We will take a few days to discuss the policy of being a HOMEOWNER vs being a LAND OWNER.  Remember, in MOVING FORWARD it is LAND OWNERS having the power of DUE PROCESS, JUSTICE, AND PROPERTY RIGHTS and if the only land owners are global corporate campuses as is MOVING FORWARD then only those global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS will have those property rights and status as LAND OWNERS.

Here in Baltimore much is made of being a HOMEOWNER vs being a RENTER---TENET.  Yet, BALTIMORE CITY has colonial era laws making all property in Baltimore LAND RENT-----houses are built on property where the HOMEOWNER does not own the LAND.  HOMEOWNERS in BALTIMORE are not LAND OWNERS-----the title to land goes all the way back to COLONIAL MARYLAND AND BALTIMORE.  Not all US states/cities have these ANTEBELLUM PROPERTY LAWS -----LAND RENT-----but it is critical in rebuilding our US CITIES we do so MINUS these LAND RENT policies. 

So, as we discuss COMMON OR PUBLIC GROUND-------we shouted all our Baltimore City PUBLIC PARKS AND INSTITUTIONAL property has or is being privatized to global NGOS-----as we discuss the attack on private property ownership by EMINENT DOMAIN now being used by GLOBAL CORPORATIONS in expanding these GLOBAL CAMPUS FOOTPRINTS in all directions with our US 99% WE THE PROPERTY OWNERS having absolutely no ability to stop these LAND GRABS by what is called MOVING FORWARD RE-THINKING LAND USE.



Should You Buy Property on Leased Land?

Amy Fontinelle
February 17, 2017 — 9:44 AM EST



The most traditional form of home ownership is to own both a house and the land upon which it is built. Those who can't afford houses, or who do not want to be bothered with outside maintenance and upkeep, may purchase condos or townhouses. However, there is another homeownership option: buying only the home and leasing the land it occupies.


Purchasing a home in a leased land community enables you to own a home that you otherwise wouldn't be able to afford. However, this type of purchase lacks some of the benefits of traditional home ownership and has other significant drawbacks. Would this unusual ownership setup work for you? Read on to find out. 


The Basics



With a trained eye, you can usually spot a leased-land property, even when it is not explicitly stated. Keywords to look for include "manufactured home" and "leasehold interest." Exterior features of the home might be described in terms, such as "association pool" or "association tennis courts." Also, the price of leased property tends to be far below market value. For example, if the going rate for a traditional three-bedroom, two-bathroom, 1,600 square foot is around $500,000, a comparable home on leased land may only cost $150,000. A leased property home may also have unusually upscale features for its price.



Steep homeowners' association (HOA) fees also indicate that a listing may be for a leased-land property. A normal HOA fee might be around $250 per month, while an HOA fee on a leased-land property might be $900 per month. Another giveaway is that if you look at a satellite map of the neighborhood where the home is located, you may notice that the homes are closer together than usual and are extremely similar to one another. Finally, in a typical neighborhood, some homes have their own pools, while in a leased-land community none of them will.



Real estate listings don't always list leased-land property. Sometimes, key information is left out of a real estate listing because of an agent's sloppiness, or because the agent or seller is trying to hide something. Investigate the hidden facts, and never purchase a leased-land property without thoroughly understanding the unusual features of this type of home ownership. 



Types of Leased-Land Properties



There are several types of residential leased-land properties, and the most common type varies by region. In Hawaii and Delaware, there are leasehold condos. In areas with Native American reservations, such as Palm Springs, you may be able to purchase property on leased reservation land. In Los Angeles, where even homes in the suburbs far exceed prices the average person can afford, there are leased-land properties in suburban areas, such as Simi Valley and Canyon Country. Florida and Arizona have a number of leased-land retirement communities as well.



Leased-land properties exist in other areas, but because leasing land is an unconventional way to purchase property, this option is not available in every state. Trailer parks, perhaps the most common form of leased-land community, can be found almost anywhere.



When you buy a house or condo on leased land, you'll take out a mortgage on the property as usual. The monthly mortgage payment will be less because the home's purchase price is lower, but you'll also have to pay a significant monthly land lease fee. Because land lease properties are often located in entire communities of similar properties, a leased-land property may also come with HOA fees to cover the upkeep of landscaping, community pools, community buildings, etc.



General Considerations

If you think that buying a property on leased land may be right for you, you should consider the following.

• How much time is remaining on the lease? If the length of the remaining lease is shorter than you plan to remain in the home, it is imperative to find out what happens to your interest in the property at the end of the lease term. The lease term will also affect your ability to finance the home. It may be difficult or impossible to get a mortgage if the remaining lease term on the land is 20 years and you want a 30-year mortgage. Ideally, a lease that exceeds your potential remaining lifespan will protect your financial interests and your peace of mind. Of course, while you may not live in this home for the rest of your life, it's nice to have that option. And if you sell the home, a long remaining lease term will positively affect your sale price.
• What are the terms of the surrender clause? Check the terms of the surrender clause if the lease will run out while you still own the house. If the lease expires and is not renewed, you will have to give up the use of the land upon which your home is built. Some surrender clauses stipulate that you also must surrender any improvements to the land (i.e., your condo, townhouse or house). Avoid ugly surprises by getting the information before you buy.
• How much is the monthly land lease payment, how often does it adjust, and by how much? If there are HOA fees, ask the same questions about those. You want to make sure that you really will be saving money by buying a leased-land property, and that you won't one day be forced to move by escalating costs.
• Am I better off renting? Consider whether owning a home on leased land is really superior to renting. The two are similar in many ways, including a payment of monthly fees that are determined by another party. Owning a traditional home may give you a greater degree of freedom; if that is important to you, it may be worth the wait to save up for a down payment or increase your income enough to qualify for a good mortgage on a traditional home.

Advantages


Buying a home on leased land offers the following advantages.

• You purchase the home for much less than a traditional home because you don't have to buy the land.
• Leased-land properties are often better than apartment living for children and pets, and you can invest the money that leasing saves you.
• Buyers can live in a high-priced location they could not otherwise afford. For example, in Huntington Beach, Calif., there are several mobile home communities near the Pacific Ocean. To buy even an entry-level house in Huntington Beach, you might need around $400,000. Buying an entry-level home in a trailer park, by comparison, could cost as little as $40,000.
• Leased-land communities often include amenities not always found in traditional neighborhoods, such as clubhouses, pools, tennis courts, playgrounds and golf courses. Because of the community association aspect, any HOA fees may include having your lawn mowed on a regular basis.
• Because you don't own the land, you'll likely have low or no property taxes, which can help take some of the sting out of paying leased land and HOA fees. In some areas, local laws restrict the amount by which leased land fees can increase annually. 

Disadvantages


The following are the disadvantages to this form of home ownership.

• The most significant downside to owning a home on leased land relates to building equity. For many people, home ownership is a major source of wealth. With a leased-land property, you risk losing all of your equity at lease expiration, depending on the terms of the surrender clause. The resale of the home is likely to be more difficult than the resale of a traditional home, especially because with each passing year, the remaining term on the lease shortens. For this reason, if you want to leave something to your heirs, a home on leased land will not be nearly as valuable to them as a traditional home. 
• Leased-land properties are often part of an HOA, which means extra monthly fees that are somewhat unpredictable. While HOA fees are typically a set amount each month, they can rise annually. The HOA can also levy a special assessment for major community property repairs or upgrades, creating a large, unexpected bill. HOA fees can be particularly troublesome for those who do not make use of common amenities like pools, or who would prefer to do their own landscaping to save money.
• While traditional home ownership can be a good hedge against inflation, owning a leased-land property is not. When you buy a home with a fixed-rate mortgage, your payment remains the same each year as inflation goes up. Eventually, the monthly payment to own your home might be lower than renting in your neighborhood. And while home values fluctuate, over the long-term price increases typically match or surpass the rate of inflation. In a leased-land community, your monthly lease payments and HOA fees will probably increase at least by as much as the rate of inflation. Meanwhile, your home will become less valuable as the end of the lease term approaches.
• If you have a manufactured home on leased land and the lease expires (and the surrender clause does not require you to relinquish the property), you can theoretically take them home with you to another leased-land community or to a plot of land you have purchased. However, this is not very realistic unless you are purchasing a trailer home. Otherwise, you will have to have the house disassembled and transported to a new plot of land. This may be very impractical and is likely to be prohibitively expensive.

The Bottom Line


Buying a home on leased land can be tempting when you see the low sale price, but the purchase involves many complexities that traditional home buying does not. Traditional home ownership probably creates the greatest financial security for most people, but buying a home on leased land may be a viable alternative for those whose major priority is buying into a particular community at a lower price than a traditional home or condominium, rather than building equity.

_________________________________________

In the US the DARK AGES OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS policies used to control who could OWN LAND came to colonial US hitting the SOUTH with what were thousand-year old policies of TENET/SHARECROPPER land rents.  When global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS pushed continuous wars being CIVIL WAR with goals of breaking down the PLANTATION ---AGRICULTURAL SOUTH to expand the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION the tensions in the south became who could own that land once huge PLANTATIONS?

So, our southern states are largely tied to LAND RENTS------this is why BALTIMORE is still tied to colonial LAND RENT policies.

Meanwhile, our US cities in north used LAND TRUSTS to make sure land ownership stayed with those same global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS----creating BOARDS AND TRUSTEES ----those 5% freemason/Greek players working to assure OLD WORLD KINGS had control of all that land.

Below we see our great PRETENDERS----global hedge fund OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS HARVARD using all kinds of fancy statistical models to pretend there are considerations about who owns land in US cities-----and who are the HOMEOWNERS on land that is LAND RENT.




'WHAT ARE CITIES WORTH? LAND RENTS, LOCAL PRODUCTIVITY,
AND THE TOTAL VALUE OF AMENITIES
David Albouy*

The Review of Economics and Statistics,
July 2016, 98(3): 477–487
©
2016 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
doi:10.1162/REST_a_00550'

The article above written in 2016 -----looks just like an article written by global banking 1% 300 years ago.  So, our US southern states are seeing the earliest MOVING FORWARD of property handed to GLOBAL FACTORIES-------soon to expand and take 99% WE THE SOUTHERN private property owners' LAND RIGHTS----and the same is happening in our northern and western states installing MOVING FORWARD US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES------GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUSES.


So, our US slaves as freemen never got those 40 acres and a mule because the southern states kept those colonial LAND RENT policies. Today's US city development is tying heavily on LAND TRUSTS all tying property ownership to same global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS.

Farmers Without Land: The Plight of White Tenant Farmers and Sharecroppers


By Charles C. Bolton


For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, Mississippi was an overwhelmingly agricultural state. While farming provided a route to economic success for many white Mississippians, a number of whites could always be found at the bottom of the agricultural ladder, working as tenant farmers or sharecroppers, a status more typically associated with black Mississippians in the century after the American Civil War.



Before examining the history of Mississippi’s white tenant farmers and sharecroppers, some definition of these terms might be helpful. Both tenant farmers and sharecroppers were farmers without farms. A tenant farmer typically paid a landowner for the right to grow crops on a certain piece of property. Tenant farmers, in addition to having some cash to pay rent, also generally owned some livestock and tools needed for successful farming.



Sharecroppers, on the other hand, were even more impoverished than tenant farmers. With few resources and little or no cash, sharecroppers agreed to farm a certain plot of land in exchange for a share of the crops they raised. The exact amount of crops the sharecropper gave over to the landowner depended on the agreement with the landowner.



The tenant/sharecropping system


Although the tenant/sharecropping system is usually thought of as a development that occurred after the Civil War, this type of farming existed in antebellum Mississippi, especially in the areas of the state with few slaves or plantations, such as northeast Mississippi.




Not all whites who emigrated to even the poorest parts of Mississippi in the years before the Civil War had the funds to purchase a farm. As a result, most of the men who headed these households worked as tenant farmers or sharecroppers. Many rented land from or farmed on shares with family members and typically received favorable arrangements, but some antebellum tenants or sharecroppers had to deal with landlords who were primarily concerned with making profits rather than helping struggling farmers move toward landownership.



Consider the sharecropping arrangement that Richard Bridges of Marshall County worked out with his landlord, T. L. Treadwell, in the 1850s. Treadwell provided Bridges with land, livestock, and tools; the landlord also advanced Bridges some food. Bridges grew corn and cotton, and at the end of the year, he had to give Treadwell one-sixth of the corn he grew and five-sixths of the cotton raised. From his share of the crop, Bridges also had to pay Treadwell for the use of the livestock and tools and for the food advanced. Obviously, Bridges worked the entire year primarily for the food he needed to live. He had no opportunity to make any money from this arrangement and accumulate the capital that would allow him to purchase his own farm.



The postbellum farmer

After the Civil War, tenant farming and sharecropping became a way of life for the vast majority of Mississippi farmers. Freed African-American slaves generally had no resources or access to credit to purchase land, and most of Mississippi’s black population that worked in agriculture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries became sharecroppers. With Mississippi’s devastated economy in the years following the Civil War, increasing numbers of white landowning farmers were also reduced to the status of landless farmer.


Many of Mississippi’s small white landowning farmers, also known as yeoman farmers, had not been heavily involved in the cotton economy before the Civil War; however, after the war, a number of factors led the white yeoman farmers to turn increasingly to cotton cultivation. They needed cash to pay off debts acquired during four years of war and the increased taxes levied during Reconstruction and beyond. In addition, new railroad lines built after the war improved access to distant markets and encouraged the development of commercial agriculture among formerly subsistence farmers (subsistence farmers are those who grow crops primarily to feed themselves, their families, and their livestock, rather than to make a profit).



Unfortunately, the price of cotton began a long period of decline in the late 1860s, and many of those white yeomen who had staked their future on cotton production lost their farms. When they did, they frequently became tenant farmers or sharecroppers. By 1900, 36 percent of all white farmers in Mississippi were either tenant farmers or sharecroppers (by comparison, 85 percent of all black farmers in 1900 did not own the land they farmed).



The crop-lien system


For the postbellum tenant farmer or sharecropper, life became an endless cycle of landlessness, debt, and poverty. Sharecroppers faced the most hopeless situation, as most became enmeshed in what was known as the crop-lien system. An 1867 Mississippi law provided that landlords could claim a lien on the crops of their workers for any debts incurred during the growing season.



Almost all farmers who worked as sharecroppers did have to acquire debt. Most sharecroppers began the crop year needing to buy supplies, not only to help raise their crop, but also to keep themselves and their families alive until harvest time. The only thing they had to offer for collateral was the crop they were going to try to raise. So, the sharecropper would turn to a “furnishing merchant,” who might be the landowner or perhaps a neighborhood merchant, who would exchange food and supplies for a lien on next year’s crop. Some landowners who provided a “furnish” (supplies and food) might merely require a greater share of the crop as payment at year’s end. For instance, Elizabeth Brown, whose family oversaw black and white sharecropper families in Perry County in the early 20th century, remembered that the typical share paid by sharecroppers was one-fourth of the crop they raised, but “when we furnished them, we got half of the crop.”



Other furnishing merchants kept accounts during the year of the debts incurred by their sharecroppers, and at the end of the year, at “settlement time,” the merchant would deduct these charges from the sharecropper’s share of the crop. Oftentimes, the debt exceeded the amount the sharecropper made from his share of the crop, and his only alternatives were to sign on for another year with the same landowner/merchant or move on to another farm. In both cases, the cycle of debt and landlessness remained unbroken.


The Agricultural Adjustment Act

While tenant farmers were perhaps somewhat better off than sharecroppers, most tenant farmers were only one bad crop away from slipping into the cycle of debt common among sharecroppers. Both tenant farmers and sharecroppers were significantly poorer than their landed neighbors. Struggling from year to year to acquire the basic necessities of life, tenants and sharecroppers rarely acquired the consumer goods that were increasingly available in the 20th century. A 1942 study by the state of Mississippi found that only 10 percent of white sharecroppers had refrigerators, while only 14 percent owned radios. Landowners in the state were three times as likely to own these same items.

The tenant/sharecropping system in Mississippi, and throughout the South, began to die out during the 1940s and 1950s. The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) of 1933 led many landowners in the state to take part of their lands out of cultivation in exchange for funds offered by the federal government. Thus, landowners eliminated their tenant and sharecropper plots. The AAA program was one of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal measures designed to end the Great Depression. This program was designed to reduce farm output in order to raise farm prices. An unintended consequence of the program, however, was the displacement of tenant farmers and sharecroppers.

The AAA did provide Mississippi landowners with much-needed cash, and in the 1940s and 1950s, landowners used these funds to take advantage of technological advances that improved their ability to raise crops like cotton. Landowners bought tractors to break the land, bought newly developed cotton harvesters to pick their crops, and bought pesticides to rid their fields of weeds (previously “chopped out” by tenants and sharecroppers). In the process, Mississippi’s system of farm tenancy and sharecropping quickly came to an end.


Charles C. Bolton, Ph. D., is chair and professor, department of history, University of Southern Mississippi, and co-director of the university’s Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage. He is the author of Poor Whites of the Antebellum South: Tenants and Laborers in Central North Carolina and Northeast Mississippi, and co-editor of The Confessions of Edward Isham: A Poor White Life of the Old South.
Posted March 2004

________________________________________

We discuss often and in detail how our once sovereign US corporations are no longer US AMERICAN ----they are owned by global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS.  General Electric for example was sold decades ago to overseas global corporations.  When we watch these GLOBAL FACTORIES being built earliest in the south----we can be sure the land handed to these GLOBAL FACTORIES are very likely the same land held in TRUST once being huge plantations.  After civil war those PLANTATION LAND OWNERS ----GONE WITH THE WIND----no doubt were handed property ownership in northern or western states leaving our US 99% WE THE SOUTHERN CITIZENS to live as the same TENET/SHARECROPPER land renters as before the civil war.

Try as global banking 1% FAKE NEWS MEDIA like CNBC does to show a UNITED STATES FLAG on all these GLOBAL FACTORY land deals-----nothing US is happening in who owns all this PROPERTY in our US cities/counties.

There's no LABORATORY for PROGRESSIVE ideas on land and property ownership happening today------it is the same DARK AGES 1000BC public policies having OLD WORLD KINGS owning all property maybe allowing a global 2% to build a MCMANSION/CASTLE on that property.

Manufacturing Jobs Making a Comeback in Southern U.S.Michelle V. Rafter , NBC News contributor
Published 11:40 AM ET Thu, 20 Dec 2012 Updated 4:14 PM ET Fri, 21 Dec 2012 NBC NEWS



Tetra Images | Getty Images
Apple CEO Tim Cook's announcement earlier this month that the company will start building Macs closer to home in 2013 was seen as a milestone that could help jump-start U.S. manufacturing.
But over the past few years, factories in the American South from the Carolinas to Alabama to Kentucky have already experienced such are birth.
Both U.S. and foreign companies have opened plants in south eastern states in recent years, many since the end of the recession.Others are expanding existing plants or have plans to break ground in 2013.
In South Carolina, Boeing builds 787 Dreamliners just north of Charleston, and Starbucks roasts coffee beans in St. Matthews, outside Columbia.
General Electric is once again making water heaters and refrigerators at its gigantic Appliance Park plant in Louisville, Ky. A Mobile, Ala., shipyard run by Austal USA is growing so quickly that in the past two years the Australian company's workforce has swollen from 800 to 3,300.
Over the past year, North Carolina's Secretary of Commerce Keith Crisco says about 80 percent of the new companies coming to the state involved some form of manufacturing. "That's a big number for us, and the jobs are better than they were," he said.
Companies are taking advantage of state- and local-funded business incentives and convenient transportation routes, as well as the Southeastern U.S.'s lower cost of living and a largely non-union labor force that's inexpensive relative to other parts of the country.
Although hundreds of thousands of factory jobs have disappeared in the South and across the country over the past two decades due to automation and outsourcing to cheaper labor markets in China, Vietnam and elsewhere, the United States remains a manufacturing powerhouse.
The country still produces 18.2 percent of the world's manufactured goods, edging out China's 17.6 percent, according to the latest figures from the National Association of Manufacturers and World Bank.
Today, however, even Chinese companies are building factories in the Southeast, ducking rising labor costs at home, and to be closer to customers and take advantage of the region's pro-business policies.One of the first was appliance maker Haier Group, which opened a $40 million refrigerator factory in Camden, S.C., a dozen years ago.
One of the latest is Lenovo Group, which operates a fulfillment center in Whitsett, N.C. In October, Lenovo announced plans to begin making ThinkPads there in 2013, adding an estimated 115 jobs to an existing workforce of 2,200.
While factory jobs haven't returned to pre-recession levels,they're getting there. In Georgia and Tennessee, manufacturing employment grew 3 percent in the 12 months ending in October, nearly twice the national average of 1.6 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Factory employment was above average in Alabama (2.9 percent), South Carolina (2.4 percent) and Mississippi (2 percent) as well.
"It's a business climate like you won't find anywhere else,"says Doug Woodward, an economics professor at the University of South Carolina and incoming president of the North American Regional Science Council, which studies local economies.

Low-cost labor is one of the region's big draws. Economists cite the lack of a large union presence as a benefit since it allows companies to move factory workers from job to job as needs change. In seven Southern states, union members account for less than 5 percent of the workforce. That's less than half of the 11.8 percent national average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"It's all about flexibility," said Brian Leathers, Austal's chief financial officer and senior vice president, to NBC News. "Because we treat our people properly --benefits, pay, safe working conditions -- there's not a need for representation."
However, critics point to academic and economic research showing that in right-to-work states, wages and benefits are lower. "They're just not as well compensated," says Matthew W. Finkin, an employment law expert and professor at the University of Illinois' law school .
"So they're creating more jobs and giving more work to people, but they're not giving the benefits and other aspects of employee protections (workers would) have in other states if they were in (a) union."
The local chapter of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association has been unsuccessful in three attempts to organize Austal's Mobile, Ala., shipyard. A representative of Local 441 could not be reached for comment. A representative of the SMWIA's national office declined to comment.
Crisco maintains that manufacturing jobs coming into the South pay more because they require more technical skills.
He argues that right-to-work laws are only one factor drawing companies to the region, along with generous workforce training programs and incentives such as tax breaks that South Carolina gives to companies making substantial capital investments in the area.
"Sure, it's controversial about incentives, but in terms of locating manufacturing jobs here, it's been fairly successful," Woodward says.
Here's a look at activity in a handful of southern states where manufacturing jobs are on the rise:
South Carolina
South Carolina's manufacturing industry lost 100,000 jobs during the 2000s before the 2007-2009 recession wiped out another 40,000,Woodward says.
Recent moves by Boeing, BMW, Michelin, and other tire and auto parts manufacturers and durable goods makers to open or expand factories have reversed that trend. Boeing alone created 8,000 new jobs in the past two years, Woodward says.
"We've gained 10,000 to 15,000 jobs," he says. "Our immediate prospects are very good, but it's going to be a long road if we're going to recover" historic manufacturing employment levels.
In January, BMW said it would add 300 people to an existing workforce of 7,000 at a highly automated auto manufacturing plant in Greer, the company's largest factory outside of Germany. The expansion will to boost annual production to 350,000 by 2014.
"The deep roots of the workforce here in manufacturing are really helpful and we developed a close relationship with the local tech colleges to improve our workforce," BMW Manufacturing President Josef Kerscher said in a late November talk at the University of South Carolina's Darla Moore School of Business. "I'm really satisfied seeing how well prepared our workforce is for advanced manufacturing."
North Carolina
The textile and apparel makers that made up the bulk ofNorth Carolina's traditional manufacturing sector "left and are not coming back,"Crisco says. They're being replaced with companies like Lenovo, which is movingThinkPad manufacturing to the state from Mexico.
Jeld-Wen, an Oregon-based window and door maker, announced on Dec. 13 that it is moving its North American headquarters to Charlotte,adding 142 management and administrative jobs. The company already operates two manufacturing plants in the area with 2,200 employees.
In 2012, manufacturing accounts for 20 percent of North Carolina's gross domestic product, and that doesn't include recently announced deals that will add to manufacturing employment in the near future, Crisco says.
Alabama
In Mobile, Austal is building high-speed, aluminum ships forthe U.S. Navy, made to quickly deliver troops to a war zone or disaster area.
Austal is one of many foreign companies that have opened factories in and around Mobile in the past decade, a group that includes Mercedes Benz, Honda, Toyota and Hyundai. In 2013, Airbus will join the list.
The European aircraft manufacturer is expected to break ground on a $600 million complex in 2013 and begin assembling planes there two years later, creating 1,000 jobs, according to the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce.
Though mega deals like the one with Airbus get the most attention,94 percent of factories in the tri-county area around Mobile are domestic, says chamber spokeswoman Susan Rak-Blanchard. Attracting smaller companies that bring 50 to 150 jobs to the area has been "our bread and butter over the years," she says.
Kentucky
The number of people working at GE's famed Appliance Park industrial complex in Louisville peaked at 23,000 in the early 1970s before starting to drop a decade later and hitting bottom in 2011 at less than 2,000,according to a recent report in The Atlantic.
In February, the company returned to the plant, making low-energy water heaters there instead of having them built by a Chinese contractor. A month later, GE moved a refrigerator assembly line from Mexico to the plant, according to the report. (GE is a minority owner in NBCUniversal.)
So far, GE has poured $800 million into revamping manufacturing operations at the facility, including $150 million on a new dishwasher assembly line. According to the company, factory workers helped design the line to be faster and safer, and as a result per-unit production time has dropped 65 percent.
"Companies are looking for a lower cost place to do business and a skilled workforce," said David King, Central South Carolina Alliance marketing vice president. "It doesn't get more basic than that."
_____________________________________________


We saw lots of media and academic writing these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA telling us developers were being allowed to build small communities in and around our NATIONAL PARKS on land once set aside for natural environmental protection. Many are expensive homes build by CA MERELY rich getting away from all that US FAILED STATE CITIES ----building on land owned by US NATIONAL PARK------not owning the LAND/PROPERTY RIGHTS.

