Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts

CrowdGov Re-Boots the System

Crowd Government Re-Boots the System
MyVote.uk has been crowd-sourcing votes in the UK with Parliment for some time. They announced back in Sept that they were going to be even more directly involved with the voting process. This is the only way for the future. We have millions with smartphones and wifi. We can access the issues from anywhere at any time. We can give our representatives our vote directly. CrowdGov is not only possible, it is here and it is working. MyVote.uk has shown us the way.

There is no website yet called CrowdGov.com. Someone owns it, but they aren't doing anything with it yet. But this is the path to the future, and away from Presidents who torture, and Congress who does nothing except spend $660 million on things we don't want. This is the way to be rid of people like the Koch brothers, and other super-rich who lobby and pressure and buy their way into pushing this country where we don't want it to go. This is the way to get rid of useless, unwanted bills taking time from the floor, and oversight committees around subjects we could care less about.

It can happen. Look at El Paso Tx Schools! Texas!! If that can happen, this can happen.


Teachers and Parents need to Stop listening to Secondary Sources

Remember in school, when we learned the difference between Primary sources of information and Secondary sources of information -- and why the two are not the same? 
  1. primary source is a document or physical object which was written or created during the time under study. These sources were present during an experience or time period and offer an inside view of a particular event. Some types of primary sources include:
  2. Primary vs Secondary Sources

    www.princeton.edu/~refdesk/primary2.html
    Princeton University
A parent just asked me if I had answers for the problems with Common Core. Apparently the teachers in her district are looking for ways out of using CCSS. The problem is, the answers are in the Core. 

See, as soon as they succeed in removing CCSS from their school system, then life becomes seriously difficult, because as soon as Common Core is gone, then they are back to 10 years ago under ESEA and the No Child Left Behind hell of 2002. Since every school failed that impossible thing, and the 12 years are up, this means that the schools will be closed, until a new plan can be presented to the Dept of ED, and approved. Most of the teachers will be fired and likely the principal as well. Probably what will happen is the school will be sold to a charter corporation and then re-opned. ESEA and NCLB are laws, not suggestions. Moving into the Race to the TOP program using as a standard CCSS, allowed Obama to give your school an out, and get you from under that mess of a law, since Congress won't fix it.

Obama came up with the "patch" solution of Race to the Top, but to satisfy the requirements of ESEA and NCLB each state is required to have in place a set of standards which demonstrate an ability to "ready students for College ..."  The Gov.'s of each state, seeing that ESEA was going to cut their throats (the changes made by NCLB are simply impossible to achieve. They sounded good when they were adopted, even reasonable, but they didn't take into account the many realities of  education. Too many realities were ignored. In fact, so many that I do not believe a single public school district made the minimum goal once in the 12 year period given to them.) The Gov's came up with CCSS back in 2007, starting development in 2008. At 2010 they had it ready when Obama came up with his waivers and Race to the Top.

It is important to remember here that ESEA and NCLB are not policies or suggestions, they are laws. It falls to the Executive branch to enforce those two laws. Obama has no choice in this. But he also understood that it was impossible to achieve the dictates. 

NCLB -- since the schools were all at "Failure" for more than four years -- dictates that 1) all the teachers, plus the principal should now be fired and replaced with teachers capable of making the goals. (which is impossible for two reasons, 1) all of the teachers are fired, there are not enough to hire available and 2) all the goals are impossible to meet no matter who is teaching the kids) Next the State should take over the school directly OR the school should be sold to a private corporation -- wish I was making this up, but you can verify this here on my blog where I pulled out these amazingly daft dictates.

You'll notice this part --   Institute and fully implement a new curriculum, including providing appropriate professional development for all relevant staff, that is based on scientifically based research and offers substantial promise of improving educational achievement for low-achieving students and enabling the school to make adequate yearly progress.

That there is where Race to the Top comes in, and the need for a fully developed, heavily researched set of standards is needed to satisfy the law. The states had this, developed by the National Governors Association (NGA) The Dept of Education read over the CCSS, and gave their nod to Obama as being acceptable. 

That is and was Obama's only interaction with CCSS -- Simply to accept the DOE's assessment. I'll point out here too that it is against federal law for any Federal Office, including Obama as President, to involve itself with the schools directly at the local level... which is why he could not develop CCSS himself or have it created or suggest that it be created or anything else. The states had to do this themselves. 

So much for Federal plans of Indoctrination. All of this stuff about CCSS is BS. It is a very simple, unoffending, non-dictating set of standards. 


