Can't be said enough.

If you are a State employee or a member of the teachers union you are a part of the problem and not part of the solution you are a factor in bankrupting America, your state and your town. It is time for you to go to your union heads and demand that you work together as a union to switch from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan before you all lose your retirements because America will have no choice but to not pay out these unsustainable pensions.

The following piece appeared on the American Thinker.


Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

February 19, 2010
News from the public employee front
Ed Lasky
As cities and states face increasing prospects of bankruptcy, who is looking out for the public good ?

Not teachers' unions - the bedrock of the Democratic party and a major beneficiary of the so-called stimulus bill that channeled hundreds of billions of dollars to cities and states so they could meet their payroll and pension obligations. The newly -elected Republican governor of New Jersey owns up to the problem and wants to meet it head on.

Governor Chris Christie:

"Make no mistake about it, pensions and benefits are the major driver of our spending increases at all levels of government -- state, county, municipal and school board. . . . We don't have that money -- you know it and I know it. What has been done to our citizens by offering a pension system we cannot afford and health benefits that are 41% more expensive than the average Fortune 500 company's costs is the truly unfair part of this equation" -- New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, describing the state's fiscal crisis by highlighting the case of one New Jersey teacher due to receive retirement benefits of $1.6 million after contributing only $62,000 into the retirement system.


This is what a leader does. He looks at the problem and deals with it head on. He does not look away from the problem or pass the buck. The buck (and that is a taxpayer buck) stops at his desk.

Conversely his predecessor, Jon Corzine, Democratic and Wall Street fat cat, was in bed with the public employees unions - literally and figuratively. He had a long-time affair with Carla Katz, president of the Communication Workers of America, a union that represented nearly half of all New Jersey state employees. The union endorsed him.

When Carla and Jon broke up, he rewarded her with millions of dollars. Apparently, that was not enough. A few years later, Katz was fired and expelled from the union for financial shenanigans involving the misuse of union funds. The sordid tale was symbolic of the incestuous relationship between many Democrats and public employee unions

This is not just a problem in New Jersey. The problem of sky-high salary and pension and health benefits flowing to members of public unions is an albatross around taxpayers' necks. But Governor Christie is not alone in being strong enough to want to stop the massive bleeding of the budget.

There is this Reaganesque tale:

A school superintendent in Rhode Island is trying to fix an abysmally bad school system.

Her plan calls for teachers at a local high school to work 25 minutes longer per day, each lunch with students once in a while, and help with tutoring. The teachers' union has refused to accept these apparently onerous demands.

The teachers at the high school make $70,000-$78,000, as compared to a median income in the town of $22,000. ... The school superintendent has responded to the union's stubbornness by firing every teacher and administrator at the school.

But wait! It gets better! From an email from someone who seems to know the district:

Teacher salaries at the high school average $72-78k. Apparently 50% of the students at the school are failing all of their classes, and the graduation rate is also under 50%. In an effort to turn the school around, the superintendent requested some changes be made whereby the school day would be slightly extended, teachers would perform some extra tutoring, etc.

Here is my nominee for Education Secretary : that superintendent who gave us all an education in that one act.

Reagan solidified his image as a strong leader very early in his Presidency (1981). His reputation did not hinge on any actions involving the Soviet Union ("Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall" was years in the future). Instead, the Air Traffic Controllers Union (PATCO) broke the law and went on strike, imperiling our nation's aviation system. After fair warning, Reagan fired them. He dealt with the problem by using supervisors and other replacements. The previous controllers were never to be hired again. Reagan was a leader.

There is potential here for new governors and politicians running for public office. There is a revolt brewing out there - in case one hasn't noticed. The people are sick of taxes and bloated budgets. The people are increasingly learning about the rotten deals that their politicians have signed with public employee unions. They know that their childrens' futures and their own retirements are being threatened by the obligation to pay these gold-plated pension and health benefits. They want them broken and then fixed.

I think the Rhode Island teachers' behavior was shameful. Aren't they public servants? Don't they supposedly serve the public? My son's junior high school requires all students to take an absurd course called "Common Good" that supposedly teaches them how to develop a devotion to the community.

Maybe the Rhode Island teachers need to take this remedial course. They have some time on their hands now.

Who needs American History?

In the need to raise good little socialists......the dumbing down of some of America's children continues. You can not raise socialists unless you avoid teaching them the truth about the founding of our Country.


Quote of the Day - " A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink of it deeply, or taste it not, for shallow thoughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking deeply sobers us again." - Alexander Pope

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

The following piece appears on the Examiner.com website. Be sure to visit their website to read the links.

N.C. high schools to replace U.S. History with environmental issues
February 4, 9:36 AMConservative ExaminerRobert Moon

North Carolina public high schools are trying to erase all early U.S. history from the curriculum, ranging from the Founding Fathers to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War...in exchange for things like environmental issues. This kind of blatant propagandistic slant has become routine in public schools (see here and here).

Even though many Americans are increasingly convinced that we need to be embracing the Founding principles now more than ever, the far left teachers' unions driving this latest attempt to accommodate mediocrity disagree. They insist that lowering educational standards even further to such completely dysfunctional levels will somehow enable public school students to gain a more in-depth understanding of current events.



Rebecca Garland, the chief academic officer for North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, explained the decision this way:
"What we are trying to do is figure out a way to teach it where students are connected to it, where they see the big idea, where they are able to make connections and draw relationships between parts of our history and the present day."

In other words, the left-wing teachers' unions running our public school systems (into the ground) have dumbed down education so far at this point that they now must sacrifice everything about who we are, what we stand for and how we got here in order for their victims to graduate. This is what happens when you put Democrat power (forced union dues) before the interests of the people and care more about manufacturing racially-sensitive little environmentalists than actual education.

It is more difficult to notice how fundamentally un-American the left's Constitution-trampling agenda is when no one is even talking about the Founding era anymore.

Big Government

Today's post is dedicated to Big Government.com. As my readers know I am a news and politics junkie. Big Government.com is a new news source dedicated to investigating Big Government. You will find stories here that you will not see in the main stream media. Big Government.com is on my daily reading list sometimes I visit the site a couple times a day.


Quote of the Day - "All the public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole government will degenerate into a struggle of cabals." John Quincy Adams

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

Are Republicans Socialist Too?

Since 1933 we have had aspects of socialism. The people of America have become so use to having certain programs they do not even realize that said programs are socialistic in nature. I have friends who are republicans who do not see how medicare, medicaid, public education and social security are all socialistic programs. As Norman Thomas six time US Socialist Party Presidential Candidate said, "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."

The piece below eloquently states the point I am trying to make and appears on American Vision.org.

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

Republicans are Socialist Too

by Gary DeMar, Aug 17, 2009


Lawrence O’Donnell, the stand-in host for loudmouth Ed Schultz of “The Ed Show,” put Rep. John Culberson (R-Tex.) on the spot with a series of questions about Socialism. O’Donnell, sympathetic to Socialism himself, wanted Rep. Culberson to admit that Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare are Socialistic programs, and since they are, why do Republicans object to government-run healthcare; it’s just more of the same. O’Donnell was parroting the claim by Newsweek that “We are all Socialists Now.” The use of “now” is a misnomer. We’ve been Socialists for quite some time as the above wealth distribution programs prove. And you can add public education as well. So these thousands of town hall protestors who denounce government healthcare would burn at the stake any politician who proposed to phase out Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare and make them financially responsible for the education of their children.



