suffer from inadequate funding and political interference can’t guarantee that all students or every adult will do anything except be disappointed that as a nation, we couldn’t do better.

The along came his son, George W. Bush, who promised that the No Child Left Behind Act would do for America what its smaller implementation had done to Texas in the 1990s. This meant that all students would pass state tests by 2014 and schools that didn’t perform, either overall or because any subset of racial, ethnic or gender categories did not score well enough on said tests, would be closed. Bush even made Houston Superintendent of Schools Rod Paige the Secretary of Education.

That’s when the real story of how the Texas Education Miracle became one more Bush myth. It turns out that Paige and Bush cooked the graduation rate books, inflating the number of students who met school standards and essentially erased the records of students who dropped out or had discipline problems.

The NCLB was based on faulty numbers, but that didn’t stop it from infecting every aspect of school reform for the next decade. Testing became rampant and disruptive. Private testing companies like Pearson Education got very wealthy creating tests and changing the curriculum. President Obama’s embrace of this model was disturbing, and has led us to where we are today, wasting huge chunks of time modifying what students need to know and testing them not once (March), but twice (late April or early May).

Now word comes that the third Bush who wants to be president, former Florida Governor Jeb, promoted a charter school in Miami that is now closed, but he’s running as if the school is a shining successful example of his education agenda. The basic problem seemed to be that as a private citizen, Bush was able to raise money and be the face of the school, but as governor, he could not have his name on the school’s letterhead nor could he raise funds privately. Other issues also intervened, namely that Bush had to balance the state budget and unfortunately there wasn’t enough to pay for public schools and charters. Simply, the toy lost its luster.

But at least he has a policy that applies to the classroom. Compare that to Governor Chris Christie’s approach to education. He’s focused solely on economics and making sure that teachers, and indeed all public unions, pay more and more for their benefits while he skirts his own law and refuses to make full payments to the pension system.

In fact, you would think that Christie and the New Jersey Education Association made a major agreement on teacher benefits, according to a speech Christie made in Florida last week. There is no agreement, and there won’t be one on his terms. But I guess that when you’re running for president, you can say anything you want, and in the end, most people won’t know or care to know the difference.

That’s what happened with the two previous Bushes. Let’s make sure it doesn’t happen again.

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Benjamin Netanyahu Domestic Policies Education Foreign Policies Healthcare Immigration Reform Israel Mitch McConnell News Nuclear Security Politics

Elected, Perchance to Govern?

Mitch McConnell, moderate. I thought I’d never see that characterization, but after last week’s embarrassing, incompetent, dangerous gambit the House Republicans played, he’s looking like the only GOP adult in the room. John Boehner seems to have lost his caucus and is now dependent on the far right to dictate what gets done in the House, and what’s getting done is virtually nothing. Kicking the Homeland Security funding argument to this week will do nothing except make Friday night another frantic opportunity for brinkmanship and Obama-bashing. In the end, Homeland Security will get funding and the president’s immigration changes will stand. The real losers will be the people who work for the agency as they bite their nails and wait to see if they’ll be getting paid for another week. If terrorists read American news sources, they are surely laughing at us.

Not content to make itself look bad on the domestic front, the Republicans doubled down and asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to come and speak to a joint session of Congress, an honor he will deliver this week. Never mind that his visit, essentially a jab at the Obama administrations efforts to negotiate a nuclear treaty with Iran, will only put more on strain US-Israel relations, although there are reports that things might be getting less strained. Mr. Netanyahu, I’m sure, will have important things to say. The problem is that he might want to think twice before attaching himself to the clown car Congress that can’t seem to find money to pay for homeland security, much less debate a serious issue like a possible Iranian nuclear weapon.

This is also the week that the Supreme Court will hear arguments in King v. Burwell, the case that challenges whether the federal government can give subsidies to people who buy health insurance on the federal exchange. The plaintiffs believe that only those who buy policies on state exchanges should get subsidies. Which of course begs the question, if the court rules for the plaintiffs, will they work feverishly to make sure that the states without exchanges set them up quickly so the law can work and millions of people can keep their health care?

