Everything you didn’t realize you needed to know!
- Finally, finally, Congress has managed to override a Bush veto. The bill (or, rather, the law) authorizes $23 billion for water projects around the country. Pork? Look, as we learned in New Orleans, as well as in Peabody, MA, water-related infrastructure is kind of important. Sometimes you’ve got to spend some money to make sure people stay safe and healthy. This strikes me as one of those times. No doubt, not every project in that bill is of earth-shattering importance. But some of them probably are.
The override may also have repercussions beyond this one bill — once the first override succeeds, the next one is likely to be much easier. Let’s hope. By the way, MA does get a share of the goodies. Here’s Senator Kerry on the vote:
Today’s vote overriding the Bush veto was a huge victory for cities and towns in Massachusetts. From dealing with the devastation of flooding in Peabody, to the restoration of Milford Pond, to supporting waterfront development projects on the North Shore and on Cape Cod, these investments will help complete critical environmental projects, and will protect public safety.
- In other news from Congress, Michael Mukasey was confirmed as Attorney General. *sigh* Here’s the Democratic hall of shame: Feinstein (CA), Lieberman (CT), Carper (DE), Bayh (IN), Landrieu (LA), Nelson (NE), Schumer (NY). The prezzies were out on the trail: McCain, Dodd, Biden, Obama, and Clinton all missed the vote. As I recall, Dodd, Obama and Clinton all put out statements saying they were going to vote “no.” I guess more important matters intervened.
[Update] Also, as Laurel notes in the comments, the House passed ENDA this week by a large, but not veto-proof, majority. That’s very good news; but its prospects are uncertain at best in the Senate, and it faces a likely veto if it makes it through. Much more work to do on this one.
- Mike Huckabee continues to make noise in Iowa.
“The candidate du jour right now is Mike Huckabee,” said Chuck Laudner, executive director of the Iowa Republican Party. “He certainly can win. It’s still a wide-open race here in Iowa.” … Still, there is a new sense of possibility in the Huckabee campaign. It has been fueled in large part by evangelicals, including a politically active home-schooling population, dissatisfied with his better-financed competitors. Mr. Romney continues to lead state polls and has made significant inroads among Christian conservatives, but many are searching for an alternative.
On Thursday, Mr. Huckabee scored his first endorsement from a prominent Christian conservative leader, the Rev. Donald E. Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association.
Will he win? Probably not. But I still think Iowa is going to be great theater.
- On the local front, it’s looking increasingly likely that we’ll be voting on Super-Duper Tuesday, Feb. 5, along with a gajillion other states. The Governor, the Secretary of State, the Speaker, and (I think, though the article doesn’t say it) the Senate President are all behind a plan to move up the primary. One interesting side-effect of this change would be *hugely* increased turnout for a bunch of legislative special elections that Galvin has said would be scheduled for the same day.
- Check out this must-read article on the impressive success some Boston pilot schools are showing. I don’t know enough about the ins and outs of these things to compare them intelligently to charters or to say much else, but it sure sounds promising.
- We are thrilled to welcome our own Lori to the race for Doug Petersen’s seat in the 8th Essex district! See also the announcement on her own Truth & Progress blog (but note the eerie URL of that post). Three cheers for bloggers jumping away from the keyboard and into the real world. Watch this one closely.
- Finally, this is what good blogging is all about. Especially if you are old enough to remember the 1970s, don’t miss it.
It is worth reading, because with all the educational experimentation and reform going on, the best thing people can do review the results and try to determine which tactics are working and which aren’t.
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But I want to note a section of the article which does not help readers to understand what is going on:
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Do Boston pilot schools help at risk kids? The reporter didn’t find a way to look beyond two opposing viewpoints. It would have been helpful, perhaps, if graph were made with % at-risk students succeeding (as defined in the example quoted above) on the y-axis and % of at risk students enrolled on the x-axis, to see if pilot schools exhibit greater success with at-risk students when there is a smaller concentration of at-risk students in the pilot school.
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Besides that issue, self-selection in a survey can lead to biased or inaccurate results. If the at-risk students in a pilot school chose to go to the pilot school, and the at-risk students at a regular large school didn’t choose to be there, then the two groups of at-risk students might not be equivalent.
Though slightly different beasts, charter schools are often held up as the “fix” for public education. Thus, this is interesting…
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…an unincorporated region of Hamilton County (just north of Cincinnati) in the mid-1960s. The schools were excellent.
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As far as I have been able to determine, charter schools, school vouchers, etc., etc., etc., are little more a means by which private companies and private/religious schools can get their snouts in the public trough. There were reports years ago that the voucher program in Milwaukie WS, which was touted by voucher proponents, was pretty much a complete failure. Yet some people keep pushing such programs. I might wonder why, but I bet that I would know why if I were to follow the money.
could be due less to demand and more supply.
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A pilot school will need administrators and teachers willing to work long hours–and when I was a young, single teacher, I could spend sixty or seventy hours a week on my work. But now that I’m a dad well into my thirties, it’s not appealing to me to spend that much time away from my family–and I’m guessing many other people who entered the teaching profession see things in a similar light. I’m sure some teachers will work the long, long hours, but not enough to have every kid in Boston in a pilot school.