These are the same areas being burnt by wildfires as global mining corporations are being handed the LAND-OWNERSHIP of what were US NATIONAL PARKS and all those SET-ASIDES for infrastructure.

So, the MERELY RICH being those upper-tier global banking 5% freemason/Greek players are literally being burnt out of HOUSE AND HOME ----while our southern states ---like MARYLAND AND BALTIMORE are seeing our US 99% WE THE HOMEOWNERS---pushed off by GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUS FOOTPRINTS.


We have always known our US national and state parks were LAND TRUSTS.  We have always been fighting to keep those LAND TRUSTS---PUBLIC.  When global 'environmental' groups like SIERRA CLUB spend these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA----they knew our US NATIONAL PARKS would be privatized and devastated as global banking 1% CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS are the great PRIVATIZERS of PUBLIC LAND.


Heather Hansman ----pretending to be an outdoor/environmental media reporter tied to global banking 1% FAKE NEWS media outlets like THE GUARDIAN and NPR -----knows what was MOVING FORWARD these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA for our US national parks


'Our Last Reading List Of The Summer Takes Us Outside : NPR
www.npr.org/2018/09/10/644848324/our-last...

Our Last Reading List Of The Summer Takes Us Outside As we head into fall, Heather Hansman, a correspondent for Outside magazine, shares some of her favorite new books'.

Congress just made it easier to sell off federal land, including national parks


Heather Hansman,
The Guardian
Jan. 20, 2017, 8:00 AM

In the midst of highly publicized steps to dismantle insurance coverage for 32 million people and defund women's healthcare facilities, Republican lawmakers have quietly laid the foundation to give away Americans' birthright: 640m acres of national land.In a single line of changes to the rules for the House of Representatives, Republicans have overwritten the value of federal lands, easing the path to disposing of federal property even if doing so loses money for the government and provides no demonstrable compensation to American citizens.


At stake are areas managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Forests and Federal Wildlife Refuges, which contribute to an estimated $646bn each year in economic stimulus from recreation on public lands and 6.1m jobs. Transferring these lands to the states, critics fear, could decimate those numbers by eliminating mixed-use requirements, limiting public access and turning over large portions for energy or property development.



In addition to economic stimulus from outdoor activities, federal land creates revenue through oil and gas production, logging and other industrial uses. According to the BLM, in 2016, it made $2bn in royalty revenue from federal leases. The Outdoor Industry Association estimates federal tax revenue from the recreation economy at almost $40bn.



Ignoring those figures, the new language for the House budget, authored by Utah Republican representative Rob Bishop, who has a history of fighting to transfer public land to the states, says that federal land is effectively worthless. Transferring public land to "state, local government or tribal entity shall not be considered as providing new budget authority, decreasing revenues, increasing mandatory spending or increasing outlays."


Essentially, the revised budget rules deny that federal land has any value at all, allowing the new Congress to sidestep requirements that a bill giving away a piece of federal land does not decrease federal revenue or contribute to the federal debt.


Republican eagerness to cede federal land to local governments for possible sale, mining or development is already moving states to act. Western states, where most federal land is concentrated, are already introducing legislation that pave the way for land transfers.


In Wyoming, for example, the 2017 senate has introduced a joint resolution that would amend the state constitution to dictate how public land given to the state by the federal government after 2019 is managed. It has little public support, but Wyoming Senate President Eli Bebout said that he thought the state should be preemptively thinking about what it would do with federal land.



The Congressional devaluation of national property is the most far-reaching legislative change in a recent push to transfer federal lands to the states. Because of the Republican majority in Congress, bills proposing land transfers could now swiftly diminish Forest Service and BLM lands across the country.


"We didn't see it coming. I think it was sneaky and underhanded. It exemplifies an effort to not play by the rules," said Alan Rowsome, senior director of government relations at The Wilderness Society. "This is the worst Congress for public lands ever."




Rowsome said he's not exactly sure how the rule will be used, but he thinks the first places to come under attack might include areas adjacent to the majestic Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona and Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Those areas hold uranium and copper, respectively.Rowsome said he's worried that sensitive tracts of public land, like the oil-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, could soon be up for sale. Some 60% percent of Alaska is made up of national land, and the state's representatives have tried to pass laws claiming parts of it for state use as recently as 2015. "It's amazing ecosystem and worthy of protection, and it's very likely that House Republican majority will open that up for drilling," Rowsome said.



This latest effort comes on the heels of a bill adopted in 2016 that directs the Department of Agriculture to transfer 2m acres of eligible Forest Service lands to each state.


Giving away national land has been part of the Republican Party platform since the mid-80s, after Reagan declared himself a Sagebrush Rebel, but it's regained steam in the past few years as 20 states have introduced some form of legislation suggesting that federal property be given to local governments.


In 2015, Bishop and fellow Utah representative Chris Stewart formed the Federal Land Action Group, a congressional team with the specific intent to come up with a framework for transferring public land. "Washington bureaucrats don't listen to people," Bishop said in a statement. "Local governments do."



But Rowsome argues that's a populist message without any popular support, pushed by a small faction of legislators with support from industries like mining and energy. Despite the Republican message that Washington has overstepped in designating national parks and monuments, a 2016 study found that 95% of the American public believes that National Parks are worth protecting and 80% said they'd be willing to pay higher taxes to do so.



"Western Republicans that are perpetuating the idea are very well funded by the oil and gas industry during their campaign," Rowsome said. "It's special interests wielding power for an agenda that will advance their goal. Nearly 90% of BLM lands are already open, but they can't stop trying to get more."


A 2016 Colorado College survey of seven western states found that 60% of voters rejected both the sale of public lands to states and giving states control without sale.


In 2012, Arizona voters struck down two pieces of legislation that would have turned over federal land to the state, including one that claimed the Grand Canyon as state land.


Opponents fear that local governments, especially in states with small budgets, won't be able to invest in management and will sell off land to make money. Last summer, the Forest Service was spending $240m a week to suppress wildfires, and the Department of Interior estimates the cost of deferred maintenance, like updating roads, at around $11bn.



In December, Wyoming Governor Matt Mead said that transferring public land to his state was legally and financially impractical. He cited firefighting costs on public land as something that the state budget wouldn't have room for.



Historically, when federal lands have been transferred to states, they have become less accessible. Idaho sold off almost 100,000 acres of its public land between 2000 and 2009. In Colorado, access has been limited the public can only use 20% of state trust land for hunting and fishing.



John Gale, conservation director for the advocacy group Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, said that he's worried about access for sportsmen. He believes that there's a further danger in segmenting ecosystems through state-by-state development.


"70% of the headwaters of our streams and rivers in the West are on public lands," he said. "Rivers and migratory corridors don't follow state boundaries."


The incoming administration hasn't been clear about where it falls on transfers. Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke, tapped to be the next Secretary of Interior, voted for the rules package, but in the past he's been against land transfers. President-elect Donald Trump has spoken out against reallocating federal land, but he's also met with prominent pro-land transfer groups.


Nevertheless, bills proposing land transfer will now have an easy route to passage, as they won't need to be backed by any financial justification.


The entire rules package passed on party lines, but it runs counter to legislation that passed both the House and Senate in November, the Outdoor Recreation Jobs and Economic Impact Act of 2016.


Signed into law in December, the legislation requires the Department of Commerce to count the over half a trillion dollars from the outdoor recreation economy in the country's GDP for the first time.


"It's not just natural resources that are on the auction block, but jobs," said Gale. "For a party that prides itself on being fiscally conservative ... they're talking out of both sides of their mouth."

_______________________________________________

Just as with homeowners buying homes a developer was allowed to build in FLOODPLAINS-----most homeowners building in FORESTED CALIFORNIA which has declared these mountain ranges owned/controlled by global mining corporations are of course being told they cannot REBUILD A HOUSE EXACTLY LIKE THE ONE BURNED DOWN----just as our HOMEOWNERS on floodplains are now being told their HOMEOWNERS' insurance will not cover rebuilding the EXACT HOUSE because land once declared NOT ON FLOODPLAIN is now deemed FLOODPLAIN.  So, these are all tactics built by global banking 1% CLINTON/BUSH.OBAMA to assure our US 99% WE THE PROPERTY OWNERS are no longer able to be LAND OWNERS.

Whether global banking 1% are using GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUS FOOTPRINTS----our using FRAUDULENT WATER OR PROPERTY TAXES----or using PROPERTY INSURANCE-----all of the above is tied to MOVING FORWARD LAND OWNERSHIP making sure US land is only owned by global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS.


BUY THIS EXTENDED WARRANTY HOMEOWNER INSURANCE -----THAT WILL COVER PROPERTY DAMAGE 'NEXT TIME' SAYS GLOBAL BANKING 1% PREDATORY INSURANCE CORPORATIONS-----OH, REALLY???

Do Insurance Companies Cover Homes Destroyed by a Forest Fire?
March 13, 2011
By: Tom Johnson




Forest fires can occur at any time and have the potential to devastate a community or an entire region. For instance, wildfires destroyed 2,180 homes in Southern California in October 2007. Your homeowner's insurance policy covers the destruction of your home from a wildfire. However, the amount of coverage you have depends on the type of policy you purchase and any extra coverage you select.


Forest fires can occur at any time and have the potential to devastate a community or an entire region. For instance, wildfires destroyed 2,180 homes in Southern California in October 2007. Your homeowner's insurance policy covers the destruction of your home from a wildfire. However, the amount of coverage you have depends on the type of policy you purchase and any extra coverage you select.

Homeowner's insurance covers homes destroyed by forest fires.Dwelling CoverageThe dwelling coverage of a homeowner's insurance policy provides compensation to help homeowners rebuild or replace a destroyed home. However, the dwelling coverage of many homeowner insurance policies is limited. If the cost to rebuild your home exceeds the dwelling limit, you may have to either build a smaller home or pay the additional costs yourself. Furthermore, the dwelling coverage only covers what it would cost you to build a home with the exact specifications and features of the destroyed home.
Building Code Upgrade CoverageDue to changes in local building ordinances, your community's building department may not allow you to build your home exactly as it was before the fire. For instance, some wildfire-prone communities require that all newly built home have roofs made of fire-retardant materials. Others require the installation of interior fire sprinklers. The dwelling coverage of your policy only covers up to the cost of rebuilding your home exactly as it was before the fire. To protect yourself against the cost of code upgrades, purchase a policy that contains this provision.


Forest fires can occur at any time and have the potential to devastate a community or an entire region. For instance, wildfires destroyed 2,180 homes in Southern California in October 2007. Your homeowner's insurance policy covers the destruction of your home from a wildfire. However, the amount of coverage you have depends on the type of policy you purchase and any extra coverage you select.

Homeowner's insurance covers homes destroyed by forest fires.Dwelling CoverageThe dwelling coverage of a homeowner's insurance policy provides compensation to help homeowners rebuild or replace a destroyed home. However, the dwelling coverage of many homeowner insurance policies is limited. If the cost to rebuild your home exceeds the dwelling limit, you may have to either build a smaller home or pay the additional costs yourself. Furthermore, the dwelling coverage only covers what it would cost you to build a home with the exact specifications and features of the destroyed home.
Building Code Upgrade CoverageDue to changes in local building ordinances, your community's building department may not allow you to build your home exactly as it was before the fire. For instance, some wildfire-prone communities require that all newly built home have roofs made of fire-retardant materials. Others require the installation of interior fire sprinklers. The dwelling coverage of your policy only covers up to the cost of rebuilding your home exactly as it was before the fire. To protect yourself against the cost of code upgrades, purchase a policy that contains this provision.

If the dwelling coverage limit of your policy is not enough to rebuild your home, you may be able to receive additional money if your policy has extended replacement cost coverage. The limit of this coverage is usually 25 percent of the dwelling coverage limit. For instance, if you have a dwelling policy limit of $200,000, the extended replacement cost coverage limit would be $50,000. If the cost to rebuild your home turns out to be $225,000, you would receive the $200,000 dwelling limit and $25,000 in extended replacement cost benefits. If it costs $300,000 to rebuild your home, you would receive only $250,000.
Other StructuresThe other structures coverage of your homeowner's policy provides protection for detached garages, guest houses and other structures not permanently attached to your home. This is a standard coverage for most homeowner insurance policies and the coverage limit is typically set at 10 percent of the dwelling coverage limit.

________________________________________

GROUND RENT is the same as LAND RENT and below we see a global banking 5% freemason/Greek player as PEOPLE'S LAWYER pretending to be fighting against these colonial LAND RENT policies here in Baltimore and Maryland.  This lawyer says nothing about MOVING FORWARD US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE designation killing any ability of our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE being able to be LAND OWNERS------he does not say that the MARYLAND CONSTITUTION is just as invalidated as our US CONSTITUTION when our Maryland ATTORNEY GENERAL FROSH pushes SANCTUARY CITY/STATE policies making all of MARYLAND private property to be owned by ONLY GLOBAL CORPORATIONS owned by OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS.



'Ground Rent Legislation Controversy
On behalf of a coalition of displeased ground rent owners, attorney and ground rent trustee Charles Muskin filed a suit challenging the constitutionality of Maryland’s new laws prohibiting new ground rents and forcing ground leaseholders to comply with the State’s registry requirements'.


So, yes------we do need to end GROUND RENT in Baltimore City and Maryland----and NO these policies being pushed by a FAKE PEOPLE'S LAWYER telling us AMENDING MARYLAND CONSTITUTION will help our US 99% of WE THE BALTIMORE AND MARYLAND CITIZENS be LAND OWNERS-----this is all FALSE FLAG media-------meant to make our 99% whether US or new to US immigrants think something is being done to allow for LAND OWNERSHIP.



Buying your ground rent

Buying the ground rent that affects your property is one of the best investments that you will make. It takes your leasehold interest and converts it into a freehold one. You will own the "fee simple in possession", the best form of title available in English law. You will have the satisfaction that your home is fully your own. There will be no more rent to pay. While it is impossible to quantify the actual value this will add to your home, there is no question that it will make it a more attractive proposition for any purchaser.



The Morgoed Estates offer
We offer for sale all our ground rents at a fixed cost price plus Land Registry fees (usually around £40). For this price we will take care of all legal work to enable you to register your purchase.

We are also able to offer an easy payment plan that allows the purchase price to be spread for up to a year without charge. Please contact us for details.



How the process works
Once you have agreed and paid the purchase price, we will send back a confirmation letter and a preliminary form to complete. Full details of how to complete the form are provided. In particular, please note that we will require the full names of all owners of the property. This will then be processed and the relevant documents to transfer ownership to you will be drawn up and sent to you for signing.



You should check the forms for accuracy, sign in the two places indicated, attach a cheque for the required registration fee and then post off the completed package to the Land Registry in the stamped addressed envelope provided.



On completion of this process your new freehold interest will be registered at the Land Registry who will confirm this by sending you an official copy of the register.

This BUYING YOUR GROUND RENT policy is yet another global banking 1% PROPERTY SCHEME only in place to get more and more money from our 99% WE THE HOMEOWNERS thinking they are WINNERS by being allowed to BUY GROUND RENTS.  At any time in MOVING FORWARD global banking 1% wants your GROUND---that GROUND RENT you bought will disappear after all those years of PAYING FOR THOSE GROUND RENT RIGHTS.

IT'S A TRAP-------as THE KRACKEN finds yet another way to bleed Baltimore and Maryland home-owners of more and more future financial gains on these homes.



MARYLAND PEOPLE'S LAW LIBRARY

Understanding Ground Rent in Maryland

Current Ground Rent Laws
What is Ground Rent?
Nearly unique to the Greater-Baltimore area, ground rent is a periodic monetary payment by a tenant to a ground leaseholder who holds a reversionary interest in the property or “ground” underneath a home.  Specific terms and conditions are contingent on the actual language of the ground lease, but such leases often require payment from the lessee (homeowner) of between $50-150 per year, commonly paid in semi-annual installments.  
In practical effect, a homeowner who is subject to a ground rent must make payment to a ground leaseholder for the right to dwell on the property.  Full and timely payment to the leaseholder ensures this right perpetually, or until the lease expires and is not renewed.
Ground rent arrangements differ legally from a normal landlord-tenant relationship because the ground leaseholder has no reversionary interest in anything resting on the property or in the dwelling space built upon the property unless the leasehold tenant is delinquent in payment.
The absolute management and control of the property remains with the leasehold tenant so long as the ground rent is paid (Beehler v. Ijams, 72 Md. 193 (1890)). Consequently, the leasehold tenant has the authority to alter, remodel and reconstruct the property as s/he wills, but the tenant must ensure that their actions leave the reversioner’s rent secure (Crowe v. Wilson, 65 Md. 479, 484 (1886)). 
The homeowner is responsible for maintenance of the land and any improvements on the land, including improvements made to the home itself (Kolker v. Biggs, 203 Md. 137, 141 (1953)).  It is the sole responsibility of the homeowner to procure and make payment on any utilities that service the property.
When a home is purchased, the homeowner may determine if he or she is subject to payment of a ground rent by looking at the deed or by checking the property listing on the Multiple Listing Service Nationwide Database  . If you are a ground rent tenant or leaseholder and you have a question, it is a good idea to contact an attorney. 
Ground Rent Rights and Responsibilities
Title 8 of the Real Property Article of the Maryland Code dictates the laws regarding ground rents.  Subtitle 7 governs registry of ground leases, and subtitle 8 governs residential ground leases.
The Department of Assessments and Taxation maintains an Online Registry of Properties that are subject to ground leases.. Ground leaseholders have to officially register their ground leases with the Department or face forfeiture of future collections on the leases.  This system ensures that leaseholders and lessees have each other’s contact information so that collection problems need not arise through failure to receive payment notices.


Read the Law:
Md. Real Prop. § 8-704

Registered ground leaseholders are entitled to a lien against the property for the amount owed, and the leaseholder may foreclose upon the lien if the rent goes unpaid after a reasonable time.  These foreclosure rights are like that of a bank when it forecloses on a mortgage.  The law is meant to ensure that when the lien is foreclosed upon, the homeowner retains the equity in his or her home despite the forfeiture of the property.


Read the Law:
Md. Real Prop. § 8-402.3

If a ground lease is not registered, the ground lease holder may not:
1.      Collect any ground rent payments due under the ground lease;
2.      Bring a civil action against the leasehold tenant to enforce any rights the ground lease holder may have under the ground lease; or
3.      Bring an action against the leasehold tenant under the ground rent laws.


Read the Law:
Md. Real Prop. § 8-707

Redeeming (Purchasing) Your Ground Rent
Some residential ground rent tenants retain the right to “redeem” (purchase) the ground rent. The State of Maryland currently regulates the purchase prices for ground rents using a special algorithm.  It accounts for both the leasehold value of the property as well as the lessee’s yearly earnings so as to prevent the leaseholder from creating excessive monetary barriers to redeeming one’s ground lease.
Ground rent lessees may obtain information regarding the purchase of their ground lease through the Department of Assessments and Taxation’s Ground Rent Redemption Program . If the leaseholder’s address is unknown, the tenant must post in a conspicuous place legal notice (sample notice available here ) of his or her intention to purchase. The lessee has 30 days to comply or else forfeit future collections pursuant to the lease.
Should you wish to purchase your ground rent but are unable to afford it, the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development offers a Ground Rent Redemption Loan Program  through which income-eligible homeowners may redeem their ground rent.


Read the Law:
Md. Real Prop. § 8-804

Background
The Historical Origins of Ground Rent
The concept of ground rent in Baltimore and surrounding counties may be traced back to colonial times, when colonists who wished to settle in the area paid taxes to Lord Baltimore for the right to do so.
As the old English lordship system was phased out, enterprising investors bought tracts of land from the newly sovereign colonial governments and allowed tenants who otherwise could not purchase land for themselves to make small, incremental rent payments as a less-expensive alternative to land ownership.
The practice was especially popular in the years following the American Revolution as many who were previously landowners were forced to begin again from scratch.  What little wealth had been built in America’s infancy was in many cases erased by the War.  Ground leases offered a post-war solution that required little initial investment, but afforded people with all the substantive perks of ownership, including a degree of sovereignty over their home.
The specific terms of these early leases were as arbitrary as they were various, but the popular practice was to set the leases to a term of 99 years with provisions for indefinite renewals thereafter so as to avoid the rule against perpetuities.
As the 99-year leases expired in the late 1800’s, only a very small percentage of them were actually renewed.  The practice of drafting ground leases soon gave way to a higher rate of land ownership and more traditional landlord-tenant leases in which the landlord also owned the dwelling space.
Ground rents then resurfaced in Baltimore following the Second World War as investors bought up much of the land left vacant by those fighting overseas and drafted ground leases for the properties.  When the GI’s returned to settle down and raise families, there was an enormous demand for low-cost home ownership in the City and surrounding counties.  Many who were unable initially to afford both the land and the home built upon it jumped at the opportunity for small annual payments on the land in exchange for a larger initial investment in the home.  Many of these leases, too, were drafted to expire after a period of 99 years, hence the lingering prevalence in the area.
Modern Ground Rent Developments
In the present day, ground rent is commonly viewed as a dying, yet no less legally binding, vestige of Maryland’s colonial past.  Almost all of the remaining national instances of ground rent are confined to the Greater Baltimore area, isolated areas of Pennsylvania, and most of Hawaii.
Despite the irregular nature of ground rent law, many of the same provisions apply as to normal landlord-tenant relationships.  If one pays his or her ground rent, the ground leaseholder receives payment on land that they own, and in return the lessee (homeowner) continues to justify his or her dwelling on the property.
The legal treatment of ground leases has created a problem, however. Grounds rents may be bought, sold, and passed to next of kin through wills, like a home or a family heirloom.  The leasehold interest in the property is considered personalty, and is governed by the law that directs the administration of personal estate (Myers v. Silljacks, 58 Md. 319, 330 (1882)). Each time the ground leasehold interest is passed to someone else, the administrative tasks increase in the form of paperwork, and sometimes through consultations with lawyers or through court appearances.  For this reason, ground rent leases sometimes become more burdensome than beneficial for the new leaseholders.
When the leasehold interests change hands, the new leaseholders occasionally may not seek out the lessees for payment, and when no demands for payment arrive in the mail the homeowners are happy to oblige.  However, Maryland law prior to 2007 put the legal burden on the lessees to find their ground leaseholders and make payments.
In recent years, according to articles in The Baltimore Sun during 2006 and 2007, several real estate firms and private entities have purchased thousands of inactive ground rents and tracked down the lessees for payment.  As a result, some homeowners have been surprised to learn that their long-inactive ground leases are once again active and that in some cases they are considered delinquent in payment even though they had not been notified by their ground leaseholder of the renewal of their debt.
Before Summer 2007, leasehold entities were entitled to sue the homeowners for all back ground rent, charge interest on the debt, and bill the lessees for the legal and procedural costs associated with finding what are often new names, new addresses, and other pertinent billing information.  Sometimes, the homeowner is unable to pay such debts in the short time required, in which case the leaseholder in entitled to pursue a judicially-ordered ejectment from the home.
According to Maryland law at the time, a successful ejectment also meant that the leaseholder seized ownership of the home and all associated equity.  Potentially, a lessee who defaulted in ground rent payment risked losing the home to the leaseholder, who could then sell the home at market value for a price significantly higher than the original ground rent fees.
Thousands of cases have flooded the Maryland civil court system during these past few decades, especially following a poignant and thorough investigative series in the Baltimore Sun in December of 2006 titled “On Shaky Ground.” The often-ignored ground rent system gained notoriety for the long-standing provisions in Maryland law that allowed enterprising investors to evict Baltimore homeowners, then seize and sell their homes over simple nonpayment of ground rent. Sun investigations had turned up a particular case in which a family was forced to settle with the ground leaseholder to the tune of $18,000 or risk losing their home.  Their back rent debt had amounted to all of $24 (Ground Rent case settled – for $18,000 The Sun 12/21/06).
The public response that followed The Sun’s ground rent series forced the Maryland General Assembly to make ground rent a legislative priority. 
Ground Rent Legislation Controversy
On behalf of a coalition of displeased ground rent owners, attorney and ground rent trustee Charles Muskin filed a suit challenging the constitutionality of Maryland’s new laws prohibiting new ground rents and forcing ground leaseholders to comply with the State’s registry requirements.
Muskin contended that the new legislation infringed on his rights as a property owner to seek appropriate remedy for delinquent renters.  He also claimed that the State’s mandates that he register his ground lease and pay the required administrative fees to the Department of Assessments and Taxation violated his rights under Maryland’s constitution. 
On October 25, 2011, the Maryland Court of Appeals issued its decision . In the case, Charles Muskin v. State Department of Assessments and Taxation (No. 140 of September Term), the Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Mr. Muskin, ruling that allowing tenants to extinguish unregistered ground rents is an unconstitional taking.
In addition to the Muskin case, another group of ground rent holders filed a lawsuit against the state in November 2007 over a different provision of the 2007 law, which prohibited ejectments for residential ground leases on properties of four units or less, and established a lien-and-foreclosure process when tenants owe at least six months’ rent.  On February 26, 2014, the Maryland Court of Appeals issued its decision .  In the case of State of Maryland v. Stanley Goldberg (No. 8, September Term, 2013), the Court ruled in favor of the ground rent holders, holding that “the ground leaseholder’s right of reentry must be viewed as an inextricable part of the bundle of vested rights which the Legislature may not abolish retrospectively.”  In effect ground rent holders cannot be forced to file foreclosure actions in order to enforce their rights against the people living on the property.