Of course not.  This is most likely the final attempt to destroy a law that is working wonderfully and is fundamentally changing the health care landscape for the better. Also, the states that would suffer the most if the subsidies are struck down will be the poorest, reddest states in the country. You know, the ones whose citizens vote against their interests by electing governments that seek to limit the programs their people desperately need.

And the state that would suffer the most? Florida. Does Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio have a fall back plan if millions of Floridians lose their health insurance? No. Do both of them want to be president? Of course, but what a catastrophe either of them would be.

And finally, this week will see the rollout of the PARCC tests across the nation. School districts are hoping that their technology holds up and that students can navigate the many screen they’ll need to use in order to answer the questions. Some families have decided that they don’t want their students to participate, so they’ve opted out, or “refused” to take the tests as the officials like to characterize it, The testing will take almost three weeks and then return in late April or early May, taking more valuable time and resources from classrooms and actual learning. The tests will mean almost nothing to students, but for teachers, they will count for 10% of their yearly evaluation (in New Jersey, at least). I give these tests five years, and then the education establishment will move on to something newer.

March is certainly roaring in.

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Domestic Policies Education Express Yourself News Politics

Christie Tells It Like It’s Not

It’s getting a bit too easy finding contradictions and hypocritical statements in what Governor Chris Christie is saying these days. That must mean he’s running for president.

On his signature issue, pension and benefit reform, the governor went back on his promise to make a full payment for 2014, and his administration even argued in court that the 2011 reform bill is unconstitutional. These are both odd turns, but they are simply a matter of doing business under a man who shamelessly switches policy positions, excoriates those who disagree with him, and simply does what is politically expedient with no central philosophy or plan to guide him.

And through all of this hypocrisy, Christie has the nerve to say that he “tells it like it is.” As a keen observer of national and state politics, I can say with 100% confidence that people who rely on that phrase do not tell it anything near what it is and are, in fact, blowhards who like to hear themselves talk.

The latest example of Christie’s flip-flop road show occurred this week on the issue of the Common Core educational standards. Two years ago, the governor was all for the national standards and agreed with President Obama that the country would be better off with benchmarks on which all states could be evaluated. He even said that this issue should not be politicized.

Clearly, things have changed. Last week in Iowa, he said,

“I have grave concerns about the way this has been done, especially the way the Obama administration has tried to implement it through tying federal funding to these things. And that changes the entire nature of it, from what was initially supposed to be voluntary type system and states could decide on their own to now having federal money tied to it in ways that really, really give me grave concerns.
 
“So we’re in the midst of re-examination of it in New Jersey….It is something I’m very concerned about, because in the end education needs to be a local issue.”

Yes, he even used the word “grave” twice. This is a man who is definitely running for president.

The problem is that he is mistrusted among the conservatives who will decide two of the first three Republican popularity tests, Iowa and South Carolina, and is mistrusted in New Hampshire, the third test, because he has no record to run on. In fact, he’s running fourth among the early names being bandied about for the GOP nod, which wouldn’t be terrible, except that two of the four ahead of him, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, are competing for the same voters as Christie is. He’s going to have to muscle past those two, and they don’t have the scandals and YouTube rantings that he does. I would never count Christie out, but pandering to the right is not the road that “tell it like it is” Chris wants to navigate.

This also comes on the heels of a poll in New Jersey that shows the governor’s popularity and approval ratings at their four year lows. That’s not the political environment in which you’d like to start a national run, but that’s what the man has done since being reelected rather emphatically in November 2013. For a politician who says he knows how to safeguard public money, he sure has spent and wasted a great deal of political capital.

If Christie really wanted to reverse himself, I’d rather it be that he decides next week to build the third rail tunnel under the Hudson River. Or by fully funding public education. Those would definitely show that he knows how to tell it like it is. I’m not holding my breath, though.