When pressed by O’Donnell, Culberson would not admit that the above programs are the definition of Socialism. O’Donnell even got the history of these programs right. Otto von Bismarck proposed them, and Adolf Hitler and Franklin Roosevelt patterned their social programs after his. To be fair, O’Donnell would not give Culberson a chance to explain his position, but the question was simple: Are these present programs Socialism, and if you had been in office when they were up for a vote, would you have voted for them? The questions were simple and direct as the answers should have been: Yes and No.

It’s not hard to trace the history of the rise of social programs in America. There’s no hidden history. What O’Donnell didn’t mention was how Adolf Hitler National Socialism (Nazi) party patterned its social agenda after the Iron Chancellor. William L. Shirer, in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, writes that a generation before Otto Von Bismarck’s policies gradually made the German people “value security over political freedom and caused them to see in the State, however conservative, a benefactor and a protector.”[1] Between 1883 and 1889 Bismarck put through a program for social security far beyond anything known in other countries at the time. It included compulsory insurance for workers against old age, sickness, accident and incapacity, and though it was organized by the State it was financed by employers and employees. Sound familiar? This is American-style Social Security!

Hitler took full advantage of the German state of mind and Bismarck’s early progress in turning the nation into a model of socialist reform. Hitler remarks in Mein Kampf, “I studied Bismarck’s socialist legislation in its intention, struggle and success.”[2] It was Hitler’s social security policies and promises that helped to get him elected. Of course, this was long before his anti-Semitic views were generally known. If anyone had bothered to read Mein Kampf, he would have seen it. But Hitler’s views on the Jews were not unique to him. Anti-Semitism was widespread in Germany and around the world. (See this exchange between an American soldier and a German woman on the topic of Anti-Semitism in America in the 1950 film The Big Lift at 1:03:50 to 1:05:10.) While I don’t want to pull the Nazi card, isn’t it interesting how the Left is demonizing a large segment of the population by describing them as “extremists” and “unpatriotic” in a way similar to what Hitler did to the Jews?

Hitler was not alone in his admiration of Bismarck and what he was able to accomplish. FDR borrowed Bismarck’s socialist agenda and created what is now known as the Social Security System. Bismarck said that “the State must take the matter in hand, since the State can most easily supply the requisite funds. It must provide them not as alms but in fulfillment of the workers’ right to look to the State where their own good will can achieve nothing more.”[3] Roosevelt and his admirers agreed. P. J. O’Brien, writing in Forward with Roosevelt, links Bismarck’s social policies with those of Roosevelt: “[The quotation by Bismarck] might have been lifted out of a speech by President Roosevelt in 1936, but the Iron Chancellor uttered it in 1871.”[4]

To show that that the debate over healthcare is not solely a Democrat obsession, former Attorney General and Governor of California, later to be nominated to the Supreme Court by Dwight D. Eisenhower and serve as Chief Justice, Earl Warren (1891–1974) “continued to demonstrate a blind faith in big government, becoming the first elected governor in U.S. history to propose compulsory health insurance. His scheme, which was defeated in the legislature, would have forced nearly all state residents into one health plan while giving state government bureaucrats the power to set hospital and doctor fees.”[5]

With the present crop of Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats in opposition, America will get a version of Obamacare Lite. The same thing happened with Social Security. It began as two percent (employee and employer pay-in) on $3000 per year, and it has been going up ever since. Now it’s 12.4 percent on $106,800. Do we really believe it’s going to be any different with healthcare?

Quote of the Day - “The difference between Democrats and Republicans is: Democrats have accepted some ideas of Socialism cheerfully, while Republicans have accepted them reluctantly.” Norman Thomas

Homeschooling Works

The Home School Legal Defense Association has commissioned a report from the National Home Education Research Institute to look at academic achievement in homeschoolers. As you will read homeschooling works. It is time for the government to get out of the way so homeschooling parents can focus on educating their children instead of dealing with ridiculous Legislators who want to make it more difficult to homeschool.

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.


New Nationwide Study Confirms Homeschool Academic Achievement

Ian Slatter
Director of Media Relations

August 10, 2009

Each year, the homeschool movement graduates at least 100,000 students. Due to the fact that both the United States government and homeschool advocates agree that homeschooling has been growing at around 7% per annum for the past decade, it is not surprising that homeschooling is gaining increased attention. Consequently, many people have been asking questions about homeschooling, usually with a focus on either the academic or social abilities of homeschool graduates.

As an organization advocating on behalf of homeschoolers, Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) long ago committed itself to demonstrating that homeschooling should be viewed as a mainstream educational alternative.

We strongly believe that homeschooling is a thriving education movement capable of producing millions of academically and socially able students who will have a tremendously positive effect on society.

Despite much resistance from outside the homeschool movement, whether from teachers unions, politicians, school administrators, judges, social service workers, or even family members, over the past few decades homeschoolers have slowly but surely won acceptance as a mainstream education alternative. This has been due in part to the commissioning of research which demonstrates the academic success of the average homeschooler.



The last piece of major research looking at homeschool academic achievement was completed in 1998 by Dr. Lawrence Rudner. Rudner, a professor at the ERIC Clearinghouse, which is part of the University of Maryland, surveyed over 20,000 homeschooled students. His study, titled Home Schooling Works, discovered that homeschoolers (on average) scored about 30 percentile points higher than the national average on standardized achievement tests.

This research and several other studies supporting the claims of homeschoolers have helped the homeschool cause tremendously. Today, you would be hard pressed to find an opponent of homeschooling who says that homeschoolers, on average, are poor academic achievers.

There is one problem, however. Rudner’s research was conducted over a decade ago. Without another look at the level of academic achievement among homeschooled students, critics could begin to say that research on homeschool achievement is outdated and no longer relevant.

Recognizing this problem, HSLDA commissioned Dr. Brian Ray, an internationally recognized scholar and president of the non-profit National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), to collect data for the 2007–08 academic year for a new study which would build upon 25 years of homeschool academic scholarship conducted by Ray himself, Rudner, and many others.

Drawing from 15 independent testing services, the Progress Report 2009: Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics included 11,739 homeschooled students from all 50 states who took three well-known tests—California Achievement Test, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, and Stanford Achievement Test for the 2007–08 academic year. The Progress Report is the most comprehensive homeschool academic study ever completed.
The Results

Overall the study showed significant advances in homeschool academic achievement as well as revealing that issues such as student gender, parents’ education level, and family income had little bearing on the results of homeschooled students.




There was little difference between the results of homeschooled boys and girls on core scores.

Boys—87th percentile
Girls—88th percentile

Household income had little impact on the results of homeschooled students.

$34,999 or less—85th percentile
$35,000–$49,999—86th percentile
$50,000–$69,999—86th percentile
$70,000 or more—89th percentile

The education level of the parents made a noticeable difference, but the homeschooled children of non-college educated parents still scored in the 83rd percentile, which is well above the national average.

Neither parent has a college degree—83rd percentile
One parent has a college degree—86th percentile
Both parents have a college degree—90th percentile

Whether either parent was a certified teacher did not matter.

Certified (i.e., either parent ever certified)—87th percentile
Not certified (i.e., neither parent ever certified)—88th percentile

Parental spending on home education made little difference.

Spent $600 or more on the student—89th percentile
Spent under $600 on the student—86th percentile

The extent of government regulation on homeschoolers did not affect the results.

Low state regulation—87th percentile
Medium state regulation—88th percentile
High state regulation—87th percentile

HSLDA defines the extent of government regulation this way:

States with low regulation: No state requirement for parents to initiate any contact or State requires parental notification only.

States with moderate regulation: State requires parents to send notification, test scores, and/or professional evaluation of student progress.

