April 4, 2014

Monday 25 to 30,000 in Oklahoma protested school funding at state capitol. Proud of them.

Estimated 25,000 converge on Oklahoma state Capitol for education rally

An estimated 25,000 teachers and others from across the state, many wearing red shirts and waving signs and banners, swarmed the state Capitol on Monday to demand more money for public education.

“We are being asked to do more and more in education every year with less money,” said Debra Robins, one of about 140 teachers from Newcastle Public Schools who rode buses to the midmorning rally. “We need the help. We love what we do. We love teaching, but we want to be able to do it right.”

Appropriations to public schools are about $200 million less than in 2009, although there are about 40,000 more public school students than there were five years ago, according to statistics from the Oklahoma Education Coalition.

Many of those at the rally — the likes of which had not been seen since thousands attended a demonstration 24 years ago in support of an education reform bill known as House Bill 1017 — had signs stating: “678,000 Reasons to Fund Education.” That’s the number of students enrolled in Oklahoma’s public schools.

More about this. One estimate has 30,000.

Coalition: Oklahoma schools have 35,000 more students, $200 million less in the budget

OKLAHOMA CITY - Waving homemade signs and dancing to music, thousands of teachers across Oklahoma descended on the Oklahoma State Capitol Monday morning for a massive “rally for education” to support an increase to education funding.

The rally, which was sponsored by the Oklahoma Education Coalition, was ready to welcome up to 25,000 educators and parents at the Capitol.

According to OHP, they estimate more than 30,000 people attended today’s rally at the State Capitol.

This should get attention. There are many protests and rallies like this going on around the country, and national media seems to ignore it. This is one of the largest numbers I have seen.

They are rallying in support of public education. Did you ever think there would come a time in this country of ours when we would have to defend public education? I did not.

April 2, 2014

As the year progresses, we will be expected to watch what we say. A repost of JK Galbraith....

with some very important words for Democrats of all shapes and sizes before that time comes. There are some important things in the article that still will have a bearing on the elections in the fall.

Galbraith has words for the Democrats.

Yes, he is critical of President Obama, but he is fair and intelligent about it. He is not one whose words are to be taken lightly.

In economic policy it was said earlier we have a lack of narrative. Recently, Gregory King asked why the people didn't know that the Republican Party is uniformly and massively opposed to job programs, to state and local assistance, and to every legislative measure that might aid and promote economic recovery from the worst crisis and recession in modern times. Why is that that they didn't know? Could it have anything to do with the fact that the White House didn't tell them?

....The president deprived himself of any chance to develop a narrative from the beginning by surrounding himself with holdover appointments from the Bush and even the Clinton administrations: Secretary Geithner, Chairman Bernanke, and, since we're here at Harvard, I'll call him by his highest title, President Summers. These men have no commitment to the base, no commitment to the Democratic Party as a whole, no particular commitment to Barack Obama, and none to the broad objective of national economic recovery that can be detected from their actions.

With this team the President also chose to cover up economic crime. Not only has the greatest wave of financial fraud in our history gone largely uninvestigated and unpunished, the government and this administration with its stress tests (which were fakes), its relaxation of accounting standards which permitted banks to hold toxic assets on their books at far higher prices than any investor would pay, with its failure to make criminal referrals where these were clearly warranted, with its continuation in office -- sometimes in acting capacities -- of some of the leading non-regulators of the earlier era, has continued an ongoing active complicity in financial fraud. And the perpetrators, of course, prospered as never before: reporting profits that they would not have been able to report under honest accounting standards and converting tax payer support into bonuses; while at the same time cutting back savagely on loans to businesses and individuals, and ramping up foreclosures, much of that accomplished with forged documents and perjured affidavits.

Could the President and his administration have done something? Yes, they could have. Where was the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation? Why did they choose not to implement the law -- the Prompt Corrective Action law -- which requires the federal government to take into receivership financial institutions when there is a significant risk of large taxpayer losses to the insurance fund? Where were the FBI and the Department of Justice? Did the President do anything? No. Is he doing anything now? No. Why not? The most likely answer is that he did not want to. My understanding, in fact, is that there was one meeting where this issue was raised, and the President stated that his economic team had assured him they had the situation under control.

For several years now we have been judged not by what we say but by loyalty to party leaders.

And we lost in 2010 to a group of uninformed people who actually stood up and spoke out loudly for their beliefs, confused and wrongheaded though those beliefs might be.

....The changes to the social safety nets for seniors, the sneaky ways to turn public schools over to management companies who get taxpayer money, the denigration of public school teachers....these things that the right wing and conservative Democrats have wanted for ages are finally coming to pass right now.