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Domestic Policies Education News Politics teachers

The Best and Brightest Have Let Us Down

I get very tired very quickly when I hear that we need the best and brightest to become classroom teachers in the United States. For one, it’s incredibly insulting because it assumes that the teachers we have now in public schools are somehow subpar, which is not true. Further, it also assumes that the elite students at elite colleges need to swoop down and save education because the best students make the best teachers, right?

Wrong. Oh, so wrong.

Don’t misunderstand me: I support all effective teachers across the country who want to make a difference in any type of school, public or private, and who want to educate students. This includes those from Teach for America, the program that began in 1990 at Princeton University and places the best and brightest into urban schools for specified periods of time, usually three years. The program has been criticized for providing a short-term conscience break for smarties who then leave the classroom and make billions as hedge fund managers and tech company start-up junkies. It has also been lauded for enabling the most difficult school districts to staff their classes with committed teachers who knew what they were getting into they signed up for TFA.

For 15 years, the program grew. For the past two, growth has stopped. That’s bad news for the districts that rely on TFA graduates, but it might be the beginning of good news for the rest of public education. Why? Although TFA was founded on a laudable goal, the program was also responsible for pushing some of the worst reforms education has seen in decades. From the article:

Teach for America has sent hundreds of graduates to Capitol Hill, school superintendents’ offices and education reform groups, seeding a movement that has supported testing and standards, teacher evaluations tethered to student test scores, and a weakening of teacher tenure.

It seems that the best and brightest are neither when it comes to new ideas on how to improve education. They, along with the conservative know-nothings who inhabit statehouse governments and education commissionerships, relied on untested data purporting to show a connection between student test scores and teacher effectiveness, and supported ever more Charter schools that take public money away from public schools that have legal mandates to deliver a quality education to all students. Weakening teacher tenure and injecting market competition in the schools round out the final failures on their list as both destroy the culture and ethos that have protected the public schools from unwanted political interference, commercialization and data-mongers of all political stripes.

Ten years from now, those still left in education will look back on this era as not only misguided, but destructive; an era from which it will take a few years to recover and reclaim the ideas that actually work in the classroom. By then, the best and brightest will be back on Wall Street or law school or boardrooms touting their latest ventures and perhaps reflecting on the years they spent in the program. I applaud their efforts as teachers. For many, it will inform the rest of their lives. For others, it allowed them to realize a community service dream in a neglected corner of the country.

But for their support of ideas that have wreaked havoc in the classroom and resulted in a culture of testing that undermines effective teaching, I will forever rue the day that they joined the reform conversation. I have met far better and far brighter minds who didn’t attend elite schools and who have enriched teaching and learning across the United States.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Domestic Policies Education New Jersey News Politics teachers

PARCC Storm II: Sunshine Peeks Through

Another week, and more snow is expected in the northeast. There’s more over the PARCC testing storm as well, but this time, there is a ray of sane sunshine.

Here in New Jersey, State Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan Jr. (D-Middlesex), chairman of the Assembly’s education committee, has introduced a bill that would detail a procedure for how parents could opt out of the tests. He’s working on another bill that would delay the use of the tests to evaluate students and teachers for up to three years. Not that using tests for such evaluation is ever a good idea, whether it’s now or in 2018, but a delay might give testing opponents, which include most educators who work in classrooms, an opportunity to put the movement out of our misery.

The other good news is that another bill sponsored by state Assemblyman David Rible (R-Monmouth) would put limits on how student data is used and disseminated. The Christie administration has said that student privacy protections are in place, but that’s quickly becoming the most laughable line in any industry, much less in education. See Target, Home Depot, and anyone involved in The Interview. Plus, Christie can’t even keep his political operatives from talking about their political contretemps. How is he going to safeguard the privacy of all the schoolchildren in New Jersey?

New FAQs about the PARCC tests released by the state Department of Education do say that the tests are not mandatory even though many districts are sending the implicit message that they are. Other districts and organizations are sponsoring evenings where members of the community can come and take a sample test to see what their children will experience. These evenings are being presented as informational sessions, but clearly if parents don’t like what they see, they could take action.

