Around the Horn for the Week of August 9-15, 2013
Steve Newton of Delaware Libertarian continues his expose against Highmark and MedExpress and the Insurance Commissioner’s complicity in the fleecing that is going on. First, he notes that from some people, including his own representatives, the silence is deafening.
The silence is deafening from the Insurance Commissioner’s office. Not only has Nancy Willing inquired at least five times regarding any investigation of this mess, Senator Petersen requested an Insurance Commissioner’s inquiry when I sent her the materials, and Dr. Vince Schaller, Medical Director of the Lantana/Hockessin Walk-in Clinic has filed multiple complaints and inquiries. From Karin Weldin Stewart’s office: … crickets …
This [controversy] has also been an ongoing primer [into] who does and doesn’t respond to real inquiries from citizens and constituents. I live neither in Petersen’s district, nor in John Kowalko’s. Both responded almost instantly when I asked. I also always get quick responses from legislators like Paul Baumbach, Brian Bushweller, and Ernie Lopez–again: I live in none of their districts.
On the other hand, I have sent all the same information (repeatedly) to Senator Greg Lavelle and Representative Joe Miro. I do live in their district, and Dr. Schaller’s clinic is a small business within their district that employs several dozen people, and is the only such clinic in our district. From the two of them: … crickets …
Steve goes on to say that he does not want this to be a partisan issue, I guess because he lists several Democrats and one Republican who are responsive on this issue, while his own Republican legislators are not. I agree, it is not a partisan issue. It is an ideological one. The Dems he listed, with the exception of Bushweller, are progressives. Corporate-backed legislators or executives, whether they be Jack Markell or Karen Weldin Stewart or a host of other Democratic and Republican state legislators, are not going to be terribly troubled by this whole Highmark/MedExpress issue. Progressives and libertarians, for their own ideological reasons, will.
Steve, in another post, highlights another scam from Highmark and predicts that it will drive BayHealth or ChristianaCare out of business in the next three years.
Mike Matthews is back!!! Well, his new blog, the Mind of Mr. Matthews, has been around for several months, but he finally posted again for the first time in a couple months. His blog focuses, as do most new active blogs in Delaware, on Education. What compelled him to write? The teacher survey published recently in the News Journal.
I don’t know what’s more fascinating. That an overwhelming 75% of teachers hate this evaluation system or that more administrators hate it than do teachers.
DSEA President Frederika Jenner says it best in what is a great quote early on in the story: “There is an erosion in the confidence teachers have.” This is very true, for as we come to read in subsequent paragraphs of the article, it seems that erosion of confidence comes exactly because leadership at the State Department of Education is oblivious to the reasons why confidence has eroded.
Let me back up just a bit for the uninitiated. Teachers have always been evaluated. The evaluation system, for the most part, is fair in that it requires continual monitoring by your building principal. There are five components to a teacher’s evaluation. The first four are rather harmless and encompass such areas as professional practice, planning and preparation, and classroom environment. They require administrative EYES and EARS in your classroom to OBSERVE what you’re doing. The most controversial, though, is Component V. This is the part of a teacher’s evaluation that is judged solely on student test scores. If students don’t reach some pre-determined growth or benchmark goal, then that could have a negative impact on a teacher’s evaluation.
Yes, there were foul-ups in the implementation of the Component V portion of the evaluation this year. For those teachers who teach subjects NOT covered under the state test, DCAS (which is a majority of educators), they had to administer their own tests under the guidance of the state. Tests developed by cohorts of content-area-specialized teachers. Bubble sheet tests, for the most part. Well, many teachers in my District, particularly at the secondary level, were complaining well into November and December that they had NEVER received the materials FROM THE STATE to give their students the pre-test that should have been given the first week of school.
And the state wonders why the confidence level of teachers has dropped. Y’see, this State Department of Education seems too willing to attack the symptoms of the hot mess that is our evaluation system as opposed to looking at the root causes. They seem willing to simply blame a few chaotic timing and operational foul-ups as the cause for so much teacher dissatisfaction with the new evaluation.
Keep writing Mike.
Kilroy has more:
In a nutshell, the evaluation system is a mess because at a time when we are reforming academics standards and adding the Common Core Standards we are trying to add a punitive teacher evaluation system. Let’s put kids first and not the business round-table witch-hunt plan to crack the foundation of organized labor. […]
What is insane about Delaware’s / Markell’s plan is The Smarter Balanced Assessment is on the way and score will drop and again our schools and teachers must work through the bugs of another standardized test. We need at best five years of assessment data beyond the pilot period and cut score adjustments to consider being serious about tying student testing scores to teacher punitive evaluations. However, the issue of social promotion must be addressed.
The billions of dollars in this country being funneled to a Wall Street ponzi scheme could be better served lowering class sizes in high poverty schools. By the third-grade or even earlier local school /district assessments identifies students with serious need in academic intervention! Use the state assessment to rank the schools and districts and allow the “local” parents and the community have greater say! But then again, parents need to organize and engage the issues! Let’s start putting some administrators jobs on the line including the supers! They write the game plan for all to follow! They control the $$$$.