_____________________________________________
Here we see this same GROUND/LAND RENT scheme in UK--------the REAL 99% OF WE THE PEOPLE as property/land owners is-----ending designation of US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES ----stop MOVING FORWARD global corporate campuses being allowed to use EMINENT DOMAIN to seize individual property owners' land.
Our rights to property as we discussed a few weeks ago lie in COMMON LAW/US CONSTITUTIONAL BILL OF RIGHTS----when a state does not enforce FEDERAL LAWS----those state constitutions having these few decades some power outside of US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES---now have NO POWER when a state is designated SANCTUARY STATE meaning the entire state is now deemed a US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE.
NO US CONSTITUTIONAL PROPERTY RIGHTS----NO STATE PROPERTY RIGHTS WHEN DESIGNATION OF US FOREIGN ECONOMIC/SANCTUARY ZONE EXISTS.

No one or no NGO is fighting against GROUND/LAND RENTS is they are not shouting and educating against US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES/SANCTUARY CITY/STATES.
A governor pretending to be tough on immigration policy are MOVING FORWARD these same policies using different terms.



Beware the Rentcharge "Scam" - and it's perfectly legal

• Posted8 February 2017
• AuthorPaul Hajek

The arcane world of Rentcharges has moved on significantly – and not in a good way.
We have updated this post a few times since my appearance on Radio 4’s “You and Yours”  a couple of years ago to discuss Rentcharges.
At the beginning of last year, we were able to confirm what we thought was the end to a particularly vindictive abuse of process in how arrears were recovered.
Annoyingly, on appeal, the law has been returned to its previous anachronistic form.
If you are the owner of a property with a Rentcharge (or Chief Rent depending on which area you live)  you need to read on to avoid your being an unwitting part of a particularly nasty Conveyancing Nightmare.
More on that later, but first some background.

What is a Rentcharge?

Rentcharges (technically Rentscharge but let’s not be too pedantic, we’re friends after all) originated in the early part of the last century and were a means for builders to develop land without paying a premium to the owner of the Land.
Landowners would sell land to Developers at a reduced capital sum or for no money at all in return for an income from the owners of the new houses and their subsequent owners.
The person entitled to the Rentcharge is known as the Rentowner.
Rentcharges normally range between £2 and £10 per annum with the most expensive at around £12.60.
Rentcharges originated in the early part of the last century and were a means for builders to develop land without paying a premium to the owner of the Land
Rentcharges in Bristol, Chief Rents in Manchester
A Rentcharge is a peculiarity of Conveyancing in Bristol and surrounding towns and villages. They can also crop up in other areas of England such as Bath and Sunderland.
In Manchester such payments are known as Chief Rents.
Estate Agents, in our neck of the woods, often use the term “freehold and free” in their property particulars and brochures. In this context “freehold and free” refers to a freehold house which is not subject to the payment of a Rentcharge.
Rentcharge Sell By Date 2037
The 1977 Rentcharges Act abolished the creation of all new Rentcharges, subject to a few exceptions, for example, small developments with shared facilities such as a pumping station or shared accessways.
The shelf-life for existing Rentcharges was capped at 60 years so that all relevant Rentcharges would expire in 2037.
The 1977 Act, for those who could not wait that long, by design or choice, permitted existing freehold owners, to buy out (or redeem as it is technically known) the Rentcharges attached to their property.
A Rentcharge should not be confused with a Ground Rent which only relates to Leasehold properties, especially, although not exclusively, to flats. You do not have an automatic right to buy your Ground Rent.
How Much Does It Cost To Redeem a Rentcharge?

If you know the identity of the Rentowner you can apply to the Department for Communities and Local Government to redeem the Rentcharge.
The cost of redeeming the Rentcharge will be about 16 times the yearly payment.
We had an enquiry from a client who had received a letter from an Estate Agent acting for a Rentowner and was asked would he like to purchase the Rentcharge for £750
We were asked whether £750 was a good deal or not.
The Rentcharge in question amounted to £2.64 per annum.
The cost to redeem under the 1977 Rentcharge Act would be about 16 times the yearly payment, approximately, £43.
We said it was not a good deal and advised him to contact the Department for Communities and Local Government
If you know the identity of the Rentowner you can apply to the Department for Communities and Local Government to redeem the Rentcharge.
The address to write to or download the application form online is:
Rentcharges Unit:

Department for Communities and Local Government, Ground Floor, Rosebrae Court, Woodside Ferry Approach, Birkenhead, Merseyside, CH41 6DU.
Are There Any Problems with Rentcharges When Selling Your Property

Inflation has eroded any financial advantage for Rentowners.
Many homeowners have been paying the yearly rentcharge although many may have forgotten to pay, not been asked to pay or not known who to pay.
As Conveyancing Solicitors, we often have to deal with problems where there is no evidence of payment of the Rentcharge on the sale of a property.

Conveyancing Solicitors in Bristol normally agree on an apportionment from the sale price of 6 years (the limitation period for a debt) Rentcharge payments roughly between £15 and £75.
No big deal then?
The Rentcharge “Scam”?

Many conveyancing deeds which include a rentcharge state that such rent will be payable annually “whether formally demanded or not”.
Rentowners, including a growing number of Investment Companies, have used non-payment as a trigger to impose draconian penalties on unsuspecting homeowners.
Rentowners, including a growing number of Investment Companies, have used non-payment as a trigger to impose draconian penalties on unsuspecting homeowners
Here is what happened to one of our conveyancing clients in Bristol.
The Facts:
Our client owned a house in Bristol subject to a Rentcharge. He received a Rentcharge demand purporting to be from the new Rentowner.
Our client had been paying his Rentcharge annually ever since he bought the property to another person. Naturally, he asked for proof of ownership before paying to someone else. Proof, he was told, would only be provided if a £60 administration fee was paid. Not, unsurprisingly, he refused.
But, here’s the rub: the company went ahead with imposing a Statutory Lease on the property rather than pursuing its debt through the Courts.
The company used the little-known Section 121 (4) of the Law of Property Act 1925 ( the LPA)  to create a Lease as security for payment of its Rentcharge.
The sum total of the Rentcharge debt that the company, Morgoed Estates Limited (Morgoed), could have legitimately claimed through the Courts was only £16.50


Morgoed used the LPA to create a Lease on his property as security for debt of the £16.50 unpaid Rentcharge.
When our client discovered a Lease had been created on his property, he offered the £16.50 offered in full payment of the outstanding debt.
The company refused this offer.
A Sledgehammer Lease to Crack a Rentcharge Nut

What Morgoed did was perfectly legal, but hardly proportionate.
In 1925 the annual sums payable as Rentcharges were not insignificant.
The ability to create a Lease therefore as security for payment would not have been that controversial.
Fast forward to the present day and inflation has eroded any financial impact for Rentowners.
But the power to impose a Statutory Lease remains from the 1925 Act and was not abolished  by the 1977 Act.
Fast forward to the present day and inflation has eroded any financial impact for Rentowners. But the power to impose a Statutory Lease remains from the 1925 Act and was not abolished  by the 1977 Act.
The 1925 Act also permits the Rentowner to claim its fees for creating the Lease and a payment for the removal of the Lease as well.
Unfortunately, there is no requirement in the Act for the fees charged to be reasonable.
The fees could easily run into thousands of pounds if the Rentowner so chooses.
Our client took Morgoed to Court to remove the Lease from the title to his property.
And, he at least, had his day in Court.
A Short-Lived Victory
The Court was having none of it and decided in favour of our client.
The Court decided that
“The lease …is not registrable at HM Land Registry as a lease because it is a mortgage (within sections 3(5) and 4 (5) of the Land Registration Act 2002) and can only be protected on the register by a notice.”
The company could not ask for any additional monies over and above the outstanding Rentcharge debt.
The judge did not temper his opinion when he stated:
By the Applicants (Morgoed) unreasonable conduct in these proceedings and in persisting in charging unreasonable sums as a condition for redeeming the Rentcharge I see no reason why the standard order for costs (against Morgoed) should not follow the failure of the application.”
Morgoed’s ruse of creating a Lease had been rumbled.
The Land Registry removed the restriction on our clients title and he was able to sell his property without the Statutory Lease.
But, unfortunately, for other homeowners that changed once again on an Appeal in July 2016.
The Appeal Decision

Viewers look away now, as they say on TV, as you may find scenes of an unpleasant nature.
The Court reversed the earlier decision and held that:
“It is clear from s 121 of the LPA that the right to grant a lease arises once there is 40 days of arrears, provided that the rentcharge remains in existence and even if payment was not demanded.
That right is unaffected even if the Appellants have provided no information about their entitlement to the rentcharge, even if they have sent demands to the wrong address, and even if they have refused arrears after the grant of the lease.”
It is difficult to see how the appeal could have gone any better for Morgoed. You can read the full decision here.
The judge although recognizing how the result was not appropriate said that Parliament should have reformed the remedies available in the 1977 Act and abolished the right to the Statutory Lease.

To be fair to the lawmakers, such abuses were not prevalent, if at all, at the time.
8 Tips To Avoid the Rentcharge “Scam” Happening To You  
The Rentcharge “scam” is very real one and legal!

There are a few things you can do to minimize your risk of being caught in the “scam”
1. First, check your deeds to see if your property could be subject to a Rentcharge. If you are unsure check with your Conveyancing Solicitor or the Land Registry.
2. Make sure you pay your Rentcharge on time whether demanded or not and ask for a receipt.
3. Set up a Standing Order if possible to avoid overlooking payment of the Rentcharge.
4. If you were paying a Rentcharge but it has not been demanded check with your neighbours to see if they have any information.
5. If you receive a new demand for a Rentcharge ask for documentary proof from the purported new Rentowner and ensure your request by mail is “Signed for”
6. Be prepared to pay an Administration fee for proof (however unpalatable) to avoid paying hundreds of pounds later if a Statutory Lease is registered against your property.
7. If your Rentowner is Morgoed or other “investment companies” make sure you never miss a payment not even when you were not prompted to pay. Companies like Morgoed exist to make money out of unsuspecting homeowners with Rentcharge liabilities from dubious administration fees and/or payment defaults.
8. Best of all, redeem your Rentcharge through the Department for Communities and Local Government as it will save potential hassle and additional cost later on when you sell your house.
Don’t fall into the Rentcharge Trap and turn the non-payment of a few pounds into a Conveyancing Nightmare.


__________________________________________

We want our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE black, white, and brown citizens as well as our new to US immigrants to understand how global banking 1% CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA use terms differently all having the same goals.
MARYLAND has political machines PRETENDING to be 'left' social progressive DEMOCRATS----while our neighbor VIRGINIA PRETENDS to be more conservative with lots of connections to US MILITARY-----so, OPPORTUNITY ZONES-----as below are the same as US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES and any US 99% WE THE LANDOWNERS will soon be pushed off as these global corporate campus footprints are installed.
'Governor Northam announces nomination of Opportunity Zones in ...
chesterfieldbusinessnews.com/…/governor-northam-announces-…/
Apr 24, 2018 ... Four of the nominated Opportunity Zones are located in Chesterfield ... to spur vitality in economic growth in communities across Virginia and ...'
So, does VIRGINIA have Sanctuary CITIES ----well yes, they are called SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES-----being US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES---as this article states having included Alexandria and Richmond------
NONE of the policy goals tied to SANCTUARY CITY/STATES have goals of protecting our 99% new to US immigrants---it simply allows global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS to build POPULATION DENSITY of global labor pool for MOVING FORWARD GLOBAL FACTORIES.
THESE VIRGINIA POLICIES MEAN OUR VIRGINIA 99% OF WE THE LANDOWNERS WILL SOON BE PUSHED OFF.



A governor pretending to be tough on immigration policy are MOVING FORWARD these same policies using different terms.


We already KNOW this 'buying' of land for this new industrial site will be presented as EMINENT DOMAIN by individual small business and home owners trying to keep title to that LAND.

Does Virginia Have Sanctuary Cities?

Home > Issues > Welcoming All > Does Virginia Have Sanctuary Cities?
What is a Sanctuary City?
There is no agreed upon definition, though in general terms ‘Sanctuary Cities’ do not share residents’ information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). As this is a self-designated term, “Sanctuary” has been used to describe localities that issue statements of welcome and localities that do not comply with ICE requests.

Does Virginia have Sanctuary Cities?
No. Virginia has cities such as Richmond and Alexandria that have declared themselves to be “inclusive.” However, there are no localities in Virginia that are “sanctuaries.” Virginia cannot have Sanctuary Cities because the Commonwealth is bound by the Dillon Rule, which means that no locality can have a law that violates state law. In Virginia, everyone who is processed through the criminal justice system has their fingerprints sent to the Department of Homeland Security. Because of this automatic information sharing, no locality can be a “Sanctuary.”
Do Sanctuary Cities protect gang members from prosecution?
No. Sanctuary Cities do not shield people committing crimes. People who commit crimes still face the same charges, same sentences and punishments. In fact, crimes are more likely to be reported and witnesses are more likely to cooperate with law enforcement in Sanctuary localities.
What is the purpose of a Sanctuary city?
Declining to share residents’ information with ICE allows undocumented individuals and their families to interact with law enforcement without fear of deportation. Victims are more likely to report crimes. Drivers in fender benders are more likely to remain at the scene. People in need are more likely to seek the resources available for their families. Witnesses are more likely to come forward.
In fact, Sanctuary Cities have seen a reduction in crime and an increase in reporting of crimes. They keep our neighborhoods safer for all residents. But remember — Virginia cannot have Sanctuary Cities. For now, the whole conversation is a red herring.
_____________________________________________

WE CAN'T FIND COMMON GROUND SO WE AGREE TO BURN IT DOWN!
Here is our global banking 1% freemason STARS creating FADS tied to what COMMON GROUND means in US. COMMON GROUND is found in COMMON LAW tied to our US CONSTITUTION BILL OF RIGHTS.
Global banking 5% freemason/Greek players are all pretending they can simply amend state constitutions to protect US 99% WE THE LANDOWNERS and our new to US immigrant citizens buying HOMES inside US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.



youtube.com
Our Last Night - "Common Ground" (OFFICIAL)
Purchase "Common Ground" Here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/you... Stream on…

We want to remember when we read about graduates from a YALE-----we are not reading about scholars or best in class---we are reading about people likely lucky to have graduated from a private high school with grades being JUKED along the way. This is who the GREAT DECIDER BUSH is----it is who N Korea GREAT LEADER is----it is who China's GREAT LEAPING LIZARD MAO was-----none of these global banking 1% PLAYERS valued education or knew what it was about....just as BILL GATES----CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA.

What we see below happened during MAOIST CULTURAL REVOLUTION and it indeed was simply a ploy to remove almost all 99% of Chinese citizens from the education process. Below we see the percentages given meaning NOTHING---but it shows how children were culled --33 million children in China of a few billion is very few. The end of the process having 99% of Chinese thrown into the industrial global factories in FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.

We want to look today at what was our US MILITARY SCHOOLS most of which are overseas on bases used by long-term overseas military families.

WE ARE BEING TOLD ALL OF A SUDDEN THOSE GLOBAL PRIVATE MILITARY SCHOOLS OVERSEAS ARE GRADUATING TOP STUDENTS.

It must be all that MILITARY EDUCATION STRUCTURE.

Don't believe the stats but believe the process -----this is the same as today's US RACE TO TOP COMMONER CORE.


Education in Mao’s China
by  Tyler Cowen March 28, 2015 at 3:02 am in

Advancement in China’s school system was highly competitive, and the odds of reaching the top of the educational ladder were very steep.  Of the 32.9 million children who entered primary school in 1965, only 9 percent could expect to enter junior high school.  Only 15 percent of junior high school entrants, in turn, could expect to graduate and enter high school.  Among the highly selected groups that graduated from academic high schools, only 36 percent could expect to enroll in a university.  Of those who entered primary school in 1965, only 1.3 percent could expect to attend an academic high school, and only one-half of 1 percent could expect to attend university.

Of course the Caplanian point is that China managed a lot of post-1979 economic growth with what was fundamentally a not very educated generation.

Having spent our elementary school years attached to a US military base in CA ----having a very good US PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL as does most of our US sovereign military bases------we never attended a MILITARY BASE SCHOOL. We know that most military families try hard to send their children to US PUBLIC SCHOOLS and not military base schools. Our US 99% of WE THE MILITARY STUDENTS are no different than our BELL-CURVE public school students------most are average----some below some above-----a less-than-1% being that genius.

DoDEA as this article states are overseas military installations having those military base schools with no other choices for military families because of course there are no US PUBLIC SCHOOLS overseas.


'Nearly 75,000 school-aged military children are enrolled in the 172 Department of Defense Education Activity, or DoDEA, schools around the world'.

So, all of a sudden we are being handed stats saying these MILITARY BASE SCHOOLS are graduating students with higher achievements than our US public schools students---just as the same stats say global corporate neo-liberal schools in FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES are doing so as well.

March 15, 2018 @ 9:57 AM |


What Schools Are Available to Children on Military Installations?



When it's time to relocate, you need to know what education opportunities are available for your children at the new installation. The Department of Defense is committed to making sure all military children have the opportunity for a quality education that prepares them for success.


Nearly 75,000 school-aged military children are enrolled in the 172 Department of Defense Education Activity, or DoDEA, schools around the world. The rest are enrolled in public or private schools off the installations or in home-school programs. Schools on installations are either DoDEA schools or public schools.




Our Department of Defense Education Activity schools

Our DoDEA schools are 100 percent accredited and grouped into three geographic areas:

• DoDEA Americas: More than 23,000 students are enrolled in 57 schools in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, South Carolina and Virginia.
• DoDEA Europe: On the continent, 66 schools serve more than 28,000 students in Bahrain, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, Bahrain and the United Kingdom.
• DoDEA Pacific: In this region, 48 schools in Guam, Japan, South Korea and Okinawa serve more than 22,000 students.

The DoDEA Virtual High School is another education option, offering a variety of online academic and career-oriented courses that meet all DoDEA graduation requirements.



Public schools on military installations



Currently, 160 public schools operate on military installations across the United States. Department of Defense strategies make sure that both public schools on military installations and DoDEA schools comply with quality standards.


These documents have more information about Department of Defense strategies:

• Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011
• Prioritization Methodology
• Grant Process

Visit the Department of Defense Education Activity site to learn more about education opportunities for military children.


________________________________________________


Call me skeptical when our US DOD is ground zero for trillions of dollars in Federal funding frauds, a complete corruption inside military spending------no source for REAL NEWS but PROPAGANDA as a military defense mechanism.



Just as in US private schools we discuss in detail how all these EDUCATION TEST SCORES are juked making a private school student appear a higher achiever than our public schools----this is the same thing. NO DODEA is not a model for civilian education but ALTERNET---a global banking 1% Clinton neo-liberal media outlet will suggest that since MOVING FORWARD inside US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES comes with morphing into far-right wing authoritarian, militaristic, extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MAOIST/STALINIST/HITLER MARXISM.



'Is the DoDEA a model for civilian education?

Looking at the model of education offered by the Pentagon, one might wonder if it’s possible to transfer the best of what it offers – like an emphasis on parental involvement and community building around the schoolhouse -- to the civilian world'.

Is today's US MILITARY even taken to global private military corporation operating as a MAOIST/STALINIST/HITLER MARXIST military education structure?  Of course not.  MOVING FORWARD US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE corporate military schools will not look like our US military base schools because even as our US sovereignty has been attacked these few decades----our US military until NOW has retained the RIGHTS AS US CITIZENS soon to disappear.

So, US national FAKE NEWS and far-right wing global banking 1% academic DATA/RESEARCH is creating FAKE STATS telling us our US public K-university is a failure but look at what these MILITARY BASE SCHOOLS are achieving.

WE CAN EASILY IMAGINE THIS WAS THE SALESMENSHIP OF MAO AS HE BROKE DOWN CHINA'S FUNCTIONING SCHOOL SYSTEMS.

ALTERNET has always been a far-right wing global banking 1% Clinton neo-liberal media outlet---so our 5% freemason/Greek Clinton neo-liberal players are behind selling MILITARY BASE SCHOOLS--MAOIST EDUCATION as best.


We are not trying to disparage our military base students---we simply KNOW that BELL-CURVE on education achievements has worked for over 100 years ---now being discarded with only FAKE DATA allowed.


Education

Why Are Students at Military Base Schools Out-Achieving Their Civilian Peers?

Kids educated on military bases regularly outscore kids educated in public schools on national assessment tests.

Is the model replicable?

By s.e. smith / AlterNet
December 12, 2012, 5:00 AM GMT


If someone asked you to describe expected achievement scores in a student population where a) many have high personal debt with only a single parent at home; b) 40% of the school population is Latino or black; and c) students can expect to change schools between six and nine times as they move through primary and secondary school, “below average results” would probably come to mind. All of these stressors, it would be fair to assume, could contribute to difficulty with math, reading and other school skills, setting students up for an uphill struggle in the classroom.



While those assumptions often hold true in the world of civilian education, a notable exception to the rule may be present on military bases around the country and the world. According to the latest available data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), released in December 2011, students enrolled at Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) facilities -- the schools provided on military bases to educate students of soldiers and support personnel -- are performing at or above the national average in areas like math and reading when compared to their civilian counterparts. Critically, the results also note a narrower racial achievement gap than exists in the civilian world.


These results have become a conversation piece both in the military and in the larger world, where a number of journalists have suggested they indicate superior academic performance in DoDEA schools.



But such comparisons may be less reliable than they seem. In a conversation with AlterNet, education expert Paul Thomas cautioned that the results should be viewed with some skepticism, pointing out that comparing DoDEA schools and their civilian counterparts is difficult at best -- and that the NAEP itself can be a flawed measure of academic performance. “You must match a good deal of indicators, such as race, gender, socioeconomic, and subcategories that [are] often at the root of claimed ‘differences’ (ELL students, special needs students), before you can make any fair claim that military schools are better, the same, or worse,” Thomas explains.



This can be challenging to do, and requires, as he puts it, a lot of “tedious analysis,” some of which may be difficult to perform due to lack of data. If the data are correct, the next challenge involves identifying the sources of high student achievement and determining whether they can be replicated -- which, Thomas notes, may be impossible. “Can the causes of high achievement…be identified, and then can those cause-agents be replicated in the broader public schools that are unlike military base schools? (The answer is almost always, no.)”



Still, it seems fair to ask: If there is a performance disparity between civilian and military base schools, what’s behind it? And if the results on the racial achievement gap are accurate, what are DoDEA schools doing differently to erase that gap?



Statistics worth a second look

The Department of Defense operates almost 200 base schools around the world through the DoDEA, supplementing the 159 base schools operated within the United States by regional school districts. Up to 150,000 military children attend base schools for their education, though military parents may also opt for private schools and homeschooling.