State with high regulation: State requires parents to send notification or achievement test scores and/or professional evaluation, plus other requirements (e.g. curriculum approval by the state, teacher qualification of parents, or home visits by state officials).

The question HSLDA regularly puts before state legislatures is, “If government regulation does not improve the results of homeschoolers why is it necessary?”

In short, the results found in the new study are consistent with 25 years of research, which show that as a group homeschoolers consistently perform above average academically. The Progress Report also shows that, even as the numbers and diversity of homeschoolers have grown tremendously over the past 10 years, homeschoolers have actually increased the already sizeable gap in academic achievement between themselves and their public school counterparts-moving from about 30 percentile points higher in the Rudner study (1998) to 37 percentile points higher in the Progress Report (2009).

As mentioned earlier, the achievement gaps that are well-documented in public school between boys and girls, parents with lower incomes, and parents with lower levels of education are not found among homeschoolers. While it is not possible to draw a definitive conclusion, it does appear from all the existing research that homeschooling equalizes every student upwards. Homeschoolers are actually achieving every day what the public schools claim are their goals—to narrow achievement gaps and to educate each child to a high level.

Of course, an education movement which consistently shows that children can be educated to a standard significantly above the average public school student at a fraction of the cost—the average spent by participants in the Progress Report was about $500 per child per year as opposed to the public school average of nearly $10,000 per child per year—will inevitably draw attention from the K-12 public education industry.
Answering the Critics

This particular study is the most comprehensive ever undertaken. It attempts to build upon and improve on the previous research. One criticism of the Rudner study was that it only drew students from one large testing service. Although there was no reason to believe that homeschoolers participating with that service were automatically non-representative of the broader homeschool community, HSLDA decided to answer this criticism by using 15 independent testing services for this new study. There can be no doubt that homeschoolers from all walks of life and backgrounds participated in the Progress Report.

While it is true that not every homeschooler in America was part of this study, it is also true that the Progress Report provides clear evidence of the success of homeschool programs.

The reason is that all social science studies are based on samples. The goal is to make the sample as representative as possible because then more confident conclusions can be drawn about the larger population. Those conclusions are then validated when other studies find the same or similar results.

Critics tend to focus on this narrow point and maintain that they will not be satisfied until every homeschooler is submitted to a test. This is not a reasonable request because not all homeschoolers take standardized achievement tests. In fact, while the majority of homeschool parents do indeed test their children simply to track their progress and also to provide them with the experience of test-taking, it is far from a comprehensive and universal practice among homeschoolers.

The best researchers can do is provide a sample of homeschooling families and compare the results of their children to those of public school students, in order to give the most accurate picture of how homeschoolers in general are faring academically.

The concern that the only families who chose to participate are the most successful homeschoolers can be alleviated by the fact that the overwhelming majority of parents did not know their children's test results before agreeing to participate in the study.

HSLDA believes that this study along with the several that have been done in the past are clear evidence that homeschoolers are succeeding academically.
Final Thought

Homeschooling is making great strides and hundreds of thousands of parents across America are showing every day what can be achieved when parents exercise their right to homeschool and make tremendous sacrifices to provide their children with the best education available.

Deliberately Dumbed Down by Those Who Should Not Allow It to Happen

The following piece appears on Townhall.com and a number of other places. I can't believe Al Sharpton and I actually agree on something. Schools have failed to adequately educate the populous for 40 years and it has nothing to do with money. This has been an intentional dumbing down and indoctrination of the populous. It took a nation of ignorant people to get us where we are today.

Cathy

Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.


Dumbest Generation Getting Dumber
by Walter E. Williams


The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international comparison of 15-year-olds conducted by The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that measures applied learning and problem-solving ability. In 2006, U.S. students ranked 25th of 30 advanced nations in math and 24th in science. McKinsey & Company, in releasing its report "The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools" (April 2009) said, "Several other facts paint a worrisome picture. First, the longer American children are in school, the worse they perform compared to their international peers. In recent cross-country comparisons of fourth grade reading, math, and science, US students scored in the top quarter or top half of advanced nations. By age 15 these rankings drop to the bottom half. In other words, American students are farthest behind just as they are about to enter higher education or the workforce." That's a sobering thought. The longer kids are in school and the more money we spend on them, the further behind they get.



While the academic performance of white students is grossly inferior, that of black and Latino students is a national disgrace. The McKinsey report says, "On average, black and Latino students are roughly two to three years of learning behind white students of the same age. This racial gap exists regardless of how it is measured, including both achievement (e.g., test score) and attainment (e.g., graduation rate) measures. Taking the average National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores for math and reading across the fourth and eighth grades, for example, 48 percent of blacks and 43 percent of Latinos are 'below basic,' while only 17 percent of whites are, and this gap exists in every state. A more pronounced racial achievement gap exists in most large urban school districts." Below basic is the category the NAEP uses for students unable to display even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at their grade level.

The teaching establishment and politicians have hoodwinked taxpayers into believing that more money is needed to improve education. The Washington, D.C., school budget is about the nation's costliest, spending about $15,000 per pupil. Its student/teacher ratio, at 15.2 to 1, is lower than the nation's average. Yet student achievement is just about the lowest in the nation. What's so callous about the Washington situation is about 1,700 children in kindergarten through 12th grade receive the $7,500 annual scholarships in order to escape rotten D.C. public schools, and four times as many apply for the scholarships, yet Congress, beholden to the education establishment, will end funding the school voucher program.

Any long-term solution to our education problems requires the decentralization that can come from competition. Centralization has been massive. In 1930, there were 119,000 school districts across the U.S; today, there are less than 15,000. Control has moved from local communities to the school district, to the state, and to the federal government. Public education has become a highly centralized government-backed monopoly and we shouldn't be surprised by the results. It's a no-brainer that the areas of our lives with the greatest innovation, tailoring of services to individual wants and falling prices are the areas where there is ruthless competition such as computers, food, telephone and clothing industries, and delivery companies such as UPS, Federal Express and electronic bill payments that have begun to undermine the postal monopoly in first-class mail.

At a Washington press conference launching the McKinsey report, Al Sharpton called school reform the civil rights challenge of our time. He said that the enemy of opportunity for blacks in the U.S. was once Jim Crow; today, in a slap at the educational establishment, he said it was "Professor James Crow." Sharpton is only partly correct. School reform is not solely a racial issue; it's a vital issue for the entire nation.

Summer School At Croydon - Is it cost effective and does it improve performance?

As you have read in the Eagle Times Article Jim Peschke rejected funds for summer school. His reasons was that only 41.7% of the students performed proficient in math with 9 months of schooling, how was two hours a day, four days a week for four weeks going to improve student performance. At this point Marilyn Brannigan scolded Jim and said he needed to do research in the the subject. Jim has done plenty of research and he knows that, "in fact most research shows that summer school as typically administered has little if any impact on learning.” You can read another article on the subject here.

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

How well did Croydon School Students Really Do in Reading And Mathematics?

On Monday I reported that the Eagle Times reported Croydon "maintained its perfect slate in both reading and math, goals it also reached in 2008." I also cautioned that I needed to read the report. Well I did!

When I was going to school 66.7% was a D and 41.7% was an F or failing. It appears to me that the Croydon school is failing to educate too many of our students.

If you look at the raw data this is what a perfect slate and reading looks like to educrats.



25% or 3 of the 12 students scored substantially below proficient in reading.
8.3% or 1 of 12 students scored partially proficient in reading.
50% or 6 in 12 students scored proficient in reading.
16.7% or 2 in 12 students scored proficient with distinction in reading.

