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The Raimondo-Michael Nutter Connection

By joann fonseca on September 6, 2012

I know this past week end Rhode Islanders were busy saying good bye to summer. Some shut down their beach houses for the last time while others prepare their children for pre-K, elementary and high school and still others made the trip to return their teens to college. So it is quite understandable that many missed this small paragraph about Gina Raimondo on Page A11 of Sunday’s Projo:

“one of her goals will be to seek out like minded Democrats such as Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter to swap ideas –how best to tackle pension overhaul for example.”

Let me explain to you who Michael Nutter is. He is the mayor of Philadelphia, a city whose state has an abundance of untested charters. Nutter recently said:

“He saw no difference between public, private and religious schools and thinks they should all be funded .”

This is the state where its Pennsylvania Governor Corbett and the Republican controlled legislature acted as fast as they could to slash $1 billion from public schools, install voucher-like tax credit programs, and privatize struggling districts, handing their schools over to corporations run by their largest campaign donors.

So why would Gina Raimondo want to associate herself with Pennsylvania’s ways unless she too, wants to follow the path of vouchers and privatization like PA does.

She may wish to join the municipal pension reform crowd as her outward agenda but then again she may be looking at possible future education changes since she does want to run for 2014 governor.

The facts show that Deborah Delisle, USDE Assistant Secretary noted that 30 states applied for NCLB waivers to gain some flexibility in dealing with its stringent requirements. However, Pennsylvania was not one of them.

Again I reiterate, I find it very curious that Raimondo wants to speak with Philly’s mayor on municipal pensions and who knows what other topics can crop up in discussion….

There was a White House Conference where many in the room expressed serious frustration with Governor Corbett’s apparent preference to have schools labeled failures and refusal to seek relief through the waiver program. The PA Department of Education declined to send anyone to this White House forum, but Students First PA was there.(Michelle Rhee, founded Students First in Florida-Rhee was DC school leader where rampant high stakes testing cheating took place under her so-called leadership ) This group funnels superPAC millions to the campaigns of lawmakers who promise to deliver vouchers and give away public funds to private and religious schools through tax credit schemes.

So again, I wonder why one of Gina Raimondo’s convention goals is to associate with Philly Mayor Nutter.

In this blog from Dr Diane Ravitch, historian and former Asst Sec of Education, she says this:

Philly Mayor: No Difference Among Public, Private, Religious Schools?

August 28, 2012

The mayor of Philadelphia says there is no difference among different kinds of schools, be they public, private, religious, charter, whatever.
He sees no special responsibility to support public education.

In a sense it is understandable since the people of Philadelphia lost control of their schools to the state years ago.
And the state imposed a massive privatization scheme, which failed.

And now the state control board for the public schools wants to try privatization again.

Parent activist Helen Gym explains to Mayor Michael Nutter why public education matters to the people of Philadelphia.

Investigative reporter Daniel Denvir followed the money trail and uncovered a reason for Mayor Nutter’s indifference to the powerless people of Philadelphia: the big money in the city and suburbs is betting on privatization. The campaign to privatize the schools of Philadelphia has raised $50 million, while the public schools are neglected.

PS  You might want to read this:
online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444301704577629342468215790.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

You see, I believe that who a person associates with, adds immeasurably to who they really are…Their persona, temperament,  belief system, views, character, personality and behavior create their image. It is this image we need to explore  to determine if we really want these people making important decisions for us if and when they decide to run for political office.

I will not vote for anyone who says one thing and does another. And I am sure the readers of this blog feel the same way. This is why we must be vigilant to the words and actions of potential candidates. If they turn out to be hypocrites, then you know they never had your personal interests in mind but their own agendas.

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Aftermath of the Great Debt Ceiling Debacle of 2011

By Alan Mendelsohn on August 7, 2012

Last summer, the American people learned that the only way their Congress could overcome ideological and partisan divisions and agree to a balanced deficit reduction plan was by threatening itself with a deficit reduction plan so severe members of Congress on both sides of the aisle would gladly accept an alternative plan.

We then learned that even under these circumstances, our Congress could not pass a balanced deficit reduction plan. With the looming sequestration, the technical term for that threat Congress imposed on itself, I thought it would be useful to reflect on the events of last summer and where things stand now.

First, a recap of last summer is in order. Spurred primarily by Tea Party Republican members of Congress, who refused to approve a routine increase of the debt ceiling without the Democrats agreeing to significant reductions in government spending, the United States Congress and the President entered into an intense end-of-session game of chicken as the clock ticked down. If Congress did not raise the debt ceiling, the government of theUnited States of Americawould default on its debt.

Initially, President Obama requested a clean vote to raise the debt ceiling without any spending cuts attached. When this vote failed at the end of May, Democrats began to realize that perhaps as a result of the 2010 midterm elections which brought a new breed of Republican toWashington, Republicans in Congress were serious in their political brinksmanship. The Republicans were serious when they said they would not raise the debt ceiling without tackling the deficit. If the credit rating was downgraded, so be it.

There were several high-profile attempts made to reach an agreement on deficit reduction that would satisfy the Republicans enough for them to grant us all the privilege of not having our credit rating downgraded. Vice President Biden entered into negotiations with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, who walked out of negotiations by the end of June citing their opposition to the Democrats’ insistence on “job-killing tax hikes.”

Seeking what was labeled a “grand bargain,” President Obama advocated the passage of a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan that included both spending cuts and new revenue. For a brief moment, it seemed the President had convinced Speaker Boehner to agree to the plan.

If the President had gotten his grand bargain, he would have scored a major political victory. The grand bargain would have allowed him to claim the mantle of a uniter and a deficit hawk, which would appeal to those valuable independent voters. But Speaker Boehner and the Republicans were not about to give Obama a political victory of this magnitude. However, partisanship  and divisions between the parties do not offer a complete explanation for why President Obama was unable to reach a grand bargain. Divisions within the Republican Party, particularly between the more old guard Republicans and the Tea Party Republicans who were swept into office in 2010, made such a grand bargain politically infeasible for Boehner. As Speaker of a House with many Republican freshmen who won their elections by vowing to serve as a bulwark against government spending and taxes, embracing the grand bargain would have undermined his reputation and credibility within that faction of his caucus. Moreover, he probably would not have been able to corral the necessary votes for its passage, which itself would be an embarrassment for the newly elected Speaker.

