The Hope & Change Obama-Era Middle Class Blues

The Atlantic has one of those "middle class wages are stagnant and people can't get ahead anymore" articles. What's unique about this one is that it is coming smack in the middle of the era of Hope & Change. Normally, these sorts of articles only run during Republican administrations: "I'm Working Really Hard, But I'm Not Getting Ahead." 

Americans love to believe that anyone can get ahead, that they can build a better life than their parents had, simply by working hard enough. The evidence suggests, however, that this is less and less the case. Just working hard will no longer suffice, especially for Americans who haven't been born with wealth or particular talents. More and more, education has become the key to moving up--from poverty into the middle class, from the middle class into affluence--or to holding onto the middle-class lifestyle in which one was raised. 

There is also growing--though still nascent--evidence that from one American generation to the next, mobility is declining. It's getting harder, that is, to work your way into a higher income level than the one into which you were born. A son's adult income in the United States is about half dictated by how much his father made, a percentage that is nearly as high as in any country in wealth-by-birthright Europe, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. In Europe, family connections and the circumstances of one's birth are considered crucial determinants of success, a consequence of the entrenched aristocracies in the United Kingdom and, to a lesser extent, Italy and France. 

This is far from the up-by-the-bootstraps, Horatio Algeresque self-image that most Americans hold dear. In the United States, immobility is a way of life, especially for the very rich and the very poor. 

I don't know. I feel like I've been reading articles like this my whole adult life. Still, there is a point worth exploring, which stories like this only approach indirectly, if at all: a big problem is that middle class "basics" - houses, cars, college education, health insurance - have gotten so expensive as to be almost unattainable; while "luxuries" like smartphones, designer clothes, indie music, artisanal food, etc have become cheap and widely available. Coincidentally*, the basics are what have attracted the most attention from the gov't.

(Also, note that the Atlantic - reflecting conventional wisdom among the intelligencia - thinks that education is the key to upward mobility, rather than hard work or determination. There was a famous published in 1994 that tried to warn the public and policy makers of this, but no one paid any attention and attacked the Bell Curve as being beyond the scope of polite discourse.)

Not everyone can "make it" in America. That's not really the point. We can't all be Steve Jobs, after all. Also, the idea that "the rich" (whomever they are) are either staying rich or getting richer is just ludicrous. A lot of fortunes have been lost over the last 4-5 years with many members of the upper class downsizing their lives to an extreme degree. Maybe you don't see them - it is an invisible hand - but they are there, believe me. But still, it does seem something is out of whack when people can't buy a home, but can carry an i-phone around with more computing power than anything the wealthiest person in the world could buy just a couple decades ago.

*if you don't hear the sarcasm there, you are not paying attention. 

I Am Outraged: Don Young vs Beverly Hall

Another Republican is causing trouble with the Hispanic outreach program. Don Young, Alaska's lone House member, used the term "wetback" in a radio interview.

Rep. Don Young, who used the term “wetbacks” to describe Mexican immigrants in a radio interview Thursday night, issued a full-scale apology this afternoon for using the derogatory slur after a barrage of criticism from Republicans and Democrats. 

“I apologize for the insensitive term I used during an interview in Ketchikan, Alaska,” Young, R-Alaska, wrote in his second statement of the past 24 hours. “There was no malice in my heart or intent to offend; it was a poor choice of words.”

Young is, predictably, the face of the Republican Party this week despite the fact that (1) he is the sort of big-spending, non-evangelical moderate that we're supposed to elect more of and (2) most Republicans outside the Land of the Midnight Sun can't stand him. Sarah Palin even supported an effort to primary Young back in 2008! (and is there any doubt that Young would be the first House Republican to sign on to "comprehensive immigration reform?") None of this matters, of course. As long as Young is insulting Hispanics, he is Mr. Republican, Mr. Tea Party & Mr. Conservative.

But, who is being hurt by Young's slur? Nobody. Sticks and stones, and all that (plus, Ike had some kind of guest worker program back in the good old days called "Operation Wetback," so at some point the term was socially acceptable).

On the other hand, imagine all of the casualties from the latest scandal out of urban America: a conspiracy directed by the superintendent of the Atlanta School District to raise test scores by literally changing kids' answers on standardized tests:

In the two and a half years since, the state’s investigation reached from Ms. Parks’s third-grade classroom all the way to the district superintendent at the time, Beverly L. Hall, who was one of 35 Atlanta educators indicted Friday by a Fulton County grand jury. 

Dr. Hall, who retired in 2011, was charged with racketeering, theft, influencing witnesses, conspiracy and making false statements. Prosecutors recommended a $7.5 million bond for her; she could face up to 45 years in prison. 

During the decade she led the district of 52,000 children, many of them poor and African-American, Atlanta students often outperformed wealthier suburban districts on state tests. 

Those test scores brought her fame — in 2009, the American Association of School Administrators named her superintendent of the year and Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, hosted her at the White House. 

And fortune — she earned more than $500,000 in performance bonuses while superintendent. 

On Friday, prosecutors essentially said it really was too good to be true. Dr. Hall and the 34 teachers, principals and administrators “conspired to either cheat, conceal cheating or retaliate against whistle-blowers in an effort to bolster C.R.C.T. scores for the benefit of financial rewards associated with high test scores,” the indictment said, referring to the state’s Criterion-Referenced Competency Test. 

Reached late Friday, Richard Deane, Dr. Hall’s lawyer, said they were digesting the indictment and making arrangements for bond. “We’re pretty busy,” he said.

Am I stepping out of bounds in assuming that Dr. Hall and her confederates are liberal black women? Probably not, as Hall was feted at the White House in 2009.

(apropos of nothing, have you heard about the arrest of Elba Gordillo, presidente' for life of the Mexican teachers union? She's accused of stealing $200 million from the union with Neiman Marcus providing crucial evidence of multi-million dollar shopping sprees. For the Children, of course.)

