Thursday Open Thread [3.12.15]
I love James Carville.
“The Governor and Legislature constantly refer to how can they maintain their purity, or as it is sometimes referred to, their ‘tax virginity.’ You have to be kidding me. This reminds me of two over-sexed teenagers dry humping in a backseat of car parked behind a levee wondering how far they can go while maintaining their purity or virginity. We are literally at the mercy of buffoons and comedians.”
— Democratic startegist James Carville, writing in the LSU student paper Daily Reveille.
Time: “Along with her husband—the 42nd President of the United States—Hillary Clinton is the co-creator of a soap-operatic political universe in which documents vanish, words like ‘is’ take on multiple meanings and foes almost always overplay their hand. Impeachment can be a route to higher approval ratings; the occasional (and rare) defeat merely marks the start of the next campaign. Whatever rules may apply to them, the law of gravity is not one.”
“Though members of Congress are calling for her to turn over the email server for forensic examination, they would be wise to proceed cautiously. A key page in the Clinton rule book is the one that reads: When in doubt, drive your enemies crazy—then sit back and watch them implode.”
Jonathan Bernstein on the tired Politico meme that the Democrats have no Plan B, and have a week or no bench of Presidential candidates: “Look, the way those solid politicians become Serious Presidential Candidates and not just random governors and senators — I’m talking here about folks such as Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Bobby Jindal — is to start running, and visibly enough so the press notices.”
“Yes, Republicans have an unusually strong candidate field in 2016. The Democrats have Clinton and a few leftovers, gadflies and protest candidates. But that isn’t because Democrats have a weak bench…. all those perfectly viable other candidates either dropped out or never seriously considered the race. Had Clinton chosen not to run, plenty of the others would have jumped in, and the field would have been comparable to what the Republicans have put together.”
If Hillary implodes, cue Elizabeth Warren v. Martin O’Malley v. Andrew Cuomo v. John Hickenlooper v. Klobuchar v. Deval Patrick v. Brian Schweitzer v. Julian Castro v. Kirsten Gilibrand.
“Less than a week before Israel’s general elections, the party of incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu has begun to fall behind an opponent who promises to restart talks with Palestinians and smooth the prime minister’s notoriously rocky relations with the White House,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Two polls on Wednesday put Isaac Herzog, leader of the dovish Labor Party, slightly ahead and suggest that support for Mr. Netanyahu and his Likud party among working-class Jews has eroded because of their widespread perception that he has focused on nuclear threats from Iran and extremist Muslims at the expense of economic problems.”
This would please me greatly, and it will also have a major impact on the Middle East. It will also make absolute fools of the Republicans. Well not make, because they already are absolute fools. Reconfirm the absolute foolery of them? Is Foolery a word? Spell check seems to think so.
William Saletan of Slate is a trolling genius:
Thank you for your letter of March 9 explaining your system of government. We were unfamiliar with the complexity of your laws. For three years we have been negotiating a nuclear energy agreement with your president. We now realize our mistake. As your letter makes clear, the authority to establish such agreements on behalf of your country rests with your Congress.
We are in your debt for this clarification. Moreover, your letter has prompted us to undertake a broader study of the American political system. What we have learned has opened our eyes. For 35 years, we have treated you as an adversary. Our intelligence agencies told us that your culture and your political system were radically different from ours. We now understand that we were misled. Your country is much like ours. Indeed, your Republican Congress is much like our revolutionary Islamic councils. We are brothers.
Republican senator and presidential hopeful Lindsey Graham (he can’t be actually running, this is a joke, right?) said in Concord, New Hampshire yesterday that his first act of business as President is to deploy the United States Military to Washington, DC to surround Capital Hill and the Capital Building and force the House of Representatives and the Senate to pass his overly inflated military budget that does away with sequestration.
Heil Hitler!!! Er ah, I mean Heil President Graham! You sir truly are a dictator. Or at least you want to be. You see Republicans, that is what a dictator would look like. You say Obama is a dictator? LOL, no. Actually deploying the military on US Soil (which is an impeachable crime itself under the Posse Comitatus act) to force Congress to pass your agenda. That’s a armed coup d’etat.
BREAKING…SOMEthing or other. Anyone see this press release from Gov. Markell?:
“Governor Launches Effort to Reduce School Testing
Emphasizes value of requiring key assessments to track student progress while saying schools should end other tests
Wilmington, DE – Calling for the elimination of repetitive and ineffective assessments, Governor Markell today launched a review of tests administered by the state, districts, and individual schools with the goal of decreasing the testing burden on students and teachers and increasing the time available for teaching. The effort, announced at William Penn High School, addresses concerns of parents and teachers about the amount of time spent on testing and how those tests are ultimately used.
“Our educators, our students, and their parents all deserve the benefits of effective assessments that show when students are excelling and when they need extra support,” said Markell. “At the same time, tests that don’t add meaningfully to the learning process mean less time for students to receive the instruction and support they need. We are committed to finding the right balance, and this initiative is an important part of that process.”
The Governor noted that some local tests may repeat the purpose of statewide exams, while others may have outlived their usefulness but continue to be offered because administrators haven’t had the time or resources to fairly gauge their effectiveness.