The House of Representatives, led by Speaker Boehner, passed the Republican-approved Cut, Cap, and Balance Act which would have authorized an increase in the debt ceiling only after a Balanced Budget Amendment was passed by Congress. Just as this partisan bill failed in the Senate, Reid’s plan passed through the Senate but was rejected by the House. Meanwhile, the Gang of Six tried and failed to come up with a solution.

Finally, at the end of July President Obama announced an agreement between his administration and congressional leaders. There would be $917 billion in spending cuts and deficit reduction coupled with a $900 billion increase in the debt ceiling in the first stage. For Standard & Poor’s, this was too little too late, and the agency downgraded the U.S.credit rating for the first time. In the second stage, a special joint committee of Congress would be tasked with finding another $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction by the end of November. If this Super Committee failed, across-the-board spending cuts totaling $1.2 trillion and split between defense and nondefense programs would be triggered. The sequestration was intended to provide an incentive for the Super Committee to reach an agreement. On January 15th, 2012, the deadline had arrived, the Super Committee had not reached an agreement, and the automatic cuts were triggered.

The $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts are set to go into effect in January 2013. The first round of the defense cuts, totaling $109 billion, will go into effect on January 2nd. While Republicans criticize the President and his Democratic allies of playing politics with the defense budget, many Democrats have suggested that the Republicans brought these defense cuts upon themselves. Sequestration is no way to make policy. The Founders envisioned a legislative branch of government that was deliberative and reached conclusions on matters of policy through consensus building and compromise. The Democrats were willing to go to great lengths to reach a compromise, with the President even putting Medicare and Social Security cuts on the table. Republicans took defense cuts and tax increases off the table. It was under these dire circumstances that sequestration was employed, and I think it was justified by these circumstances.

The ultimate test of the wisdom of a political tactic is whether that tactic achieved the desired results. It is not completely clear what President Obama and his allies in Congress hoped to get out of the sequestration. This ambiguity is particularly apparent with respect to the defense cuts.While the President’s own Secretary of Defense has likened the automatic defense cuts to shooting ourselves in the head, the President has not said much about the cuts himself. So where do the President and his party stand on the issue?

The President recently announced that military personnel would be protected from the automatic cuts, but has dismissed Republican demands that he exclude other defense cuts from the sequestration. While his administration sounds the alarm about how devastating the defense cuts would be and continues to push Congress to reach a balanced agreement that would avoid the cuts, the President and his allies in Congress do not appear to be going out of their way to avoid them. Republican leaders in Congress have requested that Senator Reid pass a package of alternative spending cuts in order to avoid the automatic defense cuts. Disagreements over taxes, of course, continue to prevent the two parties from agreeing on an alternative package.

President Obama has discussed his vision for a “leaner” military and a light footprint strategy. We have seen the strategy used effectively inLibya. A new Obama campaign television advertisement criticizes Romney for favoring increases in defense spending, among other things. He may not say it outright, but it does not seem like President Obama is strongly opposed to these defense cuts.

With the sequestration, President Obama essentially forced the Republicans to choose between increases in tax revenue and cuts in defense spending. The Republicans hated both options, but between Grover Norquist’s no tax pledge and the Tea Party, the Republicans had their backs up against the wall. A significant number of Republicans in Congress had won their seats in 2010 after promising not to raise taxes and to go toWashingtonas soldiers in the war against government spending. I think a number of Republicans may have believed that the defense cuts were so severe that members of both parties would eventually reach some agreement to exclude them from the sequestration. Believing or hoping that the sequestration was an empty threat, Republicans refused to raise taxes and accepted the risk of sequestration. Raising taxes would have had definite political consequences whereas the political consequences of the defense cuts were deemed to be only hypothetical.

Despite Republicans consistently making defense spending a sacred cow that must be off the table in any discussion of spending cuts, dramatic defense cuts are imminent. If it was their aim to cut defense spending, and it seems like it was in fact their aim, then it can be said that President Obama and his allies in Congress successfully employed a shrewd political tactic to achieve the results they desired.

What is now called the Department of Defense was once called the Department of War. The wars inAfghanistanandIraqwere not defensive wars. NeitherIraqnorAfghanistanattacked theUnited States. NeitherIraqnorAfghanistanposed an existential threat to theUnited States. President Bush and his administration tried their hardest to convince us otherwise. Such a broad conception of defense has led to misguided wars and excessive military spending. Today, those who favor a leaner military and anAmericathat truly walks softly and carries a big stick are on the verge of making some progress. Unfortunately, it took the messy politics of sequestration to make this happen.

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ACLU, others highly opposed to high stakes tests

By Steven Brown on May 22, 2013

high-stakes-testingMore than two dozen community organizations, including the ACLU of Rhode Island, have this week formally asked the Rhode Island Board of Education to rescind the regulation that conditions the receipt of a high school diploma on passing a “high stakes test.” Although the groups have diverse reasons for opposing the measure, they all agree that the mandate is poor policy and will likely have devastating effects for thousands of students who deserve a diploma.

In the letter sent on Monday to the state Board of Education, the groups stated:

“As a result of that high-stakes test requirement, 40% of the Class of 2014 — more than 4,000 students — are at risk of not graduating next year. Immediate action is critical in order to address the uncertainty and anxiety facing these students and their families.”

“Before the fate of these students is sealed, we wanted to make sure you were aware of the impact of high stakes testing, and urge you to find more effective strategies for education reform. Your newly constituted Board has not had the opportunity to consider the full consequences of this previously adopted mandate but, in light of its potentially devastating impact, we believe it is incumbent upon you to do so.”

