Category Archives: Obamacare

NY Judge Rules Racism in Teacher Test

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Teachers get a real pass from a New York judge. They have a website too that offers them huge assistance to pass certifications.  There is even a test framework and sample questions. So WHERE IS THE RACISM?

A federal judge in New York has struck down a test used by New York City to vet potential teachers, finding the test of knowledge illegally discriminated against racial minorities due to their lower scores.

At first glance, the city’s second Liberal Arts and Science Test (LAST-2) seems fairly innocuous. Unlike the unfair literacy tests of Jim Crow, LAST-2 (which was discontinued in 2012) was given to every teaching candidate in New York, and was simply a means to ensuring that ever teacher has a basic high school-level understanding of both the liberal arts and the sciences.

One sample question from the test asked prospective educators to identify the mathematical principle of a linear relationship when given four examples. Another asked them to read four passages from the Constitution and identify which illustrates the notion of checks and balances. In addition to factual recall, the test also checked basic academic skills, such as reading comprehension and the ability to read basic charts and graphs.

Nevertheless, this apparently neutral subject matter contained an insidious kernel of racism, because Hispanic and black applicants had a rate of passing that was respectively 54% and 75% the success rate of white candidates.

Once their higher failure rate was established, the burden shifted to New York to prove that LAST-2 measured skills that were essential for teachers and therefore was justified in having a racially unequal outcome. While it might seem obvious that possessing basic subject knowledge is a key skill for a teacher, District Judge Kimba Wood said the state hadn’t met that burden.

“Instead of beginning with ascertaining the job tasks of New York teachers, the two LAST examinations began with the premise that all New York teachers should be required to demonstrate an understanding of the liberal arts,” Wood wrote in her opinion, according to The New York Times.

Although LAST-2 hasn’t been used in New York in three years, the ruling will still have repercussions. Minorities who failed the exam (who number in the thousands) may be owed years of back pay totaling millions of dollars, and those who were relegated to substitute teaching jobs could be promoted to their own classrooms. In addition, while Wood’s ruling applies only to New York City, the test was used statewide, and it could serve as a precedent for further lawsuits.

The ruling could also pave the way for another ruling finding New York’s current teacher test, the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST), to be discriminatory as well. That test is even harder than LAST-2, with a strong focus on literacy skills such as writing and reading comprehension, and like LAST-2 shows a very large gap in scores between whites and minorities. A lawsuit, once again being heard by Wood, is already pending, with the plaintiffs arguing that there is no clear evidence strong literacy skills are essential for a teacher.

This teacher problem is not exclusive to New York, one cannot forget the scandal in Georgia. Over 3 dozen teachers were indicted in a cheating network.

Maybe parents need to re-think public education. The time is now.

U.S. Healthcare, a Manufactured Crisis

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Is Our Healthcare Crisis Man-Made?

by: Juliette Fildes

The media would have us believe that the healthcare crisis is us something that mysteriously arose out of a number of factors, including periods of economic crisis and an ever-growing deficit, yet what if the crisis was actually manufactured?

Americans are forced to buy insurance that doesn’t really protect them against their greatest health risks at all. There are many factors that reveal that insurance companies are favored, as are the pharmaceutical and medical industries. In the past, charity hospitals existed to attend to medical emergencies but over the past few decades, federal law has ensured that Americans can no longer receive unfunded care.

Healthcare should be about protecting the consumer, but as long as the medical industry is permitted to charge whatever price they deem fit for a procedure, there is little chance that Americans will pay the significantly lower prices paid by patients in other countries.

We must fight for the establishment of affordable alternatives to current hospitals and clinics; without a free market, it will be difficult for the situation to change for the better. Read about how the man-made health care crisis came about and discover how we can put an end to it.    