To support a statewide testing review, each school district will receive financial and technical support from the Department of Education to take an inventory of all assessments given in each school. That includes funding to pay someone to lead the review over the next four months. The state will also provide assistance in communicating new testing plans to parents, families, and communities.
“This is a particularly timely moment for us to discuss the role of assessments in our schools as we shift to an improved and less time-consuming statewide test this year,” said Murphy. “We must also provide our districts with the support they need to evaluate all of their exams so we can assure teachers and parents that we are tracking students’ progress while maximizing instructional time.”
The state’s new assessment, aligned to the Common Core State Standards, will be given only once a year, compared to the previous assessment, which was offered up to 3 times a year. While the new Smarter Balanced test is more thorough, it will still cut total testing time by up to seven hours and take well under one percent of school hours per year.
For the first time, the state will test critical thinking and writing ability – two of the most important skills students will need to succeed in their futures – instead of asking only multiple-choice bubble questions.
“Is there too much testing? Absolutely,” said Rep. Earl Jaques, who chairs the House Education Committee. “This effort to look at the 70 percent of the tests that we control as a state is a great start to address this issue. We know there are good tests that are necessary but also need to identify which ones are redundant and can possibly be weeded out. I look forward to hearing back from the group on their findings.”
Emphasizing the value of continuing to support high quality assessments during the statewide review, Markell referenced his support for Professional Learning Communities during which teachers meet in small groups to review student data, identify struggling students, and review which lessons are most successful. He also addressed the small, but vocal group of advocates in the state pushing to opt students out of required tests.
“Opting out would deny our schools a full picture of their students’ progress, and those who don’t take the tests would be denied the opportunity to receive additional support. Students will fall through the cracks and be left behind. That’s why the teachers, principals, and administrators I speak with, along with civil rights groups in Delaware and across America, are strongly opposed to this movement, and support universal, statewide, annual testing to make sure our students are learning and getting the help they need to succeed.”
Deborah Wilson, President and CEO of the Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League, attended the announcement to deliver a message reflecting a recent statement on assessments from the National Urban League.
“The National Urban League stands behind federal requirement and use of standardized assessments because this data is essential to hold states, districts and schools accountable for student learning and to address disparities and inequities where they exist,” read the statement. “However, we also acknowledge the outsized time local and district assessments take in today’s classrooms…States and districts should utilize only the most valid and useful assessments to ensure that the maximum amount of classroom time is spent on learning and reducing the time required to take and prepare for assessments.”
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Lindsey Graham… wow. Just wow. Out crazing that is going to be tough, but Huckabee, Cruz, Perry et al are up to the task.
Re Dem bench: the odd thing is nobody appears to be running for the VP spot. Biden was clearly running to finish second last time and it worked. I’m surprised no Dems have moved in that direction.
I think O’Malley is definitely running to be VP.
Lindsay Graham is supposedly trying to revive a form of Simpson Boles in an effort to cut Social Security
El Som, Markell is getting a lot of push back. This strikes me as his way of pretending he’s concerned about tests that “have outlived their usefulness” without mentioning that Priority Schools were designated as such under these now useless tests.
That really is the point about the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA) test – that it’s better than the other tests – tests that were obviously good enough to label schools as Priority Schools. Seriously, ask him what data was used to designate 6 city public schools as priority schools. Answer: those tests that have outlived their usefulness. Not to mention that it seems they ignored charter schools in their formula. If they had included charters in their priority schools formula we’d be looking at different priority schools.
And I can’t wait until the SBA scores hit this summer. I’m expecting the opt out of testing group to grow in massive numbers because the failure rate is going to be shocking. Guess that will pave the way for more priority schools! Which is the end game – charter conversion.
I’m not a fan of standardized testing, but at least DCAS tested students at the beginning of the year, and then tested them throughout the year. This allowed teachers to see where their students were, how much they learned and if they needed help… in real time. SBA will explode when it’s too late to do anything.
Three things:
1. My daughter took the SBA last year in a pilot school. She’s a senior now and is choosing a college. She has a ton of offers with great scholarships – I say this because everyone should know she’s a great student and she took the SBA. She says the test was a complete mess. In several math problems they never stated what she should solve for – she went for “x” even though that wasn’t the only option. She also said that graph questions didn’t allow for two numbers (you know: 12, 26) even though that was the flippin’ answer.
2. Read through the articles about SBA and what you’ll see is DDOE, etc. preparing everyone for failure. If they’re admitting this, imagine how bad these scores will actually be.
3. I have no problem with educational standards and consistency. It’s the test that’s a complete mess. Which might end up being a good thing since “opting out” of testing will increase once these scores are released.
“Lindsay Graham is supposedly trying to revive a form of Simpson Boles in an effort to cut Social Security”
Go on….
“At least DCAS tested students at the beginning of the year, and then tested them throughout the year. This allowed teachers to see where their students were, how much they learned and if they needed help… in real time.”
Isn’t that what the school/teacher’s own tests are for?
You realize what we’ve done with education: We’ve decided that teachers cannot be trusted to do their jobs, so we’ve backed them up with an entirely redundant system of testing. In what other public-service job do we assume that the people doing them cannot possibly be doing them correctly, so we must devise a full back-up system to check up on them?
body cameras on cops.
“Yes, Republicans have an unusually strong candidate field in 2016″
If we’re talking entertainment value.. perhaps.