tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23477772056730875152024-03-05T11:56:37.133-05:00Steve Newton for 22nd State RepresentativeSteve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-44960801305755636522014-10-31T10:12:00.001-04:002014-10-31T10:12:22.237-04:00Democrats should vote Libertarian in the 22nd District this yearThe Democratic candidate for State Rep in the 22nd--John Mackenzie--is a good guy, a smart man, and <b>a pretty typical Delaware Democrat.</b><br />
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Before you vote, I'd like you to ask yourself this question: <b>is one more Democrat in the General Assembly actually going to change anything in Dover?</b><br />
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If you look closely at his positions on the issues, you'd have to say, <b>"No."</b><br />
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<b>On Education: <span style="color: red;">John sees some of the problems, but doesn't present a plan.</span></b> In that <i>Legislative Issues</i> piece he just put in your mailbox, his list of what's gone wrong is actually very similar to (if much narrower than) the critique I've been presenting publicly for the past three years: an antiquated funding system, money spent in Dover instead of classrooms, and State overreach in the "Priority" schools mess. But this is as close as he ever gets to telling you what he'd do about it:<br />
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<i>The first step toward improving our public schools should be modernizing this patchwork finance system, correcting the inequities, and simply <b>spending smarter!</b> ...</i> </blockquote>
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<i>The most important step toward improving our public schools should be to <b>restore local governance and accountability</b> to the communities they are supposed to serve. <b>DOE is taking over our schools. These are our schools. It's time to take them back.</b></i></blockquote>
Nice sentients, but no real proposals. Nor does John talk much about high-stakes testing, Common Core, teacher evaluations, or the impact of charter schools on the traditional school system. Oh, wait, he has talked about charters and resegregation, but what he said to <a href="http://delawareada.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/JohnMackenzie_QuestionnaireResponse-Sheet1.pdf">the Delaware Chapter of Americans for Democratic Action</a> seems to contradict his praise of local school boards:<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Charters are re-segregating DE schools; socially divisive; cherry-picking passively if
not actively. DOE and the state board of ed have really made a mess of this, but <b>I'm
not sure local districts and school boards will manage this a lot better. </b></i></span></blockquote>
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Which is it, you have to wonder? Does John trust local school boards or not?<br />
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I'd ask you to contrast his rather vague ideas with <a href="http://newtonfor22ndstaterep.blogspot.com/2014/09/time-to-make-some-changes-in-dover-here.html">my very specific plans to fix education financing, to reform the DOE bureaucracy, step back from high-stakes testing, give more autonomy to local school boards, and improve the way we educate special needs children.</a> <br />
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If you're wondering, <a href="http://newtonfor22ndstaterep.blogspot.com/2014/10/can-we-make-it-happen.html">I've been in the public square dealing with education issues since Governor Castle and Carper appointed me as Co-Chair of the Delaware Social Studies Curriculum Frameworks Commission in 1992</a>. This past April, I was the person who <a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/04/09/put-end-harmful-high-stakes-student-testing/7515559/">laid out the whole sordid story of the failure of high-stakes testing in the pages of the News Journal.</a> It was my research that revealed that <a href="http://newtonfor22ndstaterep.blogspot.com/2014/10/doe-dont-hold-us-to-same-standards-we.html">DOE is not using test results to measure its own work with special needs students</a>, and again my research that <a href="http://newtonfor22ndstaterep.blogspot.com/2014/10/breaking-de-doe-wipes-out-child-poverty.html">explained how (and why) DOE re-defined poverty earlier this year</a>.<br />
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<b>On Health Insurance: </b><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">John gets it (and then misses it).</span> He gets that there is a Highmark monopoly in the private insurance market in Delaware, but he attributes that to the Affordable Care Act with a rather vague reference to the General Assembly. He really can't afford to be much more specific than that, one suspects, because after all he's a Democrat. <a href="http://triblive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/s_744555.html#axzz2bCR6eDb9">The $175 million sweetheart deal that brought Highmark to Delaware was crafted primarily by (Democrat) Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart and by (Democrat) Senator (now President Pro Tem) Patti Blevins.</a> Anybody who aspires to becoming the next freshman Democrat knows he's got to tip-toe around that.<br />
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But more to the point--the point John misses--is that his solution to ever-rising costs is a mirage. John, again calling on his credentials as an economist, tells us in his <i>Legislative Issues </i>that we should implement across the board<br />
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<i>a promising 'patient-centered medical home' model of health care with coordinated teams of providers supported by an efficient electronic medical records system. <b>Providers would be paid on health outcomes rather than on numbers of office visits.</b></i> </blockquote>
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<i><b></b>I strongly support this reform of our state Medicare and Medicaid programs, and will push for adoption of 'patient-centered medical homes' in the private insurance market as well.</i></blockquote>
One tiny little problem with this plan: <b>the research doesn't support it</b>. <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1832540">A February 2014 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association</a> concluded:<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"><span style="color: #333333;">A multipayer medical home pilot, in which participating practices adopted new structural capabilities and received NCQA certification, was </span><b><span style="color: #333333;">associated with limited improvements in quality and was </span><span style="color: red;">not associated with reductions</span><span style="color: #333333;"> </span><span style="color: red;">in utilization of hospital, emergency department, or ambulatory care services or total costs</span><span style="color: #333333;"> </span></b><span style="color: #333333;">over 3 years.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px;"> </span> </i></span></blockquote>
It turns out that the early glowing studies of the benefits of Patient-Centered-Medical Homes in Vermont and North Carolina (which generated all the initial positive vibes for the idea) <a href="http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2014/04/01/more-evidence-that-patient-centered-medical-homes-dont-work/">don't actually show any significant cost savings or improved health outcomes</a>. Moreover, <a href="http://pnhp.org/blog/2014/02/26/is-the-medical-home-a-business-model-or-a-patient-service-model/">the most recent studies suggest that PCMH is a <i>business</i> model rather than a <i>patient service</i> model</a>. Here's what an <a href="http://www.urban.org/publications/412373.html">Urban Institute study</a> recently concluded:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>The danger posed by the current enthusiasm for the concept is that it could cause unproven models to be adopted</b> on a wide scale before evaluations of existing pilots can show us what works in what situations, and what levels of reimbursement are needed to get providers to engage in all the new activities encompassed by the medical home model. <b>This could lead to a failure to improve quality or save costs...</b></i></span></span></blockquote>
Finally, you should know that the loudest cheerleader for the PCMH concept (besides John Mackenzie) is ... <a href="http://www.managedcaremag.com/archives/1302/1302.highmark.html">Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield</a>. So John, who roundly and correctly criticizes Highmark for mercenary monopolist profiteering, adopts as his solution ... exactly what the monopoly wants to implement.<br />
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There's sound strategy for you. It guarantees that the continued government silence about <a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/08/15/will-delaware-really-benefit-domination-highmark/14138659/">Highmark's smothering dominance of Delaware's entire healthcare system</a> will not be addressed next year on the floor of the General Assembly. In case you're wondering, <a href="http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/search?q=highmark">I've been working on this issue for years</a>.<br />
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One last note on health insurance: John's passion for the Patient-Centered Medical Home in a mixed Medicare-Medicaid-private insurance system must be pretty recent, because five months ago he told <a href="http://delawareada.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/JohnMackenzie_QuestionnaireResponse-Sheet1.pdf">Delaware ADA</a> that his preference was something else entirely:<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>I would like to see Delaware follow Vermont’s lead in establishing a single-payer
system. </i></span></blockquote>
So now you know what John's position on health insurance is today (PCMH) and what it was five months ago (state single-payer). The only thing you don't know is what it will be in January if you elect him.<br />
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<b>On Taxes: <span style="color: red;">John supports an increase in the gas tax.</span></b><span style="color: red;"> </span> Here's what he said in the <i>Legislative Issues</i> that appeared in most of your mailboxes this week:<br />
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<i>We need legislators who will rebuild voter trust. <b>If we're going to raise the gasoline tax</b>, the revenues must be dedicated to rebuilding the Transportation Trust Fund.</i></blockquote>
On his Facebook page, John (an economist), has actually <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mackenzieforstaterep">argued that raising the gas tax ten cents per gallon won't really make the price of gas go up that much.</a> His argument is that retailers and refiners will voluntarily eat up to 50% of that increase (just because they're nice, I guess):<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 20px;">ECON 101 lesson: The GA is debating a 10 cents/gallon increase in DE's gasoline tax. <b>You might think this will simply increase retail gas prices by 10 cents.</b> But like most taxes, the gas tax is shared between buyers and sellers: consumers</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; line-height: 20px;"> pay a higher price while retailers receive a lower net price, and some of the sellers' tax burden gets passed pack up the supply chain to wholesalers to distributors to refineries....</span> </i></span></blockquote>
If you actually go read the post, you'll discover that this confidence in the good will and generosity of Exxon and Valero not to pass on the total increase is based in equal measure on <i>trust me, I'm an economist</i>, and an internet app called "Gas Buddy."<br />
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The reality? Research has consistently shown that <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/04/15/202512/is-the-gasoline-tax-regressive/">raising gas taxes hits the middle class hardest</a>, and <b>the simplest way to rebuild the Transportation Trust Fund</b> is to (a) stop looting it every year, and (b) start diverting some of the money we've wasted on corporate welfare back into rebuilding our infrastructure <i>before</i> we start talking about raising gas taxes. <br />
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<b>On Development: </b><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">John follows Mike Protack's lead.</span> I know that might be hard to believe, because Mike's about as far from a progressive Democrat as you could get, but it's true. At the GHADA candidate's forum in September, in the NCC Council debate with Janet Kilpatrick, Mike suggested that what needed to be done with hypothetical "golf course" to be laid out at Three Little Bakers was to turn it into a county park. That's John's position as well (again, quoting <i>Legislative Issues</i>):<br />
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<i>The most logical use for this land is as a county park, and I would solicit financial help from the state to make this happen.</i></blockquote>
The problem? As Janet pointed out to Mike Protack, even if the Delaware Supreme Court upholds the Superior Court ruling and forces Pike Creek Recreational Services LLC to lay out a 130-acre "old course," <b>it's still private property. </b> Neither the County Council nor the General Assembly can simply wave its hand and turn that private property into a public park. This is a very strange position for a candidate who presents himself as not just an economist, but a specialist in land use and open spaces to take.<br />
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<b>On the Second Amendment: </b><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">John thinks many gun owners are "deviants" who bear watching.</span> Here's his response to <a href="http://delawareada.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/JohnMackenzie_QuestionnaireResponse-Sheet1.pdf">Delaware ADA</a> about potential bans on high-capacity magazines:<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Unfortunately, dickering over the specifics--hollow-points? silencers?--kind of
legitimizes the gun nuts. <b>Most of these people</b> who "need" cop-killer bullets,
concealed carry or high-capacity magazines <b>are <span style="color: red;">deviants</span> and should be identified
as such.</b> </i></span></blockquote>
Look, we can have different opinions on gun rights. I'm not an advocate of trying to make ourselves feel safer by taking away the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. But I don't characterize people who want stronger gun control as "gun grabbers," either, because all that you do with that level of invective is shut down the conversation. We can't afford to shut down that conversation; it's to important to a civil and safe society. <br />
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If you're a gun owner, can you imagine having a serious conversation with somebody who's already written you off as a "deviant"?<br />
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<b>On mischaracterizing his opponent: <span style="color: red;">John's attacks on Joe Miro don't hold water.</span> </b><br />
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Instead of dealing with the positions that Joe put forth for supporting the casino bail-out, John recently released a campaign mailer suggesting that Joe did so because of campaign donations. I agree with John that bailing out the casinos (especially by taking the money from the Transportation Trust Fund) was wrong, but here's an important point: people can be wrong with integrity. Just because I disagree with Joe's arguments doesn't mean he's dishonest or unethical.<br />
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Likewise, here's <a href="http://delawareada.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/JohnMackenzie_QuestionnaireResponse-Sheet1.pdf">what John said to Delaware ADA about Joe Miro and constituent services</a>:<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>An effective legislator is an educator. We share similar visions and goals for our
community, but we differ on how to achieve them. That’s [what] constituent service is
about: you and your constituents identify problems and find solutions together. <b>My
opponent does not even hold regular open meetings for 22nd RD constituents...</b> </i></span></blockquote>
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Seriously? John's going to attack Joe Miro on constituent services? What district do you live in, John? Joe goes to every civic association meeting, every PTA meeting, and pretty much every coffee shop where there are at least three people from the district sitting together talking about potholes. One of the toughest mountains to climb in deciding to run against Joe Miro is convincing people that the bad policies he supports in the General Assembly are at least as important as what he does in the community, and that I'll be equally dedicated to constituent services.<br />
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To attack Joe Miro on that issue shows one of two things: either you don't really know the district you live in, or you're willing to throw anything up against the wall to see if it will stick, regardless of whether or not it's true. Or both.<br />
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As far as openly differing with Joe on substantive issues, I've really only seen John talk about the Community Transportation Fund and a stoplight near the Woodside Creamery. That's not making a convincing case for replacing an incumbent.<br />
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<b>On being a Democrat: </b><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">John became one so that he could vote in primaries.</span> Seriously. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mackenzieforstaterep">Here's what he says on his campaign Facebook page</a>:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">I</span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 20px;"> was an Independent for years, until I got tired of being shut out of DE's primaries: they often determine the outcomes of general elections!</span> </i></span></blockquote>
So if you're planning to vote Democratic just because you've always voted for Democrats, ask yourself--how long has John been a Democrat, anyway?<br />
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As I said at the outset, John's a good guy and a smart man, but here--in his third election campaign--he's still not quite ready for the job.<br />
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What I'd like you to do (the four of you still reading to the end) is take the time to look at <a href="http://newtonfor22ndstaterep.blogspot.com/2014/09/time-to-make-some-changes-in-dover-here.html">my plans and positions</a>, and <a href="http://newtonfor22ndstaterep.blogspot.com/2014/10/can-we-make-it-happen.html">my resume for the position</a> before you make a final decision to vote Democrat because you always have. <br />
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Then vote the issues and the candidate, not your party.<br />
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Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-83109609806402598362014-10-23T10:45:00.001-04:002014-10-23T10:45:52.796-04:00Breaking! DE DOE wipes out child poverty!There have been rumblings of this across the blogging community, but I finally found the DE DOE info-graphic that proves it: Secretary of Education Mark Murphy has found the key to eliminating poverty as an element in public education ...<br />
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Just re-define it.<br />
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First, take a look at <a href="http://profiles.doe.k12.de.us/SchoolProfiles/State/Student.aspx">the amazing drop in poverty seen in Delaware schools this year</a>:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0Ev7CvjaxCDw2WQKo8IbEe8WFsV1rwSLkxd4I_XJGaX4cqTAX0F9_qa0IxrZEbBv5dHufRVn5cWxUzZQsIql_ZAagjxWukIwRM__D7xe4sbMgD28ml1CS_6TqVihJSmonNObuEg1Fvo4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-10-23+at+10.23.19+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0Ev7CvjaxCDw2WQKo8IbEe8WFsV1rwSLkxd4I_XJGaX4cqTAX0F9_qa0IxrZEbBv5dHufRVn5cWxUzZQsIql_ZAagjxWukIwRM__D7xe4sbMgD28ml1CS_6TqVihJSmonNObuEg1Fvo4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-10-23+at+10.23.19+AM.png" height="335" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>WOW!! DOUBLE WOW!! <span style="color: red;">22,967 Delaware children escaped poverty this year!!!</span></b></div>
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<b>That's a 19.5% drop in low income children!!! Amazing!!! <span style="color: red;">Secretary Murphy for President!!!</span></b></div>
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Uh, what? You're kidding, right? <a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2014/07/22/kids-county-finds-delaware-child-poverty-persists-long-recession-fades/13023433/">Kids Count has child poverty heading in the other direction?</a></div>
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Well, don't let a little thing called FACTS deter the Delaware Department of Education. Secretary Murphy's people understand that in order to control the conversation you have to control the definition of the terms.</div>
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So they changed the definition of "low income" to wipe poverty as a factor in school performance.</div>
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Here's the evidence:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCnFYWJyKcM3XbjepNY1QNVc-KrgPG3rfID9YBlibjGntBwg5mH9E9I4JoyjcGPIbHmYhpBvXbIxXSaY5b7l876Mm15FE5ymOOehvQS7yqhDHDhLxiOKep81tipCWNkW-Py8lP2glVOek/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-10-23+at+10.33.50+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCnFYWJyKcM3XbjepNY1QNVc-KrgPG3rfID9YBlibjGntBwg5mH9E9I4JoyjcGPIbHmYhpBvXbIxXSaY5b7l876Mm15FE5ymOOehvQS7yqhDHDhLxiOKep81tipCWNkW-Py8lP2glVOek/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-10-23+at+10.33.50+AM.png" height="147" width="400" /></a></div>
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In plain English, being on Medicaid or qualifying for Free or Reduced Lunch no longer identifies children as being "low income."</div>