In other words 66.7% of students scored proficient or above in reading. But with "new math or educrat speak" the group performance index score is 83.3%. Not perfect in my book and not good enough considering the amount of money taxpayers spend to educate Croydon's children.



33.3% or 4 in 12 students scored substantially below proficient in mathematics.

25% or 3 in 12 students scored partially proficient in mathematics.

41.7% scored proficient in mathematics.

No child scored proficient with distinction in mathematics.


In other words only 41.7% of the students scored proficient in mathematics. But with "new math or educrat speak" the group performance score is 66.7%.

I found the above picture at rttworks.com.


Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

Two New Book Recommendations

"The shocking possibility that dumb people don't exist in sufficient numbers to warrant the millions of careers devoted to tending them will seem incredible to you. Yet that is my central proposition: the mass dumbness which justifies official schooling first had to be dreamed of; it isn't real." Quote by:John Taylor Gatto (1937-) American school teacher of 29 years, author, New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991 Source: The Underground History of American Education, 2001


I received the April, 2009 edition of School Reform News from the Heartland Institute yesterday. Here is the Heartland Insitute's quick read as to why we need Education Reform in our public schools.



This month's school reform news has two excellent book recommendations. The first book recommendation is Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses: Solving the Funding-Achievement Puzzle in America’s Public Schools by Eric A Hanushek and Alfred A. Lindseth Jim and I have been following Dr. Hanushek's research since we started fighting for education reform seven years ago. The book is a must read for parents, school board members, taxpayers and educators. I encourage educator to read the book to get an understanding why people reject more education spending. It will also help educators to understand that a reject of educations spending is not a rejection of education in and of itself.

The second recommendations is a book titled Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto. Also there is a series of videos by John Taylor Gatto I would recommend to my readers as well to view a link to the videos click here.


Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

Administrators' Salaries Updated

I have updated the link titled NH Administrator's Salaries on our BLOG. If you click the link you will now be directed to the most recent salaries.

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for our readers.

The Public School Nightmare: Why Fix a System Designed to Destroy Individual Thought?

The following is an excerpt from a book titled "Everywhere All the Time:
A New Deschooling Reader", edited by Matt Hern. The book can be purchased from AK Press by clicking here. The book can also be purchased from Amazon.

The excerpt below was taken directly from the website Revolution by the Book an AK Press Blog.

The Public School Nightmare: Why Fix a System Designed to Destroy Individual Thought?
By John Taylor Gatto


I want you to consider the frightening possibility that we are spending far too much money on schooling, not too little. I want you to consider that we have too many people employed in interfering with the way children grow up-and that all this money and all these people, all the time we take out of children’s lives and away from their homes and families and neighborhoods and private explorations, gets in the way of education.

That seems radical, I know. Surely in modern technological society it is the quantity of schooling and the amount of money you spend on it that buys value. And yet, last year in St. Louis, I heard a vice-president of IBM tell an audience of people assembled to redesign the process of teacher certification that, in his opinion, this country became computer-literate by self-teaching, not through any action of schools. He said 45 million people were comfortable with computers who had learned through dozens of non-systematic strategies, none of them very formal; if schools had pre-empted the right to teach computers use we would be in a horrible mess right now instead of leading the world in this literacy.

Now think about Sweden, a beautiful, healthy, prosperous, and up-to-date country with a spectacular reputation for quality in everything it produces. It makes sense to think their schools must have something to do with that. Then what do you make of the fact that you can’t go to school in Sweden until you are seven years old? The reason the unsentimental Swedes have wiped out what would be first and seconds grades here is that they don’t want to pay the large social bill that quickly comes due when boys and girls are ripped away from their best teachers at home too early.

It just isn’t worth the price, say the Swedes, to provide jobs for teachers and therapists if the result is sick, incomplete kids who can’t be put back together again very easily. The entire Swedish school sequence isn’t twelve years, either-it’s nine. Less schooling, not more. The direct savings of such a step in the United States would be $75-100 billion-a lot of unforeclosed home mortgages, a lot of time freed up with which to seek an education.

Who was it that decided to force your attention onto Japan instead of Sweden? Japan with its long school year and state compulsion, instead of Sweden with its short school year, short school sequence, and free choice where your kid is schooled? Who decided you should know about Japan and not Hong Kong, an Asian neighbor with a short school year that outperforms Japan across the board in math and science? Whose interests are served by hiding that from you?

One of the principal reasons we got into the mess we’re in is that we allowed schooling to become a very profitable monopoly, guaranteed its customers by the police power of the state. Systematic schooling attracts increased investment only when it does poorly, and since there are no penalties at all for such performance, the temptation not to do well is overwhelming. That’s because school staffs, both line and management, are involved in a guild system; in that ancient form of association no single member is allowed to outperform any other member, is allowed to advertise or is allowed to introduce new technology or improvise without the advance consent of the guild. Violation of these precepts is severely sanctioned-as Marva Collins, Jaime Escalante and a large number of once-brilliant teachers found out.

The guild reality cannot be broken without returning primary decision-making to parents, letting them buy what they want to buy in schooling, and encouraging the entrepreneurial reality that existed until 1852. That is why I urge any business to think twice before entering a cooperative relationship with the schools we currently have. Cooperating with these places will only make them worse.

The structure of American schooling, twentieth century style, began in 1806, when Napoleon’s amateur soldiers beat the professional soldiers of Prussia at the battle of Jena. When your business is selling soldiers, losing a battle like that is serious. Almost immediately afterwards, a German philosopher named Fichte delivered his famous “Address to the German Nation” which became one of the most influential documents in modern history. In effect, he told the Prussian people that the party was over, that the nation would have to shape up through a new utopian institution of forced schooling in which everyone would learn to take orders.

So the world got compulsion schooling at the end of a state bayonet for the first time in human history; modern forced schooling started in Prussia in 1819 with a clear vision of what centralized schools could deliver:·

*obedient soldiers to the army;·

*obedient workers to the mines;·

*well subordinated civil servants to government·

*well subordinated clerks to industry;·

*citizens who thought alike about major issues.

Schools, according to Fichte, should create an artificial national consensus on matters that had been worked out in advance by leading German families and the head of institutions. Schools should create unity among all the German states, eventually unifying them into Greater Prussia.

Prussian industry boomed from the beginning. Prussia was successful in warfare and her reputation in international affairs was very high. Twenty-six years after this form of schooling began, the King of Prussia was invited to North America to determine the boundary between the United States and Canada. Thirty-three years after that fateful invention of the central school institution, at the behest of Horace Mann and many other leading citizens, we borrowed the style of Prussian schooling as our own.You need to know this because, over the first fifty years of our school institution, Prussian purpose-which was to create a form of state socialism-gradually forced out traditional American purpose, which in most minds was to prepare the individual to be self-reliant.

In Prussia the purpose of the Volksschule, which educated ninety-two percent of the children, was not intellectual development at all, but socialization in obedience and subordination. Thinking was left to the Real Schulen, in which eight percent of the kids participated. But for the great mass, intellectual development was regarded with managerial horror, as something that caused armies to lose battles.

Prussia concocted a method based on complex fragmentations to ensure that its school products would fit the grand social design. Some of this method involved dividing whole ideas into school subjects, each further divisible, some of it involved short periods punctuated by a horn so that self-motivation in study would be muted by ceaseless interruptions.

There were many more techniques of training, but all were built around the premise that isolation from first-hand information, and fragmentation of the abstract information presented by teachers, would result in obedient and subordinate graduates, properly respectful of arbitrary orders. “Lesser” men would be unable to interfere with policy makers because, while they could still complain, they could not manage sustained or comprehensive thought. Well-schooled children cannot think critically, cannot argue effectively.