Kilroy”found an old 1988 Biden Presidential Speech. Amazing how the problems sound the same. Well, we don’t have problems with Nicaragua anymore.
He also wants Colonial Southern Elementary named after Bob and Dori Connor.
Some folks might be critical of naming a school after politicians but Bob and Dori Connor were beyond that! Dori was gifted in the arts (music) and served the Colonial School District as a music teacher and gave private lessons within the community. Bob served nearly three decades and Dori over a decade being elected after Bob’s passing. That’s 40 years of service as an elected officials for this husband and wife. This couple made a positive impacted on the community from the arts. environment, veteran affairs, education, the disabled, healthcare for the aging and nearly all aspects of issues impacting our quality of life.
We as society must take timeout to honor such service and people! Renaming Colonial’s Southern Elementary School to Connor Elementary School would honor this couple who served their faith, community and each other. But more importantly serve as a reminder to the community, the existence of quality of life for all must come from individuals and couples willing to give of themselves and hopefully be an inspiration to others to continue such missions.
My first reaction was “Ugh no.” And then I read the above. Hmmmm. Your thoughts?
Nancy Willing has a story on resigning Newark Mayor Vance Funk backing off blaming dedicated local activists for his health problems, which was a really scumbag thing to do in the first place. A Mayor of a large town/small city like Newark will always have to deal with zoning and community preservation. If your health cannot take the stress, you resign. But it is not the local activists fault, it is your health’s fault.
She then objected to the characterization of one local activist as a “dangerous stalker.”
I attended Monday night’s Newark City Council meeting which started with comments on Mayor Funk’s outrageous depiction of Jim McKelvey as a dangerous stalker. The McKelveys have been organizing in their community for months to lobby against the special use permit WAWA would need to install gas pumps at the East Main Street location. They are a petite, elderly couple who explained publicly that they’d attended every Council meeting since May to learn about the process, not to intimidate the Mayor. […]
The News Journal on Saturday quoted Funk – who said he would not be attending City Council meetings through the end if his term – as saying the most stressful part of the Wawa opposition has been a critic, whose name he doesn’t know, wearing a sandwich-board-style “anti-Wawa” sign, following him around at public events and staring at him during City Council meetings. Funk said the stress raised his blood pressure so much, he was afraid he would suffer a second stroke.
The man with the sandwich board was identified during the public comment period at the meeting as Jim McKelvey of Winslow Road, near the proposed Wawa site. His wife, Carol McKelvey of the South Main Street Coalition for Safety, said her husband did wear a sign, but “he did not stalk the mayor.” She said they were not responsible for any harassment and said, “We hope he notified the police. We wish he had notified us.” McKelvey also stressed that members of the coalition oppose the store and its gas pumps strictly as a matter of safety.
Many in the room, including members of Council, next remarked on the right for citizens to speak out and make a difference and participate in city governance. The campaign intended to impact the decision about the gas pumps. It was not about the Mayor.
Kavips “goes postal” on Senator Carper. That’s not my pun, it’s his.
All four postal unions sent a joint letter to Senate Majority Harry Reid on Aug. 5 expressing “utter dismay” at the introduction of S. 1486, the postal bill co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), the chair and ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The bill continues the disastrous policy of mandating massive pre-funding of retiree health benefits and provides for major downsizing measures to pay for it, the letter notes.
In case you haven’t followed, Congress requires the Post Office to make inordinately huge pension-plan payments, for reasons which nobody can really understand. In the final analysis, USPS pensions are a government obligation, and it doesn’t make a huge amount of difference whether they come out of a) a well-funded pension plan, b) a badly-funded pension plan, or c) just out of US government revenues.
A 2006 Congressional mandate requires the agency to “pre-pay” into a fund that covers health care costs for future retired employees. Under the mandate, the USPS is required to make an annual $5.5 billion payment each year for over ten years, through 2016. These “prepayments” are largely responsible for the USPS’s financial losses.
So when Senator Carper acts like he is saving the Post Office, in reality, he is only helping his Republican friends kill it. The only way to save the Post Office is to kill the Bush 2006 Law.
Kavips also has a post up about our DL post last week about how progressive priorities as outlined by the Progressive Democrats for Delaware (PDD) fared in the General Assembly, which turned into a shouting match as to whether Senator John Kowalko was an effective legislator. Kavips thinks it was a silly controversy. Go read it. It’s good.
Remember Bluewater Wind? Kavips does. And what was supposed to be the first offshore windfarm will no longer be.
Pat Fish of Delaware Politics is angry that impeachment proceedings have not commenced against President Obama for someone looking at Christine O’Donnell’s tax records.
Don Ayotte and Wolf von Baumgart are still hot about losing on the Sheriff issue. The comments are the real attraction here, where several took time to remind Don and Wolf that the Governor and the AG were elected by the people too. LOLz.