Understanding U.S. Healthcare Costs

Infographic provided by Calculators.org

Further Reading

 

Illegals Protected Class at California University System

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READ WRITE THINK AND DREAM

‘Undocumented Student Services’ at UC San Diego hosts workshops mandated by the school’s Vice Chancellor to plan strategies to get government financial assistance for housing, tuition, legal counseling with particular assistance for Latinos and Koreans. Remember that former Department of Homeland Security,Janet Napolitano is now the president of the University of California system.  She set aside $5 million dollars for such programs.

Not to be out done, CalState Los Angeles, CalState Fullerton and Long Beach all have the same programs. Suggestion: stop all federal dollars to the university system.

CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITIES ROLL OUT THE RED CARPET FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Dreamers’ need a space ‘where they can feel safe’

Illegal immigrants in California are already eligible for state financial aid for college. Some public schools are now spending taxpayer money to help these students get money from other sources, even as legal students fight for sparse resources.

 

California State University-Los Angeles received a $1.6 million endowment late last month to fund the Dreamers Resource Center, which the school bills as a space that provides “academic guidance, referral assistance and other support” for so-called dreamers, or students whose parents brought them to the U.S. illegally.

It’s just the latest Cal State campus to christen a center dedicated to students without documentation: Fullerton was the first a year ago and Long Beach came two months ago.

The Northridge campus has one “in the works,” and legislation pending in the Legislature would help create more centers across the Cal State system and in community colleges, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The CSU-LA gift will help the school underwrite staff costs and maintain a dedicated space for the center, which was created in October. It helps undocumented students with things like scholarship deadlines and applying for federal work authorization, the school said.

Erika Glazer, the philanthropist whose $1.6 million donation followed her earlier pledges of $700,000 for illegal immigrants, said in CSU-LA’s release that she hopes the center “will be obsolete in a few years and the funds can go toward other programs” at the school.

CSU-LA “has a long history in facilitating the academic success of special student populations” such as low-income students, Nancy Wada-McKee, assistant vice president for student affairs, told The College Fix in an email. She said the school also serves more than 700 veterans through their own resource center.

Technically, the Dreamers center is open to all students, Wada-McKee said, although it focuses on helping undocumented students.

Favoring one group over everyone else?

Under President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and California law, Dreamers who meet certain criteria are eligible for in-state tuition at public colleges and universities.

The 2011 California Dream Act also granted access to financial aid to so-called AB 540 students who attend a college or university in California.

In fall 2014, about 850 CSU-LA students met the requirements for in-state tuition under AB 540, the Times said.

The Long Beach Press Telegram reported a year ago that around 6,400 undocumented students were enrolled at Cal State’s 23 campuses.

CSU-Long Beach’s own “Dream Success Center,” not quite three months old, has already run into opposition from some students who think it’s a waste of valuable resource for a school that’s stretched thin.

The Fix previously reported on lobbying against the center by CSU-LB College Republicans Chairman Nestor Moto, Jr., who said the money that went into creating it could have been used to shrink overcrowded classes or offer more counselors for all students.

“We have 10 advising centers and that is who the money should have been allocated to,” not one special student population, Moto told The Fix in March.

The Daily 49er reported that the renovation for Long Beach’s center cost $16 million, and ongoing costs – including a full-time coordinator for the 650 undocumented students – run to $80,000 a year.

Just ‘leveling the playing field’

Besides the CSU-LA pledge from philanthropist Glazer, University of California President Janet Napolitano has set aside $5 million in non-state funds for undocumented students and resource centers.

UC said last week that Napolitano’s efforts – paying “trained advisers” to help students get “mentoring and emotional support” as well as “find internship and work-study jobs” – are simply “leveling the playing field” for illegal immigrants.

Jose Guevara, a CSU-LA center adviser and political science major who previously received a Glazer scholarship, told the Times that it was “important that [Dreamers] have a space where they can feel safe.”

Glazer is not the only multimillionaire philanthropist putting undocumented students ahead of other college students.

Former Washington Post owner Donald Graham and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman each donated $15 million to Graham’s scholarship fund for illegal-immigrant children, TheDream.us, the organization said Wednesday.