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In case you're wondering, the Federal Government did not create this requirement. Indeed, here is the Federal definition of "low income" for educational purposes (<a href="http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/trio/incomelevels.html">from the US DOE</a>):<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs_q3OP0OqSS_oVE2bmhz_37IhGot3RlpeedDR2TCOcPVOOG556S24cSMj0jnQ_tFkNjR0A7YppnpffEfu-0B8xVvBeBF5JMmMUVrI645_i_znY9KvqEQPrghI7rE_Iz266z0dbb8ktPQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-10-23+at+10.38.39+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs_q3OP0OqSS_oVE2bmhz_37IhGot3RlpeedDR2TCOcPVOOG556S24cSMj0jnQ_tFkNjR0A7YppnpffEfu-0B8xVvBeBF5JMmMUVrI645_i_znY9KvqEQPrghI7rE_Iz266z0dbb8ktPQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-10-23+at+10.38.39+AM.png" height="43" width="640" /></a></div>
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And in case you were wondering, <a href="http://www.dhss.delaware.gov/dhss/dmma/faqs.html">here's the income requirement to be covered by Medicaid in Delaware</a>:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi56Ci58jv2Qxwb8Serz6yemMEyC6SoVh5UC6XqyEn3G_YpkxFiYG5N8qESd4PmPZiWu_DHkGf52u9-hNBQ3y5w-5AouEVvY3Md-ftCsnUxcE2NQ8vSkLLvEDxk4ZihcKBMycPiim9fK-8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-10-23+at+10.41.11+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi56Ci58jv2Qxwb8Serz6yemMEyC6SoVh5UC6XqyEn3G_YpkxFiYG5N8qESd4PmPZiWu_DHkGf52u9-hNBQ3y5w-5AouEVvY3Md-ftCsnUxcE2NQ8vSkLLvEDxk4ZihcKBMycPiim9fK-8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-10-23+at+10.41.11+AM.png" height="132" width="640" /></a></div>
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So while the Federal Government would automatically conclude that any child qualifying for Medicaid was "low income," the DE DOE says, "No Way!"</div>
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This is simply unacceptable. And the fact that the bureaucrats are getting away with it without being generally called on it is also unacceptable on our part.</div>
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It's truly time for some changes in Dover.</div>
<br />Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-74166221289508499292014-10-22T13:55:00.001-04:002014-10-22T13:55:56.020-04:00A reply to Education Secretary Arne Duncan<div class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">While there is a great deal of fine-sounding window-dressing in <a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/10/20/chance-examine-standardized-tests/17633959/">US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's recent op-ed</a> ("<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px;">cut back testing that doesn’t meet that bar or is redundant"), the heart of his philosophy for public education is covered in a single paragraph (especially the last sentence):</span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><span style="color: #333333;">Parents have a right to know how much their children are learning; teachers, schools and districts need to know how students are progressing; and policymakers must know where students are excelling, improving and struggling. </span><b><span style="color: #333333;">A focus on measuring student learning has had </span><span style="color: red;">real benefits</span><span style="color: #333333;">, especially for </span><span style="color: red;">our most vulnerable students</span><span style="color: #333333;">, ensuring that they are </span><span style="color: red;">being held to the same rigorous standards as their well-off peers</span><span style="color: #333333;"> and shining a light on achievement gaps.</span></b></i></span></span></blockquote>
Because this is all couched in very high-minded rhetoric, that last sentence has to be very carefully unpacked to understand the baseline assumptions at its foundations.<br />
<br />
Please note the three phrases in <b><span style="color: red;">red</span></b>; let's look at them one at a time:<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
<span style="color: red;"><b>"real benefits"</b></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><b><br /></b></span>
Here are the two paragraphs that support that assertion:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>The good news is that, thanks to the hard work of educators, students and communities, America’s schools have made <b>historic achievements in recent years</b>. The U.S. high-<b>school graduation rate is at an all-time high</b>, and the places most committed to bold change have made major progress on the nation’s report card. Since 2000, <b>high-school dropout rates have been cut in half for Hispanic students and more than a third for African-Americans</b>. <b>College enrollment by black and Hispanic students has surged.</b></i><b> </b></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>Perhaps even more importantly, <b>educators are taking fundamental steps to help reclaim the United States’ leadership in education.</b> Throughout the country, <b>students are being taught to higher standards</b>, by <b>teachers empowered to be creative and to teach critical-thinking skills</b>. Last year, <b>nearly 30 states, led by both Republicans and Democrats, increased funding for early learning.</b></i></blockquote>
OK, one by one<br />
<br />
<b>"historic achievements in recent years"</b> It is important to note what Secretary Duncan claims, and what he does not. With "recent years" being defined as "since 2000" the Secretary bases all of his student achievement claims on (a) graduation rates; (b) drop-out rates; and (c) minority college enrollment. <b>Note carefully that there is nothing NOTHING <span style="color: red;">NOTHING</span> said about improvements in test scores, nothing said about relative improvements in academic performance, and nothing said about increased readiness for the workplace.</b> Instead, it is asserted that these results come from--one must assume--the paired Federal initiatives of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.<br />
<br />
In face, as we shall see, nothing could be farther from the truth.<br />
<br />
<b>"US high-school graduation rate is at an all-time high"</b> This would, perhaps, be something to cheer about if we weren't talking about an "all-time high" of 80%--or that 20% (in some urban areas 35%) of our students do not finish school. But leave that aside. Secretary Duncan, who is a firm advocate of the <i>standards drive assessments that drive instruction</i> model, would have you believe by rhetorical sleight of hand that the rise in graduation rates is being fueled by Federal testing policy. It isn't. Here, from the <a href="http://www.dropoutprevention.org/effective-strategies">National Drop-Out Prevention Center Network</a>, is a list of the twelve most (research-proven) effective strategies for drop-out prevention. Please note that NONE of them involve "being taught to higher standards" or "receiving the benefits of standardized testing." Instead, virtually all of them harken back to the days when teachers were allowed to view education as a humanizing process rather than a training ground for corporate entry-level jobs:<br />
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<b>"</b><i><b>high-school dropout rates have been cut in half for Hispanic students and more than a third for African-Americans</b>" </i>This is technically correct, but lacks context. Secretary Duncan would imply that there has been major gap-closing between minorities and white students during the period. According to the <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=16">National Center for Education Statistics</a> (which is lodged in Secretary Duncan's own organization) that would be a misleading conclusion:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>While the rates for both Whites and Blacks declined during this period, <b>the gap between the rates in 1990 was not measurably different from the gap between the rates in 2012</b>.</i></span></span></blockquote>
Get that? No measurable difference in the gap between African-American students and White students between 1990-2012. Not exactly an endorsement of NCLB or RTTT as game-changers, is it?<br />
<br />
<b>"</b><i><b>College enrollment by black and Hispanic students has surged.</b></i><b> </b><b>"</b> Two things of note here.<br />
<br />
(1) This enrollment surge is generationally driven, not driven by the policies of the past decade. Again, the National Center for Education Statistics (Mr. Duncan, do you ever read the reports your own people put out?) places the growth in a <b>35-year-long-trend</b>, not as a product of NCLB and/or RTTT:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>The percentage of American college students who are Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, Black, and American Indian/Alaska Native has been increasing. <span style="color: red;"><b>From 1976 to 2011</b></span>, the percentage of Hispanic students rose from 4 percent to 14 percent, the percentage of Asian/Pacific Islander students rose from 2 percent to 6 percent, the percentage of Black students rose from 10 percent to 15 percent, and the percentage of American Indian/Alaska Native students rose from 0.7 to 0.9 percent. During the same period, the percentage of White students fell from 84 percent to 61 percent.</i></span></span></blockquote>
You can be assured that if the bulk of that growth had occurred during Secretary Duncan's "tour of duty" it would be reported that way.<br />
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(2) There is college enrollment, and college enrollment, as the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/minorities-and-whites-follow-unequal-college-paths-report-says/2013/07/31/61c18f08-f9f3-11e2-8752-b41d7ed1f685_story.html">Washington Post</a> cogently points out:<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>The nation’s system of higher education is growing more racially polarized even as it attracts more minorities</b>: <b><span style="color: red;">White students increasingly are clustering at selective institutions, while blacks and Hispanics mostly are attending open-access and community colleges, according to a new <a href="http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/Separate%26Unequal.FR.pdf" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(212, 212, 212); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none; zoom: 1;">report</a>. </span></b></i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i><b>The paths offer widely disparate opportunities and are leading to widely disparate outcomes</b>, said the report released Wednesday by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>Students at the nation's top 468 colleges are the beneficiaries of much more spending--anywhere from two to five times as much as what is spent on instruction at community colleges or other schools without admission requirements. </i></blockquote>
Put more simply, as a nation we've created essentially a second tier of colleges and universities for minorities and the poor. In one sense there's nothing wrong with that (I've spent my career working at one of those institutions, with wonderful kids, and I wouldn't change a minute of it). But it is the worst sort of misleading propaganda to pretend that all our high school graduates are going into the same types of college and university systems, when the reality is both increasingly separate and already unequal.<br />
<br />
<b>"</b><i><b>educators are taking fundamental steps to help reclaim the United States’ leadership in education.</b></i><b>"</b> The only way you can make this claim is if you define corporate entities and bureaucrats as educators and leave teachers out of the mix. In Delaware we have seen the truth: much of our vaunted RTTT grant of $119 million went not to classrooms but corporations, not to teachers but "data coaches."<br />
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<b>"</b><i><b>students are being taught to higher standards</b>, by <b>teachers empowered to be creative and to teach critical-thinking skills</b>.</i><b>"</b> Students are definitely being TESTED to different (higher? good question) standards, but are our teachers--whose jobs now depend increasingly on the single metric of test scores--"being empowered to be creative"? When I visit Delaware classrooms and see teachers busily downloading Common Core lessons so that if their students don't do well on the test they can say they used approved methods, I don't think so. <span style="color: red;"><b>The reality is that creativity is slowly being crushed out of our classrooms.</b></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="color: red;">"</span><i><b>nearly 30 states, led by both Republicans and Democrats, increased funding for early learning.</b></i>" Of course, in many cases the increases were statistically marginal, or were directly tied to Federal regulations requiring greater use of assessments K-3. Did you get that? <span style="color: red;"><b>Our kids between the ages of 5-8, according to the Federal government, are not taking enough tests to become college-ready.</b></span><br />
<br />
OK, so all those "achievements" are carefully worded propaganda pieces rather than real achievements. They are designed to hide (ironically) what the corporate reform movement in Delaware has been going out of its way to highlight for the past several years: only 27.7% of our graduates, according to SAT scores, are "college ready"; over 40% of them need to take remedial courses when they get to college; our urban students' performance on tests and drop-out rates have remained APPALLING despite <b style="color: red;">two decades of Federally mandated high-stakes testing driving all education reform.</b> <b>In any other venture, the failure to achieve demonstrable results in TWO DECADES of pursuing a single strategy would be grounds for firing everybody and starting over from scratch.</b> Not in <strike>public</strike> corporate education.<br />
<br />
But that actually leaves out the most horrifying point about Secretary Duncan's strategy (which is, we are told daily, Secretary Mark Murphy's strategy as well): the fact that nowhere in his calculations are the impacts of disparate funding, structural poverty, and institutional racism taken into account.<br />
<br />
Here's what he says is the answer: "<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;"><b><span style="color: #333333;">A focus on measuring student learning has had </span><span style="color: red;">real benefits</span><span style="color: #333333;">, especially for </span><span style="color: red;">our most vulnerable students</span><span style="color: #333333;">, ensuring that they are </span><span style="color: red;">being held to the same rigorous standards as their well-off peers</span><span style="color: #333333;"> and shining a light on achievement gaps."</span></b></i><br />
<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;"><b><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></b></i>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: #333333;">All we have to do (and Secretary Murphy has echoed these sentiments as recently as the Wilmington City Council meeting last week) is hold poor and minority students "to the same rigorous standards as their well-off peers" and everything will be fine.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: #333333;">Do you notice the inversion here? Once we hold these students to "rigorous standards" it becomes somebody's fault--either the students, their families, or the teachers--if they do not measure up, </span><b style="color: red;">and the system is let completely off the hook.</b> Poverty suddenly disappears as an issue. Race disappears as an issue. Unequal funding disappears as an issue.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px;">"Rigorous standards" are the Unified Field Theory of Education reform. If you build rigorous standards, they will achieve. If you test one day out of five instead of teaching all week, they will achieve. Poverty is futile. Racism is futile. Funding is futile. The Education Borg will assimilate you all.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px;">The scary part is that the people who believe this are completely sincere and completely unaware that what they are doing is a calculated corporate strategy to (a) maximize profits in the education business; and (b) to keep the status quo with regarding to race, poverty, and funding intact for as long as possible. Why? Because it's profitable. McDonalds and Wal-Mart still need millions of people who can be shuffled forever into minimum-wage jobs (and who can be blamed for not getting a good enough education to avoid them).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px;">The sad reality is that Mr. Duncan's strategy and his public preening are going to ultimately go down in history not as transforming public education, but as perpetuating the worst features of a system that all too often denies the opportunities its teachers are working so hard to provide and its students so desperately are trying to find.</span></span>Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-77744344043907411402014-10-16T10:40:00.003-04:002014-10-16T10:50:58.791-04:00Did Highmark have a role in demise of Aetna's DE Physicians' Care?<div class="tr_bq">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No competition? Higher rates?<br />Sweetheart deals? What's not to<br />love for an insurance monopoly<br />in Delaware?</td></tr>
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Aetna, which has provided the only token competition to Highmark in the Delaware private insurance market, has announced that <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/blog/health-care/2014/10/aetna-closing-itsdelaware-medicaid-plan.html?ana=fbk">it is shutting down its Medicaid group plan</a>--Delaware Physicians' Care--at the end of this year:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Aetna Medicaid President and CEO <a href="http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/adview?ai=BrRYdv6Q_VKWMJYmNlAe9uIGwBbm39IEGAAAAEAEgqZbaHzgAWJmX6YiuAWDJpqSH2KPkD7IBE3d3dy5iaXpqb3VybmFscy5jb226AQswMGdmcF9pbWFnZcgBCdoBdWh0dHA6Ly93d3cuYml6am91cm5hbHMuY29tL3BoaWxhZGVscGhpYS9ibG9nL2hlYWx0aC1jYXJlLzIwMTQvMTAvYWV0bmEtY2xvc2luZy1pdHNkZWxhd2FyZS1tZWRpY2FpZC1wbGFuLmh0bWw_YW5hPWZia5gC6IQBwAIC4AIA6gIaLzQ2MzUvYnpqLnBoaWxhZGVscGhpYS9vb3D4AoTSHpAD4AOYA-ADqAMB4AQBkgULCAcQARgBIMGZ6BiSBQsIBxABGAEgieCNGZIFCwgHEAEYASCZneoYoAYg&sigh=QO4xyUKuEzM&adurl=http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/imgad?id=CICAgKCNn-yIxgEQARgBMggPKtH7CIiUnA%26t%3D10%26cT%3Dhttp%253A//bizjournals.com%26l%3Dhttp%253A//www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/search/results%253Fq%253DPamela%252520Sedmak" style="color: #334e91; padding-right: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Pamela Sedmak</a> said the company is “reluctantly” taking the action after several months of extended negotiations with the state failed to result in a rate agreement that would cover the costs of operating the plan.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“We regret having to make this very difficult decision,” said Sedmak. “Delaware Physicians Care is an integral part of the fabric of the community.… Unfortunately, recent changes to the Medicaid landscape in Delaware are requiring the plan to absorb significantly higher levels of costs. Without payment rates that support our ability to continue to provide high-quality service to members, we cannot keep this great health plan open.”</i></blockquote>
This is a very interesting development in the State's health insurance and health care landscape for a variety of reasons.<br />
<br />
First, there's the absence of coverage of this story (at least so far) in Delaware media. You have to ask yourself why Aetna choosing to shut down the largest (<a href="http://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Aetna+Inc+%28AET%29+Says+It+Will+Close+Delaware+Physicians+Care/9913354.html">137,000 customers</a>), most popular, and easily most effective Medicaid group plan in our State would not be news. But apparently it isn't. Maybe tomorrow somebody in the News Journal's "Newsroom of the Future" will read the Philadelphia Business Journal and discover what's happening in our own back yard.<br />
<br />
Second, there's the fact that the reason cited for the closure--failure to achieve "a rate agreement that would cover the costs of operating the plan"--is really suspicious. Here you need to know that <a href="http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/variation-in-medicaid-fees/">Delaware is one of only a handful of states wherein the physicians reimbursement rates are virtually the same for both Medicare and Medicaid</a>--in 42 of 50 states Medicaid reimbursements have always been significantly lower than those of Medicaid. One of the reasons that most physicians in Delaware will accept Medicaid patients is that they don't get short-changed on the reimbursements. On the other hand, <a href="http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/2014/03/helping-delaware-and-joe-miro-solve.html">in a state that did not make adequate financial provisions for the recent Medicaid expansion</a> (potentially 30,000 new patients), you can see how the government might be trying to reduce those costs.<br />
<br />
Moreover, Aetna is NOT notorious (at least in Delaware) for gratuitously charging higher rates. Two months ago, when Highmark was proposing rate increases for some plans in the 5-15% range, <a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2014/08/08/highmark-agrees-trim-obamacare-rate-hike-request/13808517/">Aetna was reducing rates on some plans and only filing for about a 2.5% increase on others</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Aetna ... filed requests for several plans, some of which would reduce rates by an average of 2.5 percent for those holding similar 2014 plans under its Coventry brand.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>The cost of some small-group plans would rise by an average of 1.9 to 3.1 percent, Aetna's filing said. Aetna acquired Coventry last year, but will offer all 2015 plans under its own brand.</i></blockquote>
So the idea that Aetna is somehow price-gouging and therefore could not come to an agreement with state negotiators does not initially pass the smell test.<br />
<br />
Third, you have to consider the torturous (one might say, "fratricidal") relationship between Highmark and Aetna. In Delaware we like to ignore the fact that our state is too small to be the driver in major economic issues--we are more usually the piece of paper whirling around in the larger hurricane. In this case the larger hurricane is what's going on in Pennsylvania, which is home territory to Highmark of Delaware's parent company, and the Mecca to which Highmark Senior VP Paul Kaplan is often summoned to kneel for his marching orders.<br />
<br />