Right now, the opt-out movement is small, but it is growing. As we get closer to the March administration, I would expect that more parents will take their children out of the tests. There might even be more opt-outs after the March tests once students go home and tell their parents/caregivers about their experiences. The final administration is in late April or early May.

For all the talk about the procedural aspects of PARCC, the real issue is what the tests actually measure and whether students are doing their best, either because they’ve decided that they don’t want to bother or are flummoxed by technology issues.

These are high stakes tests for only one group: teachers, because student scores can determine whether one is retained or fired. The ultimate irony is that the people who will be most affected will be the ones with the least amount of control on test day.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Domestic Policies Education News Politics

Salting the PARCCing Lot

Educators, are you getting excited? No, not about the next snowstorm, which looks like a whopper, but about the PARCC tests? You’d better be, because they are on the way and the impact will be measurable and unpredictable.

For those non-educators, the PARCC tests are the standardized tests that students in grades 3-11 will take in two administrations; March and April/May. They are tied to the Common Core Curriculum Standards and claim to be the newest, latest, greatest, most bestest tests to evaluate teacher performance and to prepare our students for further leaning, college, and the working world. Parents, teachers, administrators and politicians have debated whether these new tests, and the Common Core, are appropriate or will even measure what they purport to measure. Some states adopted the Common Core and the tests, then un-adopted them.

The bottom line, though, is that they are almost here.

I’ve taken some sample tests, and so can you. Go ahead and give it a try. Notice what students are being asked to do and how they are being asked to do it. My assumption is that it’s different from what you were asked to do in school. This is the point: The standards and tests are asking educators and students to approach education from a different perspective. In some ways, it’s a more productive, intuitive approach, and in others, it’s downright confounding.

One of the main issues in New Jersey and, I suspect, in most other states, is the availability and reliability of the school’s technology. All of the tests are taken on computers and all of the students will probably log on to their school’s systems at the same time. This will probably cause some networks to slow down and/or crash. Also, many schools do not have enough computers for all of their students, which will result in significant disruptions to the school schedule as students will need to test in shifts.

And as much as adults like to fool themselves into thinking that children are all adept at using computers, the facts are that many students can’t keyboard quickly, do not understand how technology works, or how to manipulate the screens as these tests require. There is a section of the high school language arts test where students will need to read and manage three sources on three different windows with three different scroll bars and write an essay using all of the readings. That can be a challenge. For younger students, actual keyboarding will be a problem. There are no computer bubble sheets or booklets on these tests. A slow typist will have trouble.

The actual testing, though, is still only part of the issue. These tests will be used to evaluate teachers, which is, and always has been, a terrible idea. Using any high-stakes test, especially one given for the first time on unpredictable technology by students who haven’t had a full school year of Common Core instruction, is folly.

Besides, the tests really are only high-stakes for the teachers, not the students. How’s that for sound policy? If a student decides the test is too difficult or they can’t type or didn’t eat a good breakfast that morning, then a teacher could get fired. This is what you get when know-nothing politicians decide, without significant teacher input, what’s best for education.

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Domestic Policies Express Yourself Healthcare Mitt Romney News Politics

The Latest GOP Swimsuit Competition

My apologies if the image of Chris Christie in a swimsuit finds you eating a meal while reading this. It’s one of the hardships of the blogging trade, I know.

As mid-January hurries into late-January (a month of Mondays if there ever was one), we find ourselves confronted with news from the right side of the political spectrum as Hillary Clinton and any other would-be Democrats are seemingly taking the month off.

The big news, as usual, comes from New Jersey where the main question revolves around whether the Governor’s actions in Dallas last weekend dealt a fatal blow to his presidential hopes. The thinking is that Christie’s awkward embrace of Cowboy’s owner Jerry Jones while wearing an orange sweater, was akin to Michael Dukakis in a tank or Howard Dean screaming. That is, an unpresidential image so egregious that it renders a candidate unelectable. My sense is that, no, this did not end Christie’s run before it began (and it will begin later this month), but it did project Christie as the wanna-be he clearly is. And it also reinforces the notion that the man just doesn’t think before he acts sometimes. He believes that he is always right and his aides reinforce that daily. The Dallas escapade might not be the end, but it presages another event that will hurt him sometime down the road. Bank on that.