Paul Krugman Sums Obama Up

Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize winning Economist took a second look at Obama in an article published in Rolling Stones, and then a follow up with ABC News. His conclusion? Obama is likely to be the most effective, and certainly the most successful president we have ever had. 
“Bill Clinton is an incredibly gifted politician,” Krugman told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl. “But, in fact, Bill Clinton was not a consequential president. And Obama, although clearly not the natural politician, is a consequential president.”
With his polls so low right now, it's difficult to get behind this kind of arithmetic, but Krugman shows that the economy is on the rise, unemployment is down, health care has been reformed and significant financial reform is in place. The environmental issues are being addressed.  No, he admits, it might not be everything you wanted, but it is more than any president has accomplished in decades.

Reading this, I felt a bit vindicated. Though I would never have claimed Obama was 'the most successful', he was doing much better than his press. What has always bothered me about his press though, was the amount of it, the shear mass of the machine.

You expect Fox News, and some jabs from the main stream editorials. Then there are the web papers on the far-right like Town Hall, National Association of Scholars, the NRA main sight,
The usual suspects. Also, the republicans in congress, just like the democrats with Bush (expected, and accepted). The Koch brothers were more active, not liking things going the way they were, especially with Obama going directly at the environment and health care.

Likely, Obama was the Koch's worst nightmare - between 1998 and now Koch has been an environmental terror (with one of the few companies I have ever heard of being tried and convicted for double homicide). Obama not only wants EPA powers to increase, he was making it happen. It wasn't going to be a few $10 million dollar fines any longer. Likely, shut downs were on the horizon. So, we also expect some flack from that area.

Some flack. Sure. .. but sweet mercy...

The girl friend video coming out of the Koch, from  Americans for Shared Prosperity should have been the real clue. That was the point the shadows were pulled back. Whether that was a purposeful move or not, it was the beacon that caught my attention. The ad, which I'm sure you have seen, has a woman who is acting like Obama is an abusive boyfriend -- and is warning us to drop him, not to vote for him again. Again? This was published on Sep 21, 2014.

This is the second term. Right? This is Anti-Obama, like two years
too late. Isn't it?

No. Not at all. They just don't appear to care any more that you notice.

I'm not capable of doing the amount of document research that would be required for a true analysis -- I'm just going to put that up front -- but I believe, just from the amount I've been able to do, that no President has been against the continuous demagoguery Obama has over his two terms. There is the slams and the mud during the election, but then people get down to doing their jobs. The sensationalist go back to writing real news, and waiting for someone, normally a Congressman, to do something extremely silly. But that didn't happen with Obama.

  • Crowds of mudslingers continued
  • Torrents of false controversies were created
  • Demagoguery was shouted at every Presidential move
  • Congress took on a culture of obstruction

For example -- despite Obama's pre-election release of his official Hawaiian birth certificate in 2008;[1] confirmation, based on the original documents, by the Hawaii Department of Health;[6] the April 2011 release of a certified copy of Obama's original Certificate of Live Birth (or long-form birth certificate); and contemporaneous birth announcements published in two Hawaii newspapers.[7] Polls conducted in 2010 suggested that at least one quarter of adult Americans said that they doubted Obama's U.S. birth,[8][9] while a May 2011 Gallup poll found that 13% of American adults (23% of Republicans) continued to express such doubts. -- Wikipedia

Hundreds of lawsuits, some filed by GOP leaders, some from Congressman, Senators, and Tea Party members. In 2009 and 2010 the numbers in the South and in the Tea Party are so high, that they are seen as useful to many of the GOP. They under mind anything Obama does, inciting angst toward any decision he makes. A few Republicans openly gaff at the claims that Obama's Presidency is not legitimate, but most do not. Colorado GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck is caught on tape complaining about walking the line between openly agreeing with the "Birthers" and denying the legitimacy of their claim to keep them going.
"Will you tell those dumbasses at the Tea Party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I'm on the camera," Buck said to the worker while laughing. "God, what am I supposed to do?"

Bush's War Crimes - Obama' s Healthcare

It's easy to kick somebody when they're down. George W. Bush has dealt with more difficult issues than any president since Franklin Roosevelt. And I've told my colleagues it's time that we go stand up for the president.-- John Boehner
Bush continues to not only be unapologetic regarding the use of torture during his terms of office, but vocally proud of his actions . He continues to insist that these methods "saved lives" by "exposing missions" when no one else agrees with that estimate and the small amount of information, which did prove to be accurate, could have been found by other means of investigation.

Dick Cheney in an interview at CNN with Candy Crowley (and I hope the last one I have to watch because he is becoming more pitiful than Nixon ever was) is so out of touch with the atrocity of torturing captives, he feels deeply hurt by Obama's suggestion that it was out of line with our Nation's values, and wants an apology from Obama for promoting that statement.
Among the techniques used, which are prohibited by the field manual are:
  • hooding prisoners or putting duct tape across their eyes.
  • stripping prisoners naked.
  • forcing prisoners to perform or mimic sexual acts.
  • beating, burning or physically hurting them in other ways.
  • subjecting prisoners to hypothermia or mock executions.
In the interview Cheney is sitting next to his daughter, telling us that not only was torture and rape and putting captives through fake executions perfectly acceptable, but offended that anyone like Obama would say they are not.