Most of the coverage of what's happening in the Keystone State has centered on Highmark's well-publicized feud with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centers, but there has been plenty of friction between Highmark and Aetna as well. <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/business/2013/11/24/Aetna-wants-Highmark-to-know-it-s-not-an-interloper/stories/201311240114">Here's just one item to give you the flavor of it:</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #272727; font-family: Georgia, TimesNewRoman, Verdana; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;"><i>When Westinghouse Electric Co., the Cranberry-based nuclear engineering giant, announced this autumn that it was jilting Highmark Inc. and handing its health insurance business to Aetna in 2014, Highmark responded with radio and TV ads implying that Aetna is an out-of-state carpetbagger, stealing business and jobs from Pennsylvanians.</i></span></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/business/businessnews/2013/09/25/Westinghouse-drops-Highmark-Aetna-to-handle-all-health-insurance/stories/201309250083">Highmark attempted to appear philosophic about the whole affair:</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #272727; font-family: Georgia, TimesNewRoman, Verdana; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">"Westinghouse is considered a national account," Highmark spokesman Aaron Billger said. "The national account space is extremely competitive. We win some accounts and lose some accounts." Westinghouse is a "name-recognizable loss, but we have a tremendous book of business with national accounts."</span> </i></blockquote>
The reality is, however, that <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/08/19/341399014/pittsburgh-health-care-giants-take-fight-to-each-others-turf">Highmark is facing a real challenge to its dominance in western PA</a>, a challenge it cannot afford on its corporate doorstep:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Now the Pittsburgh health care landscape looks very different. "It went from one of the least competitive environments that you can imagine — a dominant insurer and a dominant health system joined at the hips with a long term contract," says Romoff, "To one without a long-term contract with, now, five choices."</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>In addition to the two new competitors, UPMC invited three large insurance companies into the Pittsburgh market: Cigna, Aetna and United Healthcare. <b>"Competition is good," says Romoff</b>, "It keeps us all on top of our game. It gives us incentive to not be fat and sloppy."</i></blockquote>
Hopefully you caught that "competition is good" meme--don't believe it for a second, because monopolies are never interested in competition. They are interested in profits, and profits are generally higher when there is no competition to keep prices down.<br />
<br />
So where is the connection to Delaware? Here I've only got patterns and logic so far, but as Sherlock Holmes famously suggested, it is important to note that the dog did not bark.<br />
<br />
We know (patterns) that Highmark's feuds with other insurance companies and health providers has repeatedly spilled over Pennsylvania's borders--that's how we ended up abruptly having multiple MedExpress locations dropped in Delaware about two years ago. Highmark's preferred strategy is to move out of the purely insurance arena and into the provider area (hence the acquisition of hospitals in PA and the cobbling together of the nation's second-largest retail optometry chain).<br />
<br />
We also know (or at least infer) that Aetna's footprint in Delaware is currently slender enough (and our market is small enough) that it wouldn't take much to cause that other insurance giant to pull out of the state completely. Aetna's Delaware Physicians' Care contract is a lot more significant than its small (well under 10%) share of the private insurance market. So is it merely an interesting coincidence (<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/418466-once-is-happenstance-twice-is-coincidence-three-times-is-enemy">remember what Ian Fleming and James Bond said about "coincidence"</a>) that talks with State officials break down right after Aetna embarrasses Highmark with far lower rate increase requests?<br />
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Why (or how) would State officials be responsive to the Highmark-Aetna conflict of interest? First, you have to know that this Insurance Commissioner has been completely onboard with whatever Highmark wanted <a href="http://newtonfor22ndstaterep.blogspot.com/2014/08/my-editorial-about-highmark-that-you.html">since she actively recruited the Pennsylvania insurance giant to buy out Delaware Blue Cross Blue Shield with a $175 million sweetener</a>. Then you have to realize just how quickly and thoroughly Highmark has penetrated even physician circles in Delaware over the past two years, a tangled web involving the Medical Society of Delaware and its subsidiary Mednets and four Provider Organizations. That's a story that can only be pieced together from fragments, but as you get the puzzle pieces one at a time it amounts to the <i>de facto</i> elevation of Highmark from an insurance company to a provisional element of the State government.<br />
<br />
Ask yourself, especially if you have taken the time to check the links I have provided, why you've heard no hint of any of this in the mainstream media? If you google for critical work on Highmark in Delaware, guess what? Almost all you will find is my own work.<br />
<br />
I wish I could let you read my mail. Not a week goes by that a physician or medical service provider does not contact me to say (paraphrasing): "Why isn't anybody else covering this? Highmark is taking over everything. Here are the documents, but you can't print them because I'll lose everything if you do."<br />
<br />
There is one other voice in our state discussing this issue, <a href="http://delawarebusinessdaily.com/2014/10/medical-association-delaware-lacks-health-insurance-competition/">Delaware Business Daily</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Delaware has made the American Medical Association’s annual list of 10 states with the least competitive commercial health insurance markets.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The lack of competition means consumers and employers in Delaware have fewer choices among commercial health insurers than consumers and employers in almost all other states, the association stated.</i></blockquote>
By the way, according to this survey we are the <b>4th least competitive insurance market in the USA.</b><br />
<br />
In the end, one of the reasons I decided to run for 22nd State Rep is that SOMEBODY has to tell the story of what Highmark is doing to Delaware health insurance and health care. Maybe we're past the tipping point (and this Aetna story suggests that to me), but people have the RIGHT to know what's happening here, and apparently no platform short of the General Assembly will allow me to tell that story.Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-20507433323123067162014-10-15T15:29:00.000-04:002014-10-15T15:48:47.368-04:00Can we make it happen?Good ideas are wonderful, but you've got to be able to deliver. That means experience, credentials, and the proven ability to get people working together.<br />
<br />
Here's what I bring to the table:<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: blue;">20 years of military service--US Army/VaRNG Master Sergeant (Ret.)--</span></b>field medic; infantry brigade evacuation NCOIC; State Medical Training Detachment NCOIC; military hospital administrator.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: blue;">24 years (and counting) as Professor of History & Political Science at Delaware State University--</span></b>Director of Social Studies Education; Director, Global Societies pilot program; member, President's Blue Ribbon Task Force; member, DSU Wilmington Task Force.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: blue;">6 years at union president--</span></b>DSU Chapter, American Association of University Professors; experience in grievances, personnel issues, collective bargaining, general labor law.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: blue;">Parent Advocate for Special Needs Children</span></b> in Delaware and Arizona, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania. I understand both the Americans for Disabilities Act [ADA] and the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act [IDEA], and I've spent years in the trenches helping parents of special needs kids get the education they deserve.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: blue;">Member, DE Division of Public Health Task Force on Non-Nurse Midwives--</span></b>fighting for broader birth choices for Delaware women. We almost got a bill re-legalizing Certified Professional Midwives through the last General Assembly; I'd love to be there to vote "YES" for it next time.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: blue;">Co-Chair, DE Social Studies Curriculum Frameworks Commission--</span></b>primary editor and co-author of the DE Social Studies Curriculum Standards, adopted in 1995 and not yet watered down by Common Core.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: blue;">Parent Representative, Interagency Committee on Adoption--</span></b>conducted Delaware's first survey of mental health resources available to adopted children and their families.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: blue;">Consultant, US Office for Domestic Preparedness--</span></b>in the aftermath of 9/11, I created and piloted the original course, "Introduction to Terrorism," taught to State Readiness Officers across the nation at the Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston AL.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">Activist for Marriage Equality--</b>before the Democrats were even willing to touch the issue, I led the Libertarian Party of Delaware to start collecting hundreds of signatures for Delaware Right to Marry.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: blue;">Volunteer activities</span></b> supporting Resurrection Parish, Western Family YMCA, Hockessin Soccer, Charter School of Wilmington sports.<br />
<br />
Politics is the art of the possible; you've got to be able to convince people to sit down at the table and work with you. I've done that, and with your help (first your vote, then your active support), I'll take those skills to Dover on your behalf.Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-22029171439448314492014-10-12T11:37:00.002-04:002014-10-12T11:37:31.205-04:00DOE: micro-managing district bus routes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2014/10/11/cape-board-education-moves-bus-decision-state/17131937/"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNlBBo_vR9gaUPBctVCTT_6YWkal5hCR-NGCtbH8swGLN4Pu2C26m4C8U8ZS_HaR5NiUWP41NpAdRhQ7gZWtxmAnOdl4drxdPiMoOGD0ltYBGH3GYpyjSwiLbzouKI6UU12Ip56XUo6B0/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-10-12+at+11.30.35+AM.png" height="43" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2014/10/11/cape-board-education-moves-bus-decision-state/17131937/">... down to bus routes inside subdivisions?</a></div>
<br />
Today's WNJ points out that DOE is overruling Cape Henlopen on where to place bus stops by withholding funds for additional buses:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>In the past, when the district requested additional buses for its fleet, the state denied those requests because Cape had not followed the code for development stops or enforced walk zones.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>At the Oct. 9 Board of Education meeting, board members, such as Jennifer Burton, were caught between state mandates and local safety concerns.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>"Obviously we have our hands tied with the Department of Education and Transportation Department," Burton said. "In a lot of these instances the state has no idea of what is going on down here. They don't come and look and they're not really mindful of what is happening."</i></blockquote>
This, of course, is spun by the State as saving money, like it did when it cut the reimbursements to local districts for transporting homeless children to school.<br />
<br />
The reality is that if the State actually cared about saving money it could do so by extending allowable school bus life to 20 years, saving 63% per year on bus replacement costs.<br />
<br />Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-9502275132846473442014-10-10T16:18:00.002-04:002014-10-10T16:18:33.273-04:00A Roadmap for fixing the Common Core mess ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Look, academic standards are important. I know--I led the Commission that from 1992-1995 developed the Social Studies Standards that Delaware still uses today.<br />
<br />
Overzealous linkage of standards to high-stakes testing is dangerous, and we are experiencing its aftermath today (as the explosion continues to go off).<br />
<br />
Meanwhile the Federal government is mandating draconian "scorched earth" financial action against States that abandon the Common Core, which makes political and educational leaders leery of the risks of dumping Common Core.<br />
<br />
But there is an answer, as respected educational blogger/reporter <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/06/how-to-start-cleaning-up-the-common-core/">Valerie Strauss suggests in the Washington Post</a>: adopt the husk of Common Core [mostly the name] and then exercise State authority to review and modify the standards.<br />
<br />
Strauss suggests three "modest" starting points:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<strong style="color: #333333; line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Step 1: <em>Insist that the State Education Department translate each standard into clear language that the public can understand</em>. <em>If the standard can’t be written so that the average parent can understand it, throw it out.</em></span></strong></blockquote>
For this purpose, DOE and the districts could create a Curriculum Review Commission similar to the Content Standards Commissions of the early 1990s, tasked with cleaning up the excess and overly technical jargon existing in the Common Core State Standards. That Commission should be co-chaired by a teacher and a representative of higher education in Delaware, NOT by a DOE bureaucrat or politicians. The commission should be mandated to have open meetings and take public testimony before taking on the task of rewriting the standards, and then those revised standards should be taken to an up or down vote by the State Board of Education.<br />
<br />
Back to Strauss:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<strong style="color: #333333; line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Step 2<em>: Ask experts on childhood development to review the Pre-K to 3<span style="line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">rd</span> grade standards. Standards should be rewritten based on their consensus.</em></span></strong></blockquote>
This step needs to be entrusted to a sub-committee of the CRC (above) composed entirely of Pre-K-3 teachers and childhood development experts from UD and DSU. Their recommendations should again be folded into a final report that cannot be nitpicked, but must receive an up or down vote.<br />
<br />
And again:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<strong style="color: #333333; line-height: 32px;"><em><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Step 3: Reduce the emphasis on informational text, close reading and Lexile levels.</span></em></strong></blockquote>
This one may take some explanation (pay particular attention to the very first words):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 32px;"><b>There is no evidence that reading informational text in the early grades will improve reading.</b> Informational text in primary school should be read as a one means of delivering content or included based on student interest. Ratios of 50/50 (informational text/literature) in elementary schools and 70/30 in high school are based on nothing more than breakdowns of text type on National Assessment of Educational Progress tests, not on reading research. The force-feeding of informational texts in the primary years is resulting in the decline of hands on learning in science and projects in social studies, as my teacher’s email attests. At the high school level, literature is being pushed out of English Language Arts to make room for informational text. For example, take a </span><a href="https://www.engageny.org/resource/grade-9-english-language-arts" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(212, 212, 212); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #2e6d9d; line-height: 32px; text-decoration: none; zoom: 1;">look at the readings</a><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 32px;"> of Common Core Engage NY curriculum modules for 9</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 32px;"> grade. Literature is minimal, replaced by texts such as “Wizard of Lies,” a biography of Bernie Madoff, and articles that include “Sugar Changed the World,” “Animals in Translation” and “Bangladesh Factory Collapse.”</span></i></span></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Another subcommittee of the CRC for ELA teachers and academic content experts.</blockquote>
Strauss does not directly address CC Math, but the same process applies.<br />
<br />
Of important note: while DOE should be able to supply <i>ex officio</i> members, <b>under no circumstances</b> should they (or elected politicians or union leaders as such) receive a vote on the commission. In my opinion, the best mix would be to create a commission that included about 45 people (enough for working subcommittees) with 20 of the spaces reserved for teachers, 5 for district content specialists, 5 for higher education experts, 5 for community partners, and 10 for parents. At least 2 of the teachers should be special education teachers, and at least one of the parents should have a special needs child.<br />
<br />
Look: we can rail about CCSS and exchange memes on the internet for as long as we want, and that will gin up reservoirs of impotent outrage useful only to defeat some politicians who lack the ability to make that many changes in the first place.<br />
<br />
But if we really want to get serious about giving a professional voice to Delaware teachers and higher education content experts, we need to be incredibly subversive and create the CCSS(D): Common Core State Standards (adapted to Delaware) and take that process outside the normal process.<br />
<br />
Then we let the Feds threaten us, and we laugh and tell our Attorney General to do his (or her) damn job and defend us.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-22957739435837166762014-10-08T20:25:00.000-04:002014-10-08T20:25:14.243-04:00DOE: Don't hold us to the same standards we hold the schoolsAs Lt. Gov. Matt Denn's IEP Task Force continues to wade through the morass that is Special Education in Delaware, lost in the shuffle is a particularly blatant and telling piece of DOE sidestepping on so-called "Standards-based" IEPs.<br />
<br />
In 2012 DOE applied for a grant to improve Special Education outcomes in Delaware.<br />
<br />
What DOE told the Feds was that not enough kids on IEPs were passing DCAS or graduating:<br />
<br />
<div class="page" title="Page 6">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPS'; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Goal 1: To increase the academic achievement of students with disabilities,
through the implementation of sustainable, evidence-based instructional
strategies to impact students with the greatest academic needs.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPS'; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPS'; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Goal 2: To increase the graduation rates and academic achievement of
students most at risk of dropping out of school, through the use of
sustainable, evidence-based social and behavioral practices, as well as
enhanced professional development to educators and related staff. </span></blockquote>
"Academic Achievement" is clearly and unambiguously defined in the grant proposal as scoring a passing grade on state assessments (then DCAS).<br />
<br />
What DOE proposed to do (not surprisingly) was double-down on Common Core and High-stakes testing, and require--beginning in pilot districts then later extending to the whole state--that ALL IEPs be directly linked to Common Core standards.<br />
<br />
Red Clay was selected as one of these pilot districts, and the special needs teachers there have been literally inundated with "training" in developing and implementing those new IEPs.<br />
<br />
I'm going to leave aside for the moment the very real question of whether or not this is a good strategy for improving the education of these kids (it isn't). Let's just assume that, for sake of argument, Standards-Based IEPS are actually going to work as advertised.<br />
<br />
That's what DOE believes, right? Or else they wouldn't be putting themselves on the line here to raise test scores for special needs kids, would they?<br />
<br />
Well, it turns out that DOE is NOT putting itself on the line, and is in fact holding itself to a FAR LOWER standard than it does, say, the six "Priority" schools, Moyer, or Reach.<br />
<br />
You see, DOE has identified the Problem (low Spec Ed test scores) and then identified a strategy to improve those scores (Standards-based IEPS), and that only leaves the ASSESSMENT of how effective the strategy has been, once it has been implemented.<br />
<br />
That assessment would logically involve looking to see if test scores actually went up for the students in question, right?<br />
<br />
Wrong.<br />
<br />
Here's what DOE is assessing itself on: <b>Fidelity of Implementation</b><br />
<div class="page" title="Page 43">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The project evaluator, working closely with the DE SPDG Management Team, will develop
training, coaching, and intervention <b>fidelity</b> instruments during the first two quarters of Year 1.
Each intervention <b>fidelity</b> instrument (IEP development, SIM, and communication interventions)
will be developed in accordance with the evidence-base it is derived from. IEP training and
coaching <b>fidelity</b> protocols will be developed in alignment with the research presented in the
Holbrook/Courtade and Browder publications, and reviewed by the authors. SIM <b>fidelity</b>
instruments are provided by the University of Kansas. <b>Fidelity</b> protocols established by
researchers at U.K. will be used to assess the implementation of communication strategies.