More bigger than Christie, though, is the news that Mitt Romney is strongly considering a third run for the White House. This would be a very bad idea because third time candidates tend to become parodies and, then, national jokes.

William Jennings Bryan ran for the Democratic nomination four times in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, matching the Buffalo Bills for important national losses. Bryan, though, will always be remembered for his Cross of Gold speech, where he attempted to tie the business-friendly Republicans to a policy that would increase the suffering of the lower classes at the expense of the wealthy. Sound familiar? Today, Romney would more likely make a speech saying that a Cross of Gold would be a sound investment.

Even Teddy Roosevelt lost some luster when he ran for a third time in 1912, but he had the extra added legitimacy of having previously been president for almost eight years, and for being a firm advocate for responsible corporate behavior and for his solid conservation record. You know those national parks that Romney wants to open for drilling, exploration and timber? Roosevelt made them happen. Romney can only dream of that kind of influence, even if he does manage to get out of the primaries. Which he won’t.

And finally, there’s Jeb Bush, who apparently is evolving as we speak. And for someone whose view on evolution is somewhat suspect, it’s refreshing to read that:

“There is an evolution in temperament and an evolution in judgment and an evolution in wisdom — and there is an evolution in his respect for others’ point of view,” said Al Cardenas, a longtime friend who insisted that Mr. Bush had “not changed his conservative values.”

Perhaps by the end of the campaign, Mr. Bush will evolve into a Democrat. OK, OK, I know, but a fella can dream, can’t he?

So there you have it: the early mid-January political report. By the end of the month I would suspect that Mitt and Chris will join Jeb in the money-raising competition and then they’ll all jump head first into the campaign sometime after the Supreme Court affirms the Affordable Care Act.

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News Politics Texas

Christie Back From Dallas. Why Is Everyone Else Leaving?

Photo: REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

As if the Cowboy kerfuffle wasn’t enough of a distraction for the governor, along comes another story where ‘Boys owner Jerry Jones condescends to Christie’s fandom by saying that having Christie in the owner’s box is payback for when the not-governor was too poor to pay for parking. Jones also said that he will support Christie if he decides to run for president.

Which he will. And apparently he will make that announcement by the end of the month. It would certainly be a delicious treat for the candidate-in-waiting to be able to announce his intentions a day or two after the Cowboys win the Super Bowl on February 1, but I don’t believe that is in the offing if the Green Bay Packers have anything to say about that. A Cowboys loss this Sunday would clear the news cycle for Christie’s announcement, which I assume will come during the week when there’s no game scheduled. The man might be unsuitable to be president, but he does have a knack for public relations.

But, oh! the complications. First up is a report that one of New Jersey’s marquee employers, Mercedes-Benz, is leaving the state and heading for Georgia, which is cheaper and has lower taxes. This doesn’t help Christie with the pro-business crowd and will further reduce the chance that New Jersey’s economy has a robust recovery in time for the governor to run on a miracle.

Then comes another story that says that of people involved in an interstate move involving New Jersey, the vast majority are leaving the state–fleeing is the headline word–rather than moving in. This is not a scientific survey as the data is being supplied by United Van Lines, a moving company, but it does attest to what anecdotal evidence has suggested for years. The Governor will probably seize on these numbers to continue to argue against a millionaire’s tax because his main argument has always been that more people will leave the state rather than pay. But since people seem to be leaving anyway, it doesn’t say much about his improving things in the state.

The real damage, though, comes because these are more negative stories about New Jersey. Christie can go around the country and tell tales about bipartisanship and how he got the Democratic legislature to pass a pension and benefits bill, but his refusal to actually make a mandated payment will also follow him. As will the videos of him yelling at veterans and public employees. Americans do want someone who will fight for them, but they don’t want someone who will fight them because he disagrees with them.