“…There are other research-proven strategies to improve student outcomes that should be the focus of educational reform efforts. We also take issue with the notion that retests and ‘alternative’ testing will adequately address this problem. In addition, last-minute attempts at remediation by school districts are ‘too little, too late.’ We strongly urge you to reexamine this issue at the earliest possible opportunity before too much more damage is done to our students and our educational system.”

Other signatories to the letter include The Autism Project, College Visions, the George Wiley Center, the NAACP, Providence Student Union, Providence Youth Student Movement, Rhode Island Legal Services, Tides Family Services, and the Urban League of Rhode Island.

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RI rent too damn high, says HousingWorksRI report

By Bob Plain on May 22, 2013

mass, ri conn aff housingThe rent in Rhode Island is too damn high , according to a new report from HousingWorks RI.

To afford a typical two-bedroom apartment in Rhode Island a renter would need to earn more than $47,000 per year. About half of Rhode Island residents earn less than that.

“What’s more, a quarter of all Rhode Island renter households pay over 50 percent of their income on housing costs,” says the report. “Rhode Islanders who spend more than half their incomes on housing cannot fully participate in their local economies. Quite simply, affordable housing is an essential part of our state’s economic infrastructure and necessary for economic growth.”

renter burden by income

Rhode Island’s paltry investment in affordable housing is a significant stumbling block in improving the state’s economy, the report says. And we’re lagging far behind our neighbors. Connecticut spends $34 per capita on affordable housing and Massachusetts spends $32. Rhode Island, on the other hand, spends only $12 per capita on affordable housing.

Both Connecticut and Massachusetts recognize why affordable housing is essential for a stronger economy,” said Jessica Cigna, the research and policy associate for HousingWorks RI. “As a result, they invest money to build affordable housing and appropriate significant budget dollars that help make rents in those developments affordable to lower-wage workers.”

The report also says that investing in affordable housing is good for the overall economy.

High housing cost burdens are bad for business. An inadequate supply of affordable housing puts Rhode Island at a distinct competitive disadvantage in attracting and retaining workers. Employers from across the country report that a shortage of affordable housing negatively affects their ability to sustain and grow their businesses.”

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Category One Memorial Designation Commission?

By Steve Ahlquist on May 22, 2013

Woonsocket Cross 01Where can I find the Category One Memorial Designation Commission? As far as I can tell, it does not exist, despite legislation passed last year mandating the creation of such an authority.

After the Freedom from Religion Foundation challenged the constitutionality of a large Christian cross on public land in Woonsocket, the General Assembly hastily passed, at 2:59am on the last day of the session, an odd and mostly useless bill, H8143A. The bill was originally written with the intent of getting around the First Amendment, specifically the part that says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” which the Supreme Court has routinely held applies to the erection of permanent religious monuments on public land.

This bill established the “Category One Memorial Designation Commission,” a body of five nominees who will “hear and make determinations on requests by members of the general public to designate items within the state as category one memorial items.” Category one memorial items are those that have “attained a secular traditional, cultural or community recognition or value,” are located on government owned land, and were in existence prior to January 1, 2012. The hammer drops with this line: “The potential identification of an item or the item having recognizable identification with a known or established religion shall not exclude the item” from being so designated.

Once an item or memorial has achieved “Category One” status, what then? “Upon deliberation, the commission may communicate their majority decision to designate an item as such in written form to the city or town clerk of the municipality wherein the item is located, for recording in the land deeds, and to the chief executive of the municipality.”

That’s it.

Wait.

That’s it?

The original version of the bill, H8143, the one that did not pass, took a much harder stance, and contained the line that, “The state of Rhode Island declares that a category one memorial item shall not be deemed or viewed as the making of a law regarding the establishment of a state religion” and “It shall be the policy of the state to defend against any non-governmental challenge to the placement or continued existence of any category one memorial item on any state or municipal property.” The bill would have established a $1 million fund for the Attorney General to use in defending such items from lawsuits.

Of course this version of the bill, had it passed, would have never survived court scrutiny. The legislature can’t pass a law that violates the Constitution by inserting a clause that says such violations don’t count, so the watered down version was passed instead.

I recently got to wondering what the status of the “Category One Memorial Designation Commission” is right now. According to the legislation, the permanent commission is to be made up of five members, three to be appointed by the Speaker of the House and two by the Senate President. In February 2013, an odd numbered year, the Commission was to “elect from among themselves a chairperson.”

None of this has happened.

According to the Woonsocket Call, as of March 5, 2013 Representative McLaughlin, who authored the legislation, said “he is working with legislative leaders to make the first appointments to the commission.” This delay means that the Commission won’t be able to be established or begin its work until February 2015, since the legislation specifically says, “The members of the commission shall, in February of each odd-numbered year, elect from among themselves a chairperson.”

In the meantime, how is the important work of declaring certain memorials “Category One Items” to get done?

Representative McLaughlin seems to have confused the original, unconstitutional legislation with the declawed and useless legislation that passed, saying, “the law is in place to protect the monuments and others like it.”

Even the Woonsocket Call, which is sympathetic to the Woonsocket Cross, could not help but point out that “As written, the law seems only to define a category one memorial item and create a commission to so designate such structures, but it doesn’t specify any protections from legal challenges.”

I’ve written emails to Speaker Fox, Senate President Paiva Weed, the chairperson of the Rhode Island Historical Society and the the Adjutant General of the National Guard, all of whom are supposed to be involved with the commission member selection process, and to Representatives McLaughlin, Hull, Dickinson and MacBeth who wrote and introduced the bill, asking about the status of the commission.

But so far I have received no response.

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With Gist, it’s public sector enemies against the rest of RI

By Bob Plain on May 22, 2013

gist public schoolsThere’s something – if not good, at the very least honest – in getting to see the politics of public education play out publicly this week. As educators, activists and parents across the state are deriding Deborah Gist, the business community has her back.

The so-often-called education reform movement – what progressives know as education deform, or corporate reform – has always been primarily supported by the upper crust and the fiscally conservative. Economists call it a market-based approach to public education reform; of course chambers of commerce, right wing think tanks and tax-hating, small-government conservatives support it.