One of the most interesting by-products of Prussian schooling turned out to be the two most devastating wars of modern history. Erich Maria Remarque, in his classic All Quiet on the Western Front, tells us that the First World War was caused by the tricks of schoolmasters, and the famous Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that the Second World War was the inevitable product of good schooling.

It’s important to underline that Bonhoeffer meant that literally, not metaphorically: schooling after the Prussian fashion removes the ability of the mind to think for itself. It teaches people to wait for a teacher to tell them what to do and if what they have done is good or bad. Prussian teaching paralyses the moral will as well as the intellect. It’s true that sometimes well-schooled students sound smart, because they memorize many opinions of great thinkers, but they actually are badly damaged because their own ability to think is left rudimentary and undeveloped.

We got from the United States to Prussia and back because a small number of very passionate ideological leaders visited Prussia in the first half of the nineteenth century, fell in love with the order, obedience, and efficiency of its system, and relentlessly proselytized for a translation of Prussian vision onto these shores. If Prussia’s ultimate goal was the unification of Germany, our major goal, so these men thought, was the unification of hordes of immigrant Catholics into a national consensus based on a northern European cultural model. To do that, children would have to be removed from their parents and from inappropriate cultural influences.

In this fashion, compulsion schooling, a bad idea that had been around at least since Plato’s Republic, a bad idea that New England had tried to enforce in 1650 without any success, was finally rammed through the Massachusetts legislature in 1852. It was, of course, the famous “Know-Nothing” legislature that passed this law, a legislature that was the leading edge of a famous secret society which flourished at that time known as The Order of the Star Spangled Banner, whose password was the simple sentence, “I know nothing”-hence the popular label attached to the secret society’s political arm, The American Party.

Over the next fifty years, state after state followed suit, ending schools of choice and ceding the field to a new government monopoly. There was one powerful exception to this: the children who could afford to be privately educated. It’s important to note that the underlying premise of Prussian schooling is that the government is the true parent of children-the state is sovereign over the family. At the most extreme pole of this notion is the idea that biological parents are really the enemies of their own children, not to be trusted.

How did a Prussian system of dumbing children down take hold in American schools? Thousands and thousands of young men from prominent American families journeyed to Prussia and other parts of Germany during the 19th century and brought home the PhD degree to a nation in which such a credential was unknown. These men pre-empted the top positions in the academic world, in corporate research, and in government, to the point where opportunity was almost closed to those who had not studied in Germany, or who were not the direct disciples of a German PhD, as John Dewey was the disciple of G. Stanley Hall at Johns Hopkins.

Virtually every single one of the founders of American schooling had made the pilgrimage to Germany, and many of these men wrote widely circulated reports praising the Teutonic methods. Horace Mann’s famous “Seventh Report” of 1844, still available in large libraries, was perhaps the most important of these. By 1889, a little more than 100 years ago, the crop was ready for harvest. In that year the U.S. Commissioner of Education, William Torrey Harris, assured a railroad magnate, Collis Huntington, that American schools were “scientifically designed” to prevent “over-education” from happening. The average American would be content with his humble role in life, said the commissioner, because he would not be tempted to think about any other role. My guess is that Harris meant he would not be able to think about any other role.

In 1896, the famous John Dewey, then at the University of Chicago, said that independent, self-reliant people were a counter-productive anachronism in the collective society of the future. In modern society, said Dewey, people would be defined by their associations-not by their own individual accomplishments. In such a world people who read too well or too early are dangerous because they become privately empowered, they know too much, and know how to find out what they don’t know by themselves, without consulting experts.

Dewey said the great mistake of traditional pedagogy was to make reading and writing constitute the bulk of early schoolwork. He advocated that the phonics method of teaching reading be abandoned and replaced by the whole word method, not because the latter was more efficient (he admitted that it was less efficient), but because independent thinkers were produced by hard books, thinkers who cannot be socialized very easily. By socialization, Dewey meant a program of social objectives administered by the best social thinkers in government. This was a giant step on the road to state socialism, the form pioneered in Prussia, and it is a vision radically disconnected with the American past, its historic hopes and dreams.

Dewey’s former professor and close friend, G. Stanley Hall, said this at about the same time, “Reading should no longer be a fetish. Little attention should be paid to reading.” Hall was one of the three men most responsible for building a gigantic administrative infrastructure over the classroom. How enormous that structure really became can only be understood by comparisons: New York State, for instance, employs more school administrators than all of the European Economic Community nations combined.

Once you think that the control of conduct is what schools are about, the word “reform” takes on a very particular meaning. It means making adjustments to the machine so that young subjects will not twist and turn so, while their minds and bodies are being scientifically controlled. Helping kids to use their minds better is beside the point.

Bertrand Russell once observed that American schooling was among the most radical experiments in human history, that America was deliberately denying its children the tools of critical thinking. When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That’s if you want to teach them to think. There is no evidence that this has been a state purpose since the start of compulsion schooling.

When Friedrich Froebel, the inventor of kindergarten in nineteenth century Germany, fashioned his idea, he did not have a “garden for children” in mind, but a metaphor of teachers as gardeners and children as the vegetables. Kindergarten was created to be a way to break the influence of mothers on their children. I note with interest the growth of daycare in the United States and the repeated urgings to extend school downward to include four-year-olds. The movement toward state socialism is not some historical curiosity but a powerful dynamic force in the world around us. It is fighting for its life against those forces which would, through vouchers or tax credits, deprive it of financial lifeblood, and it has countered this thrust with a demand for even more control over children’s lives, and even more money to pay for the extended school day and year that this control requires.

A movement as visibly destructive to individuality, family and community as government-system schooling has been might be expected to collapse in the face of its dismal record, coupled with an increasingly aggressive shakedown of the taxpayer, but this has not happened. The explanation is largely found in the transformation of schooling from a simple service to families and towns to an enormous, centralized corporate enterprise.

While this development has had a markedly adverse effect on people and on our democratic traditions, it has made schooling the single largest employer in the United States and the largest granter of contracts next to the Defense Department. Both of these low-visibility phenomena provide monopoly schooling with powerful political friends, publicists, advocates, and other useful allies. This is a large part of the explanation why no amount of failure ever changes things in schools, or changes them for very long. School people are in a position to outlast any storm and to keep short-attention-span public scrutiny thoroughly confused.

An overview of the short history of this institution reveals a pattern marked by intervals of public outrage, followed by enlargement of the monopoly in every case. After nearly 30 years spent inside a number of public schools, some considered good, some bad, I feel certain that management cannot clean its own house. It relentlessly marginalizes all significant change. There are no incentives for the “owners” of the structure to reform it, nor can there be without outside competition.

It cannot be overemphasized that no body of theory exists to define accurately the way children learn, or which learning is of most worth. By pretending the existence of such, we have cut ourselves off from the information and innovation that only a real market can provide. Fortunately our national situation has been so favorable, so dominant through most of our history, that the margin of error afforded has been vast.

But the future is not so clear. Violence, narcotic addictions, divorce, alcoholism, loneliness-all these are but tangible measures of a poverty in education. Surely schools, as the institutions monopolizing the daytimes of childhood, can be called to account for this. In a democracy the final judges cannot be experts, but only the people.

Trust the people, give them choices, and the school nightmare will vanish in a generation.

A Classroom At Risk: How Teacher Unions and the Federal Government have ruined Public Education

I ran across this paper browsing the internet. It appears to be an english paper of a first year college student. A very interesting must read. I searched the author but there were too many Matt Kerns to find out more information about this individual given my time constraints.