That African-American kids are cruelly trapped in failing schools is beyond dispute. Also beyond dispute is that those failing schools are not educational institutions, but are little more than jobs programs and money pits. And the cheating is national, and systemic with similar scandals brewing in El Paso and Ohio.

Yet, somehow, Don Young is a Big Problem for Republicans, perpetually flat-footed in their effort to make in-roads into minority communities; while Dr. Hall is part of some crazy "local" scandal and everyone else involved in urban public education is great because they care so much for The Children (and vote Democrat).

Reality is that Don Young is a cheesy semi-corrupt octogenarian pol with virtually no voice in his party outside of Alaska. Reality is that Democrats, the Party of Education, have had one-party rule over urban school districts for decades and destroyed them, stunting the development of god-knows how many millions of minority kids. And, apparently, it's enough to hold up the obscure likes of Don Young as representing the tip of the spear of some sort of unspeakable GOP Jim Crow for Democrats to retain their death-grip on the votes of minorities. (those who show up at the polls at least. Urban precincts are notorious for the fraudulence of their electoral returns).

Instead of convening seminars and writing op-eds in the Wall Street Journal, Republicans eager to court black or Hispanic voters should show up at these sh*** schools and help lead a revolt by those parents who care enough about their kids to change this noxious reality.

Drugstore Cowboy: South Bay Principal Busted For Dealing Meth

Want more evidence that California's "sex, drugs 'n rock & roll" ethos leads to sleaze in high places? Look no further than Santa Clara (home of Intel & McAfee) where an elementary school principal has been busted for trying to sell meth to an undercover cop he met on a gay sex site:

The principal of a Santa Clara elementary school faces drug sales charges after investigators found a quarter-ounce of methamphetamine at his San Francisco home, authorities said Sunday. 

Agents arrested Eric Dean Lewis, 42, principal of Montague Elementary, on Friday. The arrest occurred at a Caltrain station where Lewis had arranged to meet an undercover agent he contacted through a gay dating website, said California Department of Justice spokeswoman Michelle Gregory. 

Lewis, principal at the school on Laurie Avenue for the past seven years, was booked into Santa Clara County Jail on suspicion of having methamphetamine for sale and offering to furnish narcotics. 

Santa Clara Unified School District officials said they are shocked at the arrest of the "well-regarded" employee and have placed him on unpaid administrative leave. Lewis could not be reached for comment. 

An unfortunate, poetic posting to students and parents happened to appear Sunday on Lewis' school's website: The "Principal's Message" stated, "At the end of the day be ready to say I'm proud of what I did today!"

As with the similarly meth-addicted former Alameda Supervisor Nadia Lockyer, we are dealing with a guy who managed to go pretty far despite leading a frankly depraved "secret" life (which was, no doubt, well known to folks in a position to stop him, but didn't). Take my word for it as someone who went to college in CA, and has lived here for 20+ years: there is a lot of illicit sex and raging drug use going on behind closed doors. It's just impossible to believe that there are members of Generation X occupying positions of influence, who have personal histories that would make Bill Clinton blush, that aren't carrying on with the same crazy behavior they indulged in at college. Sure, gay sex and meth use are vicitmless crimes, but - knowing what you know now - would you want this guy as principal of your kids' elementary school?

(interestingly, the SF Chronicle version of this story forces you to guess as to the principal's sexual orientation. Don't want to disrupt the rainbows and unicorns PR efforts of the gay community, I guess).

Can't say I have any solutions to offer, except that I don't think it would have been to hard for Lewis's bosses to find out the truth about him, but no one wanted to look.

Teacher's Pets: How Hard Is It To Change Work Rules For CA Teachers? Harder Than You Think

You'd think one of the easiest things to do in the world would be to pass legislation to streamline the process to fire public school teachers who molest their students; but, no it's not, at least not in California:

State Sen. Alex Padilla of Los Angeles had every reason to hope that the 11 members of the obscure but powerful state Assembly Education Committee in Sacramento would back his new legislation, Senate Bill 1530, designed to let public schools more easily fire teachers who commit sexual, physically abusive or drug-related acts with their students. 

The bill, written by the former L.A. city councilman from the San Fernando Valley, a graduate of MIT who is seen by many as a man with a political future, had sailed through the Senate Education Committee in the upper house on a bipartisan vote. In the state Capitol, news reports about disgusting teachers who weren't fired thanks to rigidly protective laws — teachers such as alleged sex pervert Mark Berndt — were fresh in legislators' minds. 

Egregious-behaving teachers have formidable powers. LAUSD secretly paid Berndt $40,000 to quit. That was far less money than LAUSD would have shelled out for attorneys and Berndt's ongoing salary — only to perhaps see him reinstated by California's unusually powerful, three-person Commission on Professional Competence, controlled by two teachers-union appointees who are increasingly criticized for not acting on behalf of children. 

... 

But in late June, Democratic legislators from six Southern and Northern California communities killed Padilla's bill. Two Democrats voted no on SB 1530 — Tom Ammiano of San Francisco and Joan Buchanan of Alamo. And four Democrats, including Betsy Butler of Los Angeles and Mike Eng of Monterey Park, refused to vote at all, knowing their abstentions would assure that SB 1530 failed by a single vote — and that their non-votes would go largely under the radar. (The other two abstaining Democrats were Wilmer Amina Carter of Rialto and Das Williams of Santa Barbara.)

The hang-up, believe it or not, is the timing of the termination notices. Reformers sensibly want the notices to go out right away, while the teachers' union says, hey, you can't send out notices during summer vacation! I wish I was making this up

Under current law, for instance, a school district cannot even begin the notification process — that it wants to dismiss a teacher for egregious behavior — if it's summertime. Why? Because some teachers might have to cut short vacations to set up legal teams or huddle with family; some may ignore their mail all summer. 

Padilla's bill lets the first notice go forth as soon as it's ready. 