The utterly counterintuitive NAEP statistics for military schools are especially remarkable when the full array of information about the state of life for military children becomes available – particularly when viewed alongside data about physical conditions at base schools. In a 2011 study, the Pentagon acknowledged that almost 40% of its physical facilities were failing, forcing students to attend classes in decrepit facilities. The same holds true for many base schools run by regional school districts. Catie Hunter, attending a base school at Fort Sill managed by the Lawton Public School District, describes navigating hallways filled with trashcans to collect water leaking from the ceiling of her school.



Poor conditions inside schools are not just a nuisance; they also present notable health hazards. High moisture and heat levels, common in many Pentagon-run schools, contribute to the growth of mold, which can cause respiratory problems, rashes and other health problems for students. Facilities with poor temperature control can increase the risk of illness, especially among students with immune systems weakened by travel, stress and other factors. Overcrowding is also a problem in many base schools.
At home, many military children deal with the stress of missing family members when one or both parents is out on deployment. A RAND study suggests that students with parents on lengthy deployments are more likely to experience a drop in test scores, and deployments can also be accompanied by emotional outbursts and difficulty focusing in school, phenomena witnessed by educators who work on military bases. This is disruptive not just for individual pupils, but for other members of their classes as well.



Given these conditions, how do we explain the possibility that students on military bases are outperforming their civilian peers? To start with, despite the many documented challenges they face, military children often benefit from experiential advantages unavailable to many of their civilian counterparts. They benefit from housing security in the form of base housing or a stipend designed to make local housing affordable. They also have access to routine healthcare services, which can radically increase their productivity as well as comfort; base students miss fewer days of school for health-related reasons as a result of preventative care and prompt treatment for illnesses, when compared to civilian children. Furthermore, they benefit from a large support network of military families and personnel, creating a community around pupils -- rather than forcing students and parents to navigate the system on their own.



Just as important, schools on military bases, when run well, focus on developing a culture of learning, instead of focusing on test scores. Performance-based evaluations are judged on detailed evaluations of students and teachers, not standardized test results. Accountability functions very differently in DoDEA facilities than it does in the civilian world, highlighting some key cultural differences between the military and the outside world.



A different school culture?

Take a look at how base schools are run and it’s hard not to be struck by the differences vis a vis how we operate schools in the civilian world. Because their funding originates with the Department of Defense, base schools are not subject to No Child Left Behind and its accompanying stringent and problematic requirements, which have been heavily criticized by educators. (Incidentally, DoDEA per-student funding averages are higher than those in the civilian world.) These schools also don’t participate in the Race to the Top, preferring to focus instead on creating a very different kind of educational and policy culture on campus.



Much like the military itself, base schools are highly organized and centralized. A clear chain of command establishes communication at every level of a school, and includes cooperation between teachers and administrators, who enjoy a relationship that tends to be less fraught than in the civilian world. The teachers’ union is a welcome participant in the educational landscape in many base schools, rather than being viewed as an adversary. (In one example, union representatives were made part of the planning for a school nutrition program, with the administration noting that teacher development and full participation in school initiatives was an important part of providing educational services.) As federal employees, DoDEA teachers and their unions work with management to resolve disputes effectively and maximize efficiency to focus on delivering services to students and parents.




These schools set clear achievement goals and use standardized tests not to assess teachers, but to evaluate students and determine which students may need additional help and support -- reflecting the original purpose for which such tests were designed. They also place a heavy focus on parental involvement, relying on parents and the community at large to support children in school. Many aim to create schools as community hubs for teachers and parents, recognizing that parents may feel isolated with partners overseas. For example, some schools host family resource centers and other services to attract parents and boost their involvement levels, while at others, educators and management maintain an “open door policy” for parents, inviting contact with any questions or concerns at any time during the school year.



When it comes to ameliorating the racial achievement gap, base schools also boast an historical advantage; military schools integrated students of different races earlier than civilian ones did, and nonwhite students may find it easier to learn in environments where they’re surrounded by diverse peers and instructors. Like the military itself, base schools aim to address potential discrimination and to provide equal opportunities for people of all races, including access to high quality education. High parental involvement is also credited as an important factor in the possible shrinking racial achievement gap at military base schools.




Finally, a focus on “good teaching” is central to base schools’ success. Administrators work to keep workplace satisfaction levels high at base schools, with the goal of attracting and retaining good teachers. Instead of relying on standardized tests with their accompanying flaws to gauge teacher performance in the classroom, administrators at base schools are more likely to visit and observe classes, meet with teachers individually, and interact with students and parents to assess satisfaction and achievement levels. This system rewards innovative and creative instruction that improves learning conditions for students, rather than obliging teachers to “teach to the test,” focusing on testing guides rather than the needs of their students.



Notably, as part of its accountability programs, the DoDEA conducts a biannual survey covering parents, teachers and students. The survey is used to determine where the system needs improvement, part of an evidence-based approach to education. In the most recent results, from the 2010-2011 school year, 77% of parents rated their schools with an A or B, mirroring their children – 73% gave the same marks to their schools. The use of detailed surveys and questionnaires is a common practice across the military, where such data can be valuable for improving performance and addressing concerns from people throughout the ranks.



Flaws within the base school system


Still, it’s not the case that every base school gets an A grade when it comes to providing the kind of supportive environments they claim to strive for. When looking at overall student performance statistics, it can be easy to forget to read between the lines, and while some DoDEA students are indeed performing better than civilian students, others are clearly struggling and may not be getting the support they need to succeed. Digging deeper, it becomes obvious that while base schools may be racking up superior academic performance in some cases, the daily environment for the students is not always pleasant.


United States Navy veteran Brandann Hill-Mann, whose husband is still on active duty, notes that the culture at her base school has been less than supportive for her daughter:



Given the nature of military lives, I was surprised that the school seemed largely unprepared for a mid-term transfer. The teacher acted put out that we had trouble integrating [my daughter] in. The focus is very clearly on the group rather than the individual, and the classes are predictably larger [than in civilian classrooms]. There is very little adjustment time allowed before the student is expected to be caught up with the current goings on in the class.Her concerns are mirrored by many respondents to the latest DoDEA survey, who also cited class size as a concern. Furthermore, Hill-Mann agrees with many parents on the DoDEA survey on another important topic: while schools allegedly commit to anti-bullying efforts, the truth on the ground can be very different for students and parents:


There is a very public message that bullying is not permitted on school grounds, but that is not my experience. The kids are taught classes in how to basically "buck up" and not take things so personally. I feel like there is a very narrow definition of bullying, and everything else is just "kids play." I am not aware that hate speech is considered bullying (I have heard the words "gay" and "retarded" used pejoratively, even by teachers).As for parental involvement, Hill-Mann says, a heavy burden is placed on women, along with the assumption that all servicemembers are men. As a parent, she’s pushed to participate in school activities and in many cases to make up for shortcomings at the school:



I feel like a lot of school activities would cease to happen without parent volunteers. Time is considered free for use. All the on-base sports activities…are coached by parent volunteers and not anyone specifically qualified to be leading the sport. Little more than a background check is required before taking these duties on.Hill-Mann’s experiences with her base school suggest that the progress for which the Department of Defense has been praised may not be the whole picture. If students are performing well but struggling with bullying and large class sizes, how supportive is the learning environment? Hill-Mann’s concerns about group-focused learning also ring alarm bells when it comes to disabled students, who may need accommodations in the classroom. In 2011, the General Accounting Office found that the military may not be adequately serving disabled students, and recommended better screening for such students along with firmer accountability standards. The Air Force, in particular, has been criticized for failing disabled students: some installations have no special needs coordinator, others fail to offer accessible education services at all, and in some cases the educational opportunities available to the disabled are limited – all in direct contravention of the law.


Is the DoDEA a model for civilian education?


Looking at the model of education offered by the Pentagon, one might wonder if it’s possible to transfer the best of what it offers – like an emphasis on parental involvement and community building around the schoolhouse -- to the civilian world. Some might argue that military culture is a key factor, making it difficult to provide the same kind of educational opportunities to civilian students, but there’s more at work here than that. The genuine commitment to students, education and family life in some DoDEA schools seems as important as the culture in which base schools are rooted, and there is no doubt that this emphasis is something civilian “reformers” should be working to embrace.




Evaluating base schools to find out more about what is working and why could provide valuable information for those in the civilian world looking to improve student learning on an organic level –rather than on meeting flawed government metrics. A high-quality, free public education should be available to all students in the US no matter where they are, and if base schools offer any positive lessons in that regard, their achievements ought to be studied more closely.
____________________________________________

Well, only if you have today's CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA----the GREAT LEAPING LIZARD MAO of today's sacked, looted and colonized former sovereign nation UNITED STATES.


Our US 99% of WE THE MILITARY FAMILIES know as well as our US 99% civilian citizens that our US military troops are used for research and development across all industries.  Whether PHARMA----ONLINE TECH------military housing/education-----when global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS want to take a public policy into the public sector ---it is mainstreamed first in our US military.  Same happened with RACE TO TOP COMMONER CORE----no one has been using ONLINE LESSONS written by global 1% having no connection to TRUTH/REAL INFORMATION----than these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA----our overseas military base schools.  Our adult military have been pushed to ONLINE DEGREES removing them from attending a strong brick and mortar 4 year university for their GI BILL education.


'Is the DoDEA a model for civilian education'?

In comparing RACE TO TOP COMMONER CORE to the MAOIST CULTURAL REVOLUTION and its military-style schools----we must remember, back in China's 1950-70s MAO'S LITTLE RED BOOK was not tied to DEEP, DEEP, REALLY DEEP STATE SMART CITIES.  The need for children to move through these corporate military school structures is greatly reduced.  

MAO SAID NO SCHOOL FOR YOU-----SO, TOO THE GREAT DECIDERS ----CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA---NOW TRUMP



On Military Bases, Common Core by Another Name


Schools on U.S. military bases are adopting the education framework – but don’t call it Common Core.


By The Hechinger Report, Contributor March 6, 2015, at 12:01 a.m.

Sixth-graders listen to English language arts teacher Tracy Lopez at Faith Middle School in Fort Benning, Ga.Cindy Givens/DoDEA



FORT BENNING, Ga.—With a father serving as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army, 14-year-old Tamaria Reed is used to moving from state to state, uncertain when she’ll have to pack up and relocate once again.



When she was in third grade, Tamaria moved from a public school in Panama City, Florida, where her class was just beginning to study geometric shapes. But at her new school on the Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Army base, third-graders were learning fractions. “The frustration was so high – that’s probably why I remember it so vividly,” she said.


When Tamaria switched schools, she usually transferred to another Army base campus run by the U.S. Department of Defense Education Activity, or DoDEA, which educates about 78,000 children at 181 schools on military installations in 12 foreign countries and the United States (including its territories of Guam and Puerto Rico). It is a system that, over the past two decades, has been steadily downsized as military bases, at home and abroad, have consolidated or closed.


Children of military families often move between regular public schools and those in the DoDEA (pronounced “doe-dee-ah”) system, changing schools as many as six times over the course of their academic careers. Nearly 1.2 million school-aged children have a parent serving as an active-duty member of the U.S. Armed Forces, and the vast majority are enrolled in U.S. public schools.


Now, in part to ensure a smoother transition between the two systems, DoDEA plans to spend the next three to five years phasing in the Common Core State Standards, which set grade-level expectations for what students will know and be able do in reading and mathematics.


Even as DoDEA prepares to adopt the controversial new academic standards, it is facing incertitude of its own. The U.S. Department of Defense is reviewing a study (to be made public later this year) that could recommend drastic changes for its 60 campuses in the continental United States. Options under consideration include maintaining the status quo, turning over operations to a local school district, converting campuses to charter schools, or shuttering them outright.


In the meantime and despite the unsettled future, the Department of Defense has allocated $5 billion in school construction funds – a 9-year project slated to run through 2020 – to renovate or replace nearly 70 percent of DoDEA schools in poor or failing physical condition. And DoDEA is forging ahead with the massive academic overhaul, scheduled to begin next fall.

[READ:
Should We Stop Making Kids Memorize Times Tables? ]Sixth-graders listen to English Language Arts teacher Tracy Lopez at Faith Middle School, Fort Benning, Ga.Cindy Givens/DoDEA



Currently in place in 42 states and the District of Columbia, the Common Core is often decried by opponents as a federal encroachment despite having originated out of a bipartisan coalition of the nation’s governors. So to sidestep that argument DoDEA – the closest thing the U.S. has to a federal school system – will use the phrase “College and Career-Ready Standards” rather than Common Core.



“It’s been my experience that as soon as you get in front of a group of parents or staff and you use the term ‘Common Core’ it becomes, immediately, politicized,” said Thomas Brady, who took over as DoDEA’s director last spring after serving as superintendent of Providence, Rhode Island’s public schools. “It gets confusing and emotional, for no reason whatsoever. We decided to defuse that unnecessary reaction.”



DoDEA’s decision to rename the initiative is a logical one, said Paul Peterson, a professor of government and education policy at Harvard University who has been tracking the public response to the new standards. His research found that using “Common Core” in an opinion poll triggers a negative response even though most people say they are in favor of national academic standards as a concept.



“The words have become tainted by the debate,” Peterson said. “I expect to see more of this kind of rebranding happening – many states are already thinking along these lines.”

ALL THAT DEMOCRATIC FREE POLITICAL DISCUSSIONS AND DEBATE BY A 99% WE THE PEOPLE----MAKE GLOBAL BANKING 1% ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE MOVING FORWARD COMMONER CORE IS  TAINTED----OH, MY.



Students in Flux

After elementary school in Kentucky, Tamaria and her family again relocated, this time to Fort Benning, Georgia, where she attended DoDEA’s Faith Middle School located on the base. She is now a freshman at Columbus High School in the public Muscogee County School District; it is one of the state’s top-ranked magnet programs. A common set of academic expectations among states would help DoDEA students, Tamaria said: Base reassignments and deployments don’t operate on a school calendar and children in military families often scramble to catch up academically.

[SPECIAL REPORT:
A Guide to Common Core ]“We have so much else to worry about,” Tamaria said. “School should be the easy part.”



Frequent relocation and academic upheaval have long been an unavoidable part of life for children of U.S. military personnel. Forty percent of DoDEA’s students change schools every year. By comparison, Los Angeles, the nation’s second largest school district, has a transiency rate of just under 19 percent.



In DoDEA parlance, on-base schools are “inside the gate.” By aligning DoDEA’s academic standards with the majority of public schools “outside the gate,” students will have a better shot at a smooth transition as they move among districts, states, and countries, Brady said.



USN&WR



DoDEA budgets $454 million annually to operate 60 schools on 15 military installations in seven states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. Local school districts are paid another $27 million each year to operate campuses and provide transportation for schools on military bases in Delaware, Massachusetts and New York

.
The new standards are part of a broader effort to better prepare DoDEA’s students for the postsecondary challenges of college and the workforce. The percentage of DoDEA’s high school seniors who said they planned to enroll in either a two- or four-year postsecondary institution was 80 percent last year, well above the national average of 66 percent, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.


[OPINION:
Common Core, Charter Schools Work to Improve Student Achievement ]Brady also wants DoDEA schools to have a more streamlined focus, weeding out competing initiatives and programs contributing to what he called “education reform fatigue” among teachers and staff.



This is more than just a professional mission for Brady. In addition to serving in top positions in school districts in Philadelphia; Providence, Rhode Island; Washington, District of Columbia; and Fairfax County, Virginia, he previously spent 25 years as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army. His wife, five children and two of his grandchildren all attended DoDEA schools.


“We’re going to do a rigorous and correct implementation,” Brady said. “That includes professional development, and the resources to make this work.”


That strategy is in keeping with recommendations laid for DoDEA by Rand researchers in a 2012 report, based on the best practices of 15 “diverse, large-scale reforms.”



Testing and Teachers


What It's Like Taking a Common Core Test


DoDEA’s schools are organized into regional districts, with a significant degree of local control. Because DoDEA is funded through the Defense Department rather than the Education Department, it is exempt from the federal No Child Left Behind Law, which laid out escalating sanctions for schools and districts that fail to show adequate progress on student test scores. (DoDEA’s leadership said the system voluntarily abides by the spirit and intent of the law’s provisions.) That means less time is spent preparing for, or worrying about, standardized tests, the system’s educators say.


All the same, DoDEA’s diverse population of students hold their own against their public school peers on several academic measures – including standardized assessments – and in many cases outperform them. Racial achievement gaps found at public schools with similar student demographics aren’t typical at DoDEA campuses. Indeed, on the most recent Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), African-American and Hispanic DoDEA students scored significantly above the national average for their subgroups.


DoDEA students, many of whom come from low-income households, benefit from an enviable network of support services designed to ensure their basic needs are met outside the classroom. Families have guaranteed access to housing, health care and nutritional programs – all important to student achievement.



“The parents work for the same organization as the teachers – that’s huge,” said Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “If a kid acts up, there’s motivation for the parents to come in and address the problem. It’s a closed system, and very often the kids, parents, teachers live in close proximity. They have optimal conditions for optimal achievement.”


Those benefits aside, it would be a mistake to paint life for the children of military families as idyllic, said Claire Smrekar, a Vanderbilt University associate professor of public policy and education who has conducted several large-scale evaluations of DoDEA.


It’s often difficult for spouses to find work, which can mean getting by on one income, Smrekar said. There is also a high rate of divorces and remarriage among military families, as well as frequent, extended – and often dangerous – deployments. That all takes an emotional toll on the children, Smrekar said.



While its students routinely deal with upheaval in their home lives, there’s one aspect of DoDEA that is remarkably stable: its workforce. DoDEA’s 8,000 teachers are typically more highly educated and experienced than their public school counterparts.More than two-thirds of them hold master’s degrees. It’s not unusual to find a DoDEA teacher with a doctorate. At its U.S. campuses, teacher pay is correlated against salaries in the nation’s largest urban districts. Turnover is low.

WE DO OF COURSE TAKE EXCEPTION TO ONLINE ADVANCED DEGREES AS TO MATCHING QUALITY OF BRICK AND MORTAR MASTER/DOCTORATES.  THIS IS APPLES AND ORANGES IN COMPARISON.


The department fills roughly 500 to 700 vacancies annually, and there’s a database of more than 20,000 applicants who have been prescreened to meet basic requirements: U.S. citizenship, a minimum of a bachelor’s degree and at least some teaching experience.


During her visits to on-base schools, Smrekar heard from teacher after teacher that they would never want to work anywhere else.


“These are exceptionally well-trained teachers, many of whom stay in place for decades,” Smrekar said. “There’s a shared sense of mission and professional respect conveyed from the parents to the teachers to the students.”


Girls practice archery during gym class at Faith Middle School, Fort Benning, Ga.Cindy Givens/DoDEA


Deeper Math, More Reading

The intent of the Common Core standards is for students to not just answer questions correctly but also be able to explain their reasoning, craft and defend arguments, and read complex texts closely.



The new math standards will be in place for DoDEA elementary schools beginning with the 2015-16 academic year. The literacy standards will follow. The decision to start with math came from the difficulty it poses for DoDEA’s students in older grades, said Brady, who called it the system’s “Achilles’ heel.”


DoDEA students will be expected to master fewer mathematical concepts at each grade level, rather than get by with a superficial understanding of a larger number of topics. Eventually, they’ll be expected to demonstrate “deeper knowledge” through activities like creating mathematical proofs.

KEEP IN MIND RACE TO TOP COMMONER CORE VOCATIONAL TRACKING K-CAREER PUSHES THE MAJORITY OF STUDENTS OUT OF SCHOOL AFTER ELEMENTARY----DEFINITELY MIDDLE----SO, THESE CHILDREN WILL RECEIVE VERY LITTLE MATH CONCEPTS BEFORE THEY ARE PUSHED OUT-----MARY KELLER SAYS THIS IS GOOD.



DoDEA’s decision to focus first on mathematics is a smart move, said Mary Keller, president and chief executive of the Texas-based Military Child Education Coalition.


The national nonprofit organization provides support to families relocating both on and off base, helping them get up to speed on such items as state graduation requirements and transferring student records.


Falling behind in math can do both short-term and long-term damage to a student’s future prospects, Keller said, and it’s probably the most frequent academic concern the coalition hears from military parents.


“Gone Is Gone”

The majority of DoDEA’s campuses are elementary schools, followed by middle schools and a small number of high schools. By the time students reach the upper grades their parents have often moved off base or left active duty. That can mean former DoDEA students with shaky academic foundations struggle in later grades at a public school.

GOALS OF RACE TO  TOP -----THERE WILL BE NO US HIGH SCHOOLS---STUDENTS WILL BE APPRENTICED TO GLOBAL CORPORATIONS


“The payoff in math is building on the prerequisite skills,” said Keller, who spent more than 20 years as a teacher and administrator in Texas public schools, including the Killeen Independent School District, which serves children with parents at Fort Hood. “But when you move a lot, you’re struggling in the next location, and kids lose their confidence as learners. That ultimately results in fewer Advanced Placement opportunities, weaker SAT and ACT scores, and other things affecting the decisions students make about life after high school.”


It doesn’t take much disruption for kids to get out of sync with school, she said. And it’s not just the stress placed on military families by 13 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Parents are often deployed to places other than battle zones where their families can’t follow. Added Keller: “As the kids say, ‘Gone is gone.’”


Tamaria Reed agreed that military life can be tough on kids, particularly middle schoolers already experiencing the normal stresses that come with adolescence. It helped to be at an on-base school where her classmates and teachers already understand the challenges facing families like hers, Tamaria said.


She also sees an upside to her frequent moves, and the “real world” preparation that’s come with it. Tamaria is planning for a career in medicine, and expects to have to relocate for college and then likely again as part of her advanced training.


“I’ll have to adjust,” Tamaria said. “And I know the adjustment will be OK.”
___________________________________________

Remember we posted a few days ago that global banking 1% and all those far-right wing Clinton/Bush/Obama who MOVED FORWARD dismantling of our strong US PUBLIC SCHOOL system are now saying---SORRY, WE MADE A MISTAKE---COMMON CORE IS NOT GOOD------pretending they are not installing RACE TO TOP COMMONER CORE.  This is the tag-team of global banking where the FAKE RIGHT WING pretends to be US conservative Republicans being sold they are indeed stopping COMMONER CORE when in fact they are doing nothing to dismantle all those structures installed during OBAMA era.  MARYLAND was first to jump into COMMONER CORE RACE TO  TOP ----and it is MOVING FORWARD to global corporate neo-liberal campus schools as fast as GREAT LEAP FORWARD global banking 5% freemason/Greek player/pols black, white, and brown players can pass laws to advance these corporate military school structures.

Below we see TRUTHINAMERICANEDUCATION-----telling great big fat LIES.

We again want to remind our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE and new to US immigrant citizens-----when we have a CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT---we do not have 5% players thinking they must believe anything as TRUTH coming from a GLOBAL CORPORATE CEO they see as a COMMANDER.  

So, we hear nothing from our Baltimore school teachers' union because they are under the umbrella of INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION/WORLD BANK/UNITED NATIONS-----AFL-CIO----which under TRUMKA has that fist up in ROMAN SALUTE acting as global banking 5% freemason FAKE LABOR LEADERS.

Here we see a MARYLAND REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR HOGAN being made to look right wing conservative while MOVING FORWARD same global banking 1% RACE TO TOP COMMONER CORE as far-right wing Clinton neo-liberal O'Malley

Maryland Plans to Dump PARCC


September 12, 2018 By Shane Vander Hart


Governor Larry Hogan (R-MD)Maryland plans to replace PARCC with an assessment of their own The Baltimore Sun reports. Maryland’s upcoming departure coupled with New Jersey’s exit will drop the Common Core assessment consortium that once boasted 27 partners (including 24 states) down to five.


PARCC’s active partners include the District of Columbia, Illinois (grades 3-8 only), Louisiana (hybrid, grades 3-8 only), New Jersey (plans to withdraw), Maryland, Massachusetts (hybrid, grades 3-8 only), New Mexico, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Department of Defense Education Activity.



Maryland’s schools struggled with PARCC since its implementation. Less than one-half of the state’s students passed in 2017. The Maryland State Board of Education announced last fall they were delaying the requirement that students pass PARCC to graduate.

Liz Bowie for The Baltimore Sun wrote:



The state is seeking bids from contractors to design a new assessment that requires less time to take and grade, but it will not be ready for use until the 2019-2020 school year. So the state will spend another $11 million to continue testing with PARCC this spring.

The impetus for change came from Maryland State Superintendent Karen Salmon and Gov. Larry Hogan, who said he got many complaints.

