Archive for March, 2015
Clean Water Petition
The Clean Water Campaign is a statewide effort to educate people about Delaware’s water quality and to secure support for dedicated funding. Clean water is critical to our economy, environment, wildlife, food source, and public health. So please consider signing a petition to the General Assembly to provide funding for Clean Water for Delaware. Come inside to learn more.
Monday Open Thread [3.16.15]
![Monday Open Thread [3.16.15]](http://delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/McConnell-240x180.jpg "Monday Open Thread [3.16.15]")
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told CNN that he plans to hold hostage the nomination of Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch until such time as Democrats capitulate on the Human Trafficking Bill.
Said McConnell: “This will have an impact on the timing of considering a new attorney general. I had hoped to turn to her next week, but if we can’t finish the trafficking bill, she will be put off again.”
“Democrats are now holding up the trafficking bill, which glided through the judiciary committee, after they noticed an abortion provision embedded in the bill that would prevent victims of human trafficking from using restitution funds to pay for an abortion.”
Fine. All business in the Senate will now end until such time as the Republicans remove this anti-choice poison pill amendment from the bill. No other business can be considered. Eric Holder has no problems staying on as Attorney General, so that is not a concern.
Yes, Mitch, we just shot your fucking hostage and took one of our own: your entire Senate. And go fuck yourself.
![Monday Daily Delawhere [3.16.15]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7025/6717250829_7ca228fa83_z.jpg "Monday Daily Delawhere [3.16.15]")
Begun, the Education Wars Have.
Today’s News Journal Dialogue Delaware section dovetails nicely with the post I wrote on Friday. I’ve been told by multiple people, in and out of the education field, that it has the best headline ever. Sometimes cutting through the bullshit calling bullshit bullshit is the best way to garner attention to an important truth: all standardized testing is bullshit. At least in relation to the stated goal of helping students learn and gauging their learning progress.
Representative Sean Matthews, himself a teacher, has penned a wonderful op-ed in the above Dialogue Delaware section, and he uses more polite language to make the same point.
There are many ways to talk about the role standardized testing plays in our public schools, but there’s one question that we have to answer before we can debate the issue: Do these tests make our students smarter, more capable and more prepared to lead successful lives?
After decades of testing at all levels, with different standards, methods, benchmarks and outcomes, the answer to that question is not what we thought it would be. Overwhelming numbers of scholars, parents, statisticians and legislators are starting to realize, with evidence, that standardized testing and the policies that flow from testing are doing more harm than good.
Over the next three months, students in Delaware’s charter and traditional community schools will be asked to take a standardized test called the Smarter Balanced Assessment. The stated goal of this test is to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses in our educational system.
But that’s not the whole story.
Most standardized tests are designed by for-profit companies that market their materials to states, which are required by federal law to test public school students in return for federal funding. Under this business relationship, the best interests of the testing firm are not aligned with the best interests of students, teachers and schools. Instead, there is great incentive to make students and their educators look like they’re “failing” so that these same firms can offer their own branded “reforms” and “solutions” to states and districts, for a worthy fee.
Moral Monday Prayer-In Tomorrow
Tomorrow (March 16, 2015), the first Delaware Moral Monday will take the form of a Prayer-In on East Steps of Legislative Hall in Dover. From the press release:
The issues facing our state are both deeply spiritual and social. In response to the hyper-criminalization of people of color and the evident disparities present within the state’s criminal justice system, participants will gather to pray that the God of justice would intervene on behalf of the marginalized during this legislative session. Both specific and general criminal justice concerns will be at the forefront. The repeal of the death penalty, one such matter that will be introduced in the Senate on March 18, will be advocated.
Sunday Open Thread [3.15.15]
![Sunday Open Thread [3.15.15]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7484/15457615324_0272ed329e_z.jpg "Sunday Open Thread [3.15.15]")
Jonathan Chait on why there is no Republican Plan B for replacing Obamacare: “All the Republican predictions have failed. Just this week, the Congressional Budget Office once again revised down its cost projections for the law, which is now projected to cost 20 percent less than originally estimated. Given conservative certainty that the opposite would occur, you might expect some revision. But conservatives have not abandoned or even reduced their fervent opposition to Obamacare. This is because the right’s specific, measurable predictions about the law are subordinate to deeper, philosophical beliefs.”
“They oppose the law’s methods (more taxes, spending, and regulation) on principle. They believe those methods will fail to achieve their stated goals, but even if they succeed, they oppose them anyway. Republicans cannot design a partywide health-care alternative because they cannot reconcile the specific things most Americans want from the health-care system (access to affordable insurance, protection from discrimination against preexisting conditions) with their ideological commitments.”