CTA officials** urged educators to stop SB 1530, warning that it "would allow employers to send out a notice to dismiss during the summer when many certificated personnel are not in town."

Nice to know there are so many teachers out there who are the sort of creepy depressives who won't pick up their mail for months on end. 


A subtext of this story (and other teacher-parent flash-points) is almost always that these abusive teachers are in schools serving poor communities. It used to be that was no problem, I guess because the students were too poor for anyone to care about. But, things are different now because the poor kids are becoming increasingly brown, and Hispanic parents actually care about the welfare of their kids and are will to organize to vocally object to this sort of nonsense.* If you read the linked article, you'll see many of the law's proponents are Hispanic. You'll also see that the charge against the law was lead by San Francisco's Tom Ammiano, a very left-wing, very white-bread, and very gay former teacher. Yet, by some magical process, these parents are also supposed to see the Democrat Party as their "natural" home. Not if stuff like this keeps happening, it won't.


*one of the few useful California ed-reforms have been the law allowing a majority of parents at a school to essentially vote the current school staff out of their lives. Many of the schools that have gone through this are majority Hispanic).

Education Connection: California Voters Fail To Understand Link Between Tax Increase & School Budget Cuts

This SF Chronicle article claims that there is a "disconnect" in the minds of California voters. 80% of the poor fools, you see, oppose cuts to education spending but only 50% support the governor's proposed tax increases. 

Nearly 80 percent of Californians oppose $5 billion in so-called trigger cuts to state schools this fall, but only a slight majority of voters support the governor's tax plan to stop it, according to a survey of 2,000 voters released Wednesday. 

At this point, 54 percent of likely voters said they'd vote for Gov. Jerry Brown's ballot measure to temporarily boost sales tax and income tax on wealthy California residents, the Public Policy Institute of California poll found. 

If it doesn't pass, Brown's plan calls for school budget cuts to be triggered. Supporters of the tax hike measure expect to submit enough signatures to qualify for the Nov. 6 ballot sometime next month. 

Wednesday's poll signals something of a voter disconnect in the early stages of the campaign, said Mark Baldassare, the institute's president. 

Part of that could stem from the fact that most voters, 65 percent, like the idea of a tax on the wealthy to support schools, but 52 percent of those surveyed said they don't like the sales tax increase. 

The survey also showed voters want education dollars spent more wisely, with 48 percent saying that doing so would significantly improve schools. On the other hand, 46 percent of those surveyed said it will take wisdom and more money to make an impact. 

Just 6 percent said more money by itself would have the most impact.

On the issue of tax increases, I'd say most tax payers think they're taxed enough as it is, even if just through sales and gas taxes. The state pulls in plenty of tax revenue and spends every dime, but magically it's just not enough. 


On the issue of spending cuts, I'd say the average Californian knows there's something deeply wrong in the manner in which the state spends its education money. For one thing, we've spent decades adding special funding sources, including the Lottery. We've been segregating education funds from the rest of the budget. Etc. California became a one-party state in large part due to the state Dems' riding "education" and "the Children" to power. Now that they have total control over every possible lever in state politics...they are using the prospect of education cuts to bully people into raising taxes on themselves. Nice. 


For another, I think we all know that education isn't the only budget bloat in the state budget. Where are the proposals to cut the $50K we spend on housing each and every prisoner? (put 'em in tents). Where are the proposals to cut green subsidies? Or high speed rail? Or a million other dumb enviro-nut money pits? How about getting rid of the Air Resources Board, which only duplicates the already lousy work of the EPA? Education is one of the few aspects of state government that voters actually don't mind spending money on, but it's also the one that's perennially threatened with cuts. It's almost like Dems see students as little more than human shields for all of their other programs.   


There's no disconnect in those numbers. People know instinctively that raising more money through  tax increases isn't going to solve the state's funding problems. They know that education money is spent inefficiently and wastefully. The only disconnect is why these folks have become convinced that the leftists in state government are the ones to trust with their kids' educations. 

Kids Today: Cal State Grad Students Shocked To Learn Their Grant Money May Be Cut Off

Cal State University grad-students are now getting word that the grant money many of them rely on to pay their tuition may be cut off as part of the endless rounds of budget cutting. Cue the violins: 

California State University is withholding financial aid for about 20,000 needy graduate students - money that pays their tuition - pending a decision that could permanently end the cash grants, The Chronicle has learned. 

Graduate students across the 23-campus system began receiving financial aid notices this week and were astonished to see that the State University Grant that takes care of tuition for low-income students was missing. In its place was the offer of a federal loan at 6.8 percent interest. 

"I thought it was a mistake, that someone messed up at the financial aid office," said Hayley Leventhal, who is in the first year of a two-year master's program in counseling at San Francisco State University. 

It was no mistake. 

CSU Chancellor Charles Reed recently told all campuses not to allocate about $90 million in financial aid that would have paid the 2012-13 tuition for qualified grad students - about half of the roughly 40,000 graduates enrolled.

These students seem typical:

"I was horrified. I started crying once I realized it was happening to everyone," said Leventhal, who received her notice Monday. 

Leventhal, who hopes to become a college counselor, chose San Francisco State after talking with financial aid officers who helped estimate her cost based on grant money. 

"It's a huge risk to take two years out of your working life to make this kind of commitment," she said. "I did it because I expected to receive financial assistance.
"Now I'm considering whether it's wise for me to come back next year." 

She and classmate Arielle Smith, who also lost her grant, created an online petition to urge CSU not to yank the financial aid. 

"Stand up to tell Chancellor Reed and the Board of Trustees that advanced degrees are not luxury goods, and that the CSU system cannot and should not sacrifice graduate students," the petition reads. 

Leventhal and Smith posted the petition Wednesday night. By Friday it had more than 200 signatures. 

Besides the likely loss of the grant money, what angered the students was that they received no notice or explanation. 