Pre/post training assessments will also be developed during this time.</span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The DE SPDG Management Team will be responsible for overseeing <b>fidelity</b> measurement
and reporting. Project evaluators will train and coach the state and LEA coaches on the use of
implementation (training and coaching) and intervention (i.e., IEP development, SIM, and </span><span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">communication) <b>fidelity</b> instruments. An easy to use, web-based data management system (using
tools such as SurveyMonkey and Microsoft Access) will be developed. </span></i></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br />
"Fidelity of Implementation" means whether or not DOE trains teachers as it said it would do, and whether or not the teacher actually employ the new strategies like they are supposed to do. In other words, DOE is evaluating its success in this grant NOT on whether student test scores actually go up, but just on whether or not they tried real hard according to the model they thought up.<br />
<br />
Now you will have to read the entire 103-page grant to assure yourself that what I'm saying next is correct, and encourage you to do so: <b><span style="color: red;">DOE never uses data about improvements in student test scores on state testing to determine whether they have done their job.</span></b><br />
<br />
Do you understand what this means?<br />
<br />
To Red Clay, Christina, and the rest of the schools in the State, DOE has repeatedly said that all that matters in determining your effectiveness as educators is how well students do on the State assessments. If a school does not do well on those assessments, it is failing, plain and simple.<br />
<br />
Yet when DOE implements a plan to raise the test scores of a target group of students (in this case special education students), <b><span style="color: red;">it does not evaluate its own success based on test scores.</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Wow. Just wow.<br />
<br />
So while DOE is passing out MOUs on "failing" schools (based entirely on test scores) that empower the State to fire entire faculties and convert public schools involuntarily into charters--again, based entirely on test scores--<b><span style="color: red;">DOE does not feel it is appropriate to measure the success of its own programs based on test scores.</span></b><br />
<br />
Here's a <b><span style="color: red;">serious</span></b> suggestion to Red Clay and Christina: how about when you finally develop those Priority Schools plans, you base success or failure on "fidelity of implementation," not test scores, and cite as your rationale that <span style="color: red;"><b>this is the standard that DOE applies to its own initiatives?</b></span><br />
<br />
Here's <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/242344872/State-Personnel-Development-Grant-Proposal">the link to the grant application</a>. Check it out for yourself.<br />
</div>
</div>
</div>
Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-70835765255502090922014-10-04T15:28:00.002-04:002014-10-04T15:28:55.929-04:00Populism in Delaware Frightens our Elites<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
Over the past 2-3 years something very new, and, for our political elites, very frightening has been happening in the Delaware: the rise of actual populist (or popular) politics on both the right and left.<br />
<br />
Consider:<br />
<br />
Marriage equality advocates gathered signatures and lobbied for years before even the Democrats would touch their cause publicly.<br />
<br />
The Occupy Wilmington movement held out for months in the face of every official pressure that could be brought against a handful of committed activists.<br />
<br />
The Campaign for Liberty used grassroots organizing defeat gun-control measure HB 88 in 2012 when the supposedly essential NRA had given up.<br />
<br />
On the other side of the spectrum, Residents Against the Power Plant turned back the University of Delaware and assorted political elites (corporate and union combined) in the fight over the so-called "data center."<br />
<br />
Organizers for women's right to have home births attended by Certified Professional Midwives came within a hair of passing new legislation during the last General Assembly session, and will be back, stronger than ever, this year.<br />
<br />
Parents and teachers in the Red Clay Consolidated School District organized themselves to engage their school board on a special education inclusion plan, and changed the district's choice.<br />
<br />
A handful of activists, employing the Freedom of Information Act, got a Governor's working group on charter school reform declared to have met illegally (even though the Attorney General then declined to act).<br />
<br />
Parental critics of Common Core and high-stakes testing have become so vocal and so numerous that even the usually-very-pro-"reform" Delaware PTA found itself forced to take a survey on parental opt-outs.<br />
<br />
When Governor Markell and Secretary Murphy announced their "Priority" schools initiative, both the RCCSD and CSD boards, supported by massive outcry from parents and teachers alike, refused to sign DOE's "take it or leave it by September 30" MOU.<br />
<br />
And it's starting to show in the polls: even the University of Delaware has had to admit that, on the left, Green Party candidate Bernie August is polling four times as strongly as he did two years ago, and on the right, Libertarian Party candidate Scott Gesty is polling seven times stronger than in 2012.<br />
<br />
But, of course, neither August nor Gesty nor Andy Groff (Green; polling at 6% for US Senate) will be invited by UD to its major televised debate.<br />
<br />
From the Tea Party to the Green Party, the Libertarians to the Progressives, what's happening in Delaware is a sea change in the political landscape. It's called "populism," the radical notion that citizens themselves can organize, protest, campaign, and effect direct political change without having to defer to the existing political elites.<br />
<br />
It's unlovely, raucous, and quite scary for the people who insist that everything has to be filtered through the appropriately sanctioned organizations, to find out that rest of us are no longer willing to accept their decisions about who gets to be at the table.<br />
<br />
For a long time the small size of Delaware contributed to the illusion that we could all have a voice in what goes on, but lately our political leaders have become so smugly satisfied that they dropped all pretense at subtlety, and that gave away the game.<br />
<br />
Consider: when the new IEP Task Force was formed, the "parent representative" from New Castle County was the wife of a State Senator, and one of the House appointees was the spouse of a State Board of Education member, while the other was an incumbent campaigning for his political life against (you guessed it) a special needs parent. Several individuals with considerable experience were turned down as "parent advocate representatives" because that slot was reserved for somebody from the Federally funded Parent Information Center. I like Matt Denn, and he works hard for special needs children, but the political debts being paid here by somebody were pretty obvious.<br />
<br />
Or consider that when the Wilmington City Council meets this week to discuss Secretary Murphy's "Priority" schools plan, no public comment will be allowed. Unrestricted time for the appointed bureaucrats of the entrenched politicians--no time for response or rebuttal from parents, teachers, or district officials.<br />
<br />
They're scared that we're coming, and they're falling back on what has always worked for them before: plowing millions into political campaigns to keep you voting for more of the same.<br />
<br />
But if we don't lose our determination, and if populists on the right and populists on the left learn how to work together on some issues and always advocate for broader inclusion (even of their opponents), then guess what? We'll make inroads. We'll get there. Maybe not this year, and maybe not in 2016. But they are learning that it is not safe to ignore us.<br />
<br />
(The next thing they'll try is to buy us off. Be careful.)<br />
<br />
Be the change you want to see.Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-56899491160448785222014-10-04T12:11:00.000-04:002014-10-04T12:11:12.052-04:00Ron Russo's faux call for education "conversation"<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">During the 1950s in the USSR, people used to parse Pravda editorials for the smallest nuances of verbiage to try to determine which way the wind was about to blow. Something similar is happening with the current education debate in Delaware.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Parent and teacher outcries at RCCSD and CSD board meetings; parent comments at the IEP Task Force; the willingness of the DE PTA even to float a survey abo</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">ut test opt-outs; and the mildly worded letter by DSEA supporting its upstate locals represent a groundswell "push back" against corporatist education reform in our state that is unprecedented over the last decade.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/10/03/schools-go-operating-way/16654853/">Ron Russo's op-ed in today's WNJ</a>, combined with <a href="http://kilroysdelaware.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/murphy-goes-on-the-offensive-via-first-person-to-purse-state-takeover-of-red-clay-and-christina-school-boards/">Secretary Mark Murphy's "charm offensive" of the past week</a>, can be read as an indicator of just where the self-appointed intelligentsia intend to take the process now.<br /><br />All of a sudden, with the great unwashed of parents, teachers, and (now) district administrators, starting to rethink and rebel, the State has decided that its actions in designating "priority" schools and handing the districts a "sign by September 30 or we'll close your schools" MOU wasn't really about a State takeover.<br /><br />No, now it seems (quite retroactively), it was all about having a "conversation":<br /><br />Russo: "It is apparent from recent newspaper articles that various groups and individuals have differences of opinion on how to improve public schools. The good news is they share the same common goal – to provide every Delaware student with the best possible education.<br /><br />"If you accept the frequently stated premises that, 'One size doesn’t fit all' and 'You can’t take a cookie-cutter approach to education,' then the presence of multiple solutions is understandable and not necessarily adversarial. It should provide fertile ground for intense conversations."<br /><br />Please understand that this is crap, and that neither Mr. Russo (whose political-educational rehabilitation depends heavily on his willingness to parrot the party line when so ordered) nor Secretary Murphy (who can't keep straight in his many interviews whether the six priority schools are the lowest performing schools in DE or not) intends anything like an honest conversation.<br /><br />They intend to derail the whole process into another series of "stakeholder"-driven "conversations" in which they will re-arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic while assuring all the passengers that there are plenty of lifeboats.<br /><br />The use of "stakeholders" is the elitist attempt to stave off any real hint of unruly populism, whether it derives from rowdy parents or unrepentant unionized teachers. Just as "public comment" is a ghetto into which the leaders confine the ideas (that they're not really listening to) of those who--if they mattered--would be sitting at the adults' table, confining the conversation to "stakeholders" is a way of limiting the damage.<br /><br />The problem, of course, is that those uppity parents and teachers have broken out of the blogging and social media world and gotten themselves footholds in the unions, in the PTA, and even among our legislators, so now they have to be convinced to accept the idea of "being at the table" as their reward.<br /><br />Notice, however, that "being at the table" (as DSEA has hopefully finally discovered) is too often a synonym for "being ON the table" (as in "dinner") and is the last ditch effort of the corporate elites to keep control of the "conversation."<br /><br />We need to resist any acceptance of their ground rules for dialogue.<br /><br />Instead, let's invite them outside where the common people are having a picnic; eating and drinking too much; and letting their kids run around (possibly not always even wearing their bicycle helmets or knee pads).<br /><br />In other words: don't let them talk you into believing that success is falling for the idea that they're really listening to what you think.<br /><br />After November 4 they'll go back to doing whatever the hell they please.</span>Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-70915803433194410002014-10-01T11:14:00.000-04:002014-10-01T11:14:15.952-04:00Secretary Murphy's hypocritical "urgency"<div class="tr_bq">
When both the Red Clay and Christina School Districts "balked" last night at accepting the DE DOE MOU for the so-called "priority schools," and suggested they needed time to negotiate an alternative, <a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2014/09/30/red-clay-christina-balk-state-turnaround-plan/16514915/">Delaware Education Secretary Mark Murphy had this to say</a>:</div>
<blockquote>
<i>The state had originally planned on districts signing the plan by Tuesday. Murphy said the department will work with the districts to come to an agreement, but said the process needs to move quickly.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i><b>"Our kids cannot wait,"</b> he said. <b>"We need to have a sense of urgency about this."</b></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>If the state and districts can't reach an agreement within 120 days, the state could force the six schools to close or hand them over to charter school operators or other outside agencies.</i></blockquote>
Here's the appropriate response: Secretary Murphy, you're a hypocrite.<br />
<br />
This Priority Schools agenda is being mounted with fourth-year left-over funds from a three-year Race to the Top grant. The State received $119 million to spend on improving schools. You handed nearly $2 million to the Vision Coalition. You paid out millions to corporations for "data coaches" and "data consultants." You handed out millions to charter schools and other schools that were already performing to standard or even exceeding it. You paid Rebecca Taber a $12K/month "consulting" salary.<br />
<br />
In the add-on year (because you failed to spend all the money) you discovered "a sense of urgency" about these six poverty-riddled urban schools, and are now hectoring the school districts about how quickly they have to move?<br />
<br />
Let's not forget that the Delaware Department of Education, in recent years, cut the following out of its budget: Minner Reading Specialists, Minner Math Teachers, full funding for transportation for homeless children. Where was the sense of urgency about helping these students in these schools then?<br />
<br />
Here's the reality behind the "urgency" hypocrisy: Secretary Murphy has his marching orders. The City of Wilmington is to be converted into an all-charter school district so that corporate education reformers can do for Delaware what they did for such beacons of hope as inner-city Washington DC and Newark NJ.<br />
<br />
The State intends to use its vast expertise (so well demonstrated in the overwhelming success of Moyer) to make Wilmington a beacon for for-profit charter companies operating at taxpayer expense.<br />
<br />
That's what all this "urgency" is really about.Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-29495414014388647292014-09-30T18:41:00.000-04:002014-09-30T18:41:08.223-04:00Great School Leaders aren't in it for the MoneyTime to get a little personal, and a little real.<br />
<br />
There has been so much bandying about of the figure $160,000 as a salary for "school leaders" [when did we stop just saying "principals"?] in the so-called "Priority Schools" that I thought we all need a reality check.<br />
<br />
First, the corporate education reform party line: <a href="http://kilroysdelaware.wordpress.com/2014/09/27/recording-of-the-biggest-liar-in-the-state-of-delaware-re-sec-of-ed-mark-murphy/">Ed Sec Mark Murphy recently said that he doesn't know of a great school without a "great leader"</a> and that the $160,000 salary was to incentivize such great leaders to step forward and accept the challenges of high-needs schools. <a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/09/28/strong-schools-imperative-strong-economy/16384487/">Then our local "me-too" coalition of bankers and other Rodel hacks stepped up to agree with him</a>.<br />
<br />
Where this all comes from is the corporate mentality that says the only reason that people want to run the show is because the person who runs the show gets the best salary. These are the people who've always said things like <i>corporate CEO salaries have to be 300 times that of the workers, or otherwise we wouldn't get the very best people ...</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
So they naturally assume that teachers and educational administrators are in it for the money, which is a real laugh.<br />
<br />
I know a lot of those people in that elite group of "best school leaders" in Delaware over the past twenty years. One--my wife Faith Newton--I know <i>really</i> well, and I watched her spend countless hours turning around not one but two floundering urban middle schools (Central Middle School in Dover and Stanton Middle School if you're keeping score). Then I watched her come back to the Red Clay Consolidated School District as a School Board member after back surgery took her out of the active school administration game. I watched her take a massive pay cut to come out of disability retirement in order to go to work at DSU training teachers for half of what she used to make.<br />
<br />
You know what? By and large she never paid attention to the money. She paid more attention to getting the scheduling done, observing teachers, working with curriculum, managing the physical aspects of the building, courting grant money, talking to parents, encouraging students, making sure the cafeteria ran smoothly, organizing student mentors, chaperoning dances, and doing all of the 1,001 things that a principal (sorry, I am so done with "school leader") has to do in the average 75+ hour work week.<br />
<br />
Paying her more money would not and could not have given her more hours in the week to work or more reason to care about the teachers, kids, staff, and parents in her school.<br />
<br />
(This also applies to most teachers as well, but I digress.)<br />
<br />
Here's the thing: education, as much as the corporate hack reformers would like to make it about "preparing the workforce" or "achieving high standards on high-stakes tests" is generally about avocation and calling--like the military or the clergy. People go into these fields, for the most part, because some part of them is called or driven to undertake a life that will necessarily be challenging and fulfilling in ways other than total compensation and stock options.<br />
<br />
They are an idiosyncratic group, most educators. Those of you who live in Red Clay or Christina might love or hate Merv or Freeman, might vociferously disagree with this choice or that strategy, but do you really (REALLY?) believe in your heart of hearts that they're doing it purely for the big bucks?<br />
<br />
As Education Secretary Mark Murphy has proven, there are a lot of easier ways to get to the big bucks than being a superintendent--something he knows precious little about.<br />
<br />
Yeah, there are mediocre and even BAD principals and teachers out there. There are also bad soldiers, bad sales representatives, bad mechanics, bad CEOs, bad chefs, bad reporters, and bad governors, <i>ad infinitum ad nauseum</i>.<br />
<br />
But the reality is that almost NO competent school principal, classroom teacher, or district superintendent (yes, Joey Wise is the exception who proves the rule) is purely in it for the money.<br />
<br />
You want a good, no, a GREAT principal? Then have the courage to recruit for the traits that really lead to success in the job, rather than simply dangling a huge wad of cash and muttering about the lessons of corporate leadership.<br />
<br />
Look for somebody who has shown a driving passion for kids and their success first as a teacher and then as an Assistant of Associate Principal (often your very best principals will be those in their first such position, because they don't yet know what can't be done and will often do the impossible).<br />
<br />
Look for somebody who is so tough and independent-minded that they don't need guarantees of flexibility from Big Brother at DOE, because they're strong enough to take on their own district and get what they need.<br />
<br />
Look for somebody who has the reputation of almost never being in the office, and always showing up at the right place ("How do your find the principal, kids? Screw up and then look over your shoulder").<br />
<br />
Look for somebody who makes it a point to know 75%+ of the kids in the building by name by the middle of October.<br />
<br />
Look for somebody who not only knows curriculum, but can step into a suddenly absent teacher's classroom and start teaching without missing a beat.<br />
<br />
Look for somebody with high standards that teachers are relentlessly expected to meet, but who will fight to the death for the building faculty and staff against all comers when necessary.<br />
<br />
Look for somebody who hates to lose. Who refuses to lose.<br />
<br />
You can find these people ONLY if you convince them that the challenge is big enough and that they'll be able to do it their way.<br />
<br />
But here's the thing: the really great principals are also people with families and geographical preferences and (you'd better believe it) a survival instinct. So they only constitute about 5-10% of the available folks with the theoretically appropriate qualifications. You can't headhunt them. Unless you're lucky and one just walks through your door by accident, you have to spend weeks, maybe months, sniffing around to find them, and then figuring out how to make the challenge of <i>your</i> problem school sound so attractive that you can steal them.<br />
<br />
You don't get them with the bucks like Secretary Murphy thinks, and you don't get them as many of our districts do by simply promoting the next AP in line.<br />
<br />
You get them by simply taking as long as it takes to find the square peg who will re-drill the round hole in spite of all obstacles.<br />
<br />
And when you'll find them they'll help the teachers and students transform the building without ever wanting to take the credit for it.Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-26865820439654168122014-09-22T12:24:00.000-04:002014-09-22T12:25:31.215-04:00Time to make some changes in Dover: here they areYou deserve to know how candidates stand.<br />
<br />
OK, here it is--in detail. You may or may not like any specific point, but ask yourself: who else is willing to be this honest and this detailed about what they'd like to do?<br />
<br />
<b>Public Education</b><br />
<br />
<b>1. Let's change the State Board of Education from a politically appointed into an elected body. </b> Then <b>let's return to having a State Superintendent of Schools</b> who is hired and fired by that board based on his/her professional qualifications and performance.<br />
<br />
<b>2. Let's change the overall mission of the Delaware Department of Education into a primary emphasis on service and support</b> of our schools rather than being a junior-varsity co-regulatory agency that wants to be the US Department of Education.<br />
<br />
3. Let's create a statewide commission of teachers, higher education professionals, school administrators, parents, students, and community partners to <b>review the Common Core State Standards for ELA and Math</b> (the only ones that actually exist), to adapt them as necessary for Delaware use, and to become involved in the process of defining standards for Science, Social Studies, Fine Arts and other content areas.<br />
<br />
<b>4. Let's change the model of state assessments in Delaware</b> from a high-stakes model with draconian consequences (that makes passing this test literally the <i>only</i> thing that matters) into an information-gathering process that is used to <i>inform</i> rather than <i>drive</i> instruction and curriculum. We could actually just use NAEP for most of that, saving the State large piles of money that could be funneled into our classroom. <b>We would also include a parental opt-out of testing</b> in the package, but you know what? If the tests were for information-gathering purposes, I bet not that may parents would resist them.<br />
<br />