It is not hyperbole to suggest that that Gist is implementing the kind of reform ALEC would like to see here. In fact, she has some loose connections to ALEC. She is, after all, one of Don Carcieri’s toxic gifts to Rhode Island’s public sector.

But there’s another voice – or, more accurately, voices – that are making themselves heard here in the Ocean State.

According to pollster Joe Fleming, 85 percent of teachers think Gist should be replaced. Getting 9 of ten people to agree on just about anything is noteworthy, when it’s who should be their boss it is damning. I’ve likened Gist to former Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine: she might know the game real well, but she just can’t seem to get this group of players to perform for her.

What’s even more significant is that the education community isn’t simply voicing its concerns anonymously or through its unions. They are also quite literally standing up in public and speaking out against their employer. This is amazingly courageous, I think.

As long as we are keeping score, it’s well worth noting that it’s not simply educators versus business leaders when it comes to how (not if) we reform education in the Ocean State. The ACLU – a staunch supporter of the Constitution, not union members or working class people (see Steve Ahquist’s story on Citizen United from yesterday) – has grave civil liberty concerns about her testing policies. The Autism Project, the Wiley Center, the Disability Law Center and the NAACP, among many others, all have issues too.

Linda Borg had a pretty telling passage in her very well-written story stripped across the top of today’s Providence Journal:

By almost every indication, it would seem that Gist has profoundly alienated her constituents: teachers, students and parents.

But Gist has apparently not lost the support of the people crucial to her re-appointment: Governor Chafee and the chairwoman of the new Board of Education.

We shall see soon enough.

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Newport bloggers battle over culture of sexism

By Bob Plain on May 21, 2013

There’s a pretty ugly blogger battle going down around women’s issue in the typically picturesque City-by-the-Sea.

Newport Patch blogger Charity Dash wrote a post about the rampant culture of sexism and sexual harassment that exists in the local bar scene.

“The age bracket the city thrives on (Generation Y), is inherently unsafe for its female inhabitants. As a twenty-three year old woman, I can’t walk to work without expecting street harassment. I can’t go to a bar without the fear of a fifty year old man sitting next to me and chanting demeaning and derogatory terms.

In Newport, it’s okay for the drunk sailor-bros to treat women like blow up dolls.

Newport Buzz Director Tristan Pinnock then published a frankly shocking response to her post. Here’s a sample:

Charity Dash: “We make eighty cents on your dollar. What do we know?”

Newport Buzz response: “That you would rather have children than advance your careers through your 30′s, you’re not really into engineering and you don’t like to negotiate for bigger pay raises.”

Wow. That’s not what Sen. Gayle Goldin said when we asked her the same question. Nor does it jibe with how Carolyn Mark, president of RI-NOW, might see the situation. Or anyone even slightly more socially evolved than, say, Ralph Kramden, for that matter.

Newport Buzz also writes:

I hate to be the one to let you in on this, but gender relations come down to whatever each party is willing to put up with. Men will behave as badly as they can get away with. We’d be living in cardboard boxes if we thought we could bring girls home to them.

If either of these two columns are at all indicative of how men in Newport act, then indeed the city-by-the-Sea has a serious issue indeed.

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McDaid honored for pioneering non-linear digital fiction

By Bob Plain on May 21, 2013

mcdaid_johnJohn McDaid, best known for the Hardeadlines blog, has been a digital publisher since the BI era (before internet). Now his pioneering efforts from that era are being curated, and saved for posterity, with the help of a National Endowment for the Humanities grant.

McDaid’s 1993, hopefully-soon-to-be-a-cult-classic “Uncle Buddy’s Phantom Funhouse” is science fiction told through science fiction.

“It was an attempt create a new kind of non-linear fiction entirely through artifacts,” he said. “The premise is that you, as the reader, have come into possession of a vanished science fiction writer’s hard drive, and you need to piece together the story.”

In 1993, it was reviewed by the New York Times.

Here are some screen shots from McDaid’s non-linear science fiction. He explains each below the image.

"The main interface to the fiction," says McDaid of this image. "You enter the story by clicking on one of the windows or doors to open one of the artifacts."

“The main interface to the fiction,” says McDaid of this image. “You enter the story by clicking on one of the windows or doors to open one of the artifacts.”

"This is a page from the digital sketchbook/notebook of vanished writer Arthur 'Buddy' Newkirk."

“This is a page from the digital sketchbook/notebook of vanished writer Arthur ‘Buddy’ Newkirk.”

"A sample page from the digital dictionary of specific terms of art from the story."

“A sample page from the digital dictionary of specific terms of art from the story.”

sample image from the custom Tarot deck

sample image from the custom Tarot deck

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Do you care about the show or about results?

By Tom Sgouros on May 21, 2013

There was apparently quite a party in Cranston yesterday, with several hundred teachers coming together to, well, you wouldn’t say they were there to praise the state Education Commissioner, Deborah Gist. In a poll out a couple of weeks ago, 85% of teachers say they don’t approve of the commissioner or the current policies of the state Department of Education. 

gist in egI think a number of friends I’ve spoken to about this poll don’t appreciate how remarkable a result it is. One of the little secrets of unions is that they don’t usually have unanimous support of their members, and independent polling generally bears that out. It is the rare union that has 85% support on most of what it does. In other words, Commissioner Gist has given a remarkable boost to union solidarity.

On the same subject, there was an interesting letter last week, written to the Board of Education and signed by the directors of 20 different business organizations, like the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce and the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council. The writers praised Commissioner Gist’s “admirable leadership” and begged her contract be renewed in June.

To be honest, I was being kind and it actually wasn’t that interesting a letter. It mostly consisted of the usual boilerplate, reciting familiar facts about our state’s economy and the educational condition of our citizens. Then it goes on to praise Gist for the mere establishment of policies and the winning of grants, and her willingness to “take bold action for reform.”  These are nice things, to be sure, but who would mistake them for actual achievements?  The policies, you might have noticed, are fairly controversial, and the evidence that they will work is, well, thin. Bold action certainly sounds nice, but invading Iraq was pretty bold, too. How did that work out for us?  If you care more about results than about show, the letter showed some curious priorities.

