December 5, 2013

New FCC rules about robocalls. Yay! Hope they can enforce them.

I am just learning about these rules that apparently went into effect in October.

New FCC Regulations to Take Effect Regarding Telemarketing Robocalls

On October 16, 2013, revised rules adding further restrictions on telemarketing “robocalls” (telemarketing calls or texts that are autodialed or prerecorded) take effect. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) promulgated the rules pursuant to its authority under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA). The FCC announced the revisions in 2012 in an effort to provide greater protection for consumers against unwanted robocalls.1 Live operator calls are not subject to the new regulations.

There are two major revisions set to take effect that will most significantly affect compliance measures:

Prior express written consent from the consumer is required for all autodialed and prerecorded telemarketing calls to wireless and residential lines; and

Having an “established business relationship” with the consumer is no longer an exemption from the obligation to obtain prior consent.

Prior Express Consent Must Be Written

The FCC rules currently require that a caller have a consumer’s “prior express consent” before making autodialed and prerecorded telemarketing calls to residential phone numbers and telemarketing or any other autodialed and prerecorded calls to wireless numbers. The new rules effective this month require that this consent be in written form. Non-telemarketing, informational calls remain subject to the existing standard, which does not require that the prior consent be in writing. 2 The test of whether an autodialed or prerecorded telemarketing call is intended for telemarketing, and is therefore subject to the written consent requirement, is whether the call offers property, goods or services for sale. The test is applied on a case-by-case basis and the answer depends, not on the caller’s characterization of the call, but on the objective purpose of the message conveyed.

That sounds like those making the robocalls still have the upper hand.

Consumers' Union sent an email in which 3 main new good things are listed.

New rules that just went into effect from the FCC will put you in better control over who can call you, on both your landline and your wireless device.

Among your new rights:

• A telemarketer will have to get your written consent to receive a call or message. You can give your OK for them to call through paper or electronic means – web forms, a telephone keypress, or email.

• Robocalls to your home landline are no longer allowed based solely on an ‘established business relationship’ with you. Simply buying a product, or contacting a business with a question, no longer gives them permission to call you.

• Telemarketers who call will now have to let you immediately opt out of receiving additional calls through an automated menu.

It's a start. I have had 3 robocalls today, and all 3 offered an opt out from getting their calls.
Hope it works.

Hard to find much about the rules. Here is one article.

New FCC Rules Require Consent For Automated Telephone ‘Robocalls’

New FCC rules now require businesses to get your consent – written or electronic – before making those pre-recorded calls or sending that telemarketing text.

“It used to be when you provided your number to an entity that, in effect, means that you consent to receive automated communication from them,” said Lemberg.

If companies can’t prove they have your consent, you can sue for up to $1,500 per call or text.

Wonder how those rules will affect political robocalls?

December 4, 2013

Bob Dylan. Talking John Birch Paranoid Blues. 1963. CBS censored on Ed Sullivan show.

Dylan then refused to perform.

I am reading Claire Conner's book Wrapped in the Flag, about her days growing up in the John Birch Society. The group met often at their home to keep up with all the communists. I thought of this song.

The lyrics.

Lyrics John Birch Paranoid Blues

Just a few paragraphs due to copyright.

Well, I was feelin' sad and kind of blue
I didn't know what I was gonna do
The Communists were comin' around
They was in the air, they were on the ground
They were all over

So I ran down most hurriedly
And joined the John Birch Society
I got me a secret membership card
Went back to my backyard
And started looking on the sidewalk
'Neath the rose bush

...I heard some footsteps by the front porch door
So I grabbed my shotgun from the floor
I snuck around the house with a huff and hiss and
"Hands up, you Communist" it was a mail man
He punched me out

...Well, I finally started thinkin' straight
When I run outta things to investigate
I couldn't imagine doin' anything else
So now I'm at home investigatin' myself
Hope, I don't find out too much, good God

More about walking out on the Ed Sullivan show.

May 12, 1963 Bob Dylan walks out on The Ed Sullivan Show

By the end of the summer of 1963, Bob Dylan would be known to millions who watched or witnessed his performances at the March on Washington, and millions more who did not know Dylan himself would know and love his music thanks to Peter, Paul and Mary's smash-hit cover version of "Blowin' In The Wind." But back in May, Dylan was still just another aspiring musician with a passionate niche following but no national profile whatsoever. His second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, had not yet been released, but he had secured what would surely be his big break with an invitation to perform on The Ed Sullivan Show. That appearance never happened. On May 12, 1963, the young and unknown Bob Dylan walked off the set of the country's highest-rated variety show after network censors rejected the song he planned on performing.