"We felt powerless and frustrated," Leventhal said. She and Smith visited the financial aid office Tuesday to learn more, but were simply told that, yes, their grants had been cut.

Back in Ye Olden Days when Pete Wilson was governor, these students would have been rioting in the quad against Evil Republicans balancing the budget on their backs. Now that there are no longer any Republicans with any say in the matter...the budget is still being balanced on their backs and all they can do is rail against dark mysterious forces taking away their crumbs. (ten of those $8,000/year grants probably add up to the annual pension for some retired university administrator).  You feel powerless and frustrated? That's what happens when you rely entirely on the state, especially a one-party state, for your daily bread. 


And, note that the complaining student, Haley Levanthal, was in grad school in hopes of becoming a college counselor. Can we all reasonably assume that she might be a liberal who likes the idea of redistributing wealth so long as some of it comes her way? But, when the $$ are cut, suddenly it's "dark mysterious forces" time. No. You are being cut off in favor of the adults who are already comfortably ensconced in their university sinecures. All those hip professors who use Michael Moore movies as part of their curricula may talk a hip game, but ultimately their students are human shields protecting their professors' tenure and parking spaces.  


(I'm not even going to mention that many of these students should properly have gotten all of the education they could have possibly needed in high school and college, but didn't. There's a lot of money sloshing around the education world, but precious little of it seems to go to the students). 


California's public universities, like every other public institution in the state, spends an inordinate amount of money and much of it seems to simply waft away into the either, even though we all know that it ends up in some pocket somewhere. But, it's not as if this public money is actually being spent for the public good. 

Systemic Failure: The LA Teacher Scandal

You may have heard of the LA teacher accused of binding and gagging his students, covering them in roaches, and then feeding them his .... sorry it's too disgusting. If you wondered how he could get away with this for so long, you are not alone. The LA Unified Schools superintendent is curious too.

L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy has launched an investigation into how a veteran teacher charged with 23 counts of lewd conductwith current and former students could have escaped suspicion for so long. 

Former Miramonte Elementary teacher Mark Berndt, 61, is accused of gagging students with tape, blindfolding them and spoon-feeding his semen to some current and former students in his classroom, in what he described to the children as a “tasting game.” He took hundreds of photos of the children, many with a milky substance around their mouths, authorities said. 

The lewd conduct charges cover a period from July 1, 2005, to June 28, 2011. Most of the alleged crimes occurred from mid-2009 to mid-2011. 

“How do I make sense out of the fact that this took place over a number of years and no one seemed to know about that?” said Deasy in an interview Wednesday morning. “I want to understand it. I’m definitely trying to understand how someone could not have known.”

Can we just make something abundantly clear? If this had happened in, say, a Catholic church...or Abu Ghraib... of a Duke University frat house...or, God help us, Guantanamo, we would be hearing all about systemic failures, and cultures of corruption from the same loudmouths who are responding to this bizarre torture of children with little in the way of loudmouthing and much in the way of deafening silence. 

I know, I know. Most teachers are hard working, self-sacrificing paragons who would never torment their charges in such a manner. But, we all know that the "good" teachers are happily participating in a system that protects guys like Berndt, a system so protective of its rights and prerogatives that Berndt's bosses can't even withdraw the guy's retirement bennies. The system failed the kids, but it's not going to stop the flow of $$ to their abuser. 

This One Goes To 11: Philly Schools Superintendent Applies for Unemployment Benefit

Lots of talk radio outrage over former Philadelphia Schools Superintendent, Arlene Ackerman, who applied for - and will apparently receive - unemployment benefits after accepting a $900K buy-out from the district. Cue the outrageous outrage:

Former Philadelphia schools superintendent Arlene Ackerman, who was given a nearly $1-million buyout earlier this year, has applied for unemployment. 

School District spokesman Fernando Gallard today confirmed that Ackerman wants to collect state unemployment benefits. 

“The former superintendent did apply for unemployment,” Gallard told KYW Newsradiotoday.
This comes after taxpayers funded a $905,000 buyout when she was shown the door in August. 

As part of her separation agreement, the School Reform Commission agreed not to contest any unemployment claims she might file.

Actually, what they've got in Philadelphia is not a school board, but a "School Reform Commission." I assume that's because the actual school board had become so corrupt and pointless as to be incapable of fulfilling its mission. Just to add to the fun, the funds for Ackerman's buy-out came from private donors. I'd love to hear the fund raising pitch for that one. 


There's been a lot of hooting about how Ackerman is nothing more than a parasite living off the tax payers, but I don't think that's quite fair. She was school superintendent in San Francisco from 2000 - 2006 and did a respectable job there. She came in to clean up a nest of corruption in the district, resulting in a number of arrests. She made a real effort to confront the teachers union's insistence on putting its interests ahead of the kids. Parents loved her, but you can guess how things ended. Ackerman became the focus of the sort of "ethics complaints" that are normally reserved for Sarah Palins of the world. The school board was dominated by a Green Party faction that made a determined effort to make Ackerman's life miserable. Hey, sometimes progressive politics demands that we protect corruption and union featherbedding! Ackerman left, taking a buy-out and heading off to Philly. 


I have no idea what happened in Philly the last few years. Ackerman appears to have created some magnet programs at low-performing schools, but these programs were expensive and not popular with the Reform Commission. There have been some spectacular incidents of racial violence at the schools, including an attack on some Asian kids. The last straw for the Commission appears to have been an unexpected budget shortfall, but you would think such a shortfall wouldn't come as a surprise to a Commission charged with operating/reforming the schools. 


None of this is anything to brag about, but if you are determined to dig up bad news about any urban school district in order to undermine the superintendent, you don't have to work too hard. For whatever reason, Ackerman rubbed someone(s) the wrong way, and she had to go. 