The new money – up to $25,000 each for 1,200 students at TheDream.us partner colleges – comes on top of $10 million each the duo previously donated. They want to spur other philanthropists to donate $30 million for another 5,000 scholarships, the organization said.

TheDream.us teamed up with the City University of New York last year to give scholarships to undocumented students who have already filed for temporary legal status.

 

White Privilege, What you Need to Know

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Look at the sponsors of this organization. What is White Privilege? There is a community agreement. Training is available from their institute. Need more? Here is a manifesto on White Privilege.

There is more you need to know.

Students Out of Control as St. Paul Schools Spend Millions on ‘White Privilege’ Training

“Students are out of control because there are no real consequences for their actions.”

EAG News reports that in 2010, the St. Paul, Minnesota school district contracted with the Pacific Educational Group, a San Francisco-based organization that tries to help public schools deal with achievement and disciplinary issues involving black students.

But PEG claims that the American education system is built around “white privilege” and that black students will only achieve if school curricula are customized to meet their cultural specifications. PEG also rejects the concept of using suspensions or expulsions to discipline black students.

Since 2010, St. Paul schools spent about $1.9 million on PEG consultations services, in addition to “matched amounts” of another more than $1 million on PEG, without explaining what that term means.

Not long after PEG started working with St. Paul school officials, crucial policy changes were made:

Special needs students with behavioral issues were mainstreamed into regular classrooms, a position openly advocated by PEG.

Student suspensions were replaced by “time outs,” and school officials starting forgiving or ignoring violence and other unacceptable behavior.

The result, EAG notes, “has been general chaos throughout the district, with far too many students out of control because they know there are no real consequences for their actions.”

A local publication called CityPages recently told the story, for example, of Becky McQueen, an educator at St. Paul’s Harding High School:

Last spring, when she stepped into a fight between two basketball players, one grabbed her shoulder and head, throwing her aside. The kid was only sent home for a couple of days.

In March, when a student barged into her class, McQueen happened to be standing in the doorway and got crushed into a shelf. The following week, two boys came storming in, hit a girl in the head, then skipped back out. One of them had already been written up more than 30 times.

Yet another student who repeatedly drops into her class has hit kids and cursed at an aide, once telling McQueen he would “fry” her ass. She tried to make a joke of it — ‘Ooh, I could use a little weight loss.’ Her students interjected: ‘No, that means he’s gonna kill you.’”

McQueen now has her students use a secret knock on the classroom door, so she will know who to allow in. She told CityPages:

There are those that believe that by suspending kids we are building a pipeline to prison. I think that by not, we are. I think we’re telling these kids you don’t have to be on time for anything, we’re just going to talk to you. You can assault somebody and we’re gonna let you come back here.
CityPages reported on similar horror stories from many other district schools:

At John A. Johnson Elementary on the East Side, several teachers, who asked to remain anonymous, describe anything but a learning environment. Students run up and down the hallways, slamming lockers and tearing posters off the walls. They hit and swear at each other, upend garbage cans under teachers’ noses.

Nine teachers at Ramsey Middle School have quit since the beginning of this school year. Some left for other districts. Others couldn’t withstand the escalating anarchy.

In mid-April, staff at Battle Creek Elementary penned a letter to their principal over “concerns about building wide safety, both physical and emotional, as well as the deteriorating learning environment.”

A week later, the principal announced that he would be transferred next year.

One despondent teacher told CityPages,

We have students who will spend an hour in the hallway just running and hiding from people, like it’s a game for them. A lot of them know no one is going to stop them, so they just continue.

Families are now trying to escape the district schools:

Over the past four years, as PEG has cast its influence in St. Paul, the number of students living in the district but attending non-district schools, has increased from about 9,000 to 12,000, according to Joe Nathan, executive director of the Minneapolis-based Center for School Change.