Finally, there’s that darned Bush family. Yes, Jeb Bush is off and raising money for a White House bid that will directly compete for the same voters Christie needs for support during the primaries. And Jeb’s talking about big issues like immigration and income inequality, while Christie is huddling with foreign policy experts to learn what to say in interviews.

It’s clear that Christie will rise above the silliness of the Dallas story, but the pertinent point is that once he declares himself a candidate for president, he will have precious little to run on.

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Domestic Policies News Politics Texas

Christie Does Dallas

It’s one thing to sit in the owners box and discuss politics or bidness with a somewhat straight face and an unemotional posture.

Then there’s what Governor Chris Christie did on Sunday evening with Dallas Cowboy’s owner Jerry Jones. Christie looked like an unabashed fan who had just won a side of beef in a bet after America’s Team came back from 13 points down to win their playoff game against the Detroit Lions. He never got to actually hug Jones, so much as wrapping his hands near the owner’s underarms and besides, Christie never looks good when his feet leave the ground.

So now to the political fallout. This was not a good moment for the Governor. First of all, he has three teams from which to choose in his own market–the Giants, Jets and Eagles–yet he chose to go halfway across the country to essentially be a win-chaser and to actually look like he was in thrall to Jerry Jones. Christie wants to appear as a lunch pail every day Jersey guy, but now that’s been jettisoned as the Presidential-Candidate-In-Waiting shows his true colors. I’m sure he’s had the money conversation with Jones and they look like they’re real pals, which means something in a race that will also feature the former Governor of Texas.

Then came Christie’s reaction, which was, as usual, defensive, heavy handed, sanctimonious and humor-free.

Mr. Christie, characteristically, doubled down in the face of criticism. He seemed happy to replay the incident when he called into the Boomer and Carton show on New York’s WFAN sports radio, as it gave him another chance to boast of his closeness to Mr. Jones. He gave details on the locker room celebration that the camera did not capture, saying that Dez Bryant, the wide receiver, was the first person to hug him. “Dez knows exactly who I am, yes,” the governor assured his hosts.

Why would the governor want to boast of his closeness to Jones? Aren’t the Tisch’s and the Johnson’s wealthy enough? Or do they see right through Christie’s act?

This is but one episode in what will become a complete circus once Christie enters the presidential race and unveils his true persona to the American people. They will then learn what we in New Jersey already know; Christie has no shame and no filter. These will be his greatest strengths at the beginning of the campaign, but will ultimately prove to be his undoing.

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Climate Change democrats Domestic Policies Express Yourself Foreign Policies Healthcare Immigration Immigration Reform News ObamaCare Politics repeal affordable care act Teaparty

The Pendulum Swings Both Ways

 

It took about 35 years, but the Republican Party is just where it wants to be. They have a Congressional majority and are flush with the optimism of a political movement that they believe has broad popular support. They are looking forward to perhaps winning the presidency in 2016 and finally being able to implement the agenda that Ronald Reagan gave voice to in 1980. Democrats are supposed to be on the run. President Obama is spent.

It’s a nice tale, this one. The problem is that it’s full of inaccurate assumptions and leaves out the fact that the Republican Party is split and the far right has so far given no indication that they are in any mood to compromise. They will pass bills and send them to the president, and he will veto most of them. Obama will propose legislation that the Congress will not consider. In many ways, the gridlock will continue.

But there is cause for optimism on both sides. The GOP knows that they will be burnt toast in 2016 if they can’t pass some kind of immigration bill that allows people to stay in this country with their families. They also know that they are on the wrong side of history when it comes to marriage equality and that very soon most southern states will be forced to recognize all marriages performed in other states. After all, this is the party that wants government out of people’s lives and wants United States citizens to be free to follow the lives that they choose to live.