<b>5. Let's make some real changes in public education funding in Delaware. </b> We know that for a whole variety of reasons it costs more to educate poor children, so let's face that fact in a manner that makes sense. We'll change the state funding formula so that low SES kids count as 1.5-2.0 students for the unit count and State funding. School-community advisory boards in each school would have complete control of how the additional money is spent (more teachers, more tech, more programs). The additional funds would follow children to charter schools, with the proviso that any charter that expelled or counseled out a low SES child during or immediately after the school year would have to repay all the additional funds to the state.<br />
<br />
<b>6. Let's pay for it all by dramatically reducing the testing expenses at DOE</b> and eliminating most of the intrusive "teacher effectiveness" types of offices there in favor of sending the money directly into the classrooms. Let's also extend the legally permissible life of school buses to twenty years (they are safe; where do you think our private schools get their buses?), saving us up to 63% per year on bus replacement costs statewide.<br />
<br />
<b>7. Let's make school districts the primary approvers of charter schools</b>, so that we can build a more decentralized system of traditional, magnet, charter, and voc-ed schools that are actually innovating separately but working together to achieve student success. The level of cooperation and integration between the Red Clay Consolidated School District and charters like CSW and DMA (as well as the experience with RCCSD magnets like Conrad, Cab Calloway, and the IB program at Dickinson) suggests that this is a very workable strategy.<br />
<br />
<b>8. Let's finally address the education of special needs children in this State</b>, starting with the provision of a parent advocate in every IEP meeting, and holding the Parent Information Center's feet to the fire to do its job (the PIC receives substantial Federal funding, after all). Let's create an effective mechanism for due process complaints and mediation (which, despite official propaganda to the contrary) does not exist right now. Let's concentrate on getting our teachers the training and resources necessary to improve the lives of these kids (including the idea that we stop raiding their funding), rather than locking them into hours of pointless minutiae of the new, excessively bureaucratized (and arguably illegal) "standards-based" IEPs.<br />
<br />
<b>Corporate Welfare</b><br />
<br />
1. Businesses, I am often told, want predictability and low tax rates. Delaware's corporate tax rate is 8.7% with no brackets, but a whole boatload of exemptions and credits that the average voter never sees or hears about. Our nominal rate is comparable to those of California and Connecticut; significantly higher than Maryland's and significantly lower than Pennsylvania's. Here's the deal: <b>let's create a Corporate Flat Tax in Delaware</b>: 8.25% (same as Maryland) with NO exemptions or credits.<br />
<br />
2. Next, let's take the lion's share of the money we are scheduled to waste on future corporate incentives and do three things (A) put about 85% of it to work on our roads, bridges, schools, and waterways; (B) save about 15% to be used ONLY for small businesses; and (C) let's require a "public checkbook" online for all State and local government corporate subsidies, tax breaks, abatements, land-use deals, and other subsidies so that voters can actually see where their money is going.<br />
<br />
<b>Our Environment</b><br />
<br />
<b>1. Let's make the polluters</b>--whether they are private enterprises or government facilities (and about 40% of the installations commonly cited by the EPA for groundwater pollution are owned by some level of government) <b>pay to remediate the pollution they've caused.</b> It is a quite ludicrous contention on the part of our current administration that they cannot easily identify and/or locate polluters, since a major portion of the Governor's original plan called for giving out our tax dollars as grant money to the same corporations to help them clean up their own messes. If we can find them to send them money, we can find them to pay for the clean-up.<br />
<br />
2. Let's actually <b>enforce the Coastal Zone Act</b> instead of handing out exemptions and variances as political patronage.<br />
<br />
<b>Infrastructure</b><br />
<br />
1. Let's <b>stop raiding the Transportation Fund.</b> You'd think that would be simple. They all say we shouldn't do that, and then they all vote for budgets that steal the money. It's this simple: I will not vote for any budget that raids the Transportation Fund.<br />
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2. See Number 2 under "Corporate Welfare" above.<br />
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Jobs, Jobs, Jobs (I learned from the career politicians that you have to say it three times)<br />
<br />
1. Let's start by <b>eliminating as many licensing requirements as possible</b>, especially within the City of Wilmington, so that people are more free to start their own micro-businesses. If you want to pay somebody to cut your hair who does not have a barber's license, of if you want to "ride-share" in a gypsy cab--guess what? It is not the government's responsibility to protect certain trade groups by stifling competition.<br />
<br />
2. <b>Let's start giving away property to small business owners and entrepreneurs. </b> Wilmington has hundreds of abandoned properties, for many of which the city actually holds the title. Let's let anybody who walks in the door with a plan walk out the door with a ten-year tax free lease, and a guarantee that if s/he has put up a going business on the property it becomes theirs at the end of the decade. That's not corporate welfare, by the way--it's handing out a currently completely useless piece of property on the chance it turns into something. And I'd always give preference to people and businesses who were already established in the area.<br />
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<b>Fighting poverty</b><br />
<br />
1. <b>Let's enact a "living wage" into the tax code,</b> with the State of Delaware refusing to take income taxes from any individual or family until they are actually earning enough money to survive. What we lose in tax revenue (not that much) we will more than make up in reduced use of social services.<br />
<br />
2. While we're at it, <b>let's make the Delaware Earned Income Tax Credit for low-wage workers refundable</b>, and require the State of Delaware to actually pay its full-time workers better than fast-food wages. If the State is going to tell private industry how to pay workers, then the State should first be walking the walk and not forcing its own employees onto public assistance because they don't earn enough.<br />
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<b>Our Freedoms</b><br />
<br />
1. Let's <b>decriminalize home birth</b> attended by Certified Professional Midwives. While we're at it, <b>let's get rid of the restrictions that keep Nurse Practitioners and other medical professionals</b> who don't happen to be doctors <b>from practicing independently.</b><br />
<br />
2. Let's finally <b>end the War on Drugs in Delaware</b> by first decriminalizing and then legalizing marijuana, and by taking a default stance that serious drug dependence is a medical issue, not a crime. Let's also get all of our non-violent drug offenders out of jail, and expunge the records of non-violent drug offenders at least for all offensive committed before age 18.<br />
<br />
<b>3. Let's not fall prey to the idea that we can end violence in our urban areas by restricting the Second Amendment rights of all of our citizens.</b><br />
<br />
<b>4. Let's make government more transparent</b> by (a) real campaign finance reform; (b) ending "secret" Attorney General's opinions; (c) expanding Freedom of Information Act access to more fully include our state universities (as occurs in 48 other states).<br />
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<b>5. Let's start meaningful citizen oversight of law enforcement in Delaware. </b> Surveillance of law-abiding citizens needs to be stopped, the Delaware "fusion" center (DIAC) needs to be brought under civilian control (and have its budget brought into the light), and allegations of police misconduct must be investigated by civilian oversight boards, supported as necessary by officers with necessary expertise. We've got to stop letting police departments investigate each other.<br />
<br />
<b>6. Let's pass a "right to farm" law in Delaware </b>that gives small and hobby farmers the ability to sell their products without having to comply with onerous regulations required of massive commercial enterprises.<br />
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<b>7. Let's change the rules that have kept everybody except Republicans and Democrats from having equal access to the political system. </b> This is critical: the reason I'm not running as a candidate for either of the major parties is that both of them appear more interested in harvesting contributions, passing out political patronage, and staying in power than making tough decisions for our State. That's not to say that there aren't some really fine legislators in the General Assembly, but--sadly--they are very much in the minority, regardless of their party affiliations.Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-113447679678086862014-09-18T16:50:00.001-04:002014-09-18T16:50:57.945-04:00DE DOE officially insane: housecleaning needed--DSEA resignations also needed<b>Delaware Department of Education declares <span style="color: red;">Charter School of Wilmington failing academically!</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Delaware State Board of Education member calls for <span style="color: red;">Red Clay to be "punished"</span>!</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Delaware <span style="color: red;">Department of Education violates labor laws</span> with phony "turnaround" schools move!</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><span style="color: red;">Delaware State Education Association leadership needs to resign</span> ... from <i>something</i>!</b><br />
<br />
Let's take these one at a time, shall we?<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>DOE declares <span style="color: red;">Charter School of Wilmington failing academically!</span></b></div>
<br />
Whether you love the <i>placement</i> test or the Charter School law, everyone agrees on this: CSW has the foremost academic reputation in the state.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i>CSW is listed as the 10th Best High School in America</i><br /><i>CSW has a 100% college acceptance rate</i><br /><i>CSW has an 1880 SAT </i>average<br /><i>CSW has 99% of their students, year in and year out, meet or exceed all State standards</i></b></blockquote>
So you have to ask yourself ... What would you have to be drinking to believe CSW was failing academically? Apparently they serve some pretty strong Kool-Aid in the Townsend Building, because according to their "Growth Targets" model, even though 99% of CSW's students are scoring well on the high-stakes-test-of-choice-this-year, 49% of the students taking English and 52% of the students taking Math have failed to achieve their DOE computer-generated growth targets.<br />
<br />
Damn them, anyway--they keep ignoring their failures and going on to full rides at Harvard, Princeton, Rhode Island, NC State, and other mediocre schools too dumb to realize that the CSW experiment is failure!<br />
<br />
Or maybe ... just maybe (dare I say it?) it is the DOE "Growth Target" computer models that are a failure? Having to justify their existence even when a school excels at everything without their <i>assistance</i>, maybe DOE just keeps tinkering with the numbers until enough schools fail.<br />
<br />
How about this, Sam Paoli, Eric Anderson, and Henry Clampitt? Will Mark Murphy come calling next year to place CSW on Academic Watch? Maybe we should be considering a DOE-led "turnaround" effort to help out this failing school.<br />
<br />
It would be the story of the year ... except for the next one ...<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Delaware State Board of Education member calls for <span style="color: red;">Red Clay to be "punished"</span>!</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It was the June 2014 State Board meeting at which politically appointed Board member Patrick Heffernan chose to cut loose against the prolonged dialogue that the Red Clay School Board, Red Clay administration, parents, and teachers had over Special Education this past spring.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
You may recall that parents and teachers challenged the administration's new inclusion plan as poorly drawn, vaguely resourced, and created without adequate public input. You may also recall that the Board decided to put off adoption until there was time for such public input, and that--three months later--the original plan died an unnatural death when a unanimous School Board sent the administration back to do it all over again. So be clear: neither Red Clay's board, nor Red Clay's teachers, nor Red Clay's parents rejected the concept of inclusion. They rejected a specific plan as poorly conceived, and demanded a better one.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Apparently Patrick Heffernan wasn't paying too close attention to what actually happened when he said <a href="http://exceptionaldelaware.wordpress.com/2014/07/23/part-3-of-the-delaware-doe-the-eye-of-the-hurricane-in-special-education-netde-edude-usedgov-delaware_gov/">this</a>, in his official board capacity:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white;"><i><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Heffernan:</strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;"> So that brings up, I wrote this down, sometimes we talk about, I struggle sometimes when we call out districts and sometimes when we don’t, but I know this year, <span style="color: red;">I’ll use Red Clay as an example</span>, they had a <span style="color: red;">vote on whether or not they should implement inclusion</span> plan, right? I don’t understand why, you know, this has been law of the land since the 70’s and now we’re going to vote as to whether or not we should do inclusion. I don’t get that and I don’t understand, you know, </span><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">we talk about good cop/bad cop thing, <span style="color: red;">I don’t maybe wanna focus on what punishment someone’s gonna get by these things</span>, but I don’t even think we have any punishment to give them</strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;">, but if we at least do something good, <span style="color: red;">if we have punishment, you know</span>, whatever we should be doing in, you know, 2014 when were voting not to do inclusion, right?</span></i></span></blockquote>
So now we have a political appointee who doesn't have the first freaking clue what he's actually talking about calling for Red Clay Consolidated School District to be <b>PUNISHED</b> by the State for <b><span style="color: red;">the crime of listening to parents and teachers, then telling the administration to hit a higher standard </span></b>... Obviously that kind of behavior MUST BE STOPPED before it spreads to other districts.<br />
<br />
I've got it, they said at DOE, we'll punish Red Clay by taking three of their schools away from local control ...<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: red;">DOE violates labor laws</span> with phony "turnaround" schools move!</b></div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
The Red Clay Education Association has a signed, legally instituted Collective Bargaining Agreement with the employer of its teachers: the Red Clay Consolidated School District. It governs, among other things, the due process rights of teachers and the procedures that must be used in order to remove them.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
DOE's plan to make every teacher in Warner, Highland, and Shortlidge re-apply for his/her job is a blatant violation of State and Federal labor laws, because nobody gave either the General Assembly, the US DOE, or the DE DOE the ability to abrogate contracts unilaterally. DE DOE is NOT EVEN THE EMPLOYER OF RECORD for these teachers, no matter how the unit count is funded.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There are other issues involved in the so-called "turnaround" process that gives the lie to any belief that Governor Markell, Secretary Murphy, the State Board of Education, or even the Charter School Network are not collectively (and with coordination) pursuing the same strategy as Newark NJ, which is to convert the entire City of Wilmington into a "charter only" school district. That, as RCCSD Board member Adriana Leela Bohm and State Representative John Kowalko pointed out so eloquently pointed out at Wednesday's board meeting, completely self-evident at this point.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
DE DOE, which considers CSW a failing school, and whose governing Board has called for Red Clay to be "punished," has now officially announced that the law doesn't matter--State education bureaucrats can dictate whatever policies their little heartless chest cavities desire, since--apparently--they don't believe anybody has the brains, the heart, or the guts to stop them.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And speaking of the heart and guts, that brings me to my fourth and final story:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: red;">Delaware State Education Association leadership needs to resign</span> ... from <i>something</i>!</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
As the "turnaround" story was unfolding, DOE and Rodel trotted out the leadership committee of the laughably ineffective Vision Coalition to pimp on the letters page of the News Journal for the necessity of doing all things in the strict manner prescribed by DOE/Vision [now consolidated into ED25], and essentially condemning everybody who questions their wisdom as backward hicks and social deviants.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>Among the signatories of that letter was one <span style="color: red;">Frederika Jenner</span>, President of the Delaware State Educators Association.</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Let's see: when one of your largest locals has just passed a resolution rejecting the school turnaround model for Red Clay, what do you do? Disown them by supporting the people who are breaking the law?</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
There's something wrong here, and it appears that the State leadership of the 12,000-strong DSEA is playing both sides of the fence.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
You cannot present yourself as representing (and spending hundreds of thousands of member dues in political contributions) the teachers of Delaware if you also present yourself as representing and supporting the organization that is systematically destroying the careers of those teachers by (among other things) violating labor law.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
So you have a choice. In order to retain some shred of intellectual consistency or moral authority, the individuals on the DSEA State Board need to pick one of the following options:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>A. Resign from all leadership and committee positions with the Vision Coalition and remove DSEA's stamp of approval for the process.</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
OR</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>B. Resign from the DSEA State Board so that you can continue to pursue the goals of corporate reform without having to deal with your conscience for selling out the people you were voted into office to represent.</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Pretty much, it's really that simple.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Parents--if you want your children to have a chance at a decent public education (maybe you mistakenly aspire to get them into CSW or want an appropriate placement for your Special Needs child), then you are almost out of time to act.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Because if you don't act ... at the school board, at public meetings, and with the ballot box ... Delaware DOE is simply going to continue to push forward with its insane strategy of fixing what's not broken, condemning the people who care about their kids, and trampling the law whenever it is expedient to do so.</div>
</div>
Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-12853559374662563442014-08-27T21:01:00.002-04:002014-08-27T21:01:19.519-04:00The endorsement game: or how to keep the game well-riggedAs a candidate you get sent (or <i>not sent</i> as we shall see) various questionnaires and offers for interviews from different organizations looking to endorse (or at least "out" somebody) during the election.<br />
<br />
Some of these organizations actually have some political clout, and others just want to appear to have it.<br />
<br />
But the whole game is strangely devoid of any relationship to the stances of the candidates themselves, and as you play it, you discover that on many levels nobody actually cares what your position on issues is, because it is only your party identifier that matters.<br />
<br />
Three cases in point:<br />
<br />
1. The <b>Delaware AFL-CIO</b> sent me a questionnaire and invited me to an interview. I went. I'm the only person running in my district who actually has had any union experience, and in fact I was a union president for six years. Nobody else running in my district even bothered to fill out the questionnaire. Many of my answers (as people who know me well will know) were far more pro-labor than my Libertarian party-identifier would suggest. In my "interview," the one guy sitting there had (a) not read my questionnaire; (b) took ten minutes to find my questionnaire on his iPad; and (c) actually fell asleep twice in the middle of the interview (I know I talk too much sometimes, but really). Then he told me that the AFL-CIO would hold its endorsement convention in two weeks and the he would contact me pro or con the Monday after. That was a month ago; he never wrote, never communicated, and--naturally--the AFL-CIO did not endorse me. The most truthful statement he made during the process was, "We don't discriminate by party, only position, but we'd probably never endorse a Libertarian." (Oh, and despite rhetoric to the contrary, the Delaware AFL-CIO endorsed two candidates who never filled out a questionnaire.)<br />
<br />
2. The <b>Delaware Campaign for Liberty</b> represents itself as non-partisan, and explained that it hadn't sent me a questionnaire because third parties don't have primaries, and therefore they don't send out questionnaires to candidates who don't have primaries until closer to the general election. Of course they DID send a questionnaire to my Democratic opponent, who (surprise, surprise) doesn't have a primary, either. When I asked about this, I was told that on the day that Libertarians get more than "0.5%" of the vote they'd send me a survey. The reality is that C4L in Delaware is only interested in electing "Liberty" Republicans, and its director sees the Libertarian Party as competition in that regard, so he really doesn't want my answers running alongside those of the GOP candidates. Oh well.<br />
<br />
3. The <b>Delaware State Education Association</b> [DSEA] is a "big dog" in electoral politics. This is not because DSEA actually impacts legislation [unfortunately, it rarely does], but because DSEA spends a lot of money trying to elect legislators who will vote their way, and keeps spending that money on them no matter how many times they vote against the interests of Delaware teachers. Three examples: <br />
<br />
(a) Bryan Townsend did not even get an interview in 2012 because Tony DeLucca was considered a "friendly incumbent" and got the nod; this year, after having championed DSEA's causes for two years, Senator Townsend was informed that both he and his primary opponent would be interviewed because he couldn't be declared a "friendly incumbent" based on his performance in the General Assembly; [he finally got the nod this week when white smoke was seen emerging Frederika Jenner's chimney, because apparently experience does matter ... if only a little];<br />
<br />
(b) in the Sean Matthews-Dennis Williams primary, DSEA refused to interview and endorse anybody, even though Matthews is a dues-paying, politically active member of (you guessed it!) the DSEA;<br />
<br />
and (c) in my own case, with four candidates running, at some point before cave men figured out how to round the edges off wheels to make them roll better, DSEA declared Joe Miro a "friendly incumbent," and they are sticking to that (with no interviews and no questionnaires for the other three candidates) despite the fact that at least two of the three have expressed views far more in keeping with those of the DSEA member teachers than the incumbent. I've endorsed and campaigned for all the resolutions that the teachers passed at the last DSEA membership convention (and I'm the only one in the race who has done so), but I don't get a shot at the endorsement because, well, apparently your actual position on education simply does not matter to Frederika Jenner and her State leadership collective.<br />