Is it silly for Ackerman to seek unemployment benefits? Sure. But, look at things from her perspective. She's been brought into three separate urban school districts (DC, SF & Philly) with the explicit understanding that she will reform a broken system. She always comes in talking about how she will put the kids first, and is clear in confronting the teachers unions, and others who live off the school system. Don't know about Philly, but the parents in DC and SF loved her. But, magically, it always turns out that Ackerman is Doing Something Wrong either by spending money on magnet schools, treating teachers high-handedly, or what have you. And so she goes, often with a pre-printed NEA sign taped to her back. 


If it were me, I'd start feeling pretty bitter about the whole set up. Filing for unemployment benefits might be a small thing, but it would make me feel a little better. 

Happy Thanksgiving, Mom & Dad, I'm In Jail...

...Egyptian Jail:

Egyptian officials say a court has ordered the release of three American students arrested this week during the unrest in Cairo. 

An Egyptian official said Thursday the three who attend the American University in Cairo were arrested on the roof of a university building near Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square where they were allegedly throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters. 

The three, arrested Sunday, are Derrik Sweeney, a 19-year-old Georgetown University student, Luke Gates, a 21-year-old Indiana University student, and Gregory Porter, a 19-year-old Drexel University student

I'll be honest, when I heard that three American students had been arrested in Cairo for participating in the recent round of violent protests, I assumed they were "students" in the Mohammed Atta sense, i.e. local guys in their early thirties with some tangential tie to the United States; but, no, these three mopes really are white bread American idiot college kids. Not sure which side they were supporting with their antics: the grim-faced military dictatorship, or the nascent Islamofascists. Either way, it's clear they are not learning anything during their year abroad. 

Bear Baiting: Newt Gingrich Talks About The Poor

Now that Newt Gingrich has regained the national stage, he is reverting to his favorite pose: challenging the welfare state and talking about What To Do About The Poor. It's the sort of thing he knows will draw outraged headlines in the objective press. 

"This is something that no liberal wants to deal with," Gingrich said. "Core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization against children in the poorest neighborhoods, crippling them by putting them in schools that fail has done more to create income inequality in the United States than any other single policy. It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid. 

"You say to somebody, you shouldn't go to work before you're what, 14, 16 years of age, fine. You're totally poor. You're in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I've tried for years to have a very simple model," he said. "Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they'd begin the process of rising." 

He added, "You go out and talk to people, as I do, you go out and talk to people who are really successful in one generation. They all started their first job between nine and 14 years of age. They all were either selling newspapers, going door to door, they were doing something, they were washing cars." 

"They all learned how to make money at a very early age," he said. "What do we say to poor kids in poor neighborhoods? Don't do it. Remember all that stuff about don't get a hamburger flipping job? The worst possible advice you could give to poor children. Get any job that teaches you to show up on Monday. Get any job that teaches you to stay all day even if you are in a fight with your girlfriend. The whole process of making work worthwhile is central."

Gingrich is making a not-so-profound point here, namely that the rhetoric of the left has not only increased welfare dependency, but also denigrated work, so of course the Politico headline is "Newt: Fire The Janitors, Hire Kids To Clean Schools," as if an off-hand comment ("most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors...") is going to be a bedrock of a Gingrich administration's education policy.  


Every Republican in creation should be able to make some variation of Gingrich's basic point: that we are spending untowards amounts of money to little effect, and stunting lives and opportunities by the million. But most of them won't make that argument because police society has declared that the throw-billions-of -dollars-teachers-and-administrators is the One True Path to education nirvana. And, polite society will defend that arrangement through, among other things, outraged headlines misconstruing the good faith arguments of the GOP.


By the way, whiny liberals, Japanese schools often have a single janitor with the kids handling a lot of the clean-up. As I discussed a couple years ago:

Hah! Can you imagine the high school drop out rate if American students had to start cleaning the school? And, even if they did, can you imagine some parents letting their Precious Little Dears do that? I can't. Not only that, I would imagine most US school systems have a janitors union that might have some unkind words for this arrangement. 

So it's not so untoward as Politico and the outraged class would have you believe.  

Bring Back Loyalty Oaths: Cal State Faculty Join Occupy Strike

The Bay Area Occupy (This Space) rallies appear to have begun to focus their ire on California's public universities, specifically the cuts and tuition increases that have been all too common the last few years. You can always get students upset about these things, but now the faculty for at least one East Bay university has joined in. 

They pitched no tents. They were struck by no police batons. 

But the hundreds of chanting, dancing, drum-pounding California State University faculty members who converged on CSU's Hayward campus today to demand promised raises did do a "mike check," the Occupy Wall Street movement's signature method of addressing large crowds without a microphone. 

"Mike check!" shouted a voice from within the crowd at Cal State East Bay. "When faculty are forced to leave the CSU for better pay and working conditions, the value of your degree is on the line!" 

Faculty, joined by students and some state lawmakers, repeated his words in the now familiar call-and-response fashion of Occupy protesters. 

Cal State East Bay was one of two campuses in the 23-campus system - the other was Cal State Dominguez Hills - where most faculty walked out of class in a one-day strike to call attention to the cancellation of pay raises and stalled labor negotiations

This is absurd, and not just because a bunch of educated middle-aged teachers are carrying on like they are bad-ass street rebels. (back in my younger days, I would have bust a gut laughing at any of my high school teachers or college professors joining any kind of "movement"). These teachers are one of the reasons why the public universities are in so much trouble, both because of the high cost of employing them, and the low quality of their pedagogy. Yet, clueless students upset about tuition increases are no doubt thrilled to receive this show of solidarity. Uh, guys, these teachers are not your friends. Secretly, they want tuition to go up, so their salaries go up as well. 


Not only that, they are feeding you a steady diet of nonsense, especially those hip professors who use Michael Moore movies as a teaching tool and keep a Nader For President bumpersticker on their office door. They've been telling you about how Republicans and "big business" are evil, but all of these cuts you are protesting - not to mention virtually every other problem in the formerly Golden State - are coming from Democrats in government. Wall Street isn't raising your tuition; Democrats are. 