I am not supposed to be upset, and if I do speak out I am considered disloyal to the party.

What is going on now is going to tear our party apart like nothing else has ever before. You say you don't see that in the media? Of course you don't. But the discontent is there lurking, and it is growing.

I have paid a price here in my reputation for being critical of the education policies of this administration. Several others have as well. Some don't bother to post about it any more. I think I will continue, but cautiously as the elections near. That's a shame because teachers are being stripped of union rights, dignity, and their careers.....because of bipartisan policy.

Galbraith added one more paragraph that really struck a chord with me.

This isn't a parlor game. The outcome isn't destined to be alright. It will not necessarily end in progress whatever happens. What we do, how we proceed, and how we effectively resist what is plainly about to happen, matters very greatly for the future of our country, of our children, and of another generation to come. We need to lose our fear, our hesitation, and our unwillingness to face the facts. If we thereby lose some of our hopes, let's remember the dictum of William of Orange that "it is not necessary to hope in order to persevere."

This administration has done some good things. I never post about the ACA because I think it's a beginning of what could get better. To even compare President Obama to what is now available in the extremist GOP is laughable.

But this is about more than just Obama. As a retired teacher I notice mostly things that affect teachers, seniors, the needy, and add to that women's rights. Firm stands should have been taken from the start, not thrown in at the last minute to make liberals feel better.

April 1, 2014

Mel Sembler's back. Big Rick Scott donor. Remember his abusive camps to scare kids "Straight"?

From Mother Jones:

GOP Gov. Rick Scott Raising Big Bucks With Founder of Abusive Teen Boot Camps

This Thursday, a who's who of Florida big shots will hold a private, $1,000-a-head fundraiser for the Republican Party of Florida and Gov. Rick Scott's reelection effort, led by a host committee that includes Mel Sembler, the founder of a notorious substance abuse rehab program that folded after allegations of extreme abuse were lodged against several of its facilities.

The program, Straight Inc., was founded in 1976 by Sembler, a developer, and his wife, Betty. In the 17 years that it operated drug treatment centers, Straight Inc. was plagued by news reports and at least one civil suit claiming that its staff kidnapped its adult patients and mentally, physically, and sexually abused their underage charges. Two state investigations substantiated reports of abuse.

Straight Inc. officials consistently denied these allegations. Sembler's biography on the Sembler Company website hails Straight Inc. as having "successfully graduated more than 12,000 young people nationwide from its remarkable program." Sembler, it adds, "is nationally recognized as an activist in the anti-drug campaign." Sembler could not be reached for comment.

Critics paints a much darker picture. "Children had to flap their arms like chickens or else face shaming as 'sluts' and homosexuals," John Gorenfeld reported in the May 2006 issue of Mother Jones. "Hundreds of Straight alums now claim they were scarred for life, among them Samantha Monroe, who was enrolled in 1980…and claims she was starved, raped, and confined in a closet."

More from Gorenfeld, who formerly wrote for Salon and Alternet and published a book called Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right, and Built an American Kingdom

This is an article from 2005.

His Own Private Abu Ghraib

He created a system to reprogram bad kids. Delete the bad code in their personalities. Break the will of sullen stoner boys, make bad girls confess to whorish secrets and reverse-engineer the minds of heavy metal kids. And rebuild all of them into an anti-drug army. Such were the works of Melvin Sembler and the feats that STRAIGHT, the ultimate in teen drug rehab programs, attempted during the Totally Awesome Eighties.

Melvin Sembler's clinics might have seemed like a good idea at the time, when teen drug use was high and New Age thinking seemed to offer new and hopeful therapies for pressing the RESET button on human beings.

There were major problems, though. He modeled STRAIGHT after another program, creepily named "The Seed," shut down after the U.S. Congress literally issued a report in 1974 comparing it to "the highly refined 'brainwashing' techniques employed by the North Koreans." Sembler's imitation wasn't shut down until 1993 for illegal child abuse: beatings and sexual humiliation. Kids were thrown against walls. Or forced to sit in their own menstrual blood. Unless, of course, they were ready to cooperate, confess, and chant "I'm at STRAIGHT, feeling great" with the others. In that case they got to be the enforcers. Dozens of lawsuits exposed a similar picture in 12 clinics across America.

And there was an article in Florida Trend May 1997 called Money Man Mel Sembler.

Money Man (Mel Sembler)

Welcome to the front lines of big-money political fund raising. Here, in a spacious second-floor office overlooking Central Avenue on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, Mel Sembler is shaping the future of Republican Party politics. As the newly appointed finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, Sembler is the point man for the party's $50 million fund-raising campaign this year. Next year that figure will be much larger, he says. But don't expect to hear about the $25 checks from the Ma and Pa America.