The song that caused the flap was "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues," a satirical talking-blues number skewering the ultra-conservative John Birch Society and its tendency to see covert members of an international Communist conspiracy behind every tree. Dylan had auditioned "John Birch" days earlier and had run through it for Ed Sullivan himself without any concern being raised. But during dress rehearsal on the day of the show, an executive from the CBS Standards and Practices department informed the show's producers that they could not allow Dylan to go forward singing "John Birch." While many of the song's lyrics about hunting down "reds" were merely humorous—"Looked up my chimney hole/Looked down deep inside my toilet bowl/They got away!"—others that equated the John Birch Society's views with those of Adolf Hitler raised the fear of a defamation lawsuit in the minds of CBS's lawyers. Rather than choose a new number to perform or change his song's lyrics—as the Rolling Stones and the Doors would famously do in the years to come—Dylan stormed off the set in angry protest.

.....Or so goes the legend that helped establish Dylan's public reputation as an artist of uncompromising integrity. In reality, Bob Dylan was polite and respectful in declining to accede to the network's wishes. "

The article says Ed Sullivan later apologized for the actions of CBS.

December 1, 2013

LIFO takes over a thread about a teacher judged on merits of others....so ironic.

This thread is about a science teacher who is not judged on what she taught but on whether a student's previous teachers in reading did their job.

LIFO is Michelle Rhee's terminology...Last in First Out. She doesn't think layoffs or firings should be done on the basis of tenure.

Job security has been secured for teachers through their unions.

So this is union busting to do away with a contract.

And since there is no good way to actually judge a teacher on his/her own merits, then LIFO should remain in force until there is that good way.

If the criteria are not there to pick which teachers are good and bad....then let the union contracts remain.

Those here who would fight union busting in other fields seem quite happy to go along with it regarding teachers.

Here is a blog post by a long time TFA teacher explaining what LIFO really is.

LIFO is good

I’m against abolishing LIFO for a bunch of reasons, none of them that I’m scared to lose my own job to some hungry novice.

First of all, I don’t like anything that contributes to the current fad to vilify teachers and teacher’s unions. The premise is that the education system would be fixed if all teachers were really trying hard. They don’t try hard because they are protected by ‘tenure’ (said with a sneer, as if it was ‘diplomatic immunity’ or ‘double jeopardy’) so they are lazy and don’t do their jobs and the innocent kids are the ones who suffer. Supporting the abolishing of LIFO supports this very narrow minded view. I don’t think that abolishing LIFO would actually improve educational outcomes because I don’t think the problem is the old, lazy teachers.

Keeping teachers by their ‘merit’ sounds good until you realize that there’s not a good way to accurately measure this ‘merit.’ A teacher can have a bad year, a year where the chemistry just made it difficult for his or her class to perform on those standardized tests. The next year the same teacher can have a good year. It’s hard to compare two teachers since they are teaching different groups of kids. Yes, if you have a teachers who is horrible for five years in a row then that teacher isn’t very good and is in need of some kind of support at first. But you need to have about five years to really see how good or bad a teacher is. A brand new teacher, by definition, hasn’t had enough years to establish his or her self as an effective teacher. (Also, a lot of first year teachers — most, I’d say — are not very effective, so they’d probably deserve to be the first to go.)

Another thing I think should be considered is why LIFO was implemented to begin with. It was so teachers couldn’t be fired indiscriminately. If it’s gone and a principal wants to get rid of a veteran teacher with her fat, uh, paycheck, there are ways to artificially lessen her ‘merit.’ The principal can give that teacher the toughest-to-educate kids, the charter rejects, and then watch the stats go down and rack up those ‘U’ ratings until the teacher can be fired.

December 1, 2013

Miami-Dade's Science Teacher of Year 2012 graded on what other teachers did. Poor review.

Julie Rich, 2012 Miami-Dade County Science Teacher of the Year and Howard Drive Elementary School science teacher, grades papers from her fifth-grade general education science class at her home in Palmetto Bay. She is appealing the poor Value Added Model score she received for the 2012/2013 school year.
Shannon Kaestle / MIAMI HERALD STAFF

For thousands of Florida teachers, evaluations aren’t making the grade

When Miami-Dade’s 2012 elementary science teacher of the year finally got her annual evaluation last May, she was confused.

Despite the top honor from her peers for her work with Howard Drive Elementary fifth graders, the official record ranked Julie Rich as barely effective due to her students’ poor test results — in reading.