<br />
Upshot of all this?<br />
<br />
Most of these organizations (at least at the State leadership level) are so tightly tied to maintaining the status quo that they don't actually provide more than lip service to the idea that the policy positions of the candidates matters.<br />
<br />
It's the Delaware Way.Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-30505423774284248362014-08-16T18:17:00.001-04:002014-08-16T18:17:24.289-04:00My Editorial about Highmark that you can't quite read at Delaware OnlineThis was printed in today's paper, but somehow (I'm NOT speculating) it is not available in the online edition.<br />
<br />
So find out what a Libertarian thinks about State-enforced corporate monopolies:<br />
<br />
-----------------<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It isn’t news that Delawareans pay higher health insurance
premiums than most Americans, or that many families can’t access A. I. DuPont
Children’s Hospital because of a feud between the doctors and insurance
bureaucrats.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Some reformers dream of a single-payer health-care system,
where taxes cover the costs, patients pay no premiums or co-pays, and the cost
of medical care goes magically down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
bill to enact stand-alone single-payer for Delaware is introduced—and ignored—in
the General Assembly every year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The reformers don’t understand that we already have a
two-payer health insurance system in Delaware, and that second payer has no
intention of losing its monopoly to the government.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Just over 50% of Delaware’s citizens receive health
insurance via the government, through Medicaid, Medicare, Chips, or various military
programs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The remainder sits in the
“private insurance market.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Over 90% of this “market” dominated by a single entity:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield of Delaware.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A 90% market share usually characterized as a monopoly,
which generally means fewer choices, poorer service, and higher prices for
consumer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Pennsylvania Judge Patricia McInerny recently characterized
Highmark of Delaware’s parent company as a “supposedly ‘non-profit’
corporation,” while ruling that Pennsylvania law was so vague Highmark could
legally claim a $432 million profit as “incidental.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Highmark’s empire includes major (if not monopoly) insurers
in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and West Virginia; the nation’s second-largest optometry
chain; multiple dental plans; lucrative Medicare processing contracts and
supplemental insurance policies; and investment in or ownership of urgent care
centers and hospital chains.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Executive Vice President David O’Brien says that Highmark
intends “to expand our footprint in the provider world,” meaning that the
company plans to purchase hospitals, clinics, and medical practices.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thus the insurance company paying your doctors could also be
their employer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In West Virginia, Highmark is the only company listed on the
health insurance marketplace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
Delaware it might as well be:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Highmark
has acquired roughly 93% of all sign-ups.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In Pennsylvania Highmark purchased a hospital chain and
fought a trade war with the University of Pennsylvania Medical Centers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among the casualties were thousands of
Highmark customers who either lost coverage or had claims denied for visiting a
competing hospital.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In Philadelphia, independent optometry shops allege that
Highmark gives its subsidiaries preferential treatment in dealing with
customers who have Highmark vision plans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In a 2012 case heard by US District Court Judge Roy Flowers,
Highmark admitted having paid varying rates to different providers for exactly
the same services.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On entering Delaware, Highmark received $175 million in
corporate welfare from our General Assembly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Our State Insurance Commissioner wanted a gigantic company atop the
Delaware market because “<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">small
health insurers have struggled to compete with large national insurers who have
billions of dollars of capital and resources.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">MedExpress, a chain of urgent care centers in which the Highmark
parent company has a $52 million (about 10%) investment stake, followed
Highmark into Delaware.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Within months, locally
owned competitors were informed that they had sixty days to meet new standards
of operating and credentialing (designed by Highmark, and, coincidentally those
of MedExpress) or they would cease being reimbursed for services at the
standard rate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">One local doctor/owner who attempted to resist these changes
alleges that his family’s insurance claims were denied in blanket fashion; thousands
of dollars in payments to his clinic were unreasonably delayed, and his
employees’ policies were abruptly audited—all in six months. Highmark and the
State Insurance Commissioner contend that these acts were coincidence and
routine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The doctor has since sold his business to a national chain
that does not accept Medicaid (as he did).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The strangest part of this story is that it doesn’t appear
to be news in Delaware.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A recent inquiry
to the Insurance Commissioner’s into Highmark’s status by a local citizen
required almost two years to generate a one-paragraph dismissal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None of our legislators or government leaders
appear willing to talk about the Highmark monopoly on private health insurance,
or the company’s reach into Medicare, vision plans, or dental insurance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Nobody seems willing to draw the logical conclusion that
Highmark’s premiums (already among the highest in the nation) are scheduled to
go up another 5% in 2015, despite the parent company’s $4.4 Billion cash
surplus, because monopolies foster profit taking, not competition.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">One of the reasons I am running for State Representative is
to bring this issue out into the open, and force our government to confront the
question:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is what’s good for Highmark
really good for Delaware?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-24076616209237874282014-07-25T11:04:00.002-04:002014-07-25T11:04:26.759-04:00Delaware, corporations, and the lie that is "Economic Patriotism"Before you start reading this article, here's a teaser: the man who just argued for a large dose of "economic patriotism" is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Lew">US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew</a>, who (ironically?) has made a career out of moving between government posts and ... representing Citigroup interests in the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, and Hong Kong tax sanctuaries.<br />
<br />
The News Journal gets it wrong ... again.<br />
<br />
Editorializing about the issue of "corporate inversion," that is, corporations like Walgreens ceasing to be American companies and moving their operations overseas for tax benefits, <a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/editorials/2014/07/23/fixing-tax-system-save/13066531/">the WNJ says</a>,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Corporations consider this action because of what they see as problems in the U.S. tax structure. <b>The U.S. corporate rate can be as high as 35 percent, the highest among industrial nations.</b></i></span></span></blockquote>
OK, this is the standard party line for corporations, government, media, and both major political parties in Delaware, and it is oh-so-predictably followed by the rest of the corporate party line:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>The most obvious solution would be to lower the tax rate</b>. Congress should not come up with temporary fixes, such as tax holidays for repatriated profits. Instead, it should bring the rate into line with other countries.</i></span></span></blockquote>
First, let's be clear: corporate tax rates (despite the nominal tax rate of 35%) are nowhere near that, because of all the tax breaks that corporations have purchased themselves. <a href="http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/effective-corporate-tax-rates/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0">Quoth the NYT on a General Accounting Office study</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;"><i>Profitable <b>corporations based in the United States had an effective federal tax rate of 13 percent on their worldwide income</b>, 17 percent including state and local taxes.</i></span></blockquote>
Moreover, effective corporate tax rates have declined by about 30% over the past three decades:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">According to the </span><a href="http://www.irs.gov/uac/SOI-Tax-Stats---Historical-Table-15" style="background-color: white; color: #326891; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;" title="Historical data from the Internal Revenue Service.">Internal Revenue Service</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">, corporations had gross profits of $1.8 trillion in 2007 and taxable income of $1.2 trillion. Since the Tax Reform Act of 1986, new corporate tax preferences have widened the gap between gross income and taxable income. In 1987, gross corporate profits reported on tax returns were $328 billion and taxable income was $312 billion. <b>Thus since 1987, taxable income has fallen to 68 percent from 95 percent of gross income.</b></span><b> </b></i></blockquote>
D<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/26/us-usa-tax-corporate-idUSBREA1P04Q20140226">ozens of the largest US corporations pay no taxes whatsoever</a> when their tax liabilities are offset by the tax breaks, credits, and subsidies they receive:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><a name='more'></a>Citizens for Tax Justice looked at 288 profitable Fortune 500 companies and said that 26 of them - including <span class="mandelbrot_refrag"><a class="mandelbrot_refrag" data-ls-seen="1" href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BA.N&lc=int_mb_1001" style="color: #006e97; cursor: pointer; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Boeing Co</a></span> (<span id="symbol_BA.N_0">BA.N</span>), <span class="mandelbrot_refrag"><a class="mandelbrot_refrag" data-ls-seen="1" href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GE.N&lc=int_mb_1001" style="color: #006e97; cursor: pointer; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">General Electric Co</a></span> (<span id="symbol_GE.N_1">GE.N</span>) and <span class="mandelbrot_refrag"><a class="mandelbrot_refrag" data-ls-seen="1" href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=VZ&lc=int_mb_1001" style="color: #006e97; cursor: pointer; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Verizon Communications Inc</a></span> (<span id="symbol_VZ.N_2">VZ.N</span>) - paid no federal income tax in the five-year period.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;">The group also said that 111 of the 288 companies paid no federal income tax in at least one of the five years measured.</span> </i></blockquote>
Note: in this article a Boeing spokesman challenges these results, arguing that during that period his company paid $2.9 billion in corporate income tax. This ignores <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/15/boeing-state-taxes_n_4281100.html">an $8.7 billion tax break Boeing received just last year</a>, or <a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2023026545_boeingtaxesxml.html">the $199 million tax refund the Feds issued Boeing in 2013</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #303030; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Boeing’s tax return for 2013 is complete. Although the aerospace and defense giant booked a profit of $5.9 billion last year, the U.S. government winds up owing the company $199 million.</i></span></span></blockquote>
That's not a one-time event, either:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030; line-height: 19px;">Over the past dozen years, during which Boeing reported to its shareholders a total profit of more than $43 billion, the company’s net cumulative refund of federal tax is more than $1.6 billion.</span> </i></span></blockquote>
The reality is that huge, multi-national corporations are no longer capitalist entities, but rather are tax farmers for the State and welfare parasites, as <a href="http://nblo.gs/YFrI5">Libertarians Joel Schlosberg and Thomas Knapp write in C4SS</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #31353c; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Underneath the veneer of common interest between the government, big business, and the general public provided by the legitimizing ideology of “patriotism,” there is and always has been a symbiotic corporate-state alliance parasitic on the latter. The state provides corporations such favors as liability shields, regulations keeping out new competitors, and labor laws preventing workers from holding out for higher wages.</i></span></span></blockquote>
Moreover, Schlosberg and Knapp point out that all this government agonizing over tax breaks and borders is an example of selective outrage:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><span style="color: #31353c; line-height: 24px;">It is true that the corporate-state alliance has been strained by the panoply of neoliberal economic policies. But <b>“globalization” requires doing away with borders only very selectively, when it suits corporate purposes.</b> The American superstate and its international “trade partners” are more than willing to ignore borders when corporations benefit by moving goods from low-cost labor centers to high-profit sales centers. But that same state and those same partners consider borders of paramount importance when it comes to capturing the tax revenue that pays for all the perks their corporate symbiotes depend on for their continued existence.</span> </i></span></blockquote>
This brings us to a very important point about Delaware, that Scholsberg and Knapp inadvertently make:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><span style="color: #31353c; line-height: 24px;">Corporate influence skews the implementation of even public services as seemingly neutral as roads in a direction that benefits corporations first and the public second.</span> </i></span></blockquote>
The WNJ talks about the scare that Pfizer would purchase AstraZeneca and leave Delaware high and dry:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px;">Most Delawareans became aware of the problem when the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, an American company, tried to take over AstraZeneca, a United Kingdom company. Both have operations in Delaware and in Maryland. Pfizer's announced intention was to switch its incorporation from the United States to the United Kingdom and gain a lower tax rate. Luckily, the attempt failed.</span> </i></span></blockquote>
What the News Journal conveniently forgets to acknowledge (amidst all the gnashing of teeth over our "hole" in the highway budget) is that part of the sweetener to bring AstraZeneca here in the first place <a href="http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/03/29/astr-m29.html">the State of Delaware gave the company $110 million in corporate welfare</a>, including a $70 million road-building project that improved the roads around the plant:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px;">Upon its founding through a merger in 1999, AstraZeneca received over $40 million in grants and tax credits from the Delaware state government to establish its North American headquarters in Fairfax. It employed about 5,000 workers there as recently as 2005. The Delaware Department of Transportation spent another $70 million improving the roads in and around the new campus. But in 2011, the company eliminated its entire research department on the Fairfax site, laying off 550 researchers there, as well as 600 more workers throughout the country. In addition, it began the demolition of 450,000 square feet of laboratory space which was only 10 years old. It is also working to sell two more buildings on the campus.</span> </i></span></blockquote>
This is precisely "skewing" of the implementation of public services that Libertarians are talking about. Do you really believe that the best investment of $70 million in our roadbuilding funds was improving the entrance for AstraZeneca?<br />
<br />
So while the News Journal and all the politicians from the "major" parties are out pimping for lower corporate tax rates on the one hand, and passing out corporate welfare checks with the other, you've got to ask yourself, "When is this ever going to change?"<br />
<br />
Believe it or not, it's starting to. Groups like the Americans for Democratic Action, the Greens, the Libertarians, the Campaign for Liberty, and even the 9-12 Patriots are starting to find some common ground in terms getting the overwhelming corporate influence out of Delaware politics.<br />
<br />
It certainly won't happen overnight, especially as none of these groups has managed to elect anybody to the General Assembly to be a more public voice. But it is starting to happen.<br />
<br />
And, of course, our local Gannett-owned corporate media won't be telling you about it when it does.<br />
<span id="midArticle_2" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans;"></span>Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-38785259273498805022014-06-30T20:35:00.002-04:002014-06-30T20:35:25.607-04:00Welcome to the campaign!If you're just finding this page via the State Board of Elections website, welcome.<br />
<br />
A lot more material has recently been up and running on my Facebook page, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Newtonfor22ndStateRep?ref_type=bookmark">Steve Newton for 22nd State Representative</a>, and I encourage you to go there and "like" the page for continuous updates.<br />
<br />
I also encourage you to sign up down the right side of this page to join our email list, and (even!) to visit the little red, white, and blue porcupine to make a donation.<br />
<br />
My formal stands on major issues like Education, Corporate Welfare, Health Care, the Environment, Government Transparency, Law Enforcement, and Your Rights will be up here very soon.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, the Facebook page is the best place to be.Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-57784514551918236752014-04-08T19:54:00.000-04:002014-04-08T19:54:41.120-04:00It's time to end high-stakes testing in DelawareSince nearly everybody running for office is getting editorial columns in the WNJ, I thought I should join the fun.<br />
<br />
Here's what I sent them:<br />
---------------------------------------------<br />
<br />
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nearly
two decades of high-stakes testing have left Delaware’s public schools with a
legacy of failure.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
co-chaired the Governor’s Social Studies Curriculum Frameworks Commission from
1992-95. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our commission included teachers,
parents, students, administrators, academics, and business partners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All commissions held public meetings, engaging
in deliberations to create “world class standards” in English, Math, Science,
and Social Studies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We did our job well
enough that many of those standards remain in place today.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Those
standards were designed to be tested via “performance assessment,” but the
General Assembly thought individualized testing cost too much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, they approved the DSTP, which lacked
reliability and validity; failed to assess all the standards; and was compromised
by backroom politics from day one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>DSTP
was high-stakes:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>students who failed could
not be promoted to the next grade without summer school and retaking the test.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As
the first legislators’ and donors’ kids failed, student accountability evaporated.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Under
No Child Left Behind, consequences migrated to the schools, rated via a complex
system of “cells” that often left Annual Yearly Progress for each building determined
by test scores of a handful of students.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One elementary school repeatedly failed AYP due to the scores of
profoundly handicapped children who never entered the building, but lived in
that feeder pattern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>School districts employed
full-time managers to challenge attendance patterns and force failing scores to
be credited to other districts.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When
the US Department of Education announced waivers to exit this insane system,
Delaware got in line.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Meanwhile,
DCAS replaced DSTP, and SBA is now replacing DCAS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you don’t comprehend the acronyms, don’t
worry: they’ll change again.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Race
to the Top brought Delaware $119 million for data analysis, teacher learning
communities, Common Core, and testing computers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Simultaneously, the General Assembly cut
reimbursements for transporting homeless children to school.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Accountability
in high-stakes testing now descended on teachers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>State
bureaucrats generated strict, test-based teacher accountability regimes, while
legislators enacted unprecedented regulations for teacher preparation programs
in our universities.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>None
of this actually improved public education, which Governor Jack Markell tacitly
admitted in his State of the State Address: “Only 20% of our kids graduate from
high school ready for college or a career.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Content
standards and standardized tests have their place in education, but high-stakes
testing has proven not merely ineffective, but also potentially harmful.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Pursuing
the idea that moving the consequence to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this</i>
group, or changing to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> test will
abruptly erase the socio-economic disparities dogging public education has
wasted critical resources.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Delaware
alone, hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars and tens of thousands of teacher
preparation hours have not been spent placing great programs at inner-city
schools, providing full funding for special needs students, or turning lose the
individual creativity of classroom teachers. Resources devoted to music, the
arts, the humanities, physical education, and special needs have declined.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Here’s
a modest plan for returning to sanity:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>First,
exempt special needs students on IEPs from standardized testing that often
traumatizes them and rarely returns valuable data.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Second,
accept the unanimous recommendation from teacher representatives in the