Cathy Peschke


A Classroom At Risk: How Teacher Unions and the Federal Government have ruined Public Education

In the 1970’s, a man by the name of Jimmy Carter was running for the office of the president of the United States. Mr. Carter wished to insure his victory on election day so he formed an alliance with the largest union in North America, The National Education Association. The NEA promised Carter the votes of its members and campaign contributions under one condition, the establishment of a Federal Department of Education. In 1977 Jimmy Carter was sworn into office and followed through on his promise. The Department of Education was established in 1979 and still exists today. In 1981 Ronald Reagan handily defeated Jimmy Carter and threatened to dismantle the DOE, which he referred to as “…President Carter’s bureaucratic boondoggle…”. Ronald Reagan failed to deliver upon this threat partly due to a report in 1983 title “A Nation at Risk” (Salisbury, Leiberman). In the report the Reagan administration was told that drop out rates were going to soar and America’s students would not be able to fill jobs that required a strong education. The DOE’s mission: to prevent this from happening. Amazingly, drop out rates are still very high, drugs and violence are commonplace, and our nation’s schools are losing ground to foreign public education. How could this happen? On the surface it seems the Feds and the Unions have our children’s best interest at heart, but more often than not students just become a means to a political end. Simply put, the Federal Government and Teachers Unions are ruining public education.

The NEA takes a consistent stance that our schools need more money. What most people don’t know is that per pupil spending adjusted for inflation has doubled since the 1970’s, and we have nothing to show for it (Stossel). Graduation rates have remained stagnant and achievement scores haven’t moved either. America spends on average a little under $9,000 per student per year (DOE). This is a price tag that other countries would scoff at after they consider how little our student’s actually achieve. In international tests among 40 countries America places 25th while we spend more than any other country on our students (Stossel). South Korea consistently scores in the high 90th percentiles while only spending a third of what America does per pupil (Ludger Woessmann, Hoover.org). If there were to be a monument dedicated to the lack of a correlation between money and school performance it would be the Kansas City school experiment. In 1985 Kansas City schools spent $11,700 annually per pupil and spent an extra 2 billion dollars over the next 12 years (Paul Ciotti, Cato). The experiment yielded higher teacher salaries, 15 new schools, a zoo, and other lavish amenities. Kansas City schools did not fail, to disappoint that is. Achievement remained stagnant and there was no closing of the black-white gap. As you might guess the NEA’s motives for increased spending does not lie with the student’s success, rather it is with the teachers and themselves. Sixty Percent of school expenditures go to teacher salaries and benefits (Kauchak, Eggen). So as Federal spending goes up so do the salaries of these mediocre union workers, which leads to more union dues, which allows the NEA more lobbying power.

A common myth is that teacher unions do indeed wish to help our students. With so many initiatives for Education Equality, Culturally Responsive Teaching Studies, and other various causes, it’s hard to argue against the myth. But in a blurt of honesty former American Federation of Teachers president Albert Shanker said, “I’ll start representing kids when kids start paying union dues.” A specific group of students which the NEA claims to champion are the inner city minorities. In 1954 the supreme court of the United States of America heard the case of Brown v. Board of Education. This was the most significant moment in the civil rights movement. After the Supreme Court ruling no longer could there be segregation in our nation’s schools (Kauchak, Eggen). This certainly was to be the defining factor of equality. Wrong. Since the historic decision our public schools have become re-segregated with many minorities zoned into failing inner city schools (Stossel). Many fiscal conservatives support the idea of school choice and voucher programs. Such programs have found success in other countries, introducing a type of free market competition that makes schools strive to become better.

These programs could also allow these under privileged inner city kids the chance of a good education (Rod Paige, at Cato book Forum better find the date). The NEA refuses such reforms and allows zoning laws to continue. The reason for this is that as soon as market competition reaches our schools thousands of sub par teachers will be out of jobs. It may sound cruel but it is not. It’s simple, if you are being paid to do a job you should be expected to do it well especially if it is on the taxpayer dollar. One example of such betrayal to the students and tax payers is the case of the Gary Indiana teacher’s strike. Since the 2000-2001 school year Indiana schools have slowly been doing better on the Istep+ achievement exam. At Theodore Roosevelt High School in Gary they have been getting much worse. Since 2000 they have gone from a dismal 28% percent pass rate to a pathetic less than 20% passing today (Indiana Department of Education). So at the start of the 2006 school year what did they do? They walked, demanding higher salaries. Not only that, they kept the students out of the classroom just weeks before the Istep was to be administered. Kids who fail the Istep are unable to graduate and are more likely to drop out. Did the teacher’s union have the students in mind? Do these teachers deserve higher salaries despite their lack of competence? The publicly elected bureaucrats caved and the teacher’s got a new contract and a higher salary. This is a classic example of the system’s lack of consideration of the student.

Teacher says no to the union

With permission of the this teacher I have posted his letter to the school board. Our public schools would be much better places if we had more teachers like the man below.

Cathy


Dear Board Members:



As all of you know, this year the teacher contract expires and is up for renegotiation. I am communicating with you directly because the teacher’s union, though permitted by law to act as my representative, in no way represents me. Shortly after accepting employment with the district in 1990, I resigned my membership in the union, and I have remained nonunion ever since. Prior to 1995, union membership and paying dues to the union were completely voluntary. The union stood or fell based on the willingness of each teacher to join and contribute to it. In 1995, however, the union leadership convinced the school board to agree to a contract provision mandating either union membership or the payment by nonmembers of an “agency fee” - a fee the union set at 100% of union dues (making the absurd claim that all union dues are spent solely on collective bargaining). The union calls this kick back arrangement “fair share.”

There is nothing fair about “fair share,” however, and in twenty-two states such coercive kick back schemes are illegal. While the union might argue that it negotiates for all so all should be forced to pay, this is a “catch-22” argument since no one is allowed to negotiate for themselves. By law, a simple majority of the teachers can compel the rest to accept union representation. This is unfair enough, but now with “fair share,“ they can also force all teachers to pay the union whatever it demands. If the union truly resents having to negotiate for nonmembers, they should surrender their power to act as the exclusive bargaining agent and allow nonmembers to make their own agreements with the board. The union is not about to do this, however, since that would shatter their monopoly power (over both the board and the teachers) and open the door to freedom of contract and to market competition.



The fact is fair share is an attack upon the rights of all who work in the district - not just nonunion employees. Since the imposition of coerced payment, the NEA and IEA have repeatedly raised annual dues. The national and state organizations have then used much of this new money to both pad their payrolls and to engage in rather dubious political activity having nothing to do with collective bargaining. They can do this with relative impunity because they know with “fair share” in place in many districts, they now have a captive membership and a guaranteed cash flow to fund more power grabs and to further promote their political agendas. Individual union members (but notably not nonmembers) can make a feeble protest by voting in union elections, of course, but thanks to the efforts of a union negotiating team in the 1990’s (probably acting at the behest of the state and national organizations), District *** teachers lost the ultimate leverage - the right to leave the union and take their financial contribution with them. Of course, individual members are still nominally free to leave the union and pay an agency fee, and they even have the right to challenge that agency fee before the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board (as I have done), but facing the legal and bureaucratic obstacles “fair share” places in their path, most teachers have simply given in. When “fair share” was first put in place, there were, as I recall, some two dozen teachers who were not members of the union. Now, as far as I can tell, that number is down to one (me).