And not only that, the Democrats - who control virtually every lever of power in the state - haven't lifted a finger trying to cut the real expenses driving the state into a hole: public employee pensions, redistributionist welfare payments, and unchecked illegal immigration. No, it's always students. That's partly because kids are always good for some dramatic "student strike" headlines, but also because there's always another group of students coming along once the previous bunch has graduated. If anyone ever manages to realize they are nothing more than human shields for some retired bureaucrat's pension, they're already long gone. 


It's days like this when you can't help thinking a good loyalty oath would do wonders. 

All You Have to Do Is DREAM

The DREAM Act, like Godwin Liu, may have failed at the federal level, but that doesn't mean it won't find a willing audience in California. State lawmakers have just passed part two of a law that will allow illegal aliens to obtain college grants, regardless of their immigration status.

The college dreams of thousands of students who are illegal immigrants moved closer to fulfillment Wednesday after the state Senate approved a bill that for the first time would give them access to public financial aid.

Part of a two-bill package known as the California Dream Act, the measure would allow undocumented students who qualify for reduced in-state tuition to apply for Cal Grants, community college waivers and other public aid programs. To be eligible, they must be California high school graduates who attended schools in the state at least three years, and demonstrate financial need and academic merit.

Back in my college days, these sort of grants simply weren't available to regular middle class people, but apparently it's roll-out-the-carpet time if you have absolutely no legal right to be in the United States. My memory of financial aid planning was that you had to fill out some federal forms and give your social security number, among other things. Will the California DREAM Act also provide undocumented kids with fake SSN's?

The linked article quotes a couple of kids who say they have to work at the classic "two jobs to make ends meet" as if that is some unique experience. The fact is that they would probably have to work those jobs anyway, given how much college costs thanks to this sort of meddling. By the way, one of things that Everybody Knows in California is that classes, especially in community college, are packed to the gills in the first week - and then empty out as soon as everyone gets their grant money. You see, you don't have to pay back the grants so once people get their money, they're outta there.

The DREAM Act is almost a perfect storm of progressive governance: undermine immigration laws? Check. Dumping more money into higher education? Check. Reckless social engineering? Check. Disregard for cost? Can I hear a "Check?" Sadly, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of popular outrage against this sort of thing.

Cold For Teacher: SF Art Teacher's Offensive Images

A recurring question among San Francisco officials is: "what can we do to get middle class people to send their kids to the City's schools?" My suggestion: stop doing things like hiring guys with child pornography on their computers to teach art. And if you insist on hiring such people, try to at least keep them from inserting sexual imagery into the art they work on with the kids. SF Unified School District failed on both of these counts:

The head of a children's art organization, arrested three weeks ago on suspicion of possessing child pornography, placed "offensive" tiles in murals he created at four city schools, San Francisco police said Friday.

About 100 "inappropriate" tiles have been found in murals at Sunset Elementary School and three other unnamed schools in the city, Police Chief Greg Suhr said.

Anthony Josef Norris, founder and director of Kid Serve Youth Murals, designed and worked on all the projects. The San Francisco man surrendered June 2 to the FBI after agents investigating a website known for child pornography traced the log-on name of "Spanky" to his home computer and discovered 600 pornographic images of children, according to an arrest warrant affidavit filed in federal court in San Francisco

Sheesh! The problem with SF schools is the lack of adult supervision, even among the adults.

Left Tea Party: California Teachers Rally Against Reality

Watch out, wingnuts! California's teachers unions are organizing a week's worth of rallies, teach-ins, protests, sit-ins, and - who knows? - hunger strikes to protest against the usual "draconian" cuts against the education lobby. As there are no Republicans with any real say in the direction of the state's budget, this is more a civil war on the Left over diminishing spoils, rather than a war against Evil Plutocrats.

Thousands of California teachers are expected to take part in a weeklong series of rallies and sit-ins this week at the Capitol and throughout the state to protest possible spending cuts in the state budget.

Teachers face the threat of mass layoffs, larger classes and the elimination of myriad programs because of California's $15.4 billion budget shortfall.

The California Teachers Association is pressing Gov. Jerry Brown to back off his call for a special election and instead push GOP lawmakers to directly approve an extension of higher sales, income and vehicle taxes.

Union President David Sanchez says if the taxes aren't approved, 21,000 teachers will lose their jobs next fall. They've already received pink slips.

Freeway billboards bearing the campaign's tagline, State of Emergency, are up throughout the state.

I've been hearing radio ads all week about this. They're full of the usual querulous voices about how mysterious budget-cutting forces are threatening the state with doom and destruction. Back in the olden days (i.e. 2003 - 2010), they focused their ire on the Governator, which was simple enough. Now, it's just ... them. They're out to get teachers, don't you know.

In the past, the teachers' crocodile tears over draconian cuts have been enough to freak out parents. But at some point they have to realize that all of that education spending is not actually going to educate their kids, but to pay for the sinecures of the adults.

More Shocking News: Parents Tend To Pull Their Kids Out of Oakland Public Schools

From the San Francisco Chronicle, last seen front-paging the "shocking" news that Obamacare and other government meddling has resulted in increased health care premiums, comes another above-the-fold stunner: Top Students Are Fleeing the Oakland public school system, often just before they are scheduled to enter middle school. Why? Whyyyy??

One of every four Oakland students - including 40 percent of its highest achievers - fled the district's public schools after finishing fifth grade in the spring, shunning the city's middle schools in favor of private, suburban or charter schools.

The exodus, which crosses all ethnicities and income levels, meant a loss of at least $6 million in state revenue. But perhaps more importantly, it shows the staggering brain drain that consistently leaves middle schools heavily weighted with struggling students.

It's a confounding problem for Oakland administrators: How can they improve the middle schools' test scores when the brightest students leave?