This is happening more and more frequently now. It's a shame, too. A student reading below grade level can be an outstanding science student. The same for the areas of music and art. These can be areas of success to build confidence for such students, most teachers recognize that.

However the goals of the "reformers" do not include such things as self-esteem or in-depth learning.

The merit pay plans are in place, but the tests haven't been furnished or even developed for all the subjects. And after all how do you grade teachers on every aspect? Is it even possible?

And THAT is going to cost big money. Education reform companies will get huge profits from the new tests being developed. From the Miami Herald article about the science teacher....these words on the possible cost:

In Miami-Dade, officials said this month that they’re still trying to create exams for more than 1,000 courses, and expect the cost to be in the ballpark of $3 million. In a letter to the commissioner of education this summer, Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said two-thirds of the school system’s courses lacked existing exams and only 4 percent were linked to standardized tests on basic subjects like math and reading. Last year, only about 8,200 teachers taught subjects that could be factored directly into value-added scores, he said.

The district plans to use a variety of new test scores in evaluations this year, but even then only 17,600 teachers would receive direct evaluations results, leaving thousands of others still in the lurch. For those teachers, the district has previously assigned school-wide averages, which likely won’t be possible after legislators voted up Flores’ proposal.

According to the article the state legislators realize the plans are lacking, but they apparently have no intention of doing anything about it.

November 28, 2013

Four states, 4 examples of charter schools fraud. Oversight needed badly.

Those are only a few of the examples, there are many other states in which public money is being misused. The lack of regulation and oversight is not working.

Leadership at all levels needs to step in and take control of these spiraling problems. This is taxpayer money.

Millions involved in Philadelphia:

Jury in charter fraud trial hears of excess

Brown is accused of defrauding the four charter schools she founded of $6.7 million and then conspiring with two former administrators to obstruct justice by orchestrating a cover-up.
Francis L. Gizaza, an accountant who began preparing tax returns for Brown's schools in 1998, reviewed several years of nonprofit tax forms for the schools. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joan E. Burnes asked him to highlight Brown's salaries.

In the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2006, Brown was paid a total of $472,483 from three of her schools: $186,929 as the chief executive of the Laboratory Charter School; $108,554 as CEO of Ad Prima Charter School; and $177,000 as executive director of Main Line Academy, a small private school for students with special needs she established in Bala Cynwyd.

Laboratory has campuses in Northern Liberties, Overbrook, and Wynnefield. Ad Prima is in Overbrook and Frankford. Brown stepped down as CEO of both charters in 2008 after the state law was changed to bar charter administrators from collecting salaries from more than one school.

From Cleveland, Ohio:

Cleveland Heights charter school employees charged in $400,000 fraud scheme indictment

CLEVELAND, Ohio – A federal grand jury today returned indictments against four people charged with a scheme to defraud a Cleveland Heights charter school of more than $400,000, said U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach.

Indictments on charges of wire fraud, mail fraud and conspiracy to launder money were handed down against Joel B. Friedman, 65, of Mayfield Heights; Jeffrey A. Pope, 46, of Bowie, Md.; Marianne Stefanik, 64, of Parma, and Virgil B. Holley, 51, of Cleveland Heights.

Friedman served as chairman of Greater Heights Academy, a now-shut down charter school located in Cleveland Heights. Stefanik worked as Friedman’s secretary at the school. Pope operated a consulting business in Maryland known as R&D International. Holley worked for Friedman at the charter school in various capacities, including starting Holley Enterprises to provide security at the school.

....The academy once enrolled nearly 1,000 students in grades kindergarten to 12, and collected more than $21.5 million from the state over the school’s lifetime of less than five years.

So many records were missing that the charter school was declared unauditable.

In Kansas City, Missouri, there was a huge discrepancy in the number of students claimed by the school and those in attendance the day the state visited.

Surprise state visit finds problems at Hope Academy charter school in KC

State officials decided to visit the school after the school reported a 99.5 percent attendance rate.

“That means better than 99 percent of its students were in school 90 percent of the time,” said Sarah Potter, spokeswoman for the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. “That is highly unlikely. It is highly unusual ... for even our highest-performing ones to have an attendance rate that high.”

She said the state also found the charter school listed a higher than average percentage of the school’s population reporting perfect attendance. According to state officials, Hope Academy reported that 11 percent of its students had perfect attendance. The state average is 3 percent.

The day the state showed up at Hope Academy, 174 students were in attendance. That’s less than 30 percent of the 636 students the school says are enrolled there. The state also identified some students who live outside the Kansas City Public Schools’ boundaries.