With a new (and perhaps more militant) union leadership taking over this year and tighter budgets in prospect, the possibility of a teacher strike looms. Should a strike occur, I will not support it and will stand ready to report for duty. I will have that freedom because I am not a union member. (Illinois law permits the union to impose legally enforceable fines on members who defy a strike.) I believe it is in the board’s interest and in the interests of the district’s taxpayers to insist on the removal of the “fair share” provision from the next contract. This would empower individual teachers who are so inclined to move against the union and break the back of any strike. Even in the absence of a strike, the presence of a substantial number of nonunion teachers will put pressure on the union to be more flexible in its demands. In short, there is no benefit to the district for the board to empower the union to coerce teachers it allegedly represents and every reason for the board to insist on the restoration of individual teacher rights to freedom of association.



I knew a member of the negotiating team that first got the board to give in on “fair share.” (Previous boards had always upheld teacher rights and said “no.”) She told me that the team was surprised the board gave in and that it was certainly not a priority or something at the time they were willing to strike over or even hold up an agreement over. According to my colleague, the board placed it on the table, and the union took it. No doubt this year’s union negotiators will squawk should the board now insist on removing “fair share.” They will make the same fallacious arguments that everyone should be made to pay for their “services.“ Fair share is not about payment for services, however, but about control and power. Unable in the past to get all teachers to knuckle under and pay up voluntarily, the union coerced the board into forcing teachers to pay and thereby the board greatly enhanced the union’s power.



I am hopeful that this year’s negotiations provide an opportunity to remedy this past injustice and produce a contract that respects the rights of all teachers. Perhaps it is only me that feels so strongly about this, and if that be true, the union has nothing to worry about in giving up its coerced dues. (They already lost my dues after I went to the trouble of enlisting the help of a lawyer and filing an objection with the IELRB - something I must do every school year.) If, on the other hand, the union knows that many teachers, if given the opportunity, would opt out and withdraw support for the union’s political agenda, then the union has every reason to fight the end of “fair share.” It would be interesting to see how confident the union is in the depth of its rank and file support, and whether the union reps really want to try and make the argument that the teachers they represent want to be forced to pay.



Thank you for your time.

Quote of the Day - “When school children start paying union dues, that 's when I'll start representing the interests of school children.” Albert Shanker

Jim on WNTK today.

Jim will be on 99.7 FM WNTK tomorrow morning at 7:10 a.m. Jim will be discussing education issues and education issues in Croydon.

Jim on WNTK

Jim will be on 99.7 FM WNTK tomorrow morning at 7:10 a.m. Jim will be discussing education issues and education issues in Croydon.

Taxing issues.

As in many mother daughter relationship my mother and I drive each other crazy, but the one thing my mother taught me was never be ashamed of the work you do as long as you work hard. I will always be grateful for the strong work ethic taught to me by my mother. I started working when I was 14 and worked up until the time I got married, not too long after that along came my children. I put myself through college, over the years I often worked as many as three jobs at a time and did volunteer work as well. I know that all made me a better person.

I guess that same work ethic has lead to my dislike of labor unions. I understand there was a time and a place for unions but now with labor laws as they are, there is just not a need for them. Essentially the union leaders are a group of people who live off the hard work of others just another form of welfare as far as I am concerned.

That same work ethic has lead to my dislike for taxes and those who live off the hard work of others. I was on a homeschooling resource list, on the list was a discussion about socialized medicine and insurance someone pointed out that it appears it is the haves begrudging the have-nots. When reality it is the have-nots begrudging the haves of their hard earned dollars.

Don't get me wrong, I spent a number of years working with physically and mentally handicapped people and in the medical field I know there are people truly in need, I am not talking about those people. I am talking about the bums that live off of those who believe in earning through hard work.

One of my favorite quotes is "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." by Joseph Goebbels. One of those big lies is that the rich don't pay taxes and the poor carry the burden of paying taxes. That is not the truth and it is the so called "have-nots" perpetuating this lie.

Cathy

The following article appeared in the Union Leader.


Charles Arlinghaus: Who pays taxes, and how much, might surprise you


Don't tax you; don't tax me; tax that fellow behind the tree. Everybody's favorite tax policy is to tax the guy behind the tree. I pay too much in taxes, and I'm willing to believe you do too. Maybe if we take the money of the guy behind the tree, we'll both become richer. This is the same philosophy, by the way, that undergirds the decision of the guy with no neck to take someone's lunch money in sixth grade.

Popular culture suggests to us that rich people take advantage of the dreaded loopholes to get off scot-free while hard-working Americans are forced to shoulder their burden. Or at least they probably aren't paying their fair share. Like Charlie Brown's little sister Sally, all we want is what's coming to us; all we want is our fair share.

To help Charlie Brown's sister figure out what exactly her fair share is, the IRS publishes data on tax liabilities each year. I think you might be surprised by who pays how much.

The most recent data are for 2006. Start by asking yourself how many Americans don't pay any income tax at all -- they either don't have to file or have every dime and sometimes more refunded to them. Maybe 10 or 15 percent?

It turns out that about 41 percent of us have no income tax liability whatsoever, the highest percentage in modern history. Around 32 percent of all tax returns filed have no liability, so they get back everything they paid. An additional group of people don't even have to file.

Of the people who file income taxes, including the third that has no liability, the bottom half pays 3 percent of all taxes and the top half pays 97 percent of all taxes. Narrowing even further, the richest 1 percent of all taxpayers account for 40 percent of taxes paid.

You are probably telling yourself, "they make more so they pay more, that's simple enough." In fact, the top 1 percent of American earners make 22 percent of the income and pay 40 percent of the taxes. That sounds like maybe they're paying their fair share and then some.

The bottom 50 percent of tax filers earn 12.5 percent of all income and pay just 3 percent of all income taxes. No one is suggesting they should pay more, but it seems clear that their burden is getting lighter. Twenty-five years ago, the bottom 50 percent paid 7.5 percent. Now it's down to 3 percent.

Another common accusation is that tax cuts have shifted the burden away from rich people. From 2002 (before the Bush tax cuts) to 2006, the share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent went up from 33 percent to 40 percent.

Tax cuts in the Reagan years also increased the share of taxes paid by the rich. In 1981, the richest 1 percent paid 17 percent of the total tax burden. It had increased to 25 percent by the time Ronald Reagan went back to California.

In recent years, the share of the total income tax burden paid by the richest 1 percent has been increasing and the share paid by the bottom 50 percent has been decreasing. In addition, the number of taxpayers paying no taxes at all is increasing.

Because New Hampshire is one of the wealthier states by average income, many of us will assume that we have many more of the highest earners than average. It turns out that New Hampshire is a very middle-class state with fewer high earners than average and fewer low earners than average, but a big middle.

Our top 1 percent earned only 18 percent of the total for New Hampshire, and the cutoff to be in the top 1 percent was $360,000 instead of $390,000 nationally. At the other end, only 24 percent of New Hampshire filers had zero tax liability compared to 32 percent nationally. New Hampshire's median taxable income was $37,331 in 2006, about 15 percent higher than the national average.

In election years, it has become popular for politicians to seek your vote by turning you against the other guy. He's going to lower your taxes by sticking it to the guy behind the tree. You can vote for me because we both have a common enemy.

Remember, the richest 1 percent of Americans earn 22 percent of the income, but pay 40 percent of the taxes. They didn't get tax rebate "stimulus" checks this year, but they paid for mine.

Tax cuts for everyone who pays taxes, like the Reagan, Bush, and Kennedy tax cuts, are fair. Pitting you and me against the guy behind the tree is not a good recipe for unity or fairness.

Charles M. Arlinghaus is president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank in Concord.

Weather Channel Founder: Global Warming ‘Greatest Scam in History’

There is a ton of well researched articles out there as to why global warming is indeed a scam the hypocrisy of those promoting global warming should be proof that even they do not believe their own propaganda.