The Chron and everyone else tries to dress this controversy - if you can call it that - with furrow browed talk about how this touches on matters of race, class, and culture, along with (ahem) worries about safety*. But, we all know what's going on here. People are willing to go along with the idealistic communitarian theory of public school for when their kids are going to the neighborhood elementary school, but when it's time to start your real education in middle school, suddenly you start to care a whole lot more about what type of kids are going to be sitting next to yours. Liberals may believe some crazy things, but even they know that their kids' safety and education is more important than living up to some abstract ideal about public education in a system that simply can't manage to accomplish its one stated goal.

You'd think, by the way, that these folks' negative experience with public school education - where the choice is sending your kid to a mediocre school, or shelling out thousands of dollars to a private school - would maybe teach them a lesson about the possible outcome for, say, a government-run health care system. But, people just aren't trained to make those sorts of connections.

*that's liberal parent speak for "I don't want my kid to get beaten up by one of the downtrodden masses."

Turning Off The Charm: Obama Holds Another Town Hall

President Obama held a town hall meeting in DC today. Despite sitting in front of a friendly crowd of hand-picked DC area liberals, he endured some tough, critical questioning. This woman has been all over the 'net:

“I’m one of your middle-class Americans, and quite frankly I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for, and deeply disappointed with where we are right now. I had been told that I voted for a man who said he was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class. I’m one of those people and I’m waiting, sir. I’m waiting. I don’t feel it yet, and I thought that — while it wouldn’t be in great measure — I would feel it in some small measure.”

That's one good reason to be a conservative, rather than an idealistic "movement" liberal, you don't sit around being disappointed by leftist politicians promising heaven on earth in exchange for your vote (it seems so easy!). Obama's response was essentially, hey, we've set up some programs that are helping you! (check it out if you don't believe me). Uh, I think she was just saying she doesn't feel like there's any help for her.

Obama's interlocutor also mentions that she has two kids in private school. So, you think, if you're struggling maybe you should take those kids out of private school and send them to the public school down the road. Ah, but she lives in DC, where the schools are a disaster, and the reform-minded mayor was just voted out of office in favor of a guy who explicitly promised to end the reforms. The teachers union, you see, was upset that teachers were losing their jobs and being held accountable. So, even though there are public schools available, they are not the sort of places that a respectable woman would willingly send her kids. And all the good liberals in DC (who knows, maybe even this woman) voted in favor of the union and against the kids. Again, if you are a conservative, you don't have to confront these sorts of internal contradictions, at least not on this level.

At another point in the town hall, the moderator asked Obama about "extending the Bush tax cuts." (actually what we are really talking about is maintaining the same tax rate after Jan. 1, when the tax rate is scheduled to rise). Obama was having none of that. You could hear the exasperation in his voice as he denounced the GOP "plan" (which has been gaining Democrat support) to "cut taxes" (maintain them at the same rate) to benefit "millionaires and billionaires" (an income of $250,000 makes you a millionaire??) who "don't spend that extra money anyway" (at least not in Obama's presence). You see, the GOP is saying to those millionaires and billionaires "we'll cut you a check for $100,000" (the government does this???) rather than give it to those more deserving. Also, (blush) Obama is one of those millionaires who would benefit (please, no applause) but he would rather argue against his own economic interests (you're welcome).

As God is my witness, that is what he said. I don't know whether Obama is stupid or if he thinks his supporters are stupid and that is the only way to motivate them. Either way, the political discourse went down a notch.

The Empire Strikes Back

For all of the talk of Tea Parties and "throwing the bums out" last Tuesday, there was one election where the voters essentially threw the bum in: the Democrat primary for DC mayor saw incumbent mayor Adrian Fenty voted out of office in favor of councilman Vincent Gray, who explicitly ran on a platform promising to get rid of School Chancellor Michelle Rhee and bring an end to the reforms that had shaken the DC public schools.

Their long-awaited meeting is set for next week. But when Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and mayor-apparent Vincent C. Gray do finally sit down, it is increasingly likely that the discussion will focus on the terms of her disengagement from the D.C. school system rather than how she might stay.

Rhee moved her departure closer to certainty Wednesday night with comments to an A-list audience at the Newseum after the red-carpet premiere of "Waiting for 'Superman,'" the documentary that casts her as a tart-tongued heroine of the national education reform movement. At a panel discussion that followed the film, Rhee portrayed Gray's Democratic primary victory over Mayor Adrian M. Fenty on Tuesday as a catastrophe.

"Yesterday's election results were devastating, devastating," Rhee said. "Not for me, because I'll be fine, and not even for Fenty, because he'll be fine, but devastating for the schoolchildren of Washington, D.C."

Gray campaign spokeswoman Traci Hughes said in a statement Thursday that it was "unfortunate that the children have been thrown into the middle of the political fray."

Ah, yes, the "children." Everyone says they are acting on their behalf, yet DC schools are practically a case study of the destructive pathologies of public schools. DC's schools throw more money than practically anyone else at "the children" yet achieve the worst possible results; something like 44% of DC's residents don't graduate from high school. In fact, the money doesn't even go to the kids, but to the many teachers and administrators who are on the payroll. And, make no mistake. These were the people who gave Gray his margin of victory. The teachers union went all in for Gray, and now they own him. I honestly can't imagine a worst possible result for public school reform. not to mention DC's kids.

Adrian Fenty, it seems, was not a likable guy (altho' he won back in 2006 going door-to-door, and people liked him well enough back then). He was accused of acting in secret and running a top down operation. There was apparently a controversy over his being on vacation when a quadruple murder occurred. Fenty's bi-racial background was apparently a liability for many DC voters. These are the sort of bogus controversies that are used to hound disfavored politicians, those being conservative Republicans and any liberal who dares to stand up to left wing orthodoxies. And, Fenty was doing what a lot of liberals only say they will do: trying to reform the schools and achieve real results, rather than suck up to teachers upset over having to be evaluated for the first time in their lives and (gasp) even risk being fired for incompetence. It's a seeming no-brainer, yet it's also politically impossible to accomplish.