Two-thirds of those students come from low income families, or families of color, so it’s not just a typical case of “white flight,” Nathan said.

Nathan told the Star Tribune that

a significant number of families are saying their children do not feel safe in the schools. They don’t feel safe even going to the bathroom.

As one recently published story on better-ed.org put it, “Given the recent (and probably ongoing) turmoil in St. Paul Public Schools, it’s time to ask questions about Pacific Educational Group.”

Sounds like it’s too late for that.

Lawyers ask Court to Drop Obamacare Case

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Very little is being reported on the legal case where the House of Representatives is suing over Obamacare. Administration lawyers are asking for the whole case to be dropped. If the case moves forward and a ruling is delivered on the side of the House, Office of Management and Budget and Health and Human Services has no plan B.

The basis of the case is money, where the administration ‘is paying health insurance companies over a decade to reimburse them for offering lowered rates for poor people. The House argues that Congress never specifically appropriated that money, and indeed denied an administration request for it, but that the administration is paying it anyway.

The House says this amounts to unconstitutionally co-opting Congress’ power of the purse. The administration insists it is relying on an existing pot of money that it is allowed to use.’

WASHINGTON (AP) — Obama administration attorneys urged a federal judge Thursday to throw out a politically charged lawsuit by House Republicans over the president’s health care law, but encountered plenty of skeptical questions.

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer interrupted Justice Department attorney Joel McElvain to ask in the opening moments of his argument, as he tried to assert that the House hadn’t suffered a particular injury in the case and therefore lacks any basis for suing.

“I have a very hard time taking that statement seriously,” Collyer said. She ended the hearing without ruling, telling both parties: “I have lots of ideas. I just haven’t decided yet.”

At issue in the case is some $175 billion the administration is paying health insurance companies over a decade to reimburse them for offering lowered rates for poor people. The House argues that Congress never specifically appropriated that money, and indeed denied an administration request for it, but that the administration is paying it anyway.

The House says this amounts to unconstitutionally co-opting Congress’ power of the purse. The administration insists it is relying on an existing pot of money that it is allowed to use.

Thursday’s hearing focused on whether the House has legal standing to bring the suit at all. The administration says it doesn’t, arguing the House has not been injured and is just advancing abstract complaints about the implementation of the law. The administration argues the House has many other remedies available, such as passing a new law.

“The House cannot sue the executive branch over the implementation of existing federal law,” McElvain insisted, adding later: “Nothing limits the right to come back and enact new legislation.”

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, arguing for the House, vehemently disagreed.

“We believe we have established what can only be viewed as a concrete injury,” Turley said in court. “I find it astonishing that this can be viewed as an abstraction.”

Frustrated House Republicans authorized the lawsuit over Democratic objections last summer, in the run-up to the congressional midterm elections. They had already voted dozens of times to repeal all or parts of the law known as Obamacare, but as long as President Barack Obama is in the White House they have no legislative solution.

Thursday’s hearing, the first in the case, comes as the Obama administration and lawmakers of both parties anxiously await a Supreme Court ruling on a different lawsuit that challenges other portions of the health law and threatens insurance subsidies for millions of Americans.

It’s not clear whether the House suit will make it that far. Previous attempts by members of Congress to sue past administrations have been tossed out, although the House health lawsuit is the first by the full House against a sitting president.

Collyer, a 2003 appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, gave the House side reason to be hopeful with her aggressive sparring with the Justice Department’s McElvain. She will rule at a later date.

The partisan political backdrop of the lawsuit resonated at various points in the courtroom, including when Collyer questioned whether impeachment could be an alternative remedy rather than suing. She then quickly added, addressing the spectator gallery filled with reporters: “I don’t mean to suggest… Don’t anyone write that down.”

In addition to the issue over appropriations the House lawsuit accused the administration of acting unconstitutionally in delaying deadlines in the law for employers to offer coverage. That appears to be a weaker claim and was not discussed in court Thursday.