Sembler targets the really big bucks - the money, as he says, that really makes a difference. At a time when political fund raising by both parties is under a growing cloud, Sembler sees the problem as a Democratic one and presses on with business as usual. "You gotta have money," Sembler insists without a hint of apology. "Without money you can't get your message out to the people. And that's what this is really all about."

A self-made millionaire, anti-drug crusader, community benefactor and self-avowed family man, Sembler personifies the conservative, successful image that Republicans hold dear. He earned a fortune building suburban shopping centers and rode those riches to the highest levels of party politics. He raised millions to support conservative candidates and causes and was duly rewarded by President Bush with the ultimate in political spoils: a key ambassadorship posting to Australia.

.....Responding to years of complaints from former patients, auditors cited evidence of excessive use of force, sleep deprivation, and the withholding of food and medication. Sembler denies any wrongdoing and continues to defend the program's methods, particularly against the criticisms of the St. Petersburg Times editorial board. "People thought we were taking away children's rights. But we saw it just the opposite - giving them back their rights by helping them get off drugs." In 1993, with the allegations surfacing and the program losing about $500,000 a year, Sembler closed Straight.

And now he's still around helping to get Rick Scott re-elected. From the first link:

After Straight Inc. closed, the education arm of Sembler's organization lived on as a new program named the Drug Free American Foundation, which still exists today. Sembler, after serving as ambassador, continued to fundraise for prominent Republicans, including Mitt Romney. He also hosted an event to raise money for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's legal defense fund when the former Bush White House aide was on trial for perjury.

April 1, 2014

Long ‘waiting list’ for Florida vouchers doesn’t actually exist. Another ed reformer lie.

The legislature is trying to pass some bills to expand vouchers to private schools. Right now only the physically or learning handicapped qualify for McKay vouchers, and the poor and needy qualify for others. Both take money from public schools and deplete their resources.

Teachers are constantly held accountable. It's past time that the "reformers" are held responsible as well.

Long ‘waiting list’ for Florida vouchers doesn’t actually exist

Florida’s lawmakers are considering expanding a voucher-like tax credit program because, legislators keep saying, there is a huge waiting list of families who want to participate. It turns out that there is no waiting list.

...The Florida legislature has been considering legislation that would expand the state’s Tax Credit Scholarship Program, a voucher-like scheme that allows public money to be used for private school tuition but wouldn’t require much if anything in the way of accountability from schools that accept vouchers. (For example, the students wouldn’t have to take the high-stakes standardized tests required of public school students.)

....But the larger point is that the expansion of the program has been pushed by Step Up For Students based on what it and supportive legislators have said is a very, very long waiting list of families who want to participate. Rep. Erik Fresen, a Republican from Miami who was one of the legislators who figured out how to keep the expansion idea alive, said at a hearing in Tallahassee about the bill that there is a waiting list of families seeking the tax credits that now stands “at 100,00 students.” During the debate about the legislation, a figure of 34,000 families on a waiting list has been thrown about, as have other figures.

Specifically citing such numbers suggests there is an actual waiting list. But, it turns out, there isn’t. After school activists and reporters asked for details about the waiting list, Step Up For Students acknowledged that, alas, it doesn’t really keep one. There aren’t any people on the waiting list because there isn’t a waiting list. Why?

Here's why:

The people who process applications at Step Up, which publishes this blog, have become so overwhelmed in recent years that they no longer wanted to give low-income families false hope. They concluded that the main reason for the waiting list was mostly for show, and they wanted no part of that.

Last year charter school advocates were doing the very same thing...lying about the huge waiting list which turned out to be non-existent. They just make it up as they go.

FL charter schools claim 80,000 on waiting list. Not true.

Miami Demorat Representative Kionne L. McGhee didn’t let Florida charter school lobbyist Jim Horne off the hook during this week’s public testimony on the Florida House’s latest charter school bill. Horne, whom sources say wrote the bill, made the claim that there are 80,000 children on charter school’s waiting lists.

..."When McGhee inquired about the numbers, Horne quickly began back-pedaling with vague responses. Sensing Horne’s evasions, he asked two more questions about the numbers forcing FLDOE’s Michael Kooi to the podium to sheepishly admit the numbers were coming from the charter schools. Miami Dade official Iraida Mendez-Cartaya followed Kooi with testimony pointing out that in her district, students are likely to appear on more than one waiting list – an obvious reason for such inflated numbers.

The moment had to be an embarrassing one for Horne, a former state commissioner of education. It was clear he knew the numbers wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny. But the brief exchange again showed charter school’s high paid mouthpieces will say anything.