On health care, the Republicans will vote one more time, probably within a week or so, to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Then they will need to get serious about how they would implement health care without taking it away from the approximately 10 million people who’ve bought it on the exchanges or qualified for it under the expanded Medicaid program. It is true that the party could wait until the Supreme Court rules in June on whether people who bought policies on the federal exchange qualify for subsidies, but I believe that they will be disappointed. Supreme Court justices read the news and they know that denying people subsidies would cause a mammoth disruption in the lives of millions of people. John Roberts will once again come to President Obama’s rescue and provide the fifth vote to uphold the law.

Democrats have essentially lost the fracking debate because not enough people are having their tap water catch fire to offset the millions of people who are now paying $2.00 for unleaded gasoline. Yes, Governor Cuomo outlawed fracking in New York State last year, but that will mean that upstate will remain an economic wasteland for years to come, but at least will have casinos so people with little money can lose it on their own rather than having to pay higher taxes.

The low gas prices will also make the XL Pipeline a moot point. There is little need now to push for more oil when oil producing states will be experiencing budget crises over the next year or so. If anything, many Republican lawmakers will need to hope that gas prices moderate a bit so they can pay for the services their constituents sorely need. That was a joke, by the way. In the end, though, low gas prices will provide a nice boost to the economy and another boost to American foreign policy, which will see much more pain for Russia, Iran and Venezuela.

What the GOP cannot argue, thought, is that much of this optimism and hope will greatly help President Obama. The economy is already improving and having people spend less on gas will help it more. Does the right believe that people will give the president no credit? If Russia and Iran have to pull back their dastardly initiatives because of falling revenue, does the GOP believe that they will get credit for that? Of course not. The president gets the blame when things go wrong and the credit when things go right, and an expanding economy is the number one issue on most Americans’ minds.

Perhaps this is the moment when both parties realize that they do need to work together if they want to achieve anything, and activists on both sides will need to recognize that they will have to give something up in order for legislation to move forward. I can confidently say that there will be no broad tax cut this year, nor will an immigration bill contain a path to citizenship. There will be no carbon tax or an increase in the gasoline tax. The Common Core is not going away. Neither is Social Security or Medicare.

Our country was born of compromise. It’s the only way we will move forward.

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Domestic Policies Education teachers

The New Smart

Yes, I know it’s the holiday break and students and teachers across the country are off, but really, this is just the calm before the storm. There are only two more months until the new PARCC tests are administered. Then there’s a 6 to 8 week break. Then more PARCC tests will be administered.

These tests will wreak some serious havoc on school district calendars and teacher’s lesson plans nationwide. They will cause anxiety across the student population and will result in hand-wringing and head-shaking amongst the parents and caregivers. In many states, the tests will determine, artificially of course, who is an effective teacher and whether schools are doing all they can to teach students the 21st century skills they’ll need to succeed in college and work.

But the biggest effect of the tests is that they will redefine smart for a new generation.

Prior to the Common Core and the new tests, it was enough for smart students to be able to read, memorize, manipulate and give back facts on an examination. The educational model was based on teachers giving students information or coaching them through their learning as the local curriculum dictated. There were some major modifications in the 1990s and the first decade of this century, but most of them addressed how the information was imparted to students, such as cooperative learning, differentiated instruction and directed learning, that was based on the corporate model of education and teamwork that was then in vogue in the working world.

Even the modifications that teachers were legally required to implement to satisfy students who had classifiable learning disabilities, such as giving out notes, providing word banks, redirecting students who had trouble paying attention, or modifying test questions, were only meant to address content delivery. The skills that students needed remained the same.

That’s all changed now. The new Common Core standards require that students know how to read on a more sophisticated level and to master themes rather than discrete facts. They require that students explain how they arrived at an answer, either in written or verbal form, in order to justify and support their thinking. The new standards reward students who can analyze a reading excerpt, any excerpt, and identify the main idea and bias behind the writing. If a student can’t do these things, then they will not do well on the tests.