The thing that came closest to being interesting about the letter was that it referenced our lag behind neighboring states on the national NAEP test scores. This is true, but it is not the only thing shown by those scores and I wonder how many of the letter’s signers have spent time examining Rhode Island’s NAEP results.

To review, the national NAEP tests are widely described as the “gold standard” of testing. They are administered nationally and the data are considered quite reliable, largely because no one has an incentive to game the results. They are administered in the 4th and 8th grades, in reading and math. (I gather there will be high school tests in the future, but there is no past data for now.)

naep-plot

NAEP average figures are shown in the figure, where you can see that Rhode Island scores (red lines) have been steadily climbing for several years. For simplicity, these are averages of the 4th and 8th-grade test scores in the two subjects, but there are similar stories in all the disaggregated scores. Yes, Massachusetts students (blue lines) score higher than ours, but are the red lines in the graph a record of dismal achievement rescued by Governor Don Carcieri’s 2009 appointment of Deborah Gist?  That’s not what they look like to me.

To me, the NAEP results seem somewhat encouraging. They say we still have some hard work to do to catch up to our neighbors, but we embarked on an upward path several years ago. The last data point belongs to the current commissioner, but there is no story to tell here of the triumph of her policies: some categories see a slight uptick and some are slightly down. If she wants to take credit for the accelerating improvement in 8th-grade math scores, she’ll also have to take blame for the slowing improvement in 4th-grade reading scores. In all cases, the encouraging trends were underway years before her arrival.

Monday also saw the release of another letter, from 25 community groups, including the Urban League, the ACLU, RI Legal Services, and the Providence Student Union, urging the Board of Education to reconsider the Commissioner’s disastrous revamp of the high school graduation requirements. Unlike the business leaders, who praised the show of establishing policies and talk about “bold action”, this letter focused on a specific policy — the change in graduation requirement — and its bad effects on students. In other words, these guys are paying attention to the facts on the ground, not the nice words about them. Which one matters more?

The truth is that policy is where rubber meets road. It’s not about the show and about who cuts the most vigorous figure as a leader. It’s not about the hair or the smile, the cut of a suit, or the right kinds of friends. Debates like these ought to be about facts and the policies to address those facts. Policy is what the government does — for you and to you. To focus on the personalities behind it is entirely to miss the point. You’d think this is something folks who think of themselves as business leaders would understand, but the evidence is, well, thin.

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Teacher: RI biz community is ‘below proficient’

By Bob Plain on May 21, 2013

This was one of the more interesting statements made at the teacher rally last night – and not because it shows why Deborah Gist isn’t an effective education leader. Rather, because it shows the inherent hypocrisy in our political debate and how varying interests can employ widely divergent logic depending on the situation and where they want the blame to fall.

Is a business to blame if it can’t attract customers, or is it part of a larger societal problem? Is a teacher to blame if they can’t reach their students, or is it part of a larger societal problem?

Imagine if your small business could only attract customers from one community: would you want it to be from Barrington or Central Falls? If it was Central Falls, would you want to be held accountable for the same profit margins as the Barrington business?

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Rhode Islanders move to end Citizens United

By Steve Ahlquist on May 21, 2013

MTAprotestSignRhode Island Move to Amend  held a meeting Monday night at the Warwick Public Library  to discuss ways in which to reverse the Supreme Court’s controversial and unpopular Citizens United  decision. House Bill 6051, introduced by Representative Art Handy, seeks to challenge the Supreme Court ruling by asserting that Corporations are not persons and that money is not speech. Passing such a law, in direct contravention to the Supreme Court could have several effects. The Supreme Court may strike down the law upon consideration or it may use the law to reconsider it’s previous decision. Supporters say that both outcomes will lead to fresh discussions on the corrupting influence of money on our political system.

Over the course of the next several months Rhode Island Move to Amend will be working to engage the public and our legislators over this very important issue. You can help by joining Rhode Island Move to Amend.

Major rhetorical territory was staked out at the House Judiciary Committee meeting held on May 9, to discuss the bill.  Abel Collins, who heads up the Move to Amend Coalition, stated it plainly when he said, “Now is the time to stop [corporations]… which are really just legal fictions, from having the same rights as persons.”

Chris Curry, of RI MoveOn.org, spoke forcefully of the dystopian impact of Citizens United.

Of all the issues we address, nothing even comes close to matching Citizens United’s ability to inspire rage and indignation in just about everyone I talk to. Not because it’s so fundamentally dishonest that corporations are people or that money equals speech, it’s because they consider the five justices of the Supreme Court who made that ruling to have violated their oath of office by unconstitutionally establishing a framework for a takeover of our country by multinational corporations.

A spokesperson for the RI Sierra Club said, “Rhode Island should get in front of this issue our state was founded by thinkers who were not afraid to be contrarians to the dominant paradigms of the time. We should make a stand and say that our country is for the people and by the people and not for sale to the highest bidder.”

In counterpoint, the RI ACLU opposes any legislation that might open the door to restricting political speech, or limiting a person’s right to use money to advance their speech.

“I’ve heard this a lot, that ‘money is not speech,’” said RI ACLU Director Steve Brown, “That’s a very catchy slogan, but it really simplifies a much more complicated issue. Money is not necessarily speech but it certainly facilitates a lot of speech and it is necessary to facilitate a lot of speech…

If you want to prepare a flyer, and get fifty copies made at Kinko’s to express your opposition to this constitutional amendment it costs money. To just say that money is not speech and therefore can be regulated is to say that the General assembly could say, “You cannot spend money if it’s to be used to prepare a flyer on a political issue.”

We think that the State Constitution would be diminished and demeaned by adding a provision like this into a very important document meant to protect all of our rights.

Amplifying Steve Brown’s points and adopting the ACLU’s position as his own was a spokesperson for the RI Tea Party, who said, perversely, “Citizens United struck a tremendous blow for the First Amendment,” and added,

Money is not the problem. Corporations are not evil entities in and of themselves. Corporations are nothing more than collections of individuals and people who are responsible for their own decisions.