Then there is the UNO charter group run by Rahm's close friend, Juan Rangel, in Chicago.

Sun-Times Sues Troubled Charter School Network

After blasting a charter school network in a series of articles for "lucrative payments on contracts" to "relatives of UNO insiders," the Chicago Sun-Times sued the UNO Charter School network for more records.

The Sun-Times and its reporter Dan Mihalopoulos sued UNO Charter School Network, United Charter School Network (UCSN), and United Neighborhood Organization of Chicago, in Cook County Court.

The Sun-Times this year published a series of articles by Mihalopoulos, alleging that UNO misused state funds, "including lucrative payments on contracts awarded to relatives of UNO insiders. UNO's CEO was compelled to issue a public apology for the incidents described in the Sun-Times reports, and defendants committed to adopt the recommendations of a retired federal judge who was hired by UNO to review those incidents," the lawsuit states.

After the publication of Mihalopoulos' articles - in February, March and July - Illinois twice suspended UNO's funding for new school construction, and in October, Mihalopoulos reported that the SEC was investigating UNO for possible securities fraud.

One of the worst examples was in my own state of Florida. A charter school principal deprived the school of many necessities, but she herself profited over $800,000.

FL failed charter school did without computers, library, or cafeteria. Principal got $824,000.

The principal in question not only received a $519,000 severance check, but she took home her $305,000 annual salary for a grand total of $824,000 during the 2010-2011 school year. The Orlando Sentinel also reported last week the school only spent $366,000 on teacher salaries and instruction during that school year. Nothing can justify that imbalance, especially for the leader of a charter that failed. Public school district superintendents don't even make that kind of unconcionalble salary. School boards would face public rage for even proposing such pay.

.."Last week the Miami Herald reported that Charter Schools USA handed out in excess of $205,000 in contributions to political organizations and candidates for this election, three times the amount the Fort Lauderdale-based company spent two years ago.

That money must come from the profits the company earns at taxpayer expense; in effect, the public is paying that political price so charter schools can leverage even greater profits from the Legislature.

Something is wrong with the policy of allowing more and more charter schools, the policy being pushed now by the Department of Education under Arne Duncan.

Public taxpayer money should not be abused like that. There is no excuse.

November 25, 2013

Wrapped in the Flag. A book about the new John Birch society...the Tea Party. Part 1

By a woman who was raised as part of the Birchers in the 50s.

Claire Conner knows about the radical right. She was a member of the John Birch Society in 1959 at age 13, photographed in a Birch photo spread in LIFE magazine at 14, a good little Bircher for many years. Her father was in Birch leadership for 32 years. Claire hears old John Birch ideas in the rhetoric of today's right wing Republicans.These ideas are taking us down a dangerous path to a country controlled by big business, fundamentalist religion, anti-government libertarians. A place with a weak central government, no safety net and no regulation.

More about the book and its author at this link.

If you've ever wondered what happened to the John Birch Society, author Claire Conner of Dunedin can tell you. The radical right-wing group that was briefly a player in national conservative politics in the 1960s is back, under a different name: tea party.

She should know. Conner's new memoir Wrapped in the Flag: A Personal History of America's Radical Right is a fascinating inside look at the Birchers in their heyday and her story packed the house last month at the Tampa Bay Times Festival of Reading at University of South Florida St. Petersburg.

Here is Part 2. Conners becomes a progressive.

November 25, 2013

The New John Birch Society..the Tea Party. Great column by Tampa Bay Times Robyn Blumner.

The new John Birch Society

If you've ever wondered what happened to the John Birch Society, author Claire Conner of Dunedin can tell you. The radical right-wing group that was briefly a player in national conservative politics in the 1960s is back, under a different name: tea party.

She should know. Conner's new memoir Wrapped in the Flag: A Personal History of America's Radical Right is a fascinating inside look at the Birchers in their heyday and her story packed the house last month at the Tampa Bay Times Festival of Reading at University of South Florida St. Petersburg.

True believers don't get any truer than Claire Conner's parents, who sacrificed their livelihood and even their relationship with their children in the name of the cause. Her father, Stillwell Conner, was a founding John Birch Society member in 1958 and its Midwest recruiter. As a child Claire was pressed into service and at 13 years old was the Birchers' youngest member.

....Eventually Conner, now a self-described progressive, realized "it's good when the government does things. Old people having health care (Medicare) is a good thing. Social Security is a very good thing," Conner said. Her parents didn't believe in either — though they both accepted the benefits, of course.

Something I never realized until I saw this on Twitter this week.

The John Birch Society put out a wanted poster for JFK just before he arrived in Dallas.