There's been a lot of bold talk lately about reforming or even rolling back Big Government. But, the vote in DC should be a sobering reminder that the people - and there are millions of them - who have been living off of government for the last 40 years will not go quietly into the night. No matter what else, they know how to vote and they know who to vote for. We can only hope that other voters are as determined to take away government jobs as much as government employees are willing to fight for them.

The Silent Spring Where Money Talks: The Carson-Gore High School

What the heck is going on in the Los Angeles Unified School District? First we had the over-priced Robert F Kennedy Community Schools. Now, word comes that a charter school dedicated to "environmental sciences" - i.e. Green advocacy - and named for Rachel Carson and Al Gore is built on a toxic waste dump. No, this is not a joke:

The $75.5-million Carson-Gore Academy of Environmental Sciences will open Sept. 13 for about 675 students. As he was with Bill Clinton (who has an L.A. middle school named after him), Gore is second on the ticket to Rachel Carson, the late author credited with helping launch the modern environmental movement.

"Renaming this terribly contaminated school after famous environmental advocates is an affront to the great work that these individuals have done to protect the public's health from harm," an environmental coalition wrote in a letter to the Los Angeles Unified School District. Making sure the school is safe "would be an even better way to honor their contribution to society."

Construction crews were working at the campus up to the Labor Day weekend, replacing toxic soil with clean fill. All told, workers removed dirt from two 3,800-square-foot plots to a depth of 45 feet, space enough to hold a four-story building. The soil had contained more than a dozen underground storage tanks serving light industrial businesses.

Additional contamination may have come from the underground tanks of an adjacent gas station. A barrier will stretch 45 feet down from ground level to limit future possible fuel leakage.

An oil well operates across the street, but officials said they've found no associated risks. Like many local campuses, this school also sits above an oil field, but no oil field-related methane has been detected.

Groundwater about 45 feet below the surface remains contaminated but also poses no risk, officials said.

The school cost $75 million to build, but now needs another $4 million to clean up whatever lingering waste is out there. Even more toxic is the curriculum, which promises to teach kids absolutely nothing they could use in the real world should they ever manage to graduate.

Lowry said the school's environmental emphasis will do Gore proud, including recycling projects and research and beach cleanups. Cross-curriculum efforts will include environmental speeches and presentations in English, topsoil measurements in math and climate study in science.

The principal also envisions an organic garden that could produce a student-led farmer's market.

We are approaching the moment of liberal singularity, where their ideas will finally attain infinite density and zero volume

Dead Kennedies: L.A.'s Robert F Kennedy School

The NY Times looks at the controversy over LA's $500 million Robert F Kennedy Community Schools (so called because it's actually several schools sharing a campus), which is not only fabulously expensive, but also intended as some sort of tribute for RFK, who was assassinated in the area where the school is built:

Paul Schrade, 85, gestured to a library counter and, behind it, a warren of empty rooms and closets. The pantry Mr. Schrade referred to, now vanished, was the passageway in the Ambassador Hotel where Robert F. Kennedy was shot 42 years ago after declaring victory in the state’s Democratic presidential primary. Mr. Schrade, a close aide, was at Kennedy’s side that night and was himself shot in the head in the rush of gunfire, a little remembered footnote to the assassination.

The Ambassador Hotel is now razed, replaced by a sprawling public school complex that will open on Sept. 13, a memorial to Kennedy as well as an ambitious effort by a beleaguered school system to provide classrooms to a community of mostly poor Latino students. Mr. Schrade has been the Kennedy family’s chief representative in a project to which he has more than a little personal connection.

Yet the opening of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools has become a new strained chapter in a long battle over this historically resonant site. In the 21 years since the hotel went bankrupt, the property has been the stage for a battle pitting historical preservationists against the Kennedy family and a city that is not often keen on embracing its history; a failed attempt by Donald Trump to build the world’s largest building; and now, a corrosive controversy over the almost $600 million cost of the school — it is the most expensive in the nation, local officials say — that is embarrassing Los Angeles school officials and chastening Mr. Schrade.

That's actually the perfect tribute for a liberal: an over-priced boondoggle that doesn't even accomplish one of it's two stated goals: preserving the historic sites that the school has replaced. Check back in a few years, and the school(s) will also be failing at their other stated goal: educating the kids.

One thing this fiasco may do is shine a light, not just on Croesus-level spending in urban school districts, but also the practice of paying "tribute" to Robert F Kennedy, surely one of the most overrated political icons of the last 60 years. He's a liberal saint - practically a martyr - but for what I have no idea.

That's not to say he was all bad. He helped Joe McCarthy hunt commies. He fought southern segregationists. He tried to assassinate Castro. He had his own private army in Florida that invaded Cuba. He was devout, and was obviously pro-life (tho' most of his kids ended up screwy). He led the charge against organized crime, which had corrupted political and social life in many American cities. His efforts to drive organized crime out of the trade unions may well have been his greatest legacy, one which fatally weakened private unions including the once all-powerful Teamsters. For that, a grateful nation owes RFK thanks. But, these can hardly be the accomplishments that modern liberals are thinking of when they become misty over "Bobby."

No, what they like is the post-assassination Senator Kennedy. This is the RFK who demagogued racial issues, helping poison race relations at a time when American society was finally beginning to integrate. The RFK who advocated for the sort of Great Society programs that have only perpetuated the poverty he claimed to be so appalled by. The RFK who was a wealthy man who advocated redistributive taxing and spending schemes. Most important, he is the RFK who turned loudly against the Viet Nam War begun by his brother, charmingly going to the well of the Senate to accuse US troops of engaging in "Nazi-like tactics." In other words, he provided the prototype of the modern left-wing Democrat Party. Hardly something to celebrate, let alone build a $500 million white elephant.