Stepping on the First Amendment is a slippery slope that we cannot walk onto. That is the reason why, for philosophical reasons, that we have to oppose this.

John Marion of Common Cause RI struck a mostly neutral tone. The national organization has not yet reached a consensus on the kind of language it would like to see in a bill designed to take on Citizen’s United, and though he appreciated Art Handy and Move to Amend’s efforts, he urged caution.

We appreciate the efforts of Move to Amend and the other groups that have come out with specific language, but as Mr. Brown said, this is very weighty a matter. We disagree with the ACLU’s belief that you shouldn’t tinker because this problem is one created by an interpretation of the Constitution, so it can only be solved by a change to our Constitution.

People talk about Citizens United, Citizens United, Citizens United, but really this is about a case in 1876, Buckley v. Valeo which is the case that basically decided that money is the functional equivalent of speech and therefore since we can’t limit the speech, we can’t limit the money. So I think its really important that we go back and look at that decision and the context of that decision.

Perhaps the most pragmatic and compelling statement came from Jerry Belair, speaking for the RI Progressive Democrats, not because of his politics, but because of his career as a corporate attorney.

I’m a corporate attorney. I can tell you clearly that a corporation is not a person. We establish a corporation for the purposes of making business easy for us. It’s a very successful way of doing business. It’s also a means of limiting our liability… That the purpose for these entities. And to even suggest that somehow a corporation has attained personhood under either the Federal Constitution or a state constitution is insidious. It’s the most insidious attack on our democracy that I’ve seen in my lifetime.

It is clear that money in politics, money as speech and corporate personhood are large issues that demand lots of thought and definitive action.  The ACLU would support a slate of legislation to address these issues, even as it continues to support Citizens United:

…the ACLU supports a comprehensive and meaningful system of public financing that would help create a level playing field for every qualified candidate. We support carefully drawn disclosure rules. We support reasonable limits on campaign contributions and we support stricter enforcement of existing bans on coordination between candidates and super PACs.

Perhaps these concerns can be addressed in the way that the ACLU would like, but even the ACLU sees the prospects of real reform as being rather dim. In the very next paragraph the group opines that,

Some argue that campaign finance laws can be surgically drafted to protect legitimate political speech while restricting speech that leads to undue influence by wealthy special interests. Experience over the last 40 years has taught us that money always finds an outlet, and the endless search for loopholes simply creates the next target for new regulation. It also contributes to cynicism about our political process.

I would suggest that the cynicism is all the ACLU’s. Under their formulation, money is not just speech, money is power, and it will always find a way to corrupt our political system. Anything we do to change this system, the ACLU seems to say, can only potentially make things worse. Such an outlook is the epitome of cynicism.

RI Move to Amend is hopeful in that particular way Rhode Island embodies Hope, and emblazons this word on our state flag. Our state was born out of Hope and has stood up to an enormously powerful enemy with near infinite money and power before. On the issue of corporate personhood Rhode Island can show the way just as we did 241 years ago when the HMS Gaspee burned.

The fight against corporate personhood is the ultimate civil rights battle. With this legislation Rhode Island can once again strike the first blow for freedom and ignite a revolution that can bring an end to the specter of corporate oligarchy.

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Rhode Island teachers speak out: Dump Gist

By Bob Plain on May 20, 2013

photoPublic school teachers from around Rhode Island spoke out against their boss – embattled Education Commissioner Deborah Gist – at a public forum at Cranston High West today. They came to implore the state Board of Education not to renew Gist’s contract, a discussion that begins on Thursday night.

Here’s the highlights of the teachers’ concerns that was able to capture before my iPhone battery died. I’ll post more as I process it:





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PSU students challenge Gist to debate

By Bob Plain on May 20, 2013

Photo by Sam Valorose.

Photo by Sam Valorose.

With public school teachers organizing to Dump Gist (they meet today at 4:30 at Cranston West High School) as her continued employment is debated later this week, students from Providence are applying some pressure as well. Following up on the Providence Student Union‘s high-profile action in which adults took the NECAP test, they now want to debate the issue with the adult behind the high stakes testing regime.

After meeting with Gist last week, they sent her a letter asking her to discuss the same issues in public.

“Students appreciated meeting with her behind closed doors, but believe that the discussion needs to happen in the public,” said Aaron Regunberg, an organizer of the student group.

Here’s the letter they sent:

Dear Commissioner Gist,

In the name of open discussion and the free exchange of ideas, we, the members of the Providence Student Union, respectfully request that you participate with us in a public debate regarding Rhode Island’s new high-stakes standardized testing graduation requirement. We suggest the following terms:
- We agree on a neutral setting
- We agree on a neutral moderator.
- We agree on a neutral format (our suggestion is to copy the debate done by Leadership Rhode Island for and against the resolution, “The Rhode Island Department of Education should reverse its decision to make NECAP scores a high school graduation requirement,” using some variation of the National Association for Urban Debate Leagues’ public debate format).

We believe this will be a great opportunity for the people of Rhode Island to hear both sides of this important issue. We would like to propose June 8th as a possible date for the debate, although we are very willing to be flexible as we know you are busy. We sincerely hope you will take us up on this offer. Thank you.

Sincerely,

The Providence Student Union

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What are we racing to the top of?

By Bob Houghtaling on May 20, 2013

gist public schoolsWith all the fuss about high stakes testing, the biggest shame is that the Department of Education is telling us that the measure is the answer. A ruler never helped anyone grow an inch.

Something other than the test needs to be looked at when 64 percent of the Hispanic or Latino population will not meet the present requirements to graduate. Something needs to be looked at when the same percentage of black students will meet the same fate. In the city of Providence it is much worse for these two populations (71% and 69%).

Statewide, 58% of economically disadvantaged students are in danger of not graduating high school.

90 percent of Limited English Proficiency students are at risk; and 97 percent in Providence. 83 percent of I.E.P. students did not achieve proficiency on the math NECAPs. An even more staggering 94% of Providence kids will not pass the same measure. In East Greenwich, a district that does well on standardized tests, 73% of the district’s I.E.P. students are in danger.