November 21, 2013

WP Tea party has roots in the Dallas of 1963. Note hatred of Kennedy by fringe groups.

This is an interesting essay in today's Washington Post. It compares the political atmosphere in 1963 Dallas to today's.

The author:

Bill Minutaglio is a University of Texas journalism professor and the author of “First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family Dynasty.” He and Steven L. Davis are the authors of “Dallas 1963” (2013, Twelve Books), from which this article is adapted.

Essay. Tea party has roots in the Dallas of 1963

To find the very roots of the tea party of 2013, just go back to downtown Dallas in 1963, back to the months and weeks leading to the Kennedy assassination. It was where and when a deeply angry political polarization, driven by a band of zealots, burst wide open in America.

It was fueled then, as now, by billionaires opposed to federal oversight, rabid media, Bible-thumping preachers and extremist lawmakers who had moved far from their political peers. In 1963, that strident minority hijacked the civic dialogue and brewed the boiling, toxic environment waiting for Kennedy the day he died.

...Not far away in downtown Dallas, oil billionaire H.L. Hunt was pouring millions into a ceaseless anti-Kennedy radio campaign; it was the dawn of extremist radio in the nation. Hunt’s program, “Life Line,” reached 10 million listeners a day with its scorching attacks against “the mistaken,” the term Hunt’s announcers used to describe the president’s supporters.

When Kennedy proposed Medicare to provide health care for the elderly, Hunt’s shows warned that government death panels would follow: “a package which would literally make the president of the United States a medical czar with potential life-or-death power over every man, woman and child in the country.”

Dallas Morning News publisher Ted Dealey particularly hated Kennedy. Ironically Dealey Plaza is having a special memorial for JFK tomorrow.

November 19, 2013

Charlie Crist to support legalization of medical marijuana. His law firm leads the campaign in FL.

ONE on ONE with Gov. Charlie Crist

Video at the link.

"I am the same guy, I come from a party in my past, the leadership really has gone so hard right, it is not recognizable to me anymore, Crist says, and pretty intolerant to be honest, most Republicans are pretty main stream like my mom and dad who are still Republicans."

Crist says he is in favor of legalizing gay marriage and medical marijuana . He also says he would do a better job of taking care of teachers.

(My aside comment: Whoever wrote that first paragraph has one long huge run-on sentence. I taught my primary grades better than that.)

John Morgan of Morgan and Morgan law firm has lead the legalization campaign in Florida.

John Morgan, Obama fundraiser and Crist boss, to lead medical-pot initiative in FL

John Morgan, a major President Obama fundraiser and the boss of former Gov. Charlie Crist, is taking the reins of a Florida medical marijuana initiative, promising to pump major money and political muscle into the popular issue.

...Morgan said he hasn't spoken about the issue with Crist or Obama, with whom he had dinner Monday. And, he said, he doesn’t care whether they support it or not.

...Morgan, head of the Morgan & Morgan firm, said he’s going to lead the initiative for personal reasons: His father had struggled with cancer and emphysema, and only marijuana helped him.

“He was tethered to machines and on all these drugs that he had no appetite,” Morgan said. “One of my brothers was able to get marijuana for him so he could eat and be happy.”

Nan Rich, also a Democratic candidate, supports the issue as well. The problem for Nan is that Crist is the one leading Scott by 10 points.

Also posted at Twitter

November 19, 2013

Can we bubble? Yes, we can.

A perfect example of stupidity found in the new endless testing going on in our schools now courtesy of both parties. This is in a Kindergarten Test Prep kit sold by a group called Teachers pay Teachers. You would think they would know better.

Courtesy of Susan Ohanian's blog.



Don't blame Pearson for this one.

This worksheet is part of a 20-page packet of test prep materials for Kindergarten and Grade 1 sold by Teachers Pay Teachers--$5.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Kindergarten-Standardized-Test-Practice-for-the-Un-Common-Core-Math-Skills-522348

Arne Duncan is so very proud of his policy of endless testing. Pearson loves him. Look at all the new tests they get to produce. He has forgotten about the students' needs, about parents' expectations for them.....and it has reached a point where people actually expect his stupid statements. His latest one takes on a pretty powerful group.

‘White suburban moms’ upset that Common Core shows their kids aren’t ‘brilliant’

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told a group of state schools superintendents Friday that he found it “fascinating” that some of the opposition to the Common Core State Standards has come from “white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.”

We need education leaders who are bright enough to understand that making great bubbles is not learning. I wonder how we got to such a place in country that there are political leaders who let people like Arne get away with this.