“Nearly everyone in Maryland — parents, teachers, students and the governor want these tests to end,” Hogan said at a Board of Public Works meeting last month.

As I’ve written before when a state has decided to jettison PARCC or Smarter Balanced, as long as a state continues to use Common Core math and ELA standards they will have a Common Core-aligned assessment. The Every Student Succeeds Act mandates the alignment of a state’s standards and assessment.


__________________________________



We will end this VETERAN'S DAY week discussion of NDAA and public policy tied to EDUCATION and our active and retired military 99% of citizens by again reminding-----many of those global banking 5% freemason/Greek FAKE LABOR players who could care less about our US sovereignty ----our US public schools ----our 99% of US WE THE CHILDREN AS STUDENTS------are today's US city labor leaders whether non-union or union. Below we see 700 union members won public office and they are the ones replacing global banking 1% CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA neo-liberalism MORPHING into far-right wing, authoritarian, militaristic, extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXISM.



We showed images of Eastern block POLAND----SOLIDARITY was not our strong US AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT I AM MAN labor union----it worked for STALINIST/HITLER FASCISM promoting these guys---like GREAT LEAPING LIZARD MAO----as a PEOPLE'S REVOLUTION ---pro-workers pro comrade corporate military schools.


We are watching as what were DEMOCRATS as Clinton neo-liberals show wins for far-right wing LIBERTARIAN MARXISTS---whether they are HILLARY NASTY LADIES as MARXISTS or these labor union men........working for the same global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS KNIGHTS OF MALTA TRIBE OF JUDAH taking the US to colonial status along with our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE black, white, and brown citizens.

Remember, HITLER was sold as pro-worker as MAO----by these same global banking 5% FAKE LABOR leaders having replaced REAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE 99% of labor workers in pre-Weimar Germany



'German Labour Front - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Labour_Front

The German Labour Front (German: Deutsche Arbeitsfront, pronounced [ˌdɔʏtʃə ˈʔaʁbaɪtsfʁɔnt]; DAF) was the National Socialist labour organisation which replaced the various independent trade unions in Germany after Adolf Hitler's rise to power'.


No one lost more over these few decades of global banking 1% CLINTON NEO-LIBERALISM than our US 99% of labor union members who were VETS  as well.


Over 700 union members win public office in midterms


November 8, 2018 2:32 PM CST By Mark Gruenberg


Minnesota Gov.-elect Tim Walz celebrates during the election night event held by the Democratic Party Tuesday, Nov. 6, in St. Paul, Minn.| Hannah Foslien / AP

WASHINGTON—Led by Minnesota’s Tim Walz, some 743 unionists—and counting--won public office nationwide, from Congress down to county commissioner, the AFL-CIO calculates.


Walz, a member of Education Minnesota—the joint AFT-NEA affiliate in the state—and a Mankato High School history teacher, was the Democratic-Farmer-Labor congressman from the GOP-leaning 1st District for the last 12 years.  Now, Walz will be Minnesota’s governor, and organized labor’s highest-ranking elected official.


RACE TO TOP COMMONER CORE AFT-NEA-----CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA--MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE ONLINE COMMONER CORE.



Walz beat his Trumpite GOP 54 percent-42 percent on Election Day. And Julie Blaha, the former Minnesota AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer and also a former teacher (AFT), joins him among the state’s top four officials. She won the auditor’s post, 49 percent-42 percent.



Walz, Blaha, National Education Association member and history teacher Jahana Hayes, and former top Unite Here Nevada official Steven Horsford headline unionist winners on Nov. 6.

ALL GLOBAL BANKING BILL GATES TECHNOLOGY ONLINE CORPORATE EDUCATION ----NEA---IS GLOBAL BANKING 1% NOT US PUBLIC K-UNIVERSITY.

President Barack Obama, left, accompanied by Education Secretary John B. King Jr., right, hosts the 2016 National Teacher of the Year Jahana Hayes, center, May 3, 2016, at the White House. Hayes, an NEA member, is now a member of Congress.


| Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP


Hayes, a Waterbury, Conn., social science teacher and 2016 National Teacher of the Year, won the open 5th Congressional District seat on a progressive platform—including Medicare for All and $15 and a union—after defeating the establishment favorite in the Democratic primary. Horsford, former head of Unite Here’s training academy in Las Vegas, reclaimed his old congressional seat in the Las Vegas suburbs. Both are African-Americans.



They join other active unionists in the Congressional Labor Caucus: Reps. David Norcross of New Jersey and Linda Sanchez of California (Electrical Workers), Mark Pocan of Wisconsin (Painters), and Stephen Lynch of Boston (Ironworkers). Norcross headed the Southern New Jersey Building Trades, while Sanchez is former Secretary-Treasurer of the Orange County, Calif., Central Labor Council.


Unionists also increased their numbers among state and local officials. Maria Elena Durazo, longtime Unite Here official and Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, will now be a state senator from eastern Los Angeles. She won by a 62 percent-37 percent margin.

Maria Elena Durazo, of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, will be heading to the California State Assembly. | Reed Saxon / APIndeed, though the fed didn’t say so, many of the winning unionists did so handily. Pocan topped them: He was one of the few lawmakers who were unopposed.



Teamsters member candidates won four state House seats. Jeff Kurtz, (Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers-IBT) won an open Iowa House seat. So did Susan Martinez, now a Nevada state rep, but also a shop steward and 30-year Local 986 member at Las Vegas’s Flamingo Hotel, won there.



Dave Delloso of Local 312 in Chester, Pa., and Steve Malagari of Local 830 in Philadelphia won open seats in the Pennsylvania House, even as it stayed Republican. “I want to go to Harrisburg and represent a class of people who are tired of being forgotten,” Delloso had told Teamster magazine. Angie Bodine of Local 777, challenging a GOP state House incumbent in downstate Illinois’ District 69, was in a race that’s too close to call.
The Teamster candidate with the biggest local impact also won: Incumbent Cook County (Chicago)




Commissioner Luis Arroyo, Jr., part of the panel’s reform bloc, coasted to victory on the city’s Northwest Side-based district.



So did the county commissioner with the smallest impact: Roger Parsons, a former Local 61 officer and UPS retiree, who sought his first full term in that small—population 14,294—jurisdiction. He told Teamster he’s “fighting for the working men and women” of his county.


The union winners even extended to D.C.: The only two unionists on the ballot—City Council member Elissa Silverman (News Guild) and Board of Education member Ruth Wattenberg (Teachers)—both won handily despite intense opposition from corporate interests, city Mayor Muriel Bowser and Silverman’s former employer, The Washington Post. Business and Bowser hate Silverman for pushing paid sick leave and an eventual $15 minimum wage for tipped workers.



There were other changes that helped workers on Election Day, even if the effect wasn’t immediately obvious. Walz not only won in Minnesota, for example, but also—aided by a strong effort from the state fed—dragged in a DFL majority in the Minnesota House. The State Senate stayed Republican.



The New Hampshire legislature was one of six states that flipped to pro-worker Democratic control, even as GOP Gov. Chris Sununu won again there. And Democrats picked up enough seats in the heavily GOP-gerrymandered North Carolina legislature—after a strong campaign by the state fed and civil rights groups—to end the GOP’s veto-proof majorities. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper won in 2016 and the GOP solons promptly stripped him of power, while passing an illegally anti-black “voter ID” law.




One California initiative workers opposed went down the drain. Corporations and the right wing tried to roll back a gas tax hike the Democratic-run state legislature and retiring Gov. Jerry Brown (D) enacted, to help fund the state’s schools. Initiative foes lost.


In Nevada, Asian-Pacific American Labor Alliance Executive Director Alvina Yeh reported the group, which concentrated its effort there and in four other states, helped elect pro-worker Rep. Jacky Rosen (D) to the U.S. Senate, ousting a Republican incumbent—and enact automatic voter registration at the state Department of Motor Vehicles.



And in Harris County (Houston) Texas, voters ousted two right-wing “good ol’ boys” from the county commission, including its chair, as two Latino Democrats won. That’s important because the panel controls a $2 billion budget. The one pro-worker progressive who did not, Penny Morales Shaw, still got 45 percent of the vote in a deep-red county council district. Houston voters also approved a 10 percent raise for firefighters. And Dallas County unionists helped turn the city’s state senate delegation blue. The final tally was Democrats 12 seats, Republicans two—in a map the GOP gerrymandered in 2011.



The AFL-CIO reported the 743-and-counting workers elected to public office were part of a wide effort that included 2.35 million door knocks, five million worksite flyers, more than 12 million mail pieces, and 260,094 text messages—-and 69 million “impressions on social media.”

NOT REALLY----SINCE THE DNC HAS BEEN RIGGING AND MADE FRAUDULENT OUR US ELECTIONS THESE FEW DECADES AND ARE MORPHING TO FAR-RIGHT WING LIBERTARIAN MARXISM-----THESE 'LABOR CANDIDATES' WILL CONTINUE TO MOVE THE US FARTHER AND FARTHER AND FARTHER RIGHT WING GLOBAL CORPORATE FASCIST.



The result: “Union members made our voices heard loud and clear,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. “Working people trust our unions, and that trust was at the core of an unmatched political program… In every corner of the country, working people showed up to fill the halls of power with union members and our allies. We made clear that we won’t stand for those who prioritize the demands of an elite few—whether they’re anti-labor Republicans or pro-corporate Democrats.”

____________________________________________

We discussed in detail how MAOIST MARXIST REBELS just happened to rise during last century's continuous wars by GLOBAL BANKING 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS KNIGHTS OF MALTA--TRIBE OF JUDAH----with our Asian global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS joining in. Here we see again FAKE NEWS as MAOIST MARXIST REBELS are called FAR-LEFT RADICALS----there is nothing 'LEFT' about global banking 1% authoritarian, militaristic, dictatorship extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXISM. That was HITLER FASCISM----that was STALINIST FASCISM----that was MAOIST FASCISM---that was FRANCO FASCISM.



Several decades of US FAKE NEWS media showing all those overseas civil unrest/civil wars in southeast Asia---showing all those civil unrest civil wars in LATIN AMERICA are the exact same as today's tensions in CRIMEA-----POLAND-----WESTERN EUROPE---US -----brought to us by global banking 5% freemason/Greek civil unrest civil war players black, white, and brown citizens often FORMER US/ISRAELI MILITARY VETS often found in our LABOR UNIONS/NON-UNION LABOR LEADERS.



THIS IS WHO WE SEE AS HITLER NAZI PLAYERS----AS ANTIFA LEFTIST MARXIST PLAYERS-----AS KKK----AS TRADE UNIONISTS.

'Naxalite–Maoist insurgency

- Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalite–Maoist_insurgency


Naxalites are a group of far-left radical communists, supportive of Maoist political sentiment and ideology. Their origin can be traced to the splitting in 1967 of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), leading to the formation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist)'.




All fighting for RACE TO THE TOP extreme wealth for global 1% ----and COMMONER CORE race to bottom impoverishment and enslavement for our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE and new to US immigrants.


'A typical Marxist, Mao didn’t believe in innate human worth. According to Halliday, he saw only four important things in people, “money, food, labour and soldiers.” '

Who was Chairman Mao, Lionized by Obama’s White house?


By Kelly OConnell —-- Bio and Archives--January 17, 2010
 
When a member of Barack Obama’s administration recently praised China’s Marxist Chairman Mao as a “favorite political philosopher,” confusion followed. So, who was Mao and why does Obama’s administration publicly praise him? It’s easy to briefly describe Mao Zedong.



He was a radical progressive who fought for a Marxist revolution in his native China, prevailing to lead the country for 27 tumultuous years. Despite boasting he fought “for the People,” Mao’s Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, and other progressive policies resulted in the killing of 77 million people, according to genocide expert Professor J.R. Rummel.



Mao’s Background and Personality


Mao Zedong, ie Mao Tse-Tung, aka Chairman Mao, was delivered to a middle-class peasant family in a small town in 1893 in the valley of Shaoshan, Hunan Province, in China’s heartland. A very disobedient and disrespectful child, Mao was a natural-born rebel. An utter mama’s boy, Mao hated his father (a trait shared with many other dictators). His life was filled with tragic events, missed opportunities, rank cruelty and willfully ruinous decisions. A typical Marxist leader, Mao longed to put restraints on others, but was a fundamentally lawless and antinomian personality. While he claimed to want socialism to help the peasants rise, there is little evidence he was ever actually interested in the poor.



According to Jon Halliday in “Mao, The Unknown Story,” Mao proclaimed, “People like me only have a duty to ourselves; we have no duty to other people.” His supreme interest was satisfying his own desires. He did not believe in a life beyond this one. He rejected any concept of universal laws like the Ten Commandments, saying “I do not think these [commands like “Do not kill”] have to do with conscience. I think they are only out of self-interest for self-preservation.” Mao refused any external moral code, but chose to ruthlessly shatter his nation to force it into socialist shackles. As a result, Chairman Mao became the greatest killer of humans in history.



Chairman Mao’s early career


After winning the civil war in 1949, Mao became China’s supreme leader when the People’s Republic of China was established. Party opponents accused him of self-absorption and megalomania. Moscow sent financial aid and tactical direction, while Mao studied Lenin’s life. The main lesson learned from Lenin, and also Stalin, was how to establish power and control by sheer terror, through torture and killing. The terror campaign was coordinated by China’s KGB, the Political Security Bureau, all Soviet trained. In fact, the Chinese Communist Party was begun in Moscow, built on the Soviet model, with Russian aid and direction, writes Halliday.




Mao’s government began turning family farms into collectivized units to mimic the Soviets. Unfortunately, this model did not work, as production fell, and farmers rejected Mao’s direction. This sowed seeds of demise separating China from the Soviet model, allowing Maoism to take wing, says Clarence B. Carson, in “Basic Communism: Its Rise, Spread and Debacle in the 20th Century.”



Great Leap Forward



In 1958, Mao announced the Great Leap Forward to transform China into a modern state within a few years. In Mao’s mind, his plan to dominate and revolutionize China would then transfer to the rest of the globe. The Great Leap would occur when collectivized farms saw food production spike from new methodology. A compliant press celebrated massive increases in harvests, such as 100-fold gains in productivity. Yet after 6 months, the program was exposed as a massive failure, and instead of swelling production, widespread food shortages resulted. When reported to Mao, he replied all people would eat less since it was healthier anyway, according to Halliday.



The Great Leap Forward reveals Mao’s fevered and unhinged approach to “industrialization.” Among many harebrained growth schemes, a few must be mentioned. First, Mao sanctioned multiple canal and lake excavation projects, using primitive means, resulting in many peasant deaths. Yet, most either failed or were abandoned. Another strange plan was ridding China of the “Four Pests,” being rats, sparrows, flies and mosquitoes. Unfortunately, when Chinese sparrows were wiped out by rabid crowds of broom-waving peasants, it was only then discovered sparrow “pests” actually reduced real insect menaces. Many died when pestilence broke out, writes Halliday.



Another astounding plan was the “Make Steel” program. Since existent Chinese steel mills couldn’t upgrade fast enough, Mao ordered private citizens to build foundries. These “backyard furnaces” were constructed by 90 million peasants encouraged to melt down any metal available, including farm implements. Mao bragged China’s steel output would excel Britain’s in three years, and America’s by ten. Instead, an absurd failure resulted, revealing Mao’s utter misapprehension of scientific or economic principles. Heaps of brittle, useless pig-iron resulted, destroying countless important household implements, claims Halliday. This well-illustrates the impetuous, smug and illogical mindset of Mao.


Peasant’s War


After the Korean War ended in 1953, Mao decided China must quickly join the globe’s most powerful nations via his secret “Superpowers Programme,” focused on grain sales. Chinese peasants were forced onto strict food rations. All excess production was earmarked for the state, with rations set at half of subsistence, although Mao actually demanded they consume less. Zedong felt no sacrifice was too great for peasants, echoing Lenin’s own persecutions of farmers. By 1958, officially sanctioned famine gripped huge numbers. Food was confiscated by force, and many farmers died of starvation, although some also committed suicide. Mao commented, “This is a war on food producers – as well as on food consumers,” according to Halliday.



Farmers suspected of hoarding were executed or sent to concentration camps, according to Jasper Becker, in “Hungry Ghosts, Mao’s Secret Famine.” The most unpopular citizens, termed by officials “enemies of the people,” comprised about 5% of the population. Becker lists these as, “Landlords, rich peasants, former members of the Nationalist regime, religious leaders, rightists, counter-revolutionaries, and the families of such individuals…” These were classic Marxist capitalist demons, fit only to burn. Mao stated, “It is necessary to bring about a reign of terror in every country.”


Mao’s bizarre plan eventually moved 700 Chinese peasants into communes, as couples were even held for a time separately. The goal here being destruction of the family under the Chinese Communist Party. Mao was proclaimed as greater than any parent. Becker estimates that between 33-40 million people died during Mao’s forced famine.



The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution


Launched in 1965 against his own Chinese Communist Party, the Cultural Revolution pitted youth against the establishment, achieving one of histories worst political purges. Mao was infuriated his Great Leap failed, believing it lacked Party support. Proxies attacked the Arts, claiming it subversive. For example, the ten greatest living Chinese writers were publicly shamed. Mao wished to overturn conservative bourgeoisie culture, and set young against old, horrifying this ancestor venerating society.




Universities closed from 1966-1969 so students could better rampage. The young were encouraged to desecrate and destroy everything holy to Chinese society, including the school system, religion, the family, universities, and even museums. Students defied and physically attacked public officials. The Red Army singled out bureaucrats and executed them for the crime of ruling class membership, says Carson. Student gangs, including females, rampaged across China in murderous pods. Yet Mao was most interested in purging loathed Party members. Millions died during this ten-year period.



Political Ideals


A typical Marxist, Mao didn’t believe in innate human worth. According to Halliday, he saw only four important things in people, “money, food, labour and soldiers.” Philip Short, in “Mao, A Life,” writes upon Zedong’s belief in “...the need for a strong state, with centralized political power…” Marxist fixation on strong central authority agreed with Confucian texts Mao read as a child. Typically elitist, he felt commoners were backwards and needed training, like children, for communist salvation.


Belief in a needed elite sect to guide and liberate blind masses predates Christianity, emanating from Gnostics writings. These pagan concepts heavily influenced early socialists, noted by Eric Voegelin in works like “Science, Politics and Gnosticism.” The goal was creation of materialistic paradise on earth, by ending all wars, famines, and greed, via communist mandate eliminating private property.



Mao was transfixed by cataclysmic events including large-scale staged executions, a love shared by other tyrants like Lenin and Stalin. Mao stated, “We love sailing on a sea of upheavals. To go from life to death is to experience the greatest upheaval. Isn’t it magnificent?” So, Zedong was not moved by murder, since it was a part of the great adventure of life. This attitude typifies Marxists who celebrated the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, hugely influential on Marx. Heraclitus wrote, “War is the father of all and king of all, who manifested some as gods and some as men, who made some slaves and some freemen.” Mao made secret police, disappearances, concentration camps, beatings and murders a part of everyday life in China.


Spilled blood thrilled Mao. Informed of murderous attacks, he felt a “kind of ecstasy he never experienced before…It is wonderful! It is wonderful!” Asked how to confront critics, he said “We’ll slit their ankle tendons and cut off their ears!” Mao’s theory of revolution was pure destruction, a total Marxist vision. On changing China, Mao said, “the country must be…destroyed and then reformed.” He added a chilling overview, stating “This applies to the country, to the nation and to mankind…The destruction of the universe is the same…People like me long for its destruction, because when the old universe is destroyed, a new universe will be formed. Isn’t that better?!!” It would be nearly impossible to find a better description of Marx’s explosive Dialectic of History, nabbed from Hegel, which described the doctrine of creative destruction for building the perfect communist society.


Is Mao an inspiration to Obama?


White House Communications Director Anita Dunn extolled Chairman Mao in a 2009 speech to school children. Dunn is not obscure, but was originally one of four top consultants to Barack’s presidential campaign (a group including Obama’s current chief advisor, David Axelrod). Dunn’s husband is Robert Bauer, Barack’s personal lawyer and new chief White House Counsel. Echoing Maoist support were Manufacturing Czar Ron Bloom and Ex-Green Jobs Czar Van Jones, proving administration Maoism is not isolated.

OF COURSE BOTH RON BLOOM AND VAN JONES ARE FAR-RIGHT WING GLOBAL BANKING 1% CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS -----INDEED PRETENDING TO BE LEFT POPULISTS.


Dunn, on her favorite “...political philosophers: Mao Tse-tung…I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point which is ‘you’re going to make choices; you’re going to challenge; you’re going to say why not; you’re going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before.” So Dunn embraces Mao’s radical policies, and one must assume she considers his death toll and reign of terror acceptable collateral damage. Bill Ayers, U.S. Marxist terrorist and Obama mentor was also influenced by Mao, saying after America was overtaken by communists, 25 million resisters might have to be murdered, according to ex-Weatherman Larry Grathwohl.


Pillars of Marxist Political Philosophy


What are the pillars of Chairman Mao’s Marxist political philosophy? Essential Maoist beliefs include these:

1. Any tactic that achieves a desired result is acceptable, regardless of the costs.

END JUSTIFIES MEANS......CONTINUOUS WARS SPENDING TENS OF TRILLIONS OF US FEDERAL TAX REVENUE.

1. Individual people are irrelevant; only the group has any standing; human deaths mean nothing.

 

1. A strong central government must be erected.

1. Non-socialist states must be shattered to be remade along Marxist lines.

 

1. There is no God; no set of rules exist above society, including any civil or human rights.

Finally, since Obama freely hired staff, choosing those he enjoys and finds laudable. So, like Dunn, does he also accept Chairman Mao and other dictators as role models?!! Given that many wonderful non-murderer leaders could have been chosen, Dunn’s choice was strategic. Obama’s answer to this question could well make many Americans uneasy.

We deliberately chose to discuss NDAA and education public policy tied to our US military THE WEEK OF VETERAN'S DAY------and we weave discussions of anti-war VIETNAM 1960-70s into this discussion because our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE black, white, and brown citizens have FORGOTTEN and/or are being taught in US schools a different notion of what it means to be AMERICAN and a PATRIOT.

To be AMERICAN is a geographical term---we live on a continent called THE AMERICAS. To be a US CITIZEN you live in a sovereign nation called UNITED STATES on AMERICAN continent.  Our US public military for 300 years have been taught PATRIOTISM is protecting our US sovereignty and our public militia has a duty to protect our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE and their rights under a US CONSTITUTION.  Our US military while in active service are taught a military commander must be OBEYED no matter whether right or wrong---no matter what he/she says is TRUTH or lies.  

THE DUTIES OF MILITARY TIED TO A US PRESIDENT AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF CHANGED AS EISENHOWER AVIATION ACT OF LATE 1950S----TIED OUR US MILITARY TO GLOBAL BANKING 1% OLD WORLD KINGS KNIGHTS OF MALTA.  

This is how our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE went from a 1960-70s full of fighting for our US Constitution and rights as citizens not to be forced into ILLEGAL AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL WARS-----that being UNPATRIOTIC----

'Patriotism

For 125 years, the Daughters of the American Revolution has carried the torch of patriotism. Love of country was the purpose; ancestors who fought for freedom was the bond that connected women to unite to form an organization that honored heritage and worked to ensure a bright future for our children. Patriotism is the foundation of the many DAR activities that take place in local communities across the country'.

Education


The DAR is passionate about educating America’s youth and supports a variety of different programs, contests and awards to help further this goal. The DAR website offers many different resources that teachers may find useful when they are teaching subjects such as the Revolutionary War, family history/genealogy, the colonial period and early America. Teachers and students are encouraged to explore the available resources and take advantage of the different programs DAR offers. 
DAR Educational Programs

• Scholarships
• Essay Contests
• Youth Programs
• Constitution Week
• AncestryK12
• Resources for Teachers

Educational Resources from DAR

• Genealogical Research System (GRS)
• GRS for Educators
• DAR Library
• Forgotten Patriots
• DAR Museum Portable Education Programs
• Signers of the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution

The Daughters of American Revolution seem to think is is our PATRIOTIC duty to protect and defend the US CONSTITUTION----------just as all those LEFTY COMMIES who were not commies but left social progressive LOCKEAN I AM MAN which is on what our US Constitution is founded



'The aims of the Constitution Week celebration are to:

Emphasize citizens' responsibilities for protecting and defending the Constitution.

Inform people that the Constitution is the basis for America's great heritage and the foundation for our way of life.

Encourage the study of the historical events which led to the framing of the Constitution in September 1787'.