Many students who have been doing well in school will find that their skills are not valued anymore. Others who had trouble memorizing and recalling, but could spot larger themes and issues, will be rewarded. I suspect that this was the real intent of Education Secretary Arnie Duncan’s unfortunate remarks about why people are opposed to the Common Core. He didn’t help himself by saying that “white suburban moms who realize — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.” The truth, though, is that many parents will find that their child doesn’t respond well to the new standards because they ask the children to manipulate information in different ways. Students will need to be taught how to do that, and once they are, many will succeed. For the first year, though, scores will not be what some people expect them to be. And even if the PARCC tests went away tomorrow, the Common Core standards won’t, so students would still need to master the new academic skills. We’re not going back to the old ways. Bank on that.

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Barack: Hack Attack Lacks Tact, but Raoul Is Cool

As I said before, it really doesn’t feel like the holidays, and with the events of the past week I would guess that others are wondering where the spirit went. Or when it’s really going to arrive.

The Sony hacking is certainly a wake-up call for anyone who doubts the severity of our online, privacy-free, abc123 password-protected culture. That a foreign government, and one that we consider to be a running joke, could inflict such pain on us and our free time is disturbing and frightening. Sony employees are rightfully feeling exposed, not to mention that, evidently, Hollywood backstabbing culture is still alive and well as evidenced by the hacked e-mails from company executives.

Honestly, though; did the creators of The Interview really have to use actual names? One of the first rules of comedy, or at least the ones I learned, was that funny comes from imagination and suggestion, rather than always bashing someone on the head with facts. I’m not in favor of naming any world leader and then killing them on film unless that’s what actually happened to them. It would have been more funny if the film’s creators had made up a country and a leader, given him the same hairdo, so that, yes, even American audiences would have recognized who the character was supposed to be, and done the film that way. Killing a real name? Bad form, no matter who it is.

President Obama has promised a proportional response, but I’m not sure what that means in this context. A proportional cultural action is not really possible given North Korea’s film industry, which seems to consist of one person with a camera following Kim Jong-un around all day. We could also hack into their e-mail and read more messages that promise a fiery death to America. That’s comedy.

And while we’re speaking of hermit countries who whine over Olympic sanctions, President Obama’s Cuba gambit is everything that absolutely drives the Republicans nuts about the man. Just when they think they have him humbled by the terrible results of last month’s congressional elections, the president comes out and reminds everyone that the executive is an equal branch to the others and has certain powers at its disposal. And make no mistake about his announcement; this is a big deal that will reshape the hemisphere in the short term and the world in the long term.

Raul Castro can say all he wants about how Cuba is going to stay a Communist country. In 10 years he might be gone and Cuba will have a capitalist economy and, I’m thinking, democratic reform. Yes, I know that many pundits are saying that Cuba will be like China or Vietnam — one party states that allow their people to get wealthy while repressing them politically.

I’m, guessing otherwise. My sense is that proximity to the United States will work in freedom’s favor by blunting foreign adventurers who want to gain some favor on the island. Vladimir Putin might want to play the history card, but we will never stand for that. And it’s likely that we will do all we can to blunt China’s influence too. In fact, our main competitors in Cuba will be other Latin American countries who already see a compatriot waking up and wanting to join the region’s economic system. No, Cuba will be different. There will be growing pains, but it will be different.

Back in Congress, Obama had masterfully put the Republicans back in their Cold War box. By opposing his opening to Cuba, he’s reinforced the idea that the right has no new ideas on what to do about the island and would continue the embargo for another 50 years if they could find a way to win a presidential election during that time. Senator Marco Rubio’s fiery response is exactly the wrong message at a time when economic and cultural engagement are what’s needed.

Besides, it wasn’t that long ago when the right wing was lauding Vladimir Putin and his shirtless foreign policy that seemed to compare favorably with Obama’s more composed, measured approach. That’s what always backing the hare in a marathon will get you. Putin is lording over an economy that is tanking, while the United States has seen steady growth for the past six years, and now with an added bonus of rising wages. Gas prices are sharply down. The XL pipeline might become superfluous if they go any lower. The US is a major contributor to a landmark climate agreement. Things can turn around quickly in this world.

Gee, maybe it’s feeling holidayish after all.

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