Delaware State Education Association and legislate a parental “opt-out” from
standardized testing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Third,
revisit the adoption of Common Core.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Research indicates that content standards should not be so extensive
that they become a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">de facto </i>curriculum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The breadth of Common Core—all arguments
about quality placed to the side—is too wide to leave room for instructional
depth or teacher creativity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need a
Delaware process, driven by your child’s teachers and not political/corporate
reformers, to re-examine our academic standards.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Finally,
cap testing costs to direct resources back into the classroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When our poorest schools have access to the
high-quality programs like Gifted & Talented or Odyssey of the Mind that
our suburban schools boast, we can consider new testing expenditures, not
before.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
money already invested in the high-stakes testing mania is irrevocably lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Parents, teachers, and voters must now unite to
insure that more good money does not follow the bad.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Send
resources into our classrooms, not new testing computers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
</div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Steve Newton is Professor of History and Political Science at Delaware State University and the Libertarian candidate for State Representative in the 22nd District.</div>
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<br />
<!--EndFragment-->Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-4207429545858112522014-03-14T11:10:00.001-04:002014-03-14T11:10:20.690-04:00Who knew Karen Weldin Stewart was a States' Rights advocate!Delaware Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart is taking on the Feds over a States' Rights issue?<br />
<br />
Wow. Or maybe not "Wow."<br />
<br />
Here's the deal: <a href="http://thelastembassy.blogspot.com/2014/03/aca-individual-mandate-you-dont-need-no.html">the Obama administration has semi-covertly but legally announced that it is selectively not enforcing the individual mandate under the ACA</a> and not collecting the tax penalty, <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/hhs-extends-fix-for-plans-cancelled-due-to-obamacare-through-october-2016-alters-bailout-to-insurers/article/2545141">as well as extending the exemptions for those with non-conforming policies</a> . . .<br />
<br />
. . . but KWS has now said (h/t <a href="http://delawareway.blogspot.com/2014/03/insurance-commissioner-steward-warns.html">Nancy Willing</a>) that Delaware will not recognize that:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;"><i>“Delaware law, as currently written, does not allow for the extension of non-compliant health plans after January 1, 2014. Furthermore, allowing the two-year extension of previously cancelled and non-compliant plans has the potential to raise premiums for everyone and could disrupt the market in Delaware.”</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px;"><i><snip></i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1394797842712_29387"><i id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1394797842712_29386">“I would like to take this opportunity to remind consumers who do not have health insurance coverage that the open-enrollment period to sign up for a new plan will close on March 31, 2014. Individuals who do not have health insurance after this date may be subject to a tax by the IRS next year."</i></span></span></span></blockquote>
So I guess KWS--who doesn't care at all that <a href="http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/2014/01/delaware-is-currently-two-payer-health.html">Delaware's private insurance sector has become a monopoly for Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield</a>, or that <a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/03/13/delaware-families-deserve-more-from-unitedhealthcare-/6377161/">United Health Care is unilaterally cutting off Medicaid patients from the premiere children's hospital in the region</a>, has suddenly discovered the 10th Amendment, and the ability of the State of Delaware to nullify Federal law.<br />
<br />
Unless, of course, she's figured out (and KWS figuring out <i>anything</i> on her own is quite a stretch) that President Obama and HSS don't actually have the legal authority simply to change the terms of Obamacare by fiat . . .<br />
<br />
Nah. Not buying that one. My theory is that the insurance companies are starting to push back against President Obama's continual backpedaling over his own signature legislation, because he's now starting to cost them serious money. Since nobody in Congress is willing to do that, they're looking to their industry sock puppets in the States to do the work for them, since folks like KWS have <i>always</i> been there for the insurance industry before.<br />
<br />
Read <a href="http://mungowitzend.blogspot.com/2014/03/cant-even-lie-straight.html">Duke economist/political scientist Michael Munger's brief take</a> on this, and you'll realize immediately what's going on.<br />
<br />
As for KWS, here's the story: RING, RING. "Hello?" "We need you to jump." "How high?"Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-68675135289341072352014-03-13T20:49:00.001-04:002014-03-13T20:49:06.536-04:00Today's WNJ is full of reasons to elect a LibertarianLet's see:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/nation/military/2014/03/11/dover-base-could-lose-aircraft-in-new-budget-/6300093/">We have the typical Gannett corporate journalism piece on why cutting the Defense budget is bad because it will reduce the staffing and equipment at Dover AFB.</a> Implied is economic disaster, even though economists long ago worked out that <a href="http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/2012/05/cutting-defense-budget-wont-hurt.html">money taken out of the military budget and put back into the economy in other ways (even by the government) creates more jobs and more prosperity.</a><br />
<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">A Libertarian answer: Let's continue taking money out of the largest military (not "defense") budget on the planet, and put that money to far better, non-violent use either by returning it to the taxpayers or at least by investing in roads, bridges, and schools as we somehow find it absolutely critical to do in Afghanistan and Iraq, but not in Delaware or Pennsylvania.</span></b><br />
<br />
Then, in the surprise of the century, <a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2014/03/12/delaware-task-force-tip-toes-past-finance-reform/6352167/">the Delaware General Assembly Task Force on campaign reform decides that it is more important to change primary dates to accommodate the preferences of incumbents than to make recommendations about campaign finance reform.</a> Signing off on it, one member has a sudden attack of honesty and declares the work to be "very shallow."<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;"><b>A Libertarian answer: <a href="http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/2014/01/we-wont-get-real-campaign-finance.html">I've already suggested it</a>: Money only from individuals, not groups or organizations, and a campaign spending limit equal to gross one-year-salary for the position being sought.</b></span><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2014/03/12/markell-takes-roads-rivers-pitch-to-sussex-/6344655/">Governor Markell ominously advises Sussex Countians to support his gasoline and water taxes or see their businesses go under</a> because nobody likes the pollution or bad roads. For a man who just discovered in the sixth year of his term that Delaware's water was polluted, and who let the fund for highway repairs head for broke <a href="http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/2014/03/helping-delaware-and-joe-miro-solve.html">while he was handing out over $43 million per year in corporate subsidies annually</a>, this is apparently the zealotry of a deathbed conversion. Or just some cynical "legacy making" wherein he will be out of office before we get the bill.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;"><b>A Libertarian answer: Again, <a href="http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/2014/02/there-are-numbers-between-zero-and-500.html">I've already suggested it</a>: start by cutting out corporate subsidies and other pieces of obvious waste, prioritize our spending and our projects, and build from the start both an infrastructure and an environmental agenda that's actually financially sustainable without being regressive.</b></span><br />
<br />
Finally, there is <a href="http://Another form of economic development invests entirely in preschoolers so that as adults, they have the skills to become successful in the workplace. Some might even emerge as business owners who themselves create jobs. Early childhood education as economic development, however, does not grab the same headlines as news that a new company is coming to town with a promise of hundreds of jobs. Yet the outcome of investing in Delaware's youngest learners can generate a stronger, if not a better, return than traditional investments. Its effects create an improved workforce, strengthen our communities and reduce crime.">the spectacularly tone-deaf editorial by PNC Region VP Nicholas Marsini Jr</a> which praises early childhood education because the overriding purpose of our schools is apparently a return on investment in jobs:<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; line-height: 22px;"> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;">Another form of economic development invests entirely in preschoolers </span><b style="color: #222222;">so that as adults, they have the skills to become successful in the workplace</b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;">. Some might even emerge as </span><b style="color: #222222;">business owners who themselves create jobs</b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;">. </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">Early childhood education as economic development, however, does not grab the same headlines as news that a new company is coming to town with a promise of hundreds of jobs.</span></b></i></span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="color: #222222;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Yet the outcome of investing in Delaware's youngest learners can generate a stronger, if not a better, return than traditional investments. Its effects create an <b>improved workforce</b>, strengthen our communities and reduce crime.</i></span></blockquote>
Maybe this passes for enlightened social commentary among bankers, and maybe Mr. Marsini is correct in that the only way we'll get corporate Delaware to actually invest money (as opposed to divert taxpayer money for its own purposes) in our schools is by selling them strict "return on investment" scenarios. If he is right, and the idea of public education enhancing democracy, building citizenship, creating critical thinkers, or nurturing the talents of each child (no matter how they may not relate to employment) is all lost, then so is American civilization.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;"><b>A Libertarian answer: let's acknowledge that we've got to fix Wilmington before we solve education problems for Delaware's poorest children; that we have to stop WASTING tens of millions of dollars each year on high-stakes testing, ridiculous teacher accountability regimes, and bureaucratic waste in order to have the money to invest in research tested initiatives; and that we have to get back to valuing the investments of parents, teachers, and local school boards in Delaware's children more than we value the investments of bankers and politicians.</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;"><b><br /></b></span>
Can I get this ALL done as a single Libertarian in a General Assembly controlled by Democrats and Republicans (who pretty much already agree with each other on everything but marriage equality)?<br />
<br />
No, I can't.<br />
<br />
But what I can do it force them to start have REAL conversations, and looking at alternatives outside the box, and representing somebody besides the PACs that currently control Delaware elections.<br />
<br />
If you think that's important, then whether you live in the 22nd District or not, think about looking to the right and sending me a few bucks. The well-heeled, corporate-backed incumbent is collecting PAC donations at $600 a shot like he usually does. Give me from $5-25 from a few hundred people and I'll give him a race like he's never seen--like Delaware's never seen.<br />
<br />
I'll give him an actual race about ideas . . . .<br />
Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-26503004385722172852014-03-09T22:16:00.003-04:002014-03-09T22:16:43.733-04:00Food stamps in Delaware and the real welfare queens17% of Delaware citizens are on SNAP [Food Stamps]. That's 157,000 people.<br />
<br />
Many of those, and thousands more, receive food assistance from the Food Bank of Delaware.<br />
<br />
25% of Delaware citizens are on Medicaid, and that number will grow in the Medicaid expansion.<br />
<br />
This leads to several recurring arguments:<br />
<br />
First, there are the arguments about people deserving or not deserving the assistance. <a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2014/03/08/food-stamp-use-increasing-in-delaware/6218559/">Today's WNJ story certainly hits that note</a> [and you know the authors knew it would]<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px;">Currently, this year's food stamp benefits average out to pay $1.40 per person per meal, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. It's not a lot, said Lawana Pipkin of Wilmington, <b>a mother of seven children ages 18 to 2, with another on the way.</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px;">"It can become, like, stressful, very depressing," said Pipkin, who one morning last week had no milk for her children's breakfast and was unable to afford more. She was about a week shy of receiving her March food stamps.</span></i></span></blockquote>
This brings out the folks who want to argue about Ms. Pipkin's choices in having 7+ children with no means of support across two decades, and that's certainly a realistic observation. It is an observation made on the strength of a single sentence, with no information about mental illness, or injuries, or other life conditions, but it is still a legit question.<br />
<br />
My immediate response would be that eight individuals receiving $4.25/day equals $34/day and therefore $12,410 per year if Ms. Pipkin received SNAP benefits every day of the year. A welfare queen? Possibly.<br />
<br />
But, hey, if she is, she's an amateur compared to <a href="http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/2014/01/before-we-go-bailing-out-dennis-mcglynn.html">Dennis McGlynn of Dover Downs, who managed to talk the General Assembly into an $8 million bail-out of his industry so that he could keep his $700,000+ salary. </a><br />
<br />
Or how about the tens of millions <a href="http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/2014/03/helping-delaware-and-joe-miro-solve.html">the State of Delaware has handed over in welfare payments/subsidies </a>to likes of Delaware City Refinery ($32 million), Fisker Automotive ($21.5 million), Bloom Energy ($16.5 million and counting), Amazon ($7.5 million) . . . ?<br />
<br />
So while I deplore fiscal waste and bad choices as much as the next guy who wants to be your State Representative, here's my thought: let's deal with the welfare queens taking tens of millions of my tax dollars before I start worrying about Ms. Pipkin.<br />
<br />
Now my second observation: as a Libertarian I don't like Food Stamps or other such programs, because I really do believe that society could be structured so as not to need them any more. Someday. But not in the foreseeable future. So my solution to SNAP and other domestic transfer programs is similar to what Utah is doing for the homeless.<br />
<br />
Instead of programs, let's just kill the bureaucracy and give poor people the money in the form of a guaranteed annual income.<br />
<br />
Lest my Libertarian friends think I've gone crazy, please note that there are plenty of Libertarians out there who support this idea. Take <a href="http://reason.com/archives/2013/11/26/scrap-the-welfare-state-give-people-free">Reason</a>, for example:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Perhaps the best example of the demeaning nature of the current welfare system is the SNAP program, otherwise known as food stamps, which works by giving recipients a card that can only be used to buy a selection of government-approved goods. Alcohol, tobacco, pet food, and vitamins are only <a href="http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligible-food-items" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #f37221; cursor: pointer; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">some of the products</a> that those on food stamps cannot buy because the powers that be have determined that they know what is the best lifestyle for food stamp recipients.</i></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Instead of treating those who, often through no fault of their own, have fallen on hard times like children who are incapable of making the right choices about the food they eat or the drugs they may or may not choose to take, why not just give them cash? Doing so would not only cut down on the huge administrative costs of America’s welfare programs, it would also promote personal responsibility and abolish much of the humiliation and stripped dignity associated with the current welfare system.</i></span></blockquote>
Or take <a href="http://mungowitzend.blogspot.com/2013/12/guaranteed-income-vs-open-borders.html">Mungowitz and Angus of Kids Prefer Cheese [if you really are a Libertarian, you know who they are, right?], who have long advocated for such.</a><br />
<br />
Here's the real point: if we actually get around to cutting corporate subsidies and other forms of welfare that allow the government to pick the winners and losers in the private sector, we'll have plenty of money to use to figure out the best way to feed hungry children and put them in a position where they'll never need hand-outs again.<br />
<br />
So if you're not willing to go after the politicians who subsidize the corporations, don't come to me complaining about Ms. Pipkin and her kids, OK?<br />
Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-42924417993151751142014-03-05T20:34:00.000-05:002014-03-05T20:34:11.082-05:00A Libertarian case for unions<a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/2014/03/05/right-to-work-laws-would-hurt-delawareans/6081593/">Today Representative Kim Williams has an op-ed in the WNJ about unions and "right to work."</a><br />
<br />
(Excursus: it is a tribute to how badly I hate the new layout of both the paper and the website that I didn't even see this piece until somebody put it up on Facebook this evening. Food for thought.)<br />
<br />
It's pretty important for me, as a Libertarian candidate, to note that I take a left-Libertarian, almost market anarchist stand on this issue, following along the lines of mutualist Kevin Carson, and that I find the rights of association among workers to be just as important as the prerogatives of management.<br />
<br />
(Readers interested in theory are referred to Carson's <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/labor-struggle-kevin-carson/1111500010?ean=2940012985446">Labor Struggle: A Free Market Model</a>.)<br />
<br />
I've served as a union grievance officer (2 years) and a union president (6 years), albeit in a labor organization nearly unique (but still allowed) in Delaware. The DSU faculty is an open shop. Unit members do not have to join or pay dues to benefit from the contracts we negotiate and enforce; as a union we have to <i>earn</i> that 0.75% of their salaries. (We currently have about an 85% membership rate.)<br />
<br />
Given all of the statist tools that have been given to corporate and business entities with which to drive labor prices down, some form of labor organization remains absolutely necessary in order for the workers to be able to pursue their equally justified agenda of raising their own salaries and benefits to the greatest degree possible, and (a factor most writers do not consider) to both improve working conditions and defend their unit members from arbitrary and capricious conduct.<br />
<br />
Libertarians love contracts more than laws, but contracts mean nothing without an ability to enforce the terms. You don't want to know the number of times (not just in my own organization) that I have watched managers blatantly violate agreements they had made with their own workers regarding sick leave, or hours, or working conditions, or the timely payment of salaries owed. An individual worker facing a huge corporate organization has little or no chance at redress, even in the courts. Perhaps even especially in the courts. An active union can help balance the scales.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, the passage of Wagner and Taft-Hartley almost fatally crippled unions by taking away a wide variety of non-traditional strike related activities, and the current public meme that police officers firefighters, teachers etc. should not have the right to strike is one more assault on the ability of workers to exercise their right to free association and mutual contract. <br />
<br />
Maybe I'm too radical for Delaware: I do not believe that the State should have the power to prohibit <i>anyone</i> from striking. The multiple scenarios of societal disaster that would occur from such strikes are highly overplayed by a huge public relations/propaganda machine that (you guessed it) operates at the behest of corporation and State.<br />
<br />
"Right to work" zones are nothing more than attempts by companies to get the State to forcibly give them preferential treatment in the form of special powers to nullify the workers' right of free association. They are, effectively, more corporate welfare.<br />
<br />
A true free-market model of labor relations would find companies having to deal directly with their employees in order to realize a dynamic that makes it possible for both sides to prosper. <br />
<br />
Sure, there is a meme circulating out there that "union greed" nearly killed the American automobile industry. Horse puckey. What nearly killed the American automobile industry (and what <i>should</i> have killed at least one of the too-big-to-fail "Big Three" a few years back) is a track record of idiotic decisions about product lines by the managers of the American automobile industry.<br />
<br />
Anybody remember the disaster that was the Chevy Vega in the 1970s? Or <i>any</i> car produced by Oldsmobile during the last ten years of that line's existence? Organized labor didn't design the damn cars that fell apart or that nobody would buy; workers on the line just built them to spec.<br />
<br />
Here's the bottom line: there is a coercive aspect to unions that Libertarians tend to dislike, and too often in the blurry line that conservatives attempt to use to fuzz over the difference between the two ideologies, the Libertarian position is simplistically portrayed as "anti-union."<br />
<br />
The reality is that since Wagner, Taft-Hartley, and a variety of other Statist/corporate mechanisms tilted 98% of the economically and socially coercive power toward corporations, I'm more than willing to start by scaling back corporate coercive power until the dynamic is a hell of a lot closer to 50-50, and then we work on both ends of the issue at the same time.<br />
<br />
We've got a lot of years to go before we bring that equation back into balance, thanks to courts and legislators who "gave away the farm" while cheerfully pocketing all those union campaign contributions.<br />
<br />Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-62599039207803640222014-03-04T20:20:00.000-05:002014-03-04T20:20:46.072-05:00What's wrong with this picture?<a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/politics/2014/03/03/newark-board-sets-data-center-hearing/5995923/">This photo ran in today's WNJ atop a story about another hearing on the proposed data center/power plant in Newark:</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguv-RGf8OPnvEpD4SM77-M1pVQQuPYWVZdwir0u8UrXRcfDCxqQ3SyJkIZZGtSZBcnSxwxRowp1l4iIAbY78TnJPRplvM6gOJwzdShvZg0dFL7_rUPRVt_BMiqRIacOLLvhH-XTqToJVQ/s1600/signs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguv-RGf8OPnvEpD4SM77-M1pVQQuPYWVZdwir0u8UrXRcfDCxqQ3SyJkIZZGtSZBcnSxwxRowp1l4iIAbY78TnJPRplvM6gOJwzdShvZg0dFL7_rUPRVt_BMiqRIacOLLvhH-XTqToJVQ/s1600/signs.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