______________________________________________


We KNOW both THE DAUGHTERS OF AMERICAN REVOLUTION and this article by LAWRENCE REED are both filled with global banking 5% freemason/Greek players so we do not see all of this as US PUBLIC EDUCATION. While MR REED fighting for ECONOMIC FREEDOMS tied to our US Constitution correctly identifies what PATRIOTISM is ------the motives for getting rid of a GOVERNMENT indeed corrupted has unintended meaning. Being rid of global banking 5% freemason/Greek players black,white, and brown is JUSTICE UNDER US RULE OF LAW AND US CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS TO DUE PROCESS AND PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS.

Getting rid of our US GOVERNMENT structures which we think REED is really pushing-----is the opposite. REED as CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS sounds more like an CONSTITUTIONAL ORIGINALIST meaning reforming and installing a NEW CONSTITUTION protecting OLD WORLD KINGS GLOBAL CORPORATIONS and that economy---


'It’s the right of a free people to rid themselves of a government that becomes destructive of those ends, as our Founders did in a supreme act of courage and defiance more than two hundred years ago'.

So, a perfectly good definition of PATRIOTISM -----remember, our US founding fathers were throwing out global EAST INDIA CORPORATIONS and OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS.

The True Meaning of Patriotism


Patriotism Is Not the Waving of a Flag

Friday, July 01, 2016


Lawrence W. Reed


Patriotism these days is like Christmas—lots of people caught up in a festive atmosphere replete with lights and spectacles. We hear reminders about “the true meaning” of Christmas—and we may even mutter a few guilt-ridden words to that effect ourselves—but each of us spends more time and thought in parties, gift-giving, and the other paraphernalia of a secularized holiday than we do deepening our devotion to the true meaning.


So it is with patriotism, especially on Memorial Day in May, Flag Day in June, and Independence Day in July. Walk down Main Street America and ask one citizen after another what patriotism means and with few exceptions, you’ll get a passel of the most self-righteous but superficial and often dead-wrong answers. America’s Founders, the men and women who gave us reason to be patriotic in the first place, would think we’ve lost our way if they could see us now.



Since the infamous attacks of September 11, 2001, Americans in near unanimity have been “feeling” patriotic. For most, that sadly suffices to make one a solid patriot. But if I’m right, it’s time for Americans to take a refresher course.


Patriotism is not love of country, if by “country” you mean scenery—amber waves of grain, purple mountain majesty, and the like. Almost every country has pretty collections of rocks, water, and stuff that people grow and eat. If that’s what patriotism is all about, then Americans have precious little for which we can claim any special or unique love. And surely, patriotism cannot mean giving one’s life for a river or a mountain range.



Patriotism is not blind trust in anything our leaders tell us or do. That just replaces some lofty concepts with mindless goose-stepping.
Patriotism is not simply showing up to vote. You need to know a lot more about what motivates a voter before you judge his patriotism. He might be casting a ballot because he just wants something at someone else’s expense. Maybe he doesn’t much care where the politician he’s hiring gets it. Remember Dr. Johnson’s wisdom: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”



Waving the flag can be an outward sign of patriotism, but let’s not cheapen the term by ever suggesting that it’s anything more than a sign. And while it’s always fitting to mourn those who lost their lives simply because they resided on American soil, that too does not define patriotism.


People in every country and in all times have expressed feelings of something we flippantly call “patriotism,” but that just begs the question. What is this thing, anyway? Can it be so cheap and meaningless that a few gestures and feelings make you patriotic?


Not in my book.
I subscribe to a patriotism rooted in ideas that in turn gave birth to a country, but it’s the ideas that I think of when I’m feeling patriotic. I’m a patriotic American because I revere the ideas that motivated the Founders and compelled them, in many instances, to put their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor on the line.


What ideas? Read the Declaration of Independence again. Or, if you’re like most Americans these days, read it for the very first time. It’s all there. All men are created equal. They are endowed not by government but by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Premier among those rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Government must be limited to protecting the peace and preserving our liberties, and doing so through the consent of the governed. It’s the right of a free people to rid themselves of a government that becomes destructive of those ends, as our Founders did in a supreme act of courage and defiance more than two hundred years ago.



Call it freedom. Call it liberty. Call it whatever you want, but it’s the bedrock on which this nation was founded and from which we stray at our peril. It’s what has defined us as Americans. It’s what almost everyone who has ever lived on this planet has yearned for. It makes life worth living, which means it’s worth fighting and dying for.


An American Spin


I know that this concept of patriotism puts an American spin on the term. But I don’t know how to be patriotic for Uganda or Paraguay. I hope the Ugandans and Paraguayans have lofty ideals they celebrate when they feel patriotic, but whether or not they do is a question you’ll have to ask them. I can only tell you what patriotism means to me as an American.


I understand that America has often fallen short of the superlative ideas expressed in the Declaration. That hasn’t diminished my reverence for them, nor has it dimmed my hope that future generations of Americans will be re-inspired by them.


This brand of patriotism, in fact, gets me through the roughest and most cynical of times. My patriotism is never affected by any politician’s failures, or any shortcoming of some government policy, or any slump in the economy or stock market. I never cease to get that “rush” that comes from watching Old Glory flapping in the breeze, no matter how far today’s generations have departed from the original meaning of those stars and stripes. No outcome of any election, no matter how adverse, makes me feel any less devoted to the ideals our Founders put to pen in 1776. Indeed, as life’s experiences mount, the wisdom of what giants like Jefferson and Madison bestowed on us becomes ever more apparent to me. I get more fired up than ever to help others come to appreciate the same things.


During a recent visit to the land of my ancestors, Scotland, I came across a few very old words that gave me pause. Though they preceded our Declaration of Independence by 456 years, and come from three thousand miles away, I can hardly think of anything ever written here that more powerfully stirs in me the patriotism I’ve defined above. In 1320, in an effort to explain why they had spent the previous 30 years in bloody battle to expel the invading English, Scottish leaders ended their Declaration of Arbroath with this line: “It is not for honor or glory or wealth that we fight, but for freedom alone, which no good man gives up except with his life.”


Freedom—understanding it, living it, teaching it, and supporting those who are educating others about its principles. That, my fellow Americans, is what patriotism should mean to each of us today.

_______________________________________



Below we see what indeed happened as CLINTON/BUSH started to move our former military troops into classrooms PUBLIC K-UNIVERSITY------our US 99% WE THE MILITARY CITIZENS were EDUCATED that PATRIOTISM is tied to war effort-------the opposite of 300 years of US patriotism tied to protecting our US SOVEREIGN CIVILIAN SOCIETY.

When our US 99% of right wing citizens allowed far-right wing global banking 1% BUSH NEO-CONS to call those ANTI-WAR citizens LEFTISTS-----and COMMIES-----they allowed global banking 1% to completely redefine what PATRIOTISM is.  BUSH being global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS KNIGHTS OF MALTA wanted PATRIOTISM tied to OLD WORLD GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.


'Definition #1: Patriotism as loyalty to the war effort'.

The article below is yet another from US right wing telling us what AMERICAN PATRIOTISM is.  This man from BUSH COUNTRY AUSTIN TX is ground zero for global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS killing our US sovereignty and corrupting the meaning of US PATRIOTISM.

So, he makes some good points on what AMERICAN PATRIOTISM is-----never hitting what UNITED STATES PATRIOTISM means.  He ends this article by suggesting that our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE and new to US immigrants should give up all that being an AMERICAN PATRIOT means because global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS for whom he works did indeed kill US PATRIOTISM.

'We must say goodbye to patriotism because the world cannot survive indefinitely the patriotism of Americans'.


Here we have the problem for our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE when our US public K-university is controlled by far-right wing working for DARK AGES OLD WORLD KINGS.  THE WORLD CANNOT SURVIVE THE PATRIOTISM OF AMERICANS.

REMEMBER, OUR UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION IS A SOVEREIGN DOCUMENT------USING THE TERM AMERICAN IS A GEOGRAPHICAL TERM-----FIGHT FOR OUR US CONSTITUTION AND THE MEANING BEHIND BEING A US PATRIOT.

Robert Jensen writing in GLOBAL ISSUES is telling the global 99% that AMERICAN PATRIOTISM is behind continuous wars and global private military corporations working for GLOBAL BANKING 1% OLD WORLD KNIGHTS OF MALTA. This is why we shout often-----US IS NOT ROGUE----it is the same pre-Christian NERO/CATO/SENECA OLD WORLD KINGS not being AMERICAN.

JENSEN is what we call a global banking 1% ONE WORLD UNITED NATIONS FAKE PEACE ACTIVIST.

Goodbye to Patriotism

The following article appeared in ZNet, the web site of Z Magazine, on the November 10 2001 and has been reposted here. It looks at the issue of patriotism.



You can see the original article at http://www.zmag.org/jensenpatriotism.htm
Saying goodbye to patriotism


by Robert Jensen
[A talk delivered to the Peace Action National Congress, November 10, 2001]



This summer I wrote a book review for an academic journal -- one of those terribly important pieces of writing that will be read by tens and tens of people, some of them actually people outside my own family. The book is about the history of governmental restrictions on U.S. news media during war, and it's a good book in many ways. But I faulted the author for accepting the American mythology about the nobility of our wars and their motivations. I challenged his uncritical use of the term patriotism, which I called "perhaps the single most morally and intellectually bankrupt concept in human history."



By coincidence, the galley proofs for the piece came back to me for review a few days after September 11. I paused as I re-read my words, and I thought about the reaction those words might spark, given the reflexive outpouring of patriotism in the wake of the terrorist attacks. I thought about the controversy that some of my writing had already sparked on campus and, it turned out, beyond the campus. I thought about how easy it would be to take out that sentence.



I thought about all that for some time before deciding to let it stand. My reason was simple: I think that statement was true on September 10, and if anything, I'm more convinced it is true after September 11.



I also believe that nestled in the truth of that assertion is a crucial question for the U.S.-based peace movement, one that we cannot avoid after 9-11:


Are we truly internationalist? Can we get beyond patriotism? Or, in the end, are we just Americans?


That is a way, I think, of asking whether we are truly for peace and justice.
I realize that framing of the question may seem harsh. It may rub the wrong way people who want to hold onto a positive notion of patriotism.


I mean the statement to be harsh because I believe the question is crucial. If in the end we are just Americans, if we cannot move beyond patriotism, then we cannot claim to be internationalists. And, if we are not truly internationalist in our outlook -- all the way to the bone -- then I do not think we truly call ourselves people committed to peace and justice.



Let me try to make the case for this by starting with definitions.


My dictionary defines patriotism as "love and loyal or zealous support of one's own country." We'll come back to that, but let's also look beyond the dictionary to how the word is being used at this moment in history, in this country. I would suggest there are two different, and competing, definitions of patriotism circulating these days.


Definition #1: Patriotism as loyalty to the war effort.


It's easy to get a handle on this use of the word. Just listen to the president of the United States speak. Or watch the TV anchors. Or, as I have done, be a guest on a lot of talk radio shows. This view of patriotism is pretty simple: We were attacked. We must defend ourselves. The only real way to defend ourselves is by military force. If you want to be patriotic, you should -- you must -- support the war.


I have been told often that it is fine for me to disagree with that policy, but now is not the time to disagree publicly. A patriotic person, I am told, should remain quiet and support the troops until the war is over, at which point we can all have a discussion about the finer points of policy. If I politely disagree with that, then the invective flows: Commie, terrorist-lover, disloyal, unpatriotic. Love it or leave it.


It is easy to take apart this kind of patriotism. It is a patriotism that is incompatible with democracy or basic human decency. To see just how intellectually and morally bankrupt a notion it is, just ask this question: What would we have said to Soviet citizens who might have made such an argument about patriotic duty as the tanks rolled into Prague in 1968? To draw that analogy is not to say the two cases are exactly alike. Rather, it is to point out that a decision to abandon our responsibility to evaluate government policy and surrender our power to think critically is a profound failure, intellectually and morally.


Definition #2: Patriotism as critique of the war effort.


Many in the peace-and-justice movement, myself included, have suggested that to be truly patriotic one cannot simply accept policies because they are handed down by leaders or endorsed by a majority of people, even if it is an overwhelming majority. Being a citizen in a real democracy, we have said over and over, means exercising our judgment, evaluating policies, engaging in discussion, and organizing to try to help see that the best policies are enacted. When the jingoists start throwing around terms like "anti-American" and "traitor," we point out that true patriotism means staying true to the core commitments of democracy and the obligations that democracy puts on people. There is nothing un-American, we contend, about arguing for peace.



That's all clear enough. As I have said, I have used that line of argument many times. It is the best way -- maybe the only way -- to respond in public at this moment if one wants to be effective in building an antiwar movement. We all remind ourselves, over and over, that we have to start the discussion where people are, not where we wish people were. If people feel "love and loyal or zealous support of one's own country," then we have to be aware of that and respond to it.



But increasingly, I feel uncomfortable arguing for patriotism, even with this second definition. And as I listen to friends and allies in the peace-and-justice movement, I have started to wonder whether that claim to patriotism-as-critical-engagement is indeed merely strategic. Or is it motivated by something else?


Are we looking for a way to hold onto patriotism because we really believe in it?


I think it is valuable to ask the question: Is there any way to define the term that doesn't carry with it arrogant and self-indulgent assumptions? Is there any way to salvage patriotism?


I want to argue that invoking patriotism puts us on dangerous ground and that we must be careful about our strategic use of it.
At its ugliest, patriotism means a ranking of the value of the lives of people based on boundaries. To quote Emma Goldman: "Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all others."


People have said this directly to me: Yes, the lives of U.S. citizens are more important than the lives of Afghan citizens. If innocent Afghans have to die, have to starve -- even in large numbers -- so that we can achieve our goals, well, that's the way it is, and that's the way it should be. I assume no argument here is needed as to why this type of patriotism is unacceptable. We may understand why people feel it, but it is barbaric.


But what of the effort to hold onto a kinder and gentler style of patriotism by distinguishing it from this kind of crude nationalism? We must ask: What are the unstated assumptions of this other kind of patriotism we have been defending? If patriotism is about loyalty of some sort, to what are we declaring our loyalty?


If we are pledging loyalty to a nation-state, we have already touched on the obvious problems: What if that nation-state pursues an immoral objective? Should we remain loyal to it? The same question is obvious if our loyalty is to a specific government or set of government officials. If they pursue immoral objectives or pursue moral objectives in an immoral fashion, what would it mean to be loyal to them?


Some suggest we should be loyal to the ideals of America, a set of commitments and practices connected with the concepts of freedom and democracy. That's all well and good; freedom and democracy are good things, and I try to not only endorse those values but live them. I assume everyone in this room does as well.


But what makes those values uniquely American?

Is there something about the United States or the people who live here that make us more committed to, or able to act out, the ideals of freedom and democracy -- more so than, say, Canadians or Indians or Brazilians? Are not people all over the world -- including those who live in countries that do not guarantee freedom to the degree the United States does -- capable of understanding and acting on those ideals? Are not different systems possible for making real those ideals in a complex world?


If freedom and democracy are not unique to us, then they are simply human ideals, endorsed to varying degrees in different places and realized to different degrees by different people acting in different places? If that's true, then they are not distinctly American ideals. They were not invented here, and we do not have a monopoly on them. So, if one is trying to express a commitment to those ideals, why do it in the limiting fashion of talking of patriotism?


Let me attempt an analogy to gender. After 9-11, a number of commentators have argued that criticisms of masculinity should be rethought. Yes, masculinity is often connected to, and expressed through, competition, domination, and violence, they said. But as male firefighters raced into burning buildings and risked their lives to save others, cannot we also see that masculinity encompasses a kind of strength that is rooted in caring and sacrifice?



My response is, yes, of course men often exhibit such strength. But do not women have the capacity for that kind of strength rooted in caring and sacrifice? Do they not exhibit such strength on a regular basis? Why of course they do, most are quick to agree. Then the obvious question is, what makes these distinctly masculine characteristics? Are they not simply human characteristics?


We identify masculine tendencies toward competition, domination, and violence because we see patterns of different behavior; we see that men are more prone to such behavior in our culture. We can go on to observe and analyze the ways in which men are socialized to behave in those ways. We do all that work, I would hope, to change those behaviors.


But that is a very different exercise than saying that admirable human qualities present in both men and women are somehow primarily the domain of one of those genders. To assign them to a gender is misguided, and demeaning to the gender that is then assumed not to possess them to the same degree.

Once you start saying "strength and courage are masculine traits," it leads to the conclusion that woman are not as strong or courageous. To say "strength and courage are masculine traits," then, is to be sexist.


The same holds true for patriotism. If we abandon the crude version of patriotism but try to hold onto an allegedly more sophisticated version, we bump up against this obvious question: Why are human characteristics being labeled as American if there is nothing distinctly American about them?



If people want to argue that such terminology is justified because those values are realized to their fullest degree in the United States, then there's some explaining to do. Some explaining to the people of Guatemala and Iran, Nicaragua and South Vietnam, East Timor and Laos, Iraq and Panama. We would have to explain to the victims of U.S. aggression -- direct and indirect -- how it is that our political culture, the highest expression of the ideals of freedom and democracy, has managed routinely to go around the world overthrowing democratically elected governments, supporting brutal dictators, funding and training proxy terrorist armies, and unleashing brutal attacks on civilians when we go to war. If we want to make the claim that we are the fulfillment of history and the ultimate expression of the principles of freedom and justice, our first stop might be Hiroshima. We might want to explain that claim there.



If we are serious about peace and justice in the world, we need to subject this notion of patriotism to scrutiny. If we do that, I would suggest, it is clear that any use of the concept of patriotism is bound to be chauvinistic at some level. At its worst, patriotism can lead easily to support for barbarism. At its best, it is self-indulgent and arrogant in its assumptions about the uniqueness of U.S. culture.



None of what I have said should be taken as a blanket denunciation of the United States, our political institutions, or our culture. People often tell me, "You start with the assumption that everything about the United States is bad." Of course I do not assume that. That would be as absurd a position as the assumption that everything about the United States is good. I can't imagine any reasonable person making either statement. That does raise the question, of course, of who is a reasonable person. We might ask that question about, for example, George Bush, the father. In 1988, after the U.S. Navy warship Vincennes shot down an Iranian commercial airliner in a commercial corridor, killing 290 civilians, Bush said, "I will never apologize for the United States of America. I don't care what the facts are."



I want to put forward the radical proposition that we should care what the facts are. We should start with the assumption that everything about the United States, like everything about any country, needs to be examined and assessed. That is what it means to be a moral person.



There is much about this country a citizen can be proud of, and I am in fact proud of those things. The personal freedoms guaranteed (to most people) in this culture, for example, are quite amazing. As someone who regularly tries to use those freedoms, I am as aware as anyone of how precious they are.


There also is much to be appalled by. The obscene gaps in wealth between rich and poor, for example, are quite amazing as well, especially in a wealthy society that claims to be committed to justice.



In that sense, we are like any other grouping of people. That doesn't mean one can't analyze various societies and judge some better than others by principles we can articulate and defend -- so long as they are truly principles, applied honestly and uniformly. But one should maintain a bit of humility in the endeavor. Perhaps instead of saying "The United States is the greatest nation on earth" -- a comment common among politicians, pundits, and the public -- we would be better off saying, "I live in the United States and have deep emotional ties to the people, land, and ideals of this place. Because of these feelings, I want to highlight the positive while working to change what is wrong." That is not moral relativism -- it is a call for all of us to articulate and defend our positions.



We can make that statement without having to argue that we are, in some essential way, better than everyone else. We can make that statement without arrogantly suggesting that other people are inherently less capable of articulating or enacting high ideals. We can make that statement and be ready and willing to engage in debate and discussion about the merits of different values and systems.



We can make that statement, in other words, and be true internationalists, people truly committed to peace and justice. If one wants to call that statement an expression of patriotism, I will not spend too much time arguing. But I will ask: If we make a statement like that, why do we need to call it an expression of patriotism? What can we learn by asking ourselves: What makes us, even people in the peace-and-justice community, want to hold onto the notion of patriotism with such tenacity?




When I write or talk with the general public and raise questions like these, people often respond, "If you hate America so much, why don't you leave?"
But what is this America that I allegedly hate? The land itself? The people who live here? The ideals in the country's founding documents? I do not hate any of those things.



When people say to me "love it or leave it," what is the "it" to which they refer?
No one can ever quite answer that. Still, I have an answer for them.


I will not leave "it" for a simple reason: I have nowhere else to go. I was born here. I was given enormous privileges here. My place in the world is here, where I feel an obligation to use that privilege to be part -- a very small part of, as we all are only a small part -- of a struggle to make real a better world. Whatever small part I can play in that struggle, whatever I can achieve, I will have to achieve here, in the heart of the beast.



I love it, which is to say that I love life -- I love the world in which I live and the people who live in it with me. I will not leave that "it."
That "it" may not be specific enough for some, but it's the best I can do. Maybe it will help to answer in the negative, for I can say more clearly what the "it" is not. I can describe more clearly what is the America I do not love.


The America I love is not this administration, or any other collections of politicians, or the corporations they serve.


It is not the policies of this administration, or any other collection of politicians, or the corporations they serve.
The America I love is not wrapped up in a mythology about "how good we are" that ignores the brutal realities of our own history of conquest and barbarism.
Most of all, I want no part of the America that arrogantly claims that the lives and hopes and dreams of people who happen to live within the boundaries of the United States have more value than those in other places. Nor will I indulge America in the belief that our grief is different. Since September 11, the United States has demanded that the world take our grief more seriously. When some around the world have not done so, we express our outrage.



But we should ask: What makes the grief of a parent who lost a child in the World Trade Center any deeper than the grief of a parent who lost a child in Baghdad when U.S. warplanes rained death on the civilian areas of Iraq in the Gulf War? Or the parents of a child in Nicaragua when the U.S. terrorist proxy army ravaged that country? Soon after 9-11, I heard a television reporter describe lower Manhattan as "Beirut on the Hudson." We might ask, how did Beirut come to look like Beirut, and what is our responsibility in that? And what of the grief of those who saw their loved ones die during the shelling of that city?



We should ask: Where was the empathy of America for the grief of those people?


Certainly we grieve differently, more intensely, when people close to us die. We don't feel the loss of a family member the same way as a death of a casual friend. We feel something different over the death of someone we knew compared with the death of a stranger. But we must understand that the grief we feel when our friends and neighbors became victims of political violence is no different than what people around the world feel. We must understand that each of those lives lost abroad has exactly the same value as the life of any one of our family, friends and neighbors.


September 11 was a dark day. I still remember what it felt like to watch those towers come down, the darkness that settled over me that day, the hopelessness, how tangible death felt -- for me, not only the deaths of those in the towers but also the deaths of those who would face the bombs in the war that might follow, the war that did follow, the war that goes on.



But humans are resilient; in the darkness we tend to look for light, for a way out of the darkness.


I believe there is a light shining out of September 11, out of all that darkness. It is a light that I believe we Americans can follow to our own salvation. That light is contained in a simple truth that is obvious, but which Americans have never really taken to heart: We are part of the world. We cannot any longer hide from that world. We cannot allow our politicians, and generals, and corporate executives to do their dirty business around the world while we hide from the truths about just how dirty that business really is. We can no longer hide from the coups they plan, the wars they start, the sweatshops they run.



For me, all this means saying goodbye to patriotism.


That is the paradox: September 11 has sparked a wave of patriotism, a patriotism that has in many cases been overtly hateful, racist and xenophobic. A patriotism that can lead people to say, as one person wrote to me, "We should bomb [Afghanistan] until there's no more earth to bomb."


But the real lesson of September 11, which I believe we will eventually learn, is that if we are to survive as a free people, as decent people who want honestly to claim the ideals we say we live by, we must say goodbye to patriotism. That patriotism will not relieve our grief, but only deepen it. It will not solve our problems but only extend them. I believe there is no hope for ourselves or for the world if we continue to embrace patriotism, no matter what the definition.

We must give up our "love and loyal or zealous support of one's own country" and transfer that love, loyalty and zealousness to the world, and especially the people of the world who have suffered most so that we Americans can live in affluence.


We must be able to say, as the great labor leader of the early 20th century Eugene Debs said, "I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth, and I am a citizen of the world."



I am with Debs. I believe it is time to declare: I am not patriotic. I am through with trying to redefine the term patriotic to make sense. There is no sense to it.
That kind of statement will anger many, but at some point we must begin to take that risk, for this is not merely an academic argument over semantics.



This is both a struggle to save ourselves and a struggle to save the lives of vulnerable people around the world.
We must say goodbye to patriotism because the kind of America the peace-and-justice movement wants to build cannot be built on, or through, the patriotism of Americans.


We must say goodbye to patriotism because the world cannot survive indefinitely the patriotism of Americans.



Robert Jensen is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, a member of the Nowar Collective (www.nowarcollective.com), and author of the book Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream (www.peterlangusa.com). He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.