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Our educational system needs to be able to employ teachers who won’t have to spend more than about 45 hours a week teaching, planning and grading.
if money were no object, is to have more teachers hired to do the work. So if a pilot school has 1 teacher working 60 hours with 29 kids in their class, maybe a public all-inclusive alternative is to have all schools have 1 teacher working 40 hours with 12 kids. Or have two full time teacher for each class of 25.
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Of course, money IS an object, but I’m just illustrating a point.
I meant to type, So if a pilot school has 1 teacher working “60 hours with 20 kids” – sorry. The wrong # ruined my example.
we can be creative with this. Longer school days doesn’t necessary have to mean tons and tons of new teachers. A lot of the longer school days are going to be filled by homework help and activities that may even be viewed by students as fun. LOL. Tutors and the like will certainly need to be qualified, but I somehow think we could get many of these people at reduced costs and hours, compared to teachers. The point, really – in my view – is to get students to do as much learning in school as possible, which means more homework help and whatever else is necessary, because we lose so many people once they get home.
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Imagine how much more work students could get done if they had directed study halls, with people who could help them there if needed, two or three times a day? Then, to make sure kids have something to look forward to, more music and art classes, or various other activities… whatever they like. This is really how I envision school in the 21st Century – and I don’t think it’s going to be significantly more expensive.
Bay windows round-up article here. How they voted here
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Anyone reading my previous diaries on the subject knows that i was furious at Barney Frank for removing protection for gender identity and expression from the bill. However, what’s done is done. And when I read in Bay Windows how House members were so incredibly elated at having been able to pass the first-ever gay civil rights legislation in US history (flawed though it may be), it gave me great hope for an inclusive ENDA in the not too distant future.
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I know some people are angry at their reps for supporting an non-inclusive version of ENDA. I think it would be shooting ourselves in the foot to chastise them when they’re feeling so elated. I think the thing to do is show them our love and build positively on their current good feelings. My plan is to thank my rep for making positive history (during the Bushco years, no less!), and then to explain why it is important to me that he take the next step in the next session and co-sponsor an inclusive ENDA.
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It is also possible that inclusive ENDA legislation will still be introduced in the Senate in January. So I’m also going to get on the horn to my senator about that.
When he was intending to run for President back in ’05, he made a big deal about voting no against Condi Rice to “send a message” about the poor handling of the war. Of course I’m no Condi fan, but she was never caught whistling around the question of toture or whether a technique used in the frigging Spanish Inquistion was toture or not.
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Yet Mr Moderate Bayh votes for Mukasey. And Bayh is not among the slickist politicans like Schmumer or Rahm Emmanuel, yet here he is playing the cynical game of DC. Expect for a handful, they are all horrible people to be running this country.
The key to having a chance at passing it is to link it to some bill the President’s been itching to get his hands on. It’s playing hardball, but not an uncommon tactic. For example, if Bush wants to veto ENDA, we could attach it to the next military funding bill and watch him try to veto that.
hate crimes bill. it was attached as an amendment to the Dep’t of Defense reauthorization bill.
the primary. It has drawback of favoring front-runners but I really lose a lot of motivation when the political battle is between people who are ostensibly on the same side. Working against the bad guys is much more satisfying.
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The best thing about Huckabee’s progress is that it further makes the Republicans expend time, energy, and money fighting amongst themselves.
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I think I know less than David about the ins and outs of educaton so I cant comment at all on the Pilot schools.
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Good news about the water projects over-ride. I think that the weirdest thing about it is that Bush vetoed it to begin with.
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Good for Lawrence also because it looks like Polartec got an 8.6 million contract to provide clothing for the military. I remember when Lawrence was prosperous.
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That is a hilarious photo essay on 1970’s fasion. They left out the Mao dungaree shirts. Poor Bernie Kerik. I picture him in a leisure suit.
Then we would get all the attention, not wretched New Hampshire and Iowa. Where is Iowa anyway? Has anyone ever been there besides politicians?
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Why don’t we have our primary first? Can someone please explain this to me. Could we, in principle, schedule our presidential primary for, say, next week? We seem to have elections at all kinds of random times, why not then.
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It would be very exciting if Massachusetts suddenly announced that its primary will be next week.
1 – Why would we? Massachusetts is not representative of many things: American racial diversity, median American education and income, or median American (or even Democratic) political beliefs.
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2 – We don’t need that kind of pull, considering the seniority and skill of our congressional delegation
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3 – It wouldn’t count. Other states that tried to hustle to the front of the line (Michigan, Florida) have lost their delegates to the convention, and the candidates refuse to campaign there. So the contest would be meaningless. We can try for 2012, by which time the system will hopefully make sense.
More than half of that 23 billion is for PORK!
Isn’t that just wonderful. Nancy Pelosi’s Sausage factory!
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And last but not least. Ted kennedy has given his effusive endorsement to noneother than the lackluster and dim witted
US Attorney for Massachusetts: mr Sullivan to be confirmed by the US Senate as the titular head of ATF. Isn’t that swell. This south shore cretin couldn’t find kate Smith in a phone booth . I wonder what kind of a deal with the devil he made to get a kiss from Ted? Lotta footsie going on lately. Schumer, Feinstein, Ted. There is something in the wind and it don’t smell none too good.
tell us.
whether Kennedy’s enthusiasm has to do with getting a hand in naming a new US Attorney for MA. Sullivan has been running ATF for months as the acting head; no difference really if he’s confirmed. I don’t know who’s been running the show at the USAtty’s office, but surely it hasn’t been him. Might be nice to get someone in there full time.