So what's the problem?<br />
<br />
The problem is what my friend Cassandra M at Delawareliberal calls "a false equivalency."<br />
<br />
First, let's google <a href="http://www.nonewarkpowerplant.org/about/steering-committee/">NoNewarkPowerPlant.org for the page entitled "Steering Committee"</a> and this is what you'll find:<br />
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Twelve Newark residents, including some well-known local activists like Jen Wallace and Nancy Willing, who have gotten together to fight what they believe (agree with them or not) is a bad decision to construct a power plant with a data center attached . . . .</div>
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Whereas if you visit <a href="http://delawarejobsnow.org/about/">the comparable page for DelawareJobsNow.org</a>, you will find a list of well-heeled lobbying organizations for a variety of special interests--the same folks who have been purchasing politicians "in the Delaware Way" for decades:</div>
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My personal favorite is <a href="http://deedorg.com/">D.E.E.D, the so-called Delawareans for Environmental & Economic Development</a>:</div>
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That's, uh, the entire website, and the "Latest Articles" headline is not a link. DEED does say on its FB page that <a href="http://www.DEEDworks.org./">a new site is under construction</a>, and here it is:</div>
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What you do find is that nowhere on the DEED site (either of them) can you actually find a list of names of the people involved. That "unique coalition of Delaware labor and business leaders" is apparently so proud of their endeavors that all the members have chosen to remain . . . anonymous.</div>
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If you do visit the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/DEED-Delawareans-for-Environmental-and-Economic-Development/223249861024058">DEED Facebook page</a> (which currently sports an awesome 54 likes and a "most popular" week back in December 2013 when 7 people were "talking about this"), you can discover that our anonymous group has some significant heft--at least if you look at the guest list.</div>
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<b>Tony DePrima, Executive Director, Delaware Sustainable Energy Utility<br />Chip Rossi, Delaware Market President, Bank of America<br />Ed Rendell, former PA Governor<br />US Senator Chris Coons<br />Governor Jack Markell<br />Representative Dennis E. Williams<br />DNREC Secretary Colin O'Mara<br />Finance Director Ann Visali</b></blockquote>
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(By the way, if you visit the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/nonewarkpowerplant">No Newark Power Plant FB page</a>, they have 426 likes and 66 people currently talking about them.)</div>
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(And in case you think I didn't check, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DEJobsNow">the Delaware Jobs Now FB page</a> has 44 likes and nobody visiting the page--besides me--in weeks.)</div>
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Why is this all important?</div>
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Because the Delaware Way.</div>
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The News Journal shows you the photo of the two signs--one "for" and one "against"--and visually attempts to make the point that there are two groups, two sides to every story, sort of a visual equivalence.</div>
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The reality is that there is one grassroots group with almost no funding and a lot of individual activists hustling, and another semi-anonymous organization that contains leading Delaware Democrats, investment movers and shakers, and lots of bankers or attorneys.</div>
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This is how things "get done" in Delaware. Delaware Jobs Now is a front organization for large campaign contributors, contractors, developers, and financiers pretending to be grassroots. No Newark Power Plant (again, love 'em or hate 'em) is exactly the same kind of real grassroots organization that groups like those who fought against the gun control agenda, or those who fought for marriage equality.</div>
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Yep, I put the Greens Jen Wallace in the same sentence with somebody like Eric Boye from Delaware Campaign for Liberty, full well knowing that they agree on nothing.</div>
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Well, not quite nothing. Both of them would agree that the thing that scares Delaware politicians the most is the idea of plain old citizens organizing around an idea or a principle, and being willing to make signs, stage rallies, and take their case to any forum they can find in order to gain just a little leverage against the corporate hacks who really run this state.</div>
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We need those groups--right and left (you rarely find them in the center)--Libertarian, Green, and C4L--because as fractured and underfunded and contentious as they are, guess what?</div>
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They're pretty much the only political hope for meaningful change in Delaware in any direction.</div>
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<br />Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347777205673087515.post-49619553259881887812014-03-02T12:16:00.001-05:002014-03-02T12:16:15.852-05:00Talking about Delaware pollution without the lies and evasions<br />
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Like the Vichy French police official Louis in <i>Casablanca</i> who was "Shocked! I tell you, shocked!" to discover gambling at Rick's Place (while pocketing his winnings), the strategy of Governor Jack Markell, the rest of Delaware's "major party" politicians, the Editorial Board of the Wilmington News Journal, and our so-called "corporate leadership" has been to pretend that the discovery of pollution in the First State is the fault of . . . Delaware citizens.</div>
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More to the point, it is Delaware citizens who are going to be hit with a $700,000,000 bill for a multi-year clean-up--the overwhelming majority of which will find its way into the hands of the same corporations who dumped toxic chemicals into our air and water for years.</div>
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THIS is the famed "Delaware Way."</div>
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I'm going to lay it out for you. It will be long and it will be unlovely, and I will take no prisoners.</div>
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I'm not ready to get into finding (and funding) the solutions yet, because we cannot do either until we are honest about who caused the problems and we get those responsible away from the decision-making process for the clean-up.</div>
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If we don't, the state's major polluters (which include, by the way, both our major corporations AND our state/local governments) will simply pocket hundreds of millions more of our tax dollars without ever dealing with the problem.</div>
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So here goes.</div>
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<b>Part One: Denial and cover-up</b></div>
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<b><br /></b>First, let's look at <a href="http://www.wdde.org/56075-governor-markell-2014-state-of-state-address">what Governor Markell said in his recent State of the State address</a> (his fifth, and the one in which he suddenly discovered that Delaware has a pollution problem):</div>
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<i>Look specifically at our waterways. <b>Water is the foundation of our tourism industry. It’s vital to agriculture, manufacturing, and everything that we do</b>.</i> </div>
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<i>Yet <b>a century of pollution has impaired nearly every waterway in our state</b>. While we have significantly reduced air pollution and cleaned up brownfields, far too many streams remain unsafe, as Senator Lopez keeps reminding us.</i> </div>
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<i>We can’t eat our fish from the St. Jones. We can’t swim in too many parts of the Inland Bays. The Christina and Brandywine rivers are laced with toxic pollutants.<br />This is embarrassing. This is unacceptable. We must change it.</i> </div>
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<i><b>This won’t be easy or cheap</b> – but it is achievable. We must upgrade wastewater and drinking water plants and improve stormwater infrastructure. And we must use cutting-edge technologies to remove toxic substances, like we are doing right outside this building at Mirror Lake thanks to the strong advocacy of Senator Bushweller.</i> </div>
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<i>To work toward these goals, next month, I will propose the Clean Water for Delaware’s Future Initiative. <b>The goal of this initiative is to clean up our waterways within a generation.</b> Some much faster than that.</i> </div>
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<i>In our time, <b>this will create jobs</b>. In our kids’ time, we will revitalize communities across our state. We owe future generations clean water. It’s that simple.</i></div>
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Now please notice several items:</div>
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1. Water pollution in Delaware is a problem because it is a problem for our tourism industry, our agriculture industry, and our manufacturing industry, not because of cancer clusters or the quality of life of Delaware citizens or the damage done to plant and animal life.</div>
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2. Water pollution--"a century of pollution"--just sort of happened. Nobody is to blame. Nobody is to be held accountable. Shit happens, and it happens immaculately in our waterways. It would be not just improbable but physically impossible for Governor Markell's lips to form the sentence, "Extreme pollution in Delaware exists in large measure because too often the government has crawled into bed with the State's worst corporate polluters."</div>
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3. The clean-up "will create jobs." You're going to see that line again. It is important because it is <b>code</b> for, "The clean-up will funnel hundreds of millions of dollars right back into the coffers of the corporations who created the pollution in the first place." You have got to love the definition of <i>SUSTAINABILITY</i> in Delaware, where sustainability is the never-ending opportunity for corporations to benefit both from polluting the environment and from pretending to clean it up.</div>
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4. "This won't be easy or cheap" is also code for, "This will be paid for by Delaware taxpayers because this State never has and never will have the stones to make the entities that polluted the water pay for it."</div>
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Now, let's take a look at <a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/tech/science/environment/2014/02/28/sunday-preview-delawares-dirty-water/5903237/">what Markell administration heavies are out saying in today's WNJ</a>:</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>"The time has come to have dedicated resources over a multiyear plan to actually put the projects on the ground that we know are necessary," said Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control Secretary Collin P. O'Mara, "and then to try to accelerate those projects on a time frame that allows us to see the benefit in our lifetime and also puts a bunch of folks to work right now."</i></span></span></div>
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Notice the recurring themes here: (1) no discussion of <i>HOW</i> we got into this mess or any accountability for those who allowed the situation to occur; (2) Delaware taxpayers will have to pay for it ("dedicated resources"); (3) "puts a bunch of folks to work right now"--jobs, jobs, jobs [but if the experience of Delaware superfund clean-ups is any guide, many of those jobs will go to out-of-state companies who will bring in their own equipment and their own skilled employees].</div>
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Somebody really ought to explain <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window">Frederick Bastiat's "broken window fallacy"</a> to Jack Markell and Colin O-Meara.</div>
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Next, notice how <a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/editorials/2014/03/01/putting-an-end-to-delawares-watery-disgrace/5915405/">the <i><strike>Wilmington Daily Markell</strike></i>, oops the <i>Wilmington News Journal</i> picks up the echo </a>that the primary blame for this environmental crisis is not our leaders--political or corporate--but the citizens of Delaware:</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>We are living with a legacy of environmental damage. Delawareans' habits of yesteryear were not kind to the soils and waters we want to leave for our grandchildren. But yesterday is not the only problem.</i></span></span></div>
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Notice the code words again: "Delawareans' habits of yesteryear"--that's you and me who were apparently responsible for not reigning in Metchem or DuPont when they were busy dumping chemicals most of us cannot spell into our waterways.</div>
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<b>If we are serious about not just cleaning up our waterways, but holding the people and institutions accountable who polluted them, then <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">the first thing we have to do is challenge Governor Markell's toxic narrative about how this all happened. </span></b></div>
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<b><br /></b>Until we do that, nothing else matters, and our tax dollars will continue to swirl (along with PCBs) down corporate rat holes and you still won't be able to drink, fish in, or swim in our water.</div>
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<b>2. Acknowledging reality.</b></div>
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<b><br /></b>Delaware's water pollution reached the point of complete systemic toxicity due to (1) deep and continuous failures on the part of our elected leaders; and (2) willful, consistent pollution by crony corporatists who have profited from government benevolence for decades.</div>
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Cases in point:</div>
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A. Delaware (the second smallest State in the nation) currently has 19 EPA Superfund-designated clean-up sites. For our size, only New Jersey has a greater concentration per square mile.</div>
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B. This is the current list, because it doesn't include the ones that have been finished, or the ones under contemplation. When you add those, <a href="http://www.epa.gov/reg3hwmd/super/de.htm">the list blooms up to forty-six sites</a>, and we edge out even New Jersey for the crown.</div>
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C. On <a href="http://projects.nytimes.com/toxic-waters/polluters/delaware">the New York Times 2009 list of major water polluters in Delaware</a>, there are forty polluters who between them have notched 699 polluted water discharge violations between them from about 2006-2009. Of those forty entities, only one--the Lewes Sewage Treatment Plant--has ever paid a fine for its violations. Oh, and of those forty entities, eighteen are owned by the government [Federal, State, or local]. That's right, nearly half of the entities in Delaware cited for water pollution violations are owned by the government. No wonder they don't pay. By the way, the worst offender in terms of total number of violations (104) is the Laurel Sewage Treatment Plant. Other fascinating names on the list include Amtrak (38 violations), DuPont Pigments (28 violations), the Greenville Country Club (15 violations), City of Wilmington Pollution Control (5 violations), and Winterthur Museum (2 violations). By the way, the State of Delaware (thank you Governor Markell and Secretary O-Meara) refused to provide a comment to the New York Times on this issue. Wonder why?</div>
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D. Delaware's regulatory system is so hopelessly compromised by industry insiders that <a href="http://www.delawaretoday.com/core/pagetools.php?pageid=6558&url=%2FDelaware-Today%2FApril-2008%2FOf-Dioxin-Dumps-and-General-Degradation%2F&mode=print">even <i>Delaware Today</i> takes notice:</a></div>
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<i>It may be a Sisyphusian task, environmentalists say, but officials could do a lot more. <b>“The major threat is lack of meaningful enforcement,”</b> says John Flaherty, former executive director of Common Cause of Delaware. <b>“It’s not an environmental issue. It’s more of an accountability issue. We need to have our laws enforced for the benefit of the people, not special interests.”</b></i><b> </b></div>
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<i>There simply aren’t enough enforcers, according to a January 30 article in The News Journal. The story reported that <b>18 of 75 positions in the DNREC air quality management program are unfilled</b>, and that the 24 percent staff shortage is much greater than those at other “notoriously” under-staffed state agencies, “including the Delaware Psychiatric Center and Department of Correction.”</i> </div>
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<i><b>What’s more, the panel that oversees funding of the program—generated from fees for smokestack permits—is dominated by industry representatives. The panel has opposed fees that would pay for the program, and panel members have suggested their plants might leave the state if smokestack fees are increased.</b></i> </div>
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<i>“An old-time ballplayer once said, ‘I cheat fair and square.’ Well, you can’t blame the players for cheating. You have to blame the umpire,” Flaherty says. “[Polluters] want to cheat fair and square using whatever political pull they can. <b>I don’t blame them for trying that. I blame our state officials for succumbing to that.”</b></i></div>
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A more detailed industry case study would be our poultry industry, which is one of the region's major polluters. Read what <a href="http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/Reports/big-chicken-85899361375/#sthash.8PhnQHxx.dpuf">Pew has to say</a> about how the industry itself has successfully fought against any state regulation for years:</div>
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<i><b>“Big Chicken” describes the emergence of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and the environmental impact of this industrial-scale production.</b> The process creates massive amounts of broiler litter, the mix of manure and bedding taken out of the CAFO. <b>Growers typically dispose of litter by spreading it on open fields or cropland, but when it is over-applied or poorly managed, rain washes it into streams and rivers, causing significant water-quality problems.</b></i><b> </b></div>
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<i>A case in point is the <a href="http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/fact-sheets/cleaning-up-the-chesapeake-bay-8589942050" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Chesapeake Bay</a>, which is infused with excess nutrients generated by broiler litter from the adjacent Delmarva Peninsula. <b>Maryland and Delaware alone produce roughly 523 million chickens a year, along with an estimated 42 million cubic feet of litter—enough to fill the U.S. Capitol dome nearly 50 times annually, or almost once a week.</b></i><b> </b></div>
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<i>“The environmental consequences of the broiler business’s explosive growth are especially profound in the Chesapeake Bay, one of the nation’s most important, scenic and threatened bodies of water,” said <a href="http://www.pewenvironment.org/about-us/experts/meet-the-experts/robert-martin-8589940486" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Robert Martin</a>, an expert on industrial animal agriculture reform at the Pew Environment Group. <b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">“Instead of working to limit the effects of all this chicken waste, the industry has fought to avoid responsibility for cleaning up one of our national treasures.”</span></b></i></div>
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And yet, fully aware of this, Governor Markell's administration not only turns a blind eye toward it, <a href="http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/2014/03/helping-delaware-and-joe-miro-solve.html">but awards companies like Perdue and Mountaire millions of dollars in state subsidies</a>.</div>
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<a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/tech/science/environment/2014/02/28/sunday-preview-delawares-dirty-water/5903237/">Even the WNJ finds it impossible to ignore the legacy of large polluters completely</a>:<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Around Wilmington, research has shown that some of the region's top industries also rank as some of the worst water polluters in the 13,000 square mile Delaware River watershed, and significant contributors to toxic contamination that led to fish consumption warnings.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>During the past decade, studies tagged Amtrak's heavy locomotive shops in Wilmington as the far-and-away largest source of PCB contamination from stormwater runoff. The same research tagged the now-bankrupt and abandoned Standard Chlorine Metachem chlorinated benzene plant near Delaware City – once the world's largest producer of some pesticide and insecticide ingredients – as the top discharger of PCB-laced wastewater.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Other plants, including DuPont's Edge Moor pigment factory, also were found to be PCB culprits.</i></span></div>
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DuPont, by the way, also receives millions in taxpayer-funded subsidies and tax rebates.</div>
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But wait, go back and look: the worst source of PCB contamination from stormwater run-off in the State is . . . Amtrak? You mean the company we just built a brand spanking new railroad station for in downtown Wilmington? Gee, you mighta thunk it would have been a better use of our tax dollars to clean up PCB run-off first and limp along with the old station for another decade, but no . . .</div>
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Because jobs. And Joe Biden.</div>
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When you get right down to it, our elected officials--Democrat and Republican alike--have consistently not just refused to deal with environmental harm in Delaware, not just consistently failed to enforce existing laws, not just looked the other way while their corporate donors dumped tons and tons of cancer-causing crap into our waterways--they also kept funneling more state money into those corporations for jobs, jobs, jobs . . .</div>
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In other words, our leaders rewarded them for polluting by handing them more tax dollars.</div>
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And now it is our problem to fix.</div>
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Yes, that's both right and wrong. It is our problem to fix, because it is our water and air that is increasingly toxic.</div>
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But under what logic do you ask the same people--politicians, administrators, corporations--who knowingly created this disaster not only to fix it, but to (reluctantly) accept hundreds of millions more of our tax dollars while they are doing say.</div>
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Because the Delaware Way.</div>
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Because you vote Democrat and Republican and won't even consider that it doesn't matter: these folks worked together to make our water undrinkable, unfishable, and unswimmable.</div>
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Maybe we have met the enemy and he is us, at least if we are stupid enough to continue doing the same thing over and</div>
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Steve Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093237200707622411noreply@blogger.com1