And that is why I have always said the Republican Plan for Healthcare is exactly the situation Obamacare was passed to address: Republicans believe only those who can afford it should get healthcare, as it is a privilege in their eyes and not a right. And if you have a preexisting condition, or if you have met your illness or lifetime cap on insurance payments, or if you are a woman, tough shit.
Sunday Daily Delawhere [3.15.15]
![Sunday Daily Delawhere [3.15.15]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7620/16745866612_86786e62ae_c.jpg "Sunday Daily Delawhere [3.15.15]")
The Wilmington skyline, from Videre Drive in Pike Creek. Photo by xzmattzx.
Saturday Open Thread [3.14.15]
![Saturday Open Thread [3.14.15]](http://delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/OPEN.THREAD.6-240x180.jpg "Saturday Open Thread [3.14.15]")
Jonathan Chait has a great exit interview with White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer.
“The original premise of Obama’s first presidential campaign was that he could reason with Republicans—or else, by staking out obviously reasonable stances, force them to moderate or be exposed as extreme and unyielding. It took years for the White House to conclude that this was false… If you had to pinpoint the moment this worldview began to crystallize, it would probably be around the first debt-ceiling showdown, in 2011, when Obama tried repeatedly and desperately to cut a budget deal with House Speaker John Boehner only to realize, eventually, that Boehner did not have the power to negotiate. The administration has now decided that in many cases, even adversarial bargaining fails because the Republican leadership is not capable of planning tactically.”
Explained Pfeiffer: “You have to be careful not to presume a lot of strategy for this group. I’ve always believed that the fundamental, driving strategic ethos of the Republican House leadership has been, What do we do to get through the next caucus or conference without getting yelled at? We should never assume they have a long game. We used to spend a lot of time thinking that maybe Boehner is saying this to get himself some more room. And it’s like, no, that’s not actually the case. Usually he’s just saying it because he just said it or it’s the easiest thing to solve his immediate problem.”
The Weekly Addresses
President Obama lays out his vision for quality, affordable higher education for all Americans.
Governor Markell speaks on his effort to reduce school testing.
Saturday Daily Delawhere [3.14.15]
![Saturday Daily Delawhere [3.14.15]](http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8578/16124623394_1459599fa6_c.jpg "Saturday Daily Delawhere [3.14.15]")
The Charles Springer Tavern, also known as the Oak Hill Inn or Four Mile Inn, on Lancaster Pike in suburban Wilmington. The stone section was built in 1780, with the frame section to the right built between 1750 and 1780. The old tavern became a residence in the early 20th century, and was attached to […]
“Did your God come down and do it with his beard?”
Something interesting happened on the last episode of Survivor. A redneck’s anthropomorphic God was mocked to his face. Yes, I am the last surviving Survivor viewer, and it is for moments like this.
Mike, the classic redneck, was grousing about how much work he is doing compared to everyone else, while Lindsey the tattooed Gen-Xer thinks Mike is only aware of the work he does, and doesn’t notice when other tribe members pitch in by collecting firewood and keeping the fire going.
“Did your God come down and do it with his beard?” she asks pointing to the fire.
I loved the addition of “…with his beard.” A nice touch, as if to say, “Where is your God now, you ridiculous twit?”
As it turns out I should not be surprised by the mocking of a redneck’s shallow and stupid version of Christianity on TV or elsewhere. It is the new big thing, as Americans are opting out of religion (particularly Christianity) in droves.
Testing. Performance. Assessment. It’s All Fucking Bullshit.
Governor Markell thinks that Delaware students are taking too many tests, probably because he required them to take too many tests, and so Governor Markell is going to reduce the number of tests so as to relieve the massive burden he placed on teachers and students. How nice of him. Of course, he is not eliminating tests immediately. He wants a review of the situation, another task force, to determine which state and district wide tests are redundant, and then we will do away with the duplicative tests. So it’s not that tests are bad, or that many tests are bad, so long as they are not duplicative. So this is a delaying tactic to respond to the rapidly growing movement that is opposed to a lot of Markell-based and Federal-based efforts to reform education. People are upset, so maybe this announcement will placate some.
To me, it ignores the core (no pun intended) of the issue.
Why are we testing?
Friday Open Thread [3.13.15]
![Friday Open Thread [3.13.15]](http://delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/DL.Open_.Thread.Yellow-240x180.png "Friday Open Thread [3.13.15]")
The Republican Governors of Alabama, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Maine, Kansas and Iowa are all going to raise taxes and user fees. They have no problem raising taxes in the end. They only care about who the taxes are raised upon. Their tax raises will be regressive, focused on sales tax increases and fee increases, which will hurt the middle class and the poor more. They have no problem engaging class warfare.
Only if Delaware had a Democratic Governor who likewise raised taxes and engaged in class warfare against the wealthy.
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