Minorities, special needs, Limited English Learners and the poor – sounds a bit alarming to me. Wasn’t the intent of those so-called reforms to help these guys? Just what are we ‘racing to the top’ of? It looks like a volcano to me.

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Little lobster boat takes on Big Coal at Brayton Point

By Bob Plain on May 19, 2013

A 32-foot lobster boat, the Henry David T, managed to stop a 688-foot cargo ship from delivering 40,000 tons of coal to Brayton Point last week.”The action may have been a preview of protests being planned against the power plant by New England activists on July 27 and July 28,” reports East Bay Newspapers.

Henry David T

Activists are calling for Brayton Point to be shut down. Check out their website here. This summer, it says, “over one thousand people will participate in a march from Brayton Point to the future site of the nation’s first offshore wind farm to demonstrate our support for a transition from the fossil fuels of the past to the clean energy of the future.”

Why are they calling for the coal plant to be shut down? Well, one reason is, according to the newspaper, it seems to be giving the neighbors cancer. They report:

Brayton Point power plant neighbors complain about the impact of the plant’s operations on their homes and health. On resident in his ’70′s, who declined to give his name, said he has cancer, his wife has cancer, and so did eight others on his street alone (naming them). “We call it cancer alley,” he said of his street.

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Northeast Young Dems convene in Providence

By John McDaid on May 19, 2013

Rod Snyder, President of Young Democrats of America, addresses Northeast regional conference in Providence.

Rod Snyder, President of Young Democrats of America, addresses Northeast regional conference in Providence.

The future of the Democratic Party was front and center at the RI Convention Center on Saturday as the Young Democrats of America (YDA) came to town to hold their New England regional conference.

Nearly 50 attendees from New York to Maine met for day of talks, panels, and business (including the election of their new Regional Director, Dustin Hausner) and the rising stars of Rhode Island politics were well represented.

The Convention Center was packed — with dancers attending the “Jump Dance Workshop” at the sold-out Providence stop on its multi-city tour. The hundreds of teens and pre-teens padding around the convention halls with dance bags and costumes and their booming performance music provided a oddly fitting complement to the proceedings of the young Democrats assembled in a function room on the 5th floor.

Providence Mayor Angel Taveras welcomed attendees, described his own political journey, and spoke frankly about the challenges of leading a city through a difficult financial crisis. “I didn’t want the first Latino mayor of Providence to be the one who brought the city into bankruptcy.” He credited taxpayers and unions alike for being willing to pitch in, and stressed the importance of “being straight and open” and “negotiating in good faith” in bringing everyone to the table.

Taveras urged attendees to rise to the challenges of activism and governance. “You have to stay involved and believe you can achieve. Don’t let negativity and cynicism get in the way,” he said. “Remember, we can change the world.”

That was a theme was echoed by afternoon keynote speaker Rod Snyder, the national YDA President (reportedly contemplating a run for congress in West Virginia at the end of his second term this summer). “Rarely has there been a time,” said Synder, “When young people have more opportunity for impact.”

With a quarter of the US voting population under 35, Synder said, Millennials have come to rival seniors as a key electoral bloc, and their values are most aligned with the Democratic party.

He singled out the Rhode Island attendees for their significant role in passing marriage equality. “YDA is not just riding the wave of the youth movement,” Snyder said, “We’re leading it.”

Another highlight of the afternoon was a panel of young elected officials, moderated by outgoing RI Democratic Party chair (and Secretary of State candidate) Ed Pacheco. In addition to Maine’s Justin Chenette (at 22, the youngest openly gay legislator in the US), the panel featured RI State Sen. Adam Satchell (D-9), Rep. Katherine Kazarian (D-63), Central Falls Mayor James Diossa, and Smithfield Councilor Suzy Alba, who all offered advice for young Dem candidates.

“Don’t wait,” said Satchell, “Don’t back down. If you sit around, bad stuff happens.” Kazarian’s advice, “Stay active, and get your friends involved.”

Alba, who credited her win to knocking on 4,000 doors, suggested that acknowledging diversity helps. “I was very open about my differences,” she said, adding that she found voters responded. Diossa talked about the importance of understanding why you’re running. “If you don’t believe what you’re doing, it’s hard to communicate it to the people around you.” Chenette suggested turning age from a potential liability to an asset.”We’re not beaten down by the system,” he said, “People recognize your passion.”

That was a theme picked up by moderator Pacheco (who, at 31, is still 4 years under the YDA cutoff for “young”). “Many people underestimate us because we’re not 55, not an attorney, and haven’t been in public office for 20 years,” he said. “But we all have something to contribute.” Pacheco, who has announced his intention to run for Secretary of State, talked about the importance of engaging younger voters. “My goal would be to reach out to every young person and invite them to be a part of the process,” he said. “The window can not be half open.”

There were two other panel discussions — one on the policy issues facing young people and another on grassroots organizing, featuring some of our state’s most engaged young activists from organizations like MERI, Planned Parenthood, Providence Student Union, and RIPayDay.org (and, of course, the Young Democrats of RI).

The day wrapped up with the official business of the conference, electing regional officers. Dustin Hausner, of New York, was unanimously elected to be regional director for the next two years. “The Northeast has always been a region of hope and progressivism,” said Hausner, thanking the attendees, “I’m excited to be working with all of you.” Jonathan Sclarsic of Massachusetts was elected deputy region director, and New Hampshire’s Douglas Lindner secretary-treasurer.

Update: Corrected spelling on Rep. Kazarian.

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Telling a story about Councilwoman Castillo

By Margo Guernsey on May 17, 2013

Indie Wire ImageThis is the beginning of an ongoing blog about making Councilwoman Castillo – The Film. Why make this film in the first place? It’s not just that Carmen Castillo is an inspiration to me. Of course she is. She is the salt of the earth. Committed beyond 100% to her community and her family. She can’t be bought off. It’s not unheard of to find a politician like that, but pretty rare.

So, you are thinking, this filmmaker is biased. Yes, it is a film with a point of view. But am I right? Is this the story we are telling? The film is about the unknown. We are following Castillo’s first term in office. Your guess is as good as mine as to how this story ends. Like the film on Facebook!