Not only did Obama say this, on his second day in office he gave Executive order to the CIA to stop, immediately, all use of torture or rape and any euphemisms they might have for torture and rape.

There are many congressman in office right now who were in office with Bush and Cheney. The Speaker of the House, John Boehner for example, was there through the full terms. John McCain was also there, and when Bush vetoed the law that would prohibit the use of any type of torture, John McCain supported him.

Personally I'm of the opinion that while there are likely some people who get into politics for unethical reasons, I harbor the belief that most people who make it as far as these two men, actually believe in the United States as a country of values, and worthy of respect.

And then March 08, 2008 comes and Bush gets on national radio and drops a bomb on you, which despite what he said before, you really didn't believe was going to happen.
"The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror," Bush said in his weekly radio address taped for broadcast Saturday. "So today I vetoed it," Bush said. The bill provides guidelines for intelligence activities for the year and includes the interrogation requirement. It passed the House in December and the Senate last month. 
"This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe," the president said.
What a crumbling effect that had to have on men like McCain and Boehner. To be face to face with exactly the world leader you have felt your whole life -- even fought and endured tortures because of those beliefs -- needed to be deposed and brought to justice. Face to face with this person, not as enemy, but as willing benefactor.

The reality of the man we had in the office of President hit the nation hard as well. Bush's approval rating dropped to 25% and did little to rise again afterward. No matter what spin the White House put on the media, we saw the true face, and weren't going for the rhetoric any longer.

Obama's swift actions, direct condemnations and absolute vision of what was and was not acceptable for any reason, under any circumstance, would only drive the sins deeper into the heart, I would venture. And then... a Nobel Peace Prize for doing it.

Bill Gates Proves his Monetary Goals for Common Core?



The comments on this video that I've seen on YouTube as well as personal - even company blogs, boarder on a level of  ignorance not often encountered in modern times. I'm most disappointed in the statements I've read which are reportedly from Teachers. 

The Rants, on the whole, explode out from this paragraph:

When the tests are aligned to the common standards, the curriculum will line up as well—and that will unleash powerful market forces in the service of better teaching. For the first time, there will be a large base of customers eager to buy products that can help every kid learn and every teacher get better. [Emphasis added.]


So, let's start with Perspective since no one seems to have any and their paranoia appears to love its absence.

1. Bill Gates current monetary worth is estimated at $50 BILLION (caps used to draw attention to this amazingly large number). Actually if rises and falls between 50-100 billion

2. Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, in 2006 turned away from Corporate life and invested all of their time and money into their Foundation which hemorrhages money every year so that people around the globe can have things like water, food, shelter, and education.

3. Bill Gates plunged over $200 Million into the NYC school system -- with the idea that smaller schools would work better than the goliaths they had at the time. Afterwards and for some years he felt that this was a mistake -- that there was very little change or benefit derived from the smaller schools. Between 2002 and 2008, the number of high schools in
NYC increased from just over 250 to nearly 450. Many saw this as a huge disruption for the kids of that time, with no positive outcome. A great deal of both professional and general publications criticizing Gates for "messing with things he doesn't understand" came out on the Internet and media venues like Fox News.
     a) Gates never lashed back
     b) Gate continued to seek out professional educators and educational scientists and move forward
*Note: it has now been ascertained that not only have the smaller schools helped the students, that graduation is markedly up and dropout rates notably down.

4. Bill Gates has --as many Billionaires before and since -- signed a commitment on the Giving Pledge to donate half of his monetary worth to charities and projects which improve lives and promote education.
*Note: that is, roughly $25 BILLION he plans on putting into educational efforts across the nation.

Clarity: I've made a passion out of hating Gates during my life.. I was a programmer and system administrator for more than 20years, and deeply into the OpenSource movement-- which was at direct and vicious odds with Micro$oft. If my cat had diarrhea, it was Gate's fault.  -- Since that time, paying attention to what and how he has done things, I've forgiven him for Windows ME, ... but not for Win 2k.

Vocabulary:

Common Standards -- mean to Bill Gates the same thing they would mean to anyone who creates systems or programs computers. A Common platform in which a community of programmers and developers can created widely different modules and libraries from, which will all work together, and indeed be able to enhance one another because they are all developed using this Common Stadard. Equal terms would equal API, Protocal etc.

Market: the Population of available, and interested users. Does not need to equate to money, only investment (such as time and effort investment into learning how to use a new thing).