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Our US military and US labor unions are the source of many global banking 5% freemason/Greek players ----and they are the ones making the change from being ALL-UNITED STATES OF AMERICA-----to being ALL-COLONIAL FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE IN THE AMERICAS.


We sign off often as being from BLOOMBERG FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE #2 NORTH AMERICA rather than Baltimore MD USA ----because that is what the article below from global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS HARVARD CORPORATION refers when bringing our US LABOR UNIONS ---TEACHERS' UNION into the discussion of US public schools, patriotism, what it means to be PATRIOTIC.

Remember, our US labor unions during CLINTON/BUSH were connected to INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION---ILO----tied to WORLD BANK/UNITED NATIONS-----working for global corporations. 

It is not hard to see where these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA took our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE black, white, and brown citizens from being UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONSTITUTIONAL PATRIOTS-----to being AMERICAN PATRIOTS feeling PATRIOTISM is tied to GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.


'Robert Bruno is a Professor of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois’ School of Labor and Employment Relations, Urbana-Champaign. He is also Director of the University’s Labor Education Program and the Project for Middle Class Renewal'.

We like to remind our US 99% WE THE US MILITARY VETERANS tracked either to our US POST OFFICE----or into our US public K-university to kill left social progressive academics and teachers----that these few decades of tracking military troops to classroom have today's US PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS forced out---losing their pensions, killing the teaching profession many being RETIRED MILITARY TROOPS.


As Harvard Review knows----US stopped seeing US teachers as professionals when HARVARD declared there was no more AMERICAN POLITICS no American RULE OF LAW. When a person ties itself to global banking 1% global corporate institutions as ROBERT BRUNO they are 5% freemason/Greek FAKE LABOR players.


LaborWhen Did the U.S. Stop Seeing Teachers as Professionals?

• Robert Bruno

June 20, 2018 UPDATED June 20, 2018

J PAT CARTER/Getty Images
Teachers have had enough. Since March, schools in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona, Colorado and North Carolina have either been shut down or turned into sites of resistance. In Kansas, teachers are threatening to strike because their legislature continues to fund schools at a level the state Supreme Court has deemed unconstitutional. One Brookings Institute analysis projected that teacher actions could spread to another 11 states.
Poor pay, increased health care costs, and diminished pension plans are certainly core issues — teachers in Oklahoma haven’t received a pay boost in a decade. But these problems alone aren’t driving the protests. In every state where teachers have recently gone on strike, demands for increase school funding have been made. Disinvestment in schools has also been central to teacher strikes that have occurred since 2011, in Jersey City, Philadelphia, Chicago (twice), Seattle, Portland and Wisconsin.
The teachers’ position is that, under the cover of a commitment to improving schools, school district and local governments have instead closed neighborhood public schools, opened charter schools, instituted standard curriculums, mandated poorly thought out high-stakes standardized testing, attacked teacher tenure, instituted merit pay instead of annual salary increments, restricted collective bargaining rights, and subjected teachers to questionable and punitive evaluation schemes.  The result of years of “reform” has been modest improvement but little progress in national student performance.
This, it seems, is the tipping point and brings me to what I believe is at the heart of what is really happening here: Teachers are seeing their own experience be devalued by policymakers and other officials with little experience in the education field, and it’s not improving the education of their students. In other words, and as others have noted, teachers are balking at the erosion of their status as professionals. In fact, I would submit that it’s precisely because of their sense of professionalism that teachers are driven to an agonizing decision to withhold their labor. Teachers perceive themselves and their students being treated as fungible costs of production, cogs in a bureaucratic machine. To them, nothing less than the education profession is at risk.
What is professionalism exactly?While there are varying definitions and disagreements among sociologists, a set of criteria put forth by Mirko Noordegraaf, a professor at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, is helpful. The starting point, he says, is “typically an emphasis on ‘good work’ and the social mechanisms for accomplishing this.” He further stresses that a “professional does not merely work; he/she has to be educated and trained, (socialized) as member of an occupational domain, supervised by his/her peers and held accountable.” Noordegraaf then acknowledges an element to professionalism that serves as the locus of historical and contemporary struggle for teachers: “professionals succeed in realizing so-called professional control: they control themselves.” Professionalism demands the capacity to internally organize and protect “professional practices from external influences.”
The work of teachers also substantially accords with renown public administration expert Frederick Mosher’s definition of a profession:
“[…] a more or less specialized and purposeful field of human activity which require some specialized education or training (though it may be acquired on the job), which offers a career of life work, and enjoys a relatively high status. It normally aspires to social, not selfish, purpose. Usually, but not always, it requires a degree or certification, and credential of some kind. Often its members join in a professional organization, local, state, or national, which enunciates standards and ethics of professional performance sometimes with the powers of enforcement.”
This definition is echoed by a 2013 national survey of 20,000 conducted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It found that 6 out of 10 teachers went directly into teaching after earning their undergraduate or graduate degree. They taught because they wanted to provide a valuable public service. Eighty-five percent of teachers said they went into the profession because they wanted “to make a difference in children’s’ lives,” beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic. The survey reported that 99% of teachers “strongly agreed or agreed” with the statement that “teaching is more than academics; it is also about reinforcing good citizenship, resilience and social skills.”
Education, then, is not usually an incremental step to a better way to make a living life or a waystation to another career. Teaching, like pastoring, is often a “calling.” So it stands to reason that teachers themselves are the appropriate people to define the best “educational practices, entrance routes, credentialing requirements, continuing training options, codes of conduct, and methods of enforcement.”
Except today, they’re not. A form of the classical structural-functionalist theory of professionalism prevails. This sociological view, first formulated by Talcott Parsons, holds that a profession is a static thing with attributes that apply without exception. Here, professionalism is a skill that can be practiced and learned over time, by anyone, with success and failure measured based on an agreed-upon objective standard. The recent history of the teaching profession helps explain why this version has come to dominate.
When teaching became “automated”In 1983, President Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education published A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform, a much debated and often mischaracterized call-to-arms. The authors sent a clear distress signal: “We report to the American people that… the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.” After A Nation at Risk was widely popularized, it became conventional wisdom that education was, in fact, in crisis. Task forces and commissions claimed to have evidence of failing students, obstructionist teacher unions, and poorly performing teachers. The constant saturation of negative school headlines took its toll: The public’s approval rating of public schools fell from 58% in 1973 to 29% in 2012.
It was then that a belief in external controls began influencing the industry. In this view, an independent and external body best regulates teachers, in which teachers are part of an accountable and efficient production system. Schools needed to function more like businesses and successfully compete for students. To this end, teachers’ work has subsequently been the subject of major restructuring over the past three decades. Teachers are increasingly directed to follow a mandated curriculum, abide by grade level or school district units of study, and follow predetermined lesson plans. In addition, test-based accountability has colonized teaching techniques and objectives, teacher performance evaluations are yoked to student test scores, and teacher training programs are de-emphasized. Teachers also have little influence over professional development content, school-wide organization, or school budget decisions.
Under these command and control conditions, teaching looks more like automation then imagination. As University of British Columbia professor Wendy Poole noted, “teachers’ work, once conceived as requiring high discretion and autonomy, is increasingly reduced to technical-rational conceptions of teaching and teachers are increasingly viewed as technicians.” Creativity is squeezed out for conformity and teacher autonomy suppressed; room for going “rogue” is the exception. Unless everyone reads Shakespeare, no one does. I suspect that overhauling the work of teachers and undermining their professional status has also been aided by society’s tendency to undervalue “women’s work” (more than 75% of teachers in the U.S. are women).
This all occurs in an environment where teachers need higher skills — many are required to have advanced degrees and numerous certifications — and are asked to do more with less. In addition to being under pressure to meet or exceed standardized performance indicators, teachers suffer from an intensification of work. They work 60-plus hour work weeks, are in near-constant communication with parents, and must collect copious amounts of student data, among many other administrative and technological tasks. Stagnant job growth in the industry has also led to increased class sizes. In other words, teachers are asked to work harder and longer with a growing number of students while also being told to adhere to an education plan they have little control over.
The impact has been punishing. In one study, 93% of teachers reported high stress levels, while only 7% self identified as “well-adjusted.”  A survey by the American Federation of Teachers and the Badass Teachers Association reported that educators find work to be stressful 61% of the time and nearly a quarter of respondents said work was “always” stressful.  The survey notes for comparison purposes, “workers in the general population report that work is stressful 30% of the time.”
And yet, for decades, teachers have endured. Why? In our book on the 2012 Chicago teacher strike, my colleague and I note, “Teacher unions have largely made compromises with the prevailing wisdom. They haven’t done so without expressed reservation or opposition, but in the face of an irrational and bipartisan demonization of schoolteachers and their unions, some believed tactical retreat seemed prudent.” And surveys of teachers suggest that many are interested in new school concepts that invite entrepreneurial thinking and experimentation.
For most teachers, small acts of resistance while accommodating new bureaucratic boundaries has been possible, but only when a sense of professional control and a measure of satisfaction could still be derived from the work. In 2013, even as 82% of teachers found the ever-shifting nature of education reform to be the most significant challenge they face, many still maintained a love of the work and the profession. They still do — but their control has been eroded to almost nothing. That’s why they’re striking.
Another theory of professionalismYes, teachers need to be paid more and have better health benefits. But policymakers need to understand the kind of professionalism teachers are demanding, too.
The professionalism practiced by teachers recognizes and prioritizes contextuality. This echoes a theory by LSU School of Library & Information Science professor Suzanne Stauffer who puts forth that there is nothing “discrete, universal, or enduring” about professions because they’re constantly changing in relationship to the market and the state. Because of this, professionalism is not merely a collection of traits or an individual competency that can be mastered — it can’t be, because these traits and expertise are constantly changing depending on context. In other words, teachers recognize that the school environment and children’s needs dictate what professionalism requires at a given moment in time.
This means that a teacher’s classroom experiences, and the teacher-student relationship, is what ultimately creates the boundaries for what it means to be a professional. This does not rely on consultant-developed tests to measure student competency, but instead uses teacher-constructed assessments oriented to the subject matters they teach. Instead of standardized curriculum and lesson plans, teachers have the freedom to determine the best course to help each child acquire the necessary learning standards. The time needed to cover subject content corresponds to each learner’s capacity and not an arbitrary schedule demanding that every kid masters everything at the same moment. A contextualized professionalism would have teachers teach children, not a curriculum.
What’s at stakeThe aspirations of today’s educators are not new. In 1987, the President of the National Educators Association Mary Hatwood Futrell hopefully wrote that, “We may at last be on the brink of realizing the centuries-old dream of American teachers: professional status, professional compensation… professional autonomy.”
We’re clearly not there yet. But with today’s protests, public school teachers are pushing back harder than ever against rigid definitions of professionalism. Instead, they are offering their own student-centered approach, combining training, context, flexibility, and a lifelong commitment to children and society. But the failure of elected officials and school boards to recognize a teacher-constructed professionalism is an invitation to endless conflict. This battle has implications for who sets educational policy and gets to decide the future of public education. The outcome of that struggle will assuredly determine the quality of the nation’s schools and, subsequently, the strength of our country’s democracy.
In the meantime, if the education profession continues to degrade, teachers will do what they know best and what their professional responsibility demands. Whether they’re in the classroom or picketing, they will protect their children. So while teachers have been forced to listen to the corporate-styled version of professionalism for decades, they’re making their voices heard on the streets. Why? Because the non-educators outside of the school have stopped (or never really started) listening to the version cherished by teachers.
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'What is the difference between the USA and America?ad by Quora for Business'


So, HARVARD ---ground zero for all the global banking 1% far-right wing LAISSEZ FAIRE NEO-LIBERALISM ---filled with lying, cheating, stealing, no morals or ethics, no US Rule of Law, and certainly no GOD'S NATURAL LAW----is telling us what EDUCATIONAL PROFESSIONALISM means.


HARVARD as MIT are ground zero for COMMONER CORE RACE TO TOP and ONE WORLD ONE TECHNOLOGY GRID ----online lessons written by global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS having no TRUTH ----but like MAO-----his TRUTH.

Now our US FAKE NEWS media are filling our academic writing with HARVARD knowing what TRUTH IS----and HARVARD being a champion of HUMAN RIGHTS/CIVIL RIGHTS fighting for REAL US PUBLIC K-UNIVERSITY especially for our poor----our working class-----for the good of AMERICA.

HARVARD is 100% international ---it has no ties to US as a sovereign nation----it has no ties to our US CONSTITUTION----it does not see our US military as sovereign ---it is CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA global private military corporation owned by OLD WORLD KINGS KNIGHTS OF MALTA TRIBE OF JUDAH.

All of this ties to our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE black, white, and brown at a LOCAL level where we are fighting for our community schools this way:  if we allow our local global banking 5% freemason/Greek players pretend to be small business owners temporarily profiteering from our funding for REAL public schools just until they are then CLOSED for development----we are not PATRIOT CITIZENS----here in Baltimore we have our local black 5% freemason/Greek players killing public schools for our 99% of black citizens in communities around Baltimore---while our local white 5 %freemason/Greek players at GLOBAL HEDGE FUND CORPORATION JOHNS HOPKINS dishes out these RACE TO TOP COMMONER CORE policies FORCING ALL THIS UPON our Baltimore 99% of citizens.



Global hedge fund HARVARD CORPORATION is of course the source of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA and all that killing of our strong US public K-UNIVERSITY as well as RACE TO TOP COMMONER CORE.  It is the source of global banking 1% global corporate education K-12 CHARTERS now replacing our US community public schools.


'But the failure of elected officials and school boards to recognize a teacher-constructed professionalism is an invitation to endless conflict'.

What we need to understand is this:  global banking 1% far-right wing institutions are morphing from LAISSEZ FAIRE NEO-LIBERALISM to far-right wing authoritarian, militaristic, extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXISM.....MAO'S LITTLE RED BOOK which pretends MAO as STALIN as HITLER was a PEOPLE'S REVOLUTION.




What is the difference between the USA and America?ad by Quora for Business


18 Answers

Wesley Riggs, Bachelor's of Geography & Education, University of Kansas (1987)


Updated Jun 19 2017 · Author has 466 answers and 420.1k answer viewsThe name of our country is The United States of America (USA). Thirteen states came together to form the country and 37 other states joined later. “America” is an informal name which refers to the above and to our location within the continent of North America. We refer to ourselves and are known worldwide as Americans.
As with many political words, there is some friction with citizens of Estados Unidos Mexicanos or the United Mexican States. They are also a collection of states and also part of North America. We refer to them in English as Mexicans and to their country as Mexico. In the geographic sense, they are “Americans” as well, because their country is located in North America, as are the nations in the region of Central America and our other neighbor Canada.
Turning to South America, they could also be referred to as “Americans” in the geographic sense. The name “Americans” stuck with citizens of the USA because we are the oldest and largest country by population in either North America or South America. Ecuador was not founded until 24 years after the USA and Brazil has around 119 million fewer people. Canada is the largest country by land mass on either continent, but it was founded much later than Ecuador and has a population of just 35 million.

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This was the turning point for our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE black, white, and brown citizens as to being US PATRIOTS fighting for our US Constitution and sovereign rights----and fighting for global corporations profiteering off illegal wars to build a global private military complex for GLOBAL BANKING 1% OLD WORLD KINGS KNIGHTS OF MALTA TRIBE OF JUDAH.
Our LEFTY COMMIE anti-war protestors were US PATRIOTS------our US 99% of WE THE US VETERANS please WAKE UP and be US PATRIOTS.
TEACH FOR AMERICA IS NOT US PATRIOTIC-----IT IS BLOOMBERG FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE #2 NORTH AMERICAN COLONIAL ENTITY.

Here is yet another article from HOUSTON TX home of global banking 1% BUSH NEO-CONS published in COUNTERPUNCH which we know is a global banking 1% captured media outlet.  We have a JIMMY CARTER educating as to why war profiteering was wrong.  Our US President JIMMY CARTER was of course FAR-RIGHT GLOBAL BANKING 1% OLD WORLD KINGS  33rd degree freemason---NOT RELIGIOUS----working for foreign sovereignty of MALTA.

The VIETNAM WAR was ONE WORLD flipping the Earth's economic axis from Western Hemisphere to Eastern Hemisphere.  GREAT LEAPING LIZARD MAO was partnered with global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS HARVARD/YALE in continuous wars not only in southeast Asia-----but in sacking and looting our US government coffers and people's pockets bringing the US to colonial status.  We do not see ANY of that REAL INFORMATION in this far-right wing article.


December 11, 2003



War Profiteering from Vietnam to Iraq


by James M. Carter

While campaigning for President in 2000, George W. Bush made clear his position on nation building saying, “I don’t think our troops ought to be used for what’s called nation building” adding that, if elected, he would “absolutely not” engage in such open-ended commitments. He was sharply critical of his predecessor’s use of American troops in Haiti, Somalia and Kosovo to “restore order,” to bring about “stable governments,” all objectives of nation building. Nevertheless, Bush and company find themselves scrambling to otherwise define and control a conflict that looks increasingly open-ended, costly and bent on building a very different Iraq. What the Bush foreign policy team seems loath to consider are the remarkable parallels between the circumstances they now face in trying to remake a war-torn Iraq and the efforts of confident, well-heeled American officials of the 1960s who believed they too had history on their side in trying to remake the southern half of Vietnam.

The United States began waging a war in the Southeast Asian nation of Vietnam in the early-1960s and continued well into the 1970s, unleashing an unprecedented barrage of firepower on the southern half of that country, below the seventeenth parallel. What is perhaps less well known is that the war in fact followed an equally enormous and failed nation building project. Beginning in 1954, the United States attempted to invent a nation below the 17th parallel, the dividing line decided at the Geneva Conference that same year.



Immediately, the United States began pouring money and expertise into Vietnam to bring off this transformation. A staggering array of specialists and technicians, from civil police, public administration, public finance, military, counterespionage, propaganda, industry, agriculture, education and more immediately descended upon Saigon, the southern city made the capital of the whole project. These experts, along with the U.S. government and military installed Ngo Dinh Diem, removed all viable opponents, began a crackdown on dissidents killing tens of thousands and jailing as many or more, and began to physically transform southern Vietnam. United States government contractors, such as Michigan State University and the construction firm Johnson, Drake and Piper, went to work on the creation of a national communications, transportation and police network. This “mission” built or rebuilt hundreds of miles of roadways and dozens of bridges, dredged hundreds of miles of canals, built airfields and deep draft ports to receive a continuing and growing volume of economic and military aid. They built roads connecting all parts of Vietnam to Saigon, which they promised would result in greater access for both government officials and peasants to sell their crops to a larger market. They trained and equipped a rapidly expanding military force to keep Diem in power and they began to piece together a para-military security force and a Vietnam Bureau of Investigation (VBI) modeled on the American FBI. They even inaugurated an identity card program to catalog the identity and keep track of every Vietnamese in the interest of maintaining security. Nothing would be left to chance; no rogue force would tip the expensive American apple cart. By 1960, the United States had poured into this project over $1.4 billion.



The project failed. Ordinary Vietnamese in concert with northern Viet Minh cadre began to openly resist the whole campaign. By the early 1960s, the United States came to rely almost exclusively on military solutions to put down the growing opposition, soon a broad-based and popular insurgency opposed to continued occupation and Diem’s rule, now referred to as My-Diem or American Diem. John Kennedy increased direct American involvement from around 680 to over 16,000 troops as “advisors” who, despite their title, participated in combat. The administration, at the same time, vastly expanded the military forces built earlier to defend Diem and insure he remained in power. Opposition to the occupation grew at a steady pace. The whole project continued to unravel. By late 1963, a coup de tat finally removed Diem and his influential family from power.




From 1964 into 1965, the experiment was vastly militarized. From around 23,000 troops in Vietnam by the end of 1964, the next year there were 185,000, and the next there were over 385,000. American force levels peaked at around 542,000. By all accounts a traditional society, southern Vietnam needed an infrastructure to receive this influx of military aid. Responsibility for building that necessary infrastructure was given over to the largest construction entity ever, the RMK-BRJ (Raymond International, Morrison-Knudsen, Brown & Root, and J.A. Jones Construction). Calling itself “The Vietnam Builders” and receiving highly lucrative “no bid” contracts, this consortium of private corporations was to turn southern Vietnam into a modern, integrated military installation that would enable the United States to properly defend its client. The Vietnam Builders entered into a contract with the federal government, via the U.S. Navy, as the exclusive contractor for the huge military buildup that was to come; there would be no open bidding or otherwise competitive process.



Brushing aside the messy reality that the nation of “South” Vietnam had yet to be created, U.S. officials ordered a staggering volume of military projects be begun immediately. The congress granted to the administration of Lyndon Baines Johnson for 1965 $700 million for the expected ramping up of a direct American military role. Of that sum, $100 million was earmarked for the Defense Department’s construction projects already begun. Soon, the figures ballooned far beyond anyone’s expectation. Initially contracted for around $15 million prior to 1965, the lead corporation, MK, was shocked by the magnitude of orders for rapid construction. As one MK executive said early in 1965, “all we knew was that they wanted a lotta roads, a lotta airfields, a lotta bridges, and a lotta ports, and that they probably would want it all finished by yesterday.” (Fortune, Sept., 1966)



These demands outstripped the capacity of any one of the corporations. Equipment requirements alone for the Vietnam project far exceeded all equipment owned by MK for all of its worldwide operations and all subsidiary companies. The value of the project leapt from its 1964 starting point of $15 million of work in place per month to over $67 million of work in place per month within two years. The Builders could hardly keep pace with the demand for more projects, which numbered over one hundred concurrently at the peak of construction. Suppliers in the US could hardly keep up either and backlogs of three to six months became commonplace. Caterpillar Tractor Company’s annual report to shareholders intoned, “1965 was another recording-breaking year and only the physical limitations of production capacity kept sales and profits from being higher.” (ENR, Feb., 17, 1966; ENR, May, 19, 1966) Three of the four firms making up the Vietnam Builders ranked in the top ten of four hundred U.S. corporation doing business abroad for 1966. Collectively, and individually, they gobbled up hundreds of millions in profits for their efforts. In the process, Vietnam Builders employed 8,600 Americans and over 51,000 Vietnamese. They built six ports with 29 deep-draft berths, six naval bases, eight jet airstrips 10,000 feet in length, twelve airfields, just under twenty hospitals, fourteen million square feet of covered storage, and twenty base camps including housing for 450,000 servicemen and family. In short, they put on the ground in southern Vietnam nearly $2 billion in construction of various kinds of facilities and infrastructure. Military commanders called it the “construction miracle of the decade.” (Jones Construction Centennial)



In deciding to go to war rather than withdraw from Vietnam, the Johnson administration had stepped onto a slippery slope where foreign policy crises meet domestic politics. At home just as in Vietnam, Johnson fought to control inflationary pressures. Now, those pressures mounted as the war in Southeast increased in scope and intensity. The soaring demands on the construction industry certainly meant rising profits, but it also threatened rising prices. Republicans in congress began to criticize Johnson’s handling of the Vietnam situation, warning his policies threatened to over-heat the domestic economy and drive prices up. Some also specifically criticized the way in which aid, both construction/military and economic, was being sent to Vietnam. In 1966, Illinois Representative Donald H. Rumsfeld went perhaps further than most when he charged the administration with letting contracts which “are illegal by statute.” He urged investigation into the relationship between the private consortium working in Vietnam and the Johnson administration, in particular the infamous “President’s Club,” to which Brown & Root, one of the principle Vietnam contractors, had given tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. Rumsfeld argued on behalf of serious inquiry into the whole affair saying, “under one contract, between the U.S. Government and this combine, [RMK-BRJ] it is officially estimated that obligations will reach at least $900 million by November 1967…why this huge contract has not been and is not now being adequately audited is beyond me. The potential for waste and profiteering under such a contract is substantial.” (Cong. Rec., August 30, 1966) Rumsfeld’s alarm was echoed by others in the congress and in the press as well, although will little affect. All the while, the war in southern Vietnam continued to spiral out of control despite the dramatic increases in firepower and troops and military construction. The government’s contract with the Vietnam Builders ended only in 1972 shortly before the Nixon administration itself quit the commitment to the long failed project.


In Vietnam, this process took years to unfold. In Iraq, the time table seems dramatically sped up. Following the rapid invasion and removal of Saddam Hussein, U.S. forces quickly occupied key areas of Iraq. Officials and “embedded” reporters gleefully trumpeted American successes after meeting what was described as only token opposition. Postwar planners and experts had been quickly flown into neighboring countries to await a modicum of safety before entering Baghdad to begin their work in stabilizing and rebuilding a ravaged country.



