Delaware
Friday Daily Delawhere [5.1.15]
The Carillon at Nemours in Fairfax. It was built in 1935 by Alfred I. DuPont as a tribute to his parents and as his own mausoleum. Man, rich people. They do have big egos, don’t they?
Photo by xzmattzx.
General Assembly Pre-Game Show: April 28-30, 2015
OK. Let’s put a stop to the idiocy that was the rumor that Gov. Markell would cut some kind of deal with the Rethugs on ‘Right to Work For Less’. It never made sense. Why? Because the bills won’t pass the General Assembly, and will not get a single D vote. Plus, the governor has little influence over the General Assembly any more. He would have zero if he made that move. ‘Multiple legislators’, Nancy? I call bullshit. Any legislator who would float that rumor should recognize that doing so makes it less likely, not more likely, that HB 50 would pass.
Yes, Monsignor Lavelle’s SB 54 is scheduled for ‘consideration’ in Wednesday’s Senate Labor & Industrial Relations Committee. Now, before you conspiracy theorists get your collective knickers in a bunch, here is the membership of that committee:
Chairman: Marshall
Members: Cloutier
Hocker
McBride
Peterson
Poore
4 D’s, 2 R’s, one of the R’s generally votes with labor. Now, do you really suppose that Jack Markell asked Marshall for a ‘solid’, and that Marshall agreed? Markell emasculated Marshall’s last minimum wage bill, and tried to privatize the Port of Wilmington over his objections. Use your heads, pipples. You’re better than this.
Tuesday Daily Delawhere [4.28.15]
St. John the Beloved Roman Catholic Church, off Milltown Road in Pike Creek. Photo by Conn_Moo on Flickr.
BREAKING: 50 Years For Viewing Disgusting Pictures?? Utterly Insane.
Breaking from the News-Journal: Former Tower Hill headmaster Christopher Wheeler was today sentenced to a 50-year sentence for having and viewing 25 pictures of kiddie porn on his computer. Two years for each picture.
Following the sentencing, the DAG said that Wheeler had been offered a 4-year sentence if he pled guilty, but he chose to go to a trial by judge.
So, let me get this straight…the AG’s office felt that 4 years was an acceptable term, otherwise they wouldn’t have offered it, but he gets 50 years instead.
Delaware General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up: Week of April 21-23, 2015
Common Corporate, Race To the Top, No Textbook Publisher Left Behind, these will be legacies of a lost decade-plus in education reform. Bloated bureaucracies full of bean-counters will hopefully shrink and vanish.
Make no mistake, while HB 50 is just one bill in one small state, it reflects a burgeoning movement nationally to reject the K-12 reform that was foisted on us by people with next to no experience in, you know, educating children.
Thinkers like Nicholas Kristof are already focusing on where our efforts would be best allocated in the post-reform era. Yes, the notion of reform was well-intended, still is, for that matter, in a time when there continue to be inequities in education. However, charter schools and one-size-fits-all testing have proven to help perpetuate and accelerate those inequities, as opposed to alleviating them. Which is what happens when there are huge piles of money thrown at the issue, and greedy corporations and individuals looking to pocket the proceeds. In fact, one could argue (and I will) that the most vocal proponents for this reform were those who (or in the case of Dubya, his family) stood to gain the most financially from the reforms.
HB 50(Kowalko) is important less for what it would do, than for what it represents. The bill serves as a reflection of the mounting dissatisfaction with both the disastrous education reform policies of the past decade and also the Bigfoot approach that this governor and his corporate comrade cum Secretary of Education have tried to impose/inflict on those with the nerve to fight back. “We may be wrong (although we’re not), but we have the power to crush you like a bug” does very little to win friends and influence people. With knowledgeable education-oriented legislators joining the likes of John Kowalko in the General Assembly recently (Kim Williams, Bryan Townsend, and Sean Matthews, among others), legislators are starting to understand how bad the current policies are. Plus, teachers, parents, and students have found their voices on these issues. Which is why getting HB 50 out of committee is/was important. There is also a bipartisan coalition forming on this issue, with many conservative legislators joining their progressive counterparts in support of HB 50. The question is whether the Chamber of Commerce types still have the numbers to outvote them. Might I point out that the Chamber of Commerce has embraced this disastrous reform going back to Phase One during the unlamented Carper years? If you support this bill, it is absolutely essential that you contact your legislators, especially, for now, your state representative. Kevin Ohlandt has done all the work for us, so click on this to get your specific marching orders. BTW, thanks, Kevin, for your contribution to the cause! Exceptional Delaware is an exceptional blog.
Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tues., April 21, 2015
Something quite remarkable has happened over the past six months. So much so that I doubt that those most responsible for it even recognize what they’ve accomplished.
There is an emerging recognition that the state’s education policy is an unmitigated disaster that will, I believe, almost inevitably have to be reversed or, at least, deep-sixed.
An education policy that began with Jack Markell deciding to go all-in and do whatever it took to get that Race To the Top money.
Students, teachers, and parents have become victims of the Common Corporate Curriculum, and the only beneficiaries have been corporations peddling snake oil in the form of tests and texts, and the oversized education bureaucracy that Race To the Top funded. If the bureaucracy was a burger joint, it’d be called ‘240 Fat Guys’. The governor’s legacy on this issue is already sunk, but he can’t/won’t admit the inevitable. It is, after all, his legacy. Which is why legislators and emerging policy leaders are taking up the slack. First step is to make sure that the governor does no more harm before he exits. Now, if only Mike Matthews and Pandora would run for the General Assembly…
Before we refocus our attention from the Governor to the General Assembly, can someone explain to me why…four years after Markell signed the legislation, we still don’t have a single medical marijuana dispensary up and running in Delaware? This quote from Jonathan Starkey’s News-Journal article says it best:
“Why did he (Markell) sign the bill if he had no intentions of enacting it?”
Why, indeed. Incompetence or ideology? You decide.
BTW, today’s Al Show will be a Very Special Primal Scream Therapy Edition. So much bad stuff, so little time (10-12 noon). Now on 101.7 FM, as well as the traditional 1150 AM. Or, you can just tune in here.
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