The following article appeared at newsbusters.org.



Weather Channel Founder: Global Warming ‘Greatest Scam in History’

By Noel Sheppard | November 7, 2007 - 17:58 ET


If the founder of The Weather Channel spoke out strongly against the manmade global warming myth, might media members notice?

We're going to find out the answer to that question soon, for John Coleman wrote an article published at ICECAP Wednesday that should certainly garner attention from press members -- assuming journalism hasn't been completely replaced by propagandist activism, that is.

Coleman marvelously began:


It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create in [sic] allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the "research" to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.

Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them, then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild "scientific" scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda. Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmental conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15 minutes documentary segment.

[...]

I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct. There is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismissal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming.

In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious.

Let's hope so, John; let's hope so.

Related articles:

Harvard Paper Calls Al Gore a Hypocrite

Renowned Environmentalist Calls Biofuels‘Crime Against Humanity’

John Stossel: ‘Don’t Look to Government to Cool Down the Planet’

UN Climate Panel to Discuss Global Warming at Tropical Resort

Global Warming Tutorial Media Should be Required to Watch
Vote for Stephen McIntyre's Climate Audit as Best Science Blog



—Noel Sheppard is an economist, business owner, and Associate Editor of NewsBusters.

What is even more troublesome is that "educators" including those that should know better "science teachers" spread this propaganda to our children. As noted in the article below which appeared in the Marin Independent Journal.


Elementary school students join fight against global warming
Joe Wolfcale
Article Launched: 11/07/2007 04:26:50 PM PST

Third-grade teacher Debbie Robles made her acting debut before a packed auditorium of youngsters at Rancho Elementary School in Novato. She bombed.
Playing the villain in a school assembly Wednesday aimed at educating the students about global warming, Robles - dressed in a witch's black attire and prancing around the auditorium as "Queen Carbon" - drew the biggest response from more than 500 students who attended two "Curb Your Carbon" assemblies.

"My own daughter Hannah asked me, 'Do you have to be my mother today?'" Robles said.

Teachers, parents and volunteers helped organize the assemblies and participated in the skits to help raise awareness about global warming and what people can do about it - exchanging traditional light bulbs for compact fluorescent bulbs, for example.

School officials distributed more than 500 CFLs last week.

On Friday, Rancho students will be given bilingual "Cancel-a-Car" coupon books filled with ways they can fight global warming.

Once the coupons are returned to school, teachers will track what conservation efforts are made and the date. Teachers will help monitor the progress. As the carbon reduction increases, images of cars will be crossed out on a giant poster kept at school.


To view the full article visit the Marin Independent Journal website.


Too many schools fail to education our children in basic skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic, yet the global warming scam is forced feed to this very vulnerable audience we call public education students.

There is no doubt we will face and energy crisis and alternative fuels must be found. Schools should be working on producing great thinkers and scientist not students so poor in science skills and logic skills that they believe the global warming scam.

For more information on the subject go to the following link.

Educational Intelligence Agency Spending Statistics for 2004-2005

The Education Intelligence Agency has updated the Public School District Enrollment and Spending for 14,000 public school district.

The average per pupil spending for 2004-2005 was $8701 in the United States, New Hampshire was spending $9448 per student during that same time period. During the 2004-2005 school year New Hampshire had an enrollment of 202,195 students this is down -3.01% since 2000-2001. In 2004-2005 New Hampshire had 15,297 teachers up 6.67% from 2000-2001 despite a 3.01% decrease in student enrollment. During this same time period student per pupil spending went up 33.73% while inflation only went up 10% during that same time period. New Hampshire's student has 13 students for every one teacher in New Hampshire for the 2004-2005 school year.

John Stossel: Bill Gates needs an economics course

John Stossel hits one out of the park again with the article below which appears on TownHall.com. Not only does Bill Gates need a course in economics but it should be a requirement for legislators and teachers as well. Unfortunately it seems that most of them have only studied Karl Marx's theory of economics.

John Stossel: Bill Gates needs an economics course


DROPPING OUT of college didn't stop Bill Gates from making tons of money, but it kept him from classes where he might have learned about the beauty of spontaneous market processes.

Never mind. I forgot that he attended Harvard. He might not have learned about markets after all.

Gates spoke at Harvard recently, urging graduating students to take on the "world's deepest inequities [including] world hunger ... the scarcity of clean water ... children who die from diseases we can cure." All of us want those problems solved, and through their charitable foundation, Gates and his wife, Melinda, have certainly put their money where their mouths are. But Gates seems unaware that these problems can't be eliminated in the simplistic way he advocates.

He told the grads, "The market did not reward saving the lives of these children [in poor countries], and governments did not subsidize it. So the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power in the market and no voice in the system."

What is Gates talking about?

Can he name one poor country that permits the free market to operate? The problem is not that the market doesn't make it profitable to save lives -- it most certainly does. The problem is that Third World countries have overbearing, corrupt governments that are obstacles to private property and freedom. That's why the children's parents have no voice or power.

Poor people in the West and in East Asia lifted themselves out of poverty by relying largely on the unplanned market process. That process -- countless individuals pursuing their own interests by trading with one another -- is, as Nobel Prize-winning economist F.A. Hayek put it, a "discovery procedure." Through the price system and free competition, it clarifies tradeoffs of scarce resources, generates the lowest-cost solutions, and provides feedback about success and failure through profit and loss.

This spontaneous order is far better at "saving the lives of these children."

Maybe the Gates Foundation's private charity will work wonders, but more government-to-government subsidies won't do the trick. The trillions spent in foreign aid have little to show for it. As William Easterly writes in "The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good," "Economic development happens, not through aid, but through the homegrown efforts of entrepreneurs and social and political reformers. While the West was agonizing over a few tens of billion dollars in aid, the citizens of India and China raised their own incomes by $715 billion by their own efforts in free markets."

At Harvard, Gates said, "We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism -- if we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities."

He misses the point. Gates faults the free market for problems caused by governments.

What constricts the reach of the free market is the state. Gates seems oblivious to all the ways that governments here and abroad cripple enterprise. In poor countries, corrupt bureaucracies smother entrepreneurship while enriching cronies.

The lack of formal property rights and stable law keeps average people from accumulating capital. So the poor stay poor. That's what causes "scarcity of clean water" and kills "children who die from diseases we can cure."

Gates said, "We also can press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the taxes."

He should know that for spending to better reflect people's values, governments must butt out. Politicians are notoriously bad at improving the lot of their populations. What they are good at is confiscating money and spending it the way they want it spent.

It's only when governments do less, and tax people less, that people are free to earn and keep their own money.

You want poor countries to get rich, Bill Gates? Work for free-market reform.

John Stossel is co-anchor of ABC News' "20/20" and the author of "Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel -- Why Everything You Know is Wrong."

The Special Ed Myth.

We placed this post under the category of Failures of Our Public Education System because of the labeling of students by Educrats. Often times you will hear that academic performance in schools has been hindered by special education programs. The fact is schools get more money if they have larger numbers of students labeled with some sort of disability. It is true that there are more "special ed" children in schools, in fact the percent increase is 50% from the 1976-1977 school year to the 2000-2001 school year. * Closer inspection of this information reveals that we do not actually have more "special ed" children but the standards for labeling these children has been reduced.





* Digest of Education Statistics 2002, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Educaiton, 2003, Table 52.

To learn more about the education myths we recommend the book Education Myths What Special-Interest Groups Want YOU to BELIEVE about our SCHOOLS - AND WHY IT ISN'T SO.