Buy: As with Market, this does not necessarily refer to money, but can and does refer to time, money and space expenditures. Buy can also have a intelligence or mental meaning as in "Sure, I buy that" to express understanding or belief.

Now.. curriculum lining up to tests...  may or may not be accurate in the way that both Bill and myself understand it, but from observation over the last 12 years with NCLB it certainly appears to be the natural tendency demonstrated by thousands of teachers across the nation. This tendency has been criticized at many levels and from various degrees of experts, however Bill Gates and people like him, do not base development on "what should be" but rather "what is" and "what is" equals "Teachers teach to the tests.

Hopefully that will change in the coming years if Obama can ever get Congress to do their damn job and alter the ESEA as he has requested them to do over 50 times since 2008. Obama's requested alterations are :

Obama's Plan -- A fair accountability system that shares responsibility for improvement and rewards excellence, and that is based on high standards and is informed by sophisticated assessments that measure individual student growth;  A flexible system that empowers principals and teachers, and supports reform and innovation at the state and local level; And a system focused on the schools and the students most at risk -- that targets resources to persistently low-performing schools and ensures the most effective teachers serve students most in need.

NCLB Status Quo: Rely on unsophisticated bubble tests to grade students and schools.

The Obama Plan: Support better tests. The Obama Administration has invested $350 million to support states in their efforts to create more sophisticated assessment systems that measure problem solving and other 21st century skills and that will provide teachers will timely information to help them improve instruction.

Now, this next part you are probably unfamilier with, but Bill Gates is also very aware of, and influenced by the culture of OpenSource. He has invested a serious amount of money into attracting the OpenSource community to the Educational world.

However, this effort to attract the OSs has been extremely difficult because in the Educational community there have been no standards, no sameness -- everyone does their own thing across state lines and sometimes across district lines. 

Because of this there is very little intrinsic reward (being that good feeling you get when you have developed something that thousands of people enjoyed and used to improve their lives.. you know that feeling? Probably not.. but it is an amazing high... just take my word for it).  

So the talent and the willingness was there, but it has always been stunted by knowing that no matter how good your program or project was, the market base for it was atrophied by lack of population -- and next year, all of the standards you based your project on might be removed and replaced by something completely different -- so project lifetime was volatile as well.

Now.. looking at his "malicious and suspect" statement pulled out from Bill's speech..  Turn your attention to the wonder his foresight has created..

OER (Open Educational Resources)
https://www.oercommons.org/realizing-the-promise-of-the-common-core-together

Gates gave it a push, but then let it go. The community was hesitate for a long time, but it is growing by leaps and bounds now. There are 1000s of OER CCSS compatible lessons, books, modules, resources and even full curriculum available for teachers and schools across the nation -- 90% of them absolutely free. 

These projects are developed by PhDs, Educators, Scientists -- but also by hobbyist and novelist and artists. They are all peer reviewed, and critiqued for conformity to the Standards and effectiveness. Teachers who use them can post their own critiques, offer suggestions, make requests for changes, or additions. Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

That is just one site.

https://www.graphite.org/

There are at least twelve other huge hubs with 1000s of resources listed: Photos, recorded speeches, video, graphics, full software programs -- the list is growing even while I'm typing this.

This is the vision that Bill Gates had when David Coleman sat in his living room in 2007 and told Bill and Melinda about CCSS. This is what he is talking about, and if you watch him, in that video, he can barely contain his excitement,.. but at that time, the OSs haven't really invested into the idea yet so he is refraining from getting into this.

Bill Gates is a man, who if he finds $100 on the ground, loses money by stopping to pick it up, and people -- who seem oddly intelligent in other matters, are accusing him of Taking Over the Public School System for Profit. 

The  Money Market value of CCSS will have little meaning in five years -- how exactly did you believe Gates might make a profit off his $800 million current investment into the schools of the US? This premise is seriously flawed. For one thing, he has several other venues which deluge him daily with capital he can't spend fast enough now... he doesn't need to go after children's lunch money. Alright? 

If you (reader) are a teacher,  you might want to compose a thank you letter to Bill Gates, and Obama -- because Congress was just fine with letting you all go down in flames.  

If CCSS wasn't in place right now, last Tuesday (the 12th year mark of  ESEA) all of you teachers would have been fired, and the schools closed.. in every state. .. All of them. CCSS isn't a new way of teaching.. it is a reform for NCLB that qualifies and meets the requirements of the ESEA law, allowing Obama to keep the schools to continue for a few more years.

Think about that the next time you want to STOP CCSS from corrupting the schools...

.. just saying.





Where the Wild Things Are...

Chess is a Wild game I've only been playing for a short time, but I've gained enough understanding to realize that the angles of ...