There are huge challenges for anyone elected to office, and I believe the challenges are greater for someone whose job requires they punch in and out for a regular shift each and every working day. It is hard to juggle meetings with constituents while cleaning 16 hotel rooms. This story will give us a behind the scenes perspective of what it takes to succeed. What does our democracy really look like on the inside? Why aren’t there more low-wage workers in public office? Watch the trailer on Kickstarter!

Social change is never about one person. The film will follow the collective efforts to bring change that take place in Carmen’s community during her first term in office. What will the issues be? What are the forces that will come together to make an impact? Does it help community activists to focus on politics, or is it a waste of time?

This is also a film about cleaning hotel rooms. We never hear from those who do the hardest work, but in this film we will! And when there are hotel workers in Providence fighting for better working conditions, we’ll follow that too.

Documentary serves many purposes. One is to save a record of current struggles for generations to come. If we don’t document what we believe is important, then our stories will get left out of the history books of the future. I think this story should be included.

I hope this film will start a national conversation. We all complain that we get more of the same out of our politicians, and most of us are not happy about it. How would public policy change if more low-wage workers were elected to office?

Kickstart the film! I’ll be blogging about production in the months ahead.

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Taveras bikes to work

By Bob Plain on May 17, 2013

Thanks Mayor Taveras for celebrating Bike to Work Day showing us how easy it is to bike to work!

taveras btw

Did you bike to work today? If so, tweet us your pictures to @RIFuture or share them with us on Facebook.

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Olneyville SHINES! Neighborhood Cleanup

By Steve Ahlquist on May 17, 2013

Scan 002Tomorrow, May 18th, from 10am-1pm, you can be part of the solution when you volunteer to help cleanup Olneyville in collaboration with the Olneyville Housing Corporation. Registration begins at 9:30am, Tools, bags and gloves will be provided.

We’re meeting at Joslin Park on Florence St and afterwards there’s going to be a FREE BBQ for registered participants. We’re talking three hours of your time on a Saturday morning, and a free lunch. What a deal.

Bring the kids!

scan001

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Report shows education reform isn’t working

By Bob Plain on May 17, 2013

gist in egA new Economic Policy Institute report that is highly critical of the so-called “education reform” movement reads like an indictment of Deborah Gist’s tenure as commissioner of public schools in Rhode Island.

The report compares large urban school districts with New York, Chicago and Washington DC – three cities that have implemented strategies almost identical to Gist’s – and discovers “the reforms deliver few benefits, often harm the students they purport to help, and divert attention from a set of other, less visible policies with more promise to weaken the link between poverty and low educational attainment.”

Here in Rhode Island, the achievement gaps have increased as well as we’ve implemented the same agenda as New York, Chicago and Washington D.C. In fact, Gist is a protege of Michelle Rhee, the DC-area reformer whom the report was specifically critical of.

While Rhode Island and/or Gist were not cited, the report deals with almost every controversial decision Gist has made during her tenure: teacher firings, school closures, high stakes tests, charter schools, poor educator morale, poverty. It even addresses the rhetoric so-called “reformers” use to dodge questions about actual results:

Some reformers position their policies as higher minded than the policies advocated by others. Rhee and Klein advance a “no excuses” response to those who say poverty is an impediment to education, and frequently label those with whom they disagree as “defending the status quo” (StudentsFirst 2011). Others, such as Duncan, acknowledge the impact of poverty and promote a larger range of policies, while still emphasizing the same core set of reforms. But the question most critical for the millions of at-risk students and their families—and the nation as a whole—is not whether one group or another is “reforming” or “making excuses,” but what works and what does not.

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Sales tax elimination: intriguing idea but bogus economics

By Mike McDonald on May 17, 2013

7th Ward, New Orleans. (Photo by Bob Plain)

7th Ward, New Orleans. (Photo by Bob Plain)

The RI Center for Freedom and Prosperity, whose funding sources I look into here, has a so-called “prosperity agenda” that calls for elimination of the sales tax. At first glance this would appear to be a reasonable direction to move our State. It is no secret the sales tax is one of the most regressive forms of taxation affecting the lives of low wage earners, and comprising a much larger percentage of their yearly income than that of wealthier residents of our State.

Taking a deeper look in 2012 the sales tax accounted for $824 million, 28 percent of our state budget. No where in the recommendation to eliminate the sales tax is there a mechanism by which to account for the loss of more than a quarter of our state budget which leads me to ask several questions.

The Center claims the lost revenue from elimination of the sales tax will be offset by increased business. This claim is intellectually dishonest and has been widely discredited. The lost revenue would clearly be made up with one painful cut after another to government services which would come as welcome prize for the Centers anti-labor benefactors.

Is it the position of the Center that a 28 percent reduction in the state budget will benefit individuals with developmental disabilities, elderly men and women, school children, and our state’s proud veterans? Will a 28 percent reduction in the State budget improve the lives of Rhode Islanders who depend on public transit to get to and from work, doctor appointments, and to conduct their daily lives?

When it comes to funding important priorities such as higher education, repairing infrastructure, supporting cities and towns, funding public schools, providing a safety net for those in need, and funding important public services count me as one citizen of Rhode Island who is not willing to play games with over a quarter of our state’s budget.

Although an intriguing concept with the potential to reduce the tax burden on working families there is no distinction made on how to replace the lost revenue associated with elimination of the sales tax. Policy grade- D-

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37th vote on Obamacare

By Congressman David Cicilline on May 16, 2013

Three years ago, over strong Republican opposition, Congress passed and President Obama signed into law a historic health care reform bill. Opponents of the bill took their case all the way to the Supreme Court…and still lost. And later today, Republicans in the House are going to vote for a 37th time to repeal all or part of this law.

I spoke on the House floor earlier today pointing out just how ridiculous this is and urging the Republican leadership to get back to the important task of getting our country back to work. Watch the video below and then leave a comment about what Republicans in Congress should be working on instead of another empty attempt at repealing health care reform.

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