Twelve years of ruinous sanctions had reduced Iraq to a traditional state in terms of its agricultural, communications, transportation, public health and educational infrastructure. Years of neglect as a desperate regime clung to power and funneled its limited resources toward maintaining itself and away from maintenance of the nation also contributed to the erosion and decay of a modern state. (Iraq Under Siege, ch. 2) This otherwise nightmare situation for the people of Iraq actually aided the American military by reducing all kinds of unseemly obstacles to invasion, conquest and occupation that was to follow.



Within weeks, the federal government began its bread line for business by handing out sweet deals to American corporations to “rebuild” Iraq’s infrastructure. And, just as in Vietnam, those with the best relationship to government officials quickly found themselves on an inside track with greater access to the enormous sums of money pouring into Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney’s own Halliburton began riding this “gravy train” even before the invasion was over, building tent cities just outside of Iraq. Once the President declared an end to combat, the big money quickly began to flow.




As of September, Halliburton had received almost one quarter billion dollars in payment for work done so far, with much more to follow. Kellogg, Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, is also in the pipeline, having signed lucrative federal contracts, reportedly worth $2.3 billion, to help in the rebuilding of Iraq’s oil producing infrastructure. Bechtel Group, another corporation with solid government connections, has lapped up another $1.03 billion. Even Morrison-Knudsen, now calling itself Washington Group International following a merger, has signed on for around $500,000,000 of the lucre. The contracts through which these deals are codified are those old familiar, certainly to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, “cost-plus-award-fee” types that were used to give away huge sums of money to the Vietnam Builders. The Center for Public Integrity’s recently published investigation into private contractors and the war on “terror” reveals that over 70 American companies have secured close to $8 billion in government contracts to rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq. They also shared ongoing and close relations with the federal government and provided more in campaign contributions to George Bush than any other official over a twelve year period. Those companies are currently building and rebuilding all of the infrastructure destroyed over the past dozen years, and then some. They are working on a police network, a military force, a communications grid, transportation system, an integrated media system, the oil production and transportation system, water and sewage treatment systems, and so on.



Meanwhile, the situation on the ground inside Iraq has steadily deteriorated since the President’s proclamation of the “end of combat.” A recent CIA analysis finds that ordinary Iraqis are fast losing hope that the Americans have come to help them. The Iraqi Governing Council is no closer to legitimacy and yet remains hamstrung by occupation officials. The war and its aftermath have now taken the lives of some 8,000 innocent civilians. Looking eerily like the situation in Vietnam, albeit after several years of failure there, an insurgency now flourishes in Iraq and the chaos and episodes of heavy-handed American military actions have created fertile ground for greater anti-American violence. President Bush has now called L. Paul Bremer III, the top American official overseeing post-war Iraq, hurriedly back to Washington to hasten the turning over of power to the Iraqis themselves in response to the growing resentment of and attacks on occupation forces. That may now happen as early June, 2004. The situation is bad and getting worse, the congress is now criticizing and investigating the money deals, and the Bush administration wants desperately to distance itself from the whole mess in the run up to the presidential election. (The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times) Ordinary Iraqis are fast learning what ordinary Vietnamese peasants learned all those years ago; namely, the United States, as George Bush says, does not do nation building.


Rather than avoiding the lessons of such disasters as the “nation building” war in Vietnam, Americans, if not America’s elected leaders, should look to that tragic episode to explain the “quagmire” unfolding in Iraq. This is not a humanitarian mission any more than was the American mission to Southeast Asia forty years ago. It is a fraudulent war that is now perpetuated by political ideologues and war profiteers with much to lose. Without legitimacy among the people, the whole project, including whatever “government” is put in place, is doomed to failure. Iraqi resistance will only grow. The cycle of answering that resistance with greater levels of force is perpetual. It should come as no surprise that the Iraqi people are no less impressed with this version of “nation building” than were the Vietnamese people with the earlier version.


JAMES M. CARTER is a PhD. candidate at the University of Houston. He can be reached at: jmcarter@ev1.net

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We want to say to our new to US 99% of immigrants being brought to US cities deemed FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES-----you are not working for team ALL-AMERICAN ---FREEDOM, LIBERTY, JUSTICE, PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS-----you are working for global banking 1% DARK AGES OLD WORLD KINGS----the same people giving you continuous wars southeast Asia and LEAPING LIZARD MAO. There is no intention of doing good for today's 99% of global labor pool pushed into global slave trading human distribution system.
These foreign Baltimore public school teachers were not pushed out be TRUMP ----SANCTUARY CITY/STATE has nothing to do with protecting our 99% of immigrant workers. MOVING FORWARD is simply rotating not only our immigrant population constantly to new places new jobs---but also our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE. This is the ECONOMIC MODEL for ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE -----and the education policy being taught today in US public schools is not US PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION------COMMONER CORE is no different than MAO'S LITTLE RED BOOK.
Teachers forced out as more and more TEMPORARY CORPORATE CHARTER SCHOOLS CLOSE-------who wins when US 99% of citizens whether black, white, or brown are pushed out of our US public school system?

Do you think these global labor pool immigrants being brought to US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES as teachers might be connected to global military corporations as TROOPS overseas?


Foreign teachers in Baltimore schools at risk of losing visas


By Morgan Gstalter - 06/14/18 03:20 PM EDT



Nearly two-dozen foreign Baltimore public school teachers will be forced to leave the country if the Trump administration fails to extend their visas.


The Baltimore Sun reported Wednesday that about 25 teachers, many recruited from the Philippines to fill positions in the mid-2000s, are waiting for the federal government to extend their work visas.


Jeremy Grant-Skinner, the chief human capital officer with Baltimore City Public Schools, said the extensions were filed months ago. The government, though, has been slow to process the applications and has selected some cases for audit.


Grant-Skinner said it could take six to eight months before they know if the extensions are granted.


“These are long-term teachers who we value and we want to be able to keep them here,” he said. “We are at the mercy of the federal government in terms of securing the extension of their visas.”


A majority of the teachers will need to leave the country by the end of the month, the newspaper reported. One teacher’s current visa expires before the school year ends. Two are from Jamaica and the others are all Filipino.


The administration has been cracking down on work visas.


Trump signed the “Buy American, Hire American” executive order last April, aimed at reining in the H-1B visa program.


The program hires highly skilled foreign workers initially for three years and offers the possibility for extensions.
Trump has argued the lottery system used to distribute H-1B visa hurts American workers and drives down wages. As a presidential candidate, he called for the program to end completely.


“They should never be used to replace Americans,” Trump said of the visas. 
The White House did not respond to The Sun’s request for comment.



“I’m sad that this administration has made this so difficult,” Baltimore Teachers Union President Marietta English told The Sun.


“Their attitude toward immigration is really a detriment to the country. These teachers come dedicated. They’re not one or two years and then done. They’re here and it’s just very unfortunate they have to go back," English added. 


Hundreds of Filipino teachers have come to Baltimore following a massive recruitment effort that began in 2005.


The district was struggling to find teachers for fields like math, science and special education.
Baltimore public schools still have roughly 250 foreign teachers, The Sun reported.

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We simply want to say to today's citizens of color whether US black and brown ---whether 99% of immigrant citizens now being sold they are the winners in MOVING FORWARD US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES as colonial entities filled with global factories operating inside US as they do overseas----please stop being global banking 5% freemason/Greek players thinking our US sovereign economy is about rotating 5% freemason/Greek players from one position to another. This is what changed from 1960-70s civil rights, labor rights, women's rights, ANTI-WAR movements ----REAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE movements became CORRUPTED AND CRIMINAL OLD WORLD LAISSEZ FAIRE NEO-LIBERAL/NEO-CON global corporate patronage.

We understand the WE DON'T CARE 5% players may not change---we are educating for our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE and our new to US 99% of immigrants who DO CARE about the future. It makes no difference if COMMONER CORE CORPORATE SCHOOLS have black teachers------the goals are to kill the US teaching profession.

Our US 99 % of WE THE STUDENTS are being deliberately HARMED and HAVING THEIR FUTURES killed by all this MOVING FORWARD PRETENDING over reforming US public schools.


EducationBaltimore schools step up efforts to recruit, retain black teachers

By Talia Richman
September 3BALTIMORE -- Damien Ford knows the look he gets from black parents dropping off their kids at his downtown Baltimore school. It’s one that says, “Take care of my baby.”
Ford says his skin color means that his job comes with extra pressures and expectations. Black students often look to him to be a father figure; white teachers often look to him to be a disciplinarian.
“When you’re that lone or one of very few black men in the school building, there’s a lot that comes with that,” said Ford, a veteran teacher who works as an educational associate at Baltimore School for the Arts.
In a district where African American children made up about 80 percent of the student body last year, only about 40 percent of its roughly 4,900 teachers were black.
District officials say something must change, for the sake of Baltimore’s future.
The city has for years struggled to recruit and retain a teaching force that reflects the children it serves. The challenge persists even as research emerges showing that a black person’s presence at the front of a classroom has the power to dramatically improve a student’s trajectory.
The school system is convening a work group aimed at understanding the causes of this disparity and recommending solutions. Teachers, system officials and community organizers twice met publicly over the summer, and the district will work toward drafting recommendations throughout the school year, which starts Tuesday.
“We are doing this because we know it’s important for our students to have teachers who look like them,” said Jeremy Grant-Skinner, the district’s chief of human capital.
The problem is far from unique to Baltimore. Nationwide, about 7 percent of public school teachers are black.

Across central Maryland, the numbers are similarly bleak: In Carroll County, 1 percent of teachers are African American. In Harford County, 3.7 percent are. About 7 percent of Anne Arundel teachers are black, and about 10 percent of Howard County teachers are. Even in Baltimore County, where the black student population sits at about 40 percent, just 1 in 10 teachers are black.
ADVERTISINGStill, the disparity stands out in an urban, majority-black district like Baltimore City. Here, the gap between the percentage of black teachers and black students is the widest in the region. It used to be narrower: In the early 2000s, more than 60 percent of Baltimore teachers were black.
Baltimore’s struggle to hire black teachers is fueled by a statewide shortage of minority teaching candidates. And retention is difficult, too, with many black teachers saying they are saddled with extra pressures. The problem traces back decades and is in some ways an unintended legacy of Brown v. Board of Education, which launched schools on a still-unfinished road toward integration. When black students started attending formerly all-white schools, their black teachers rarely came with them.
Grant-Skinner said he can’t pinpoint one reason for the decline since 2003 — but the district isn’t fixating on that.
“We want to really focus on where we are today,” he said.
To strengthen the pipeline, officials know there’s a need to overcome perceptions that teachers are afflicted by low pay and bad working conditions. There’s a need to remove barriers to teacher certification for people who are passionate about education but struggle on required tests. And there’s a need to persuade students to picture themselves as a teacher when, for so long, they’ve mostly seen white faces at the front of classrooms.
“If I go through 12 years of schools without a black teacher, I’m going to believe that black people don’t teach,” said Austin Hill, a former Baltimore educator who teaches in Harford.


The benefits of having a black teacher are clear, students say and research echoes.
Jonothan Gray, a 16-year-old Bard High School Early College student, recalls an incident two years ago when a police officer approached him and his friends at a bus stop and accused them of loitering. Gray remembers the officer cursing and putting his hand on his gun.
The day after the confrontation, Gray told his eighth-grade teacher what happened. The teacher immediately drove him to a police station to report the incident.
“It was important to him not just because he was our teacher, but because he was a black man in Baltimore,” Gray said. “And we felt comfortable going to him because he was that role model for us.”
Diamonte Brown, a native of Baltimore and a graduate of its schools, spent two years teaching at Renaissance Academy. The school has recently lost several students to the city’s rampant violence.
“Sometimes I have to tell my students they have to put their victimization to the side in order to be successful,” said Brown, who now teaches at Booker T. Washington. “That’s a conversation that only someone who has lived your same experience can have with you.”
Jocelyn Providence was the only black teacher in Digital Harbor High School’s math department for years. Some students will come to her for help, even though they aren’t in her class.
When she asks why they’re coming to her instead of their own teachers, the students often respond by saying the others “don’t get it.”
The dynamics of race also play a role in the coursework. During his freshman year at Baltimore City College, Joshua Lynn had only white teachers. Sitting in his English class, he says, he wondered what it would’ve been like to have a black person leading class discussions on “Purple Hibiscus,” a novel about a teenage girl growing up in an abusive home in post-colonial Nigeria.
Brown loves teaching her students “A Raisin in the Sun,” a novel about an African American family living on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s. She feels she can really “go there” with her students.
“I’m talking to kids about, ‘Why do you want to have track? Why do you want to have European hair? What is this about? Why don’t you want to rock your real hair?’ ” she said. “You can’t have that conversation for real if you’re a white teacher.”
Research shows that a black teacher’s presence can transform a child’s life, with all students benefiting from a more diverse teaching force.
Low-income black students who have at least one black teacher in elementary school are significantly more likely to graduate from high school and consider attending college, according to a 2017 study co-authored by a Johns Hopkins economist. Black teachers are also more likely than white teachers to expect a black student to graduate, studies found, and to identify black students as “gifted.”
The deep relationships built with students — real or perceived — can be a burden for black teachers in Baltimore. Some describe being tapped by white teachers if they’re having a problem with an African American student in their class.
“They come to you and think you’re a catchall black expert,” Hill said. “You have to be the black kid whisperer.”
That pressure can lead to burnout, Hill said. He left teaching for the insurance world after just two years, though he’s since returned.
Davis Dixon, a research associate at the Education Trust, which advocates for students of color and those from low-income families, called this an “invisible tax.”
“Teachers of color get pigeonholed into a role that ends up placing an extra burden on what they do in the school,” he said.
At a recent meeting of the city school district’s work group, teachers called for stronger mentoring and better professional development. Black teachers in difficult work environments need to feel valued if the school system doesn’t want to lose them, some said.
“If we value teachers, if we value black teachers, then let’s follow through on that and really support them,” said Rebecca Yenawine of the Teachers’ Democracy Project, a city schools advocacy group.
The top reason minority teachers leave? Dissatisfaction, according to a study from the nonprofit Albert Shanker Institute. Among the reasons they cite are poor workplace conditions, the way school assessments affect teaching and disagreements with administration.
“It’s a climate,” said schools CEO Sonja Santelises. “They’re not leaving because of the kids.”
Hampering efforts to hire more black teachers in the first place is the shortage of educators — of all races — in every Maryland school district.
Just 542 minority candidates graduated from approved educator certification programs in 2015, according to the state education department’s latest teaching staff report. While that number is up from previous years, it doesn’t come close to meeting the need.
“We could hire every one and not fill all the positions we have every year,” Grant-Skinner said.
Enrollment in education programs dropped by about 14 percent across the University System of Maryland from 2010 to last year.
Baltimore is increasingly seeing alternative preparation programs as sources for hiring diverse educators.
One is Teach for America, which recruits college graduates who make an initial two-year commitment to teach in high-need public schools across the country. It has long been regarded as a pipeline for mostly white teachers to teach in largely minority, low-income schools.
Baltimore Teach for America Director Courtney Cass acknowledges the program’s history but said that recruiting a diverse group is a priority. Since 2014, people of color have constituted more than half their corps. The group has averaged 30 percent black over the past five years.
But some, like Baltimore Teachers Union President Marietta English, still view it as a funnel for out-of-town white people. She feels like teachers with alternative certifications are favored over traditional candidates.
Research shows that roadblocks put African Americans at a disadvantage on nearly every step on the path to becoming a teacher — from evidence of hiring discrimination to a certification test that favors white people.
A person must pass a Praxis exam to become a Maryland teacher. An analysis by the Education Testing Service found that black candidates are much more likely than white candidates to fail the Praxis, which evaluates future teachers’ general content knowledge.
Offering free Praxis tutoring might be one way to help schools close the gap, some teachers have recommended. Others say Baltimore should provide financial incentives to encourage city graduates to come back and teach.
Ford, from the Baltimore School for the Arts, said that persuading just one more black person to teach in the city could have ripple effects.
He still remembers his first black male teacher: Mr. Bragg.
Mr. Bragg was a towering presence who seemed effortlessly comfortable as he navigated the school. He told his seventh-grade science students that he was teaching them out of college physics textbooks, and Ford has no reason to doubt that was true.
“The way he interacted with us, the high expectations he had,” Ford says, “that’s one of the reasons I’m an educator today.”

TEACH FOR AMERICA is of course a global banking 1% education corporation and it is very much tied to NDAA-----OLD WORLD KINGS KNIGHTS OF MALTA-------indeed, many of our corporate teachers are not tied at all to our ALL-AMERICAN public K-12 embracing COMMONER CORE as if it was REAL INFORMATION.


We just want to revisit the NDAA----that NEW KNIGHTS OF MALTA constitution for OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS.


NDAA states it is a national security issue to assure there is enough STEM teachers to install DEEP, DEEP, REALLY DEEP STATE ONE WORLD ONE ENERGY/TECHNOLOGY GRID where sustainability is only for the global 1%.


'The amendment was based on a bill titled HR 5199, the Education Savings Accounts for Military Families Act of 2018'


If one remembers our US Constitution and its AMENDMENTS tied to defining what is EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND ACCESS for a 99% of WE THE PEOPLE enshrined with common law BILL OF RIGHTS----the GI BILL was not attached to DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE----it was not administered by DOD-----it was a US FEDERAL VETERANS PROGRAM attached to our Department of Education seeing our former VETERANS as civilian citizens.

So, MOVING FORWARD to OLD WORLD KINGS KNIGHTS OF MALTA CONSTITUTION ------NDAA places all that is EDUCATION inside the global banking 1% private praetorian military corporation's hands.


Teach the Vote: Where Texas Educators Find the News that Matters Most
Tag Archives: NDAA


ATPE succeeds in stopping military voucher amendment


The military voucher proposal that ATPE’s federal and state lobby teams have been working hard to fight in Washington was ruled not in order this week by the U.S. House Committee on Rules. The committee was responsible for determining whether the military voucher would be considered as an amendment on the floor of the U.S. House when the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (NDAA) is set for a vote. While we were successful in stopping this attempt to advance vouchers for military families, we remain focused on future efforts aimed at creating federal vouchers in any form.


ATPE sent a letter to Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX) two weeks ago that urged him to reject the misguided legislation as an amendment to the NDAA. The amendment was based on a bill titled HR 5199, the Education Savings Accounts for Military Families Act of 2018. We stressed in our letter to Chairman Sessions that “the $2,500 voucher program created by HR 5199 would drain limited dollars from both the public school system in Texas as well the Federal Impact Aid Program, hurting the very military-connected students it purports to help.” Our federal lobby team also spent the last two weeks successfully working with the Texas delegation in Congress to stress our opposition to the bill and build support for rejecting the bill as an amendment.



As we reported last week, the author of HR 5199 was facing stiff opposition from members of Congress, even those in his own party, who didn’t support the bill or the amendment. Despite the pressure generated by ATPE and other groups who strongly oppose the amendment, like the Military Coalition, Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) pressed forward with offering his amendment for consideration by the Rules Committee. Several members of the Texas delegation, including Chairman Sessions, are co-sponsors of the HR 5199, but even with that support the bill as an amendment ultimately failed this time.



The support for this bill from powerful members in Congress is why ATPE continues to stress the importance of educators staying actively engaged in both the state and federal advocacy process. Your voice is meaningful to your members of Congress and state legislators, and it is critical that they hear from you about these important issues. As a reminder, we offer an advocacy tool that allows educators to easily contact their representatives about key issues. The tool, Advocacy Central, offers email templates, phone scripts, tweets, and Facebook posts, that allow you to engage on multiple platforms with your state and federal representatives. On issues just like this one, your representative needs to hear from you! Stay engaged and tuned in to Teach the Vote to know when your voice needs to be heard!

This entry was posted in ATPE, Congress, Vouchers and tagged ATPE, Chairman Pete Sessions, Congress, education, Federal, funding, Kate Kuhlmann, military, military voucher, NDAA, privatization, Representative Jim Banks, Teach the Vote, teachers, U.S. Congress, U.S. House of Representatives, vouchers on May 24, 2018 by Kate Kuhlmann. - 1 Reply


Teach the Vote’s Week in Review: May 18, 2018
Here’s your weekly wrap-up of education news from ATPE Governmental Relations:



Time to turn out for Texas primary runoffs
“New” teachers can earn CPE credits for taking TEA survey
SBEC votes to lower preparation standards for some teachers
ATPE works to defeat federal voucher amendment


Today is the last day to vote early in the primary runoff elections taking place on Tuesday, May 22. Following historical trends, early voting returns have so far been less than stellar.


The May runoff election seems designed to create low turnout. It follows the May uniform election date by only about two weeks. It’s right at the edge of summer when many people, certainly educators and parents, are already distracted and some school districts will have already ended their school year. Also, the types and quantities of the races are much more scattershot, and the rules have many voters confused about whether or not they are even eligible to vote (Hint: if you didn’t vote at all in the primary back in March, you are still eligible to vote in the runoff, as long as you were registered to vote before the deadline.)



All of the reasons above drive down turnout, which is why ATPE and a coalition of education partners are working to instill a culture of voting in the education community. A culture of voting cuts through individual races and impediments and instills a mentality that educators will vote in every election – no matter what. Unfortunately, changing culture is a slow business, and despite the fever of rhetoric about voting that has become a mainstay since 2016, the majority of educators haven’t yet taken the message to heart. However, each election the momentum of the education vote continues to build. Perhaps this, the lowest turnout of all elections, will be the one where you and your group of colleagues will join the movement.

Hmmmm, seems our US educators would be shouting how our US election system is rigged and fraudulent making our 99% votes not matter.


ATPE Lobbyist Mark Wiggins breaks down why a vote in the Texas primaries is one of the most powerful tools an educator has in this blog post. Be sure to check out our candidate profiles before you cast your vote this evening or on Tuesday.


TEA needs you! The Texas Education Agency (TEA) needs “new” teachers to complete a survey to help improve educator preparation. A completed survey is worth 10 Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits. ATPE Lobbyist Kate Kuhlmann reports about the TEA survey in her blog post earlier this week, but here are some additional quick details:


What is the survey about and how will responses be used?


The survey is designed to determine how well Educator Preparation Programs (EPPs) are preparing teachers to enter the classroom. The results will be used to help improve EPPs and the educational experience of teacher certification candidates who attend those programs.


Who is eligible to take the survey?

TEA has invited “new” teachers, which in this case refers to teachers teaching in their first year under a standard certificate, to participate in the survey.

When is the survey open?

You should have received an email with a link to the online survey on or before April 18, 2018. You have until June 15, 2018 to complete the survey. If you believe you are eligible to take the survey but did not receive an email with a survey link, please contact TEA at pilotteachersurvey@tea.texas.gov.


How do I get started?
Once you receive the email, simply click on the link and take the survey. You can complete the survey in one session or multiple sessions.
Do I receive a benefit for taking the survey?
Once you submit your completed survey, you can download a certificate worth 10 CPE credits.


The State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) is meeting today in Austin. Its discussion includes creating an accelerated pathway for certain teachers to enter the classroom without satisfying traditional training requirements. It’s the result of House Bill (HB) 3349, a bill by Representative Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, passed by the 85th Legislature last year that requires SBEC to implement the new abbreviated training program for candidates seeking the Trade and Industrial Workforce Training certificate.



The board spent significant time this morning discussing a new rulemaking proposal responsive to the bill. The proposal on today’s agenda, which board members saw today for the first time, was vastly different from an initial proposal discussed at previous meetings. ATPE and other educator groups opposed the new plan and were not part of the unidentified group of “stakeholders” that singularly drove the new proposal. In laying out our opposition to the proposal which we view as weakening teacher training standards, ATPE stressed the board’s recent efforts to raise standards for teacher training in Texas.

NOT ONE MENTION OF STOPPING COMMON CORE RACE TO TOP----


Read more in this SBEC wrap-up from ATPE Lobbyist Kate Kuhlmann, who attended and testified at the meeting today.


In Washington, DC, educators and military groups have united to defeat a federal voucher proposal for students from military families. ATPE and other groups believe the measure would drain dollars currently sent to public schools that aid those students.


The U.S. House is preparing its annual reauthorization of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Included in the act is the Impact Aid program, which helps fund schools that lose local revenue because their districts contain federal lands, including military bases, which do not pay local school property taxes. An amendment filed by Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) this week would create an Education Savings Account (ESA) voucher for certain military families and would pay for the voucher by defunding the Impact Aid Program.



Banks is facing stiff opposition even from some members of his own party. Stripping the Impact Aid Program would significantly impact the very schools that serve a vast majority of children of active duty military personnel.


ATPE’s Washington-based lobbyists have been working to oppose the addition of the Banks voucher amendment. This week, ATPE sent a letter of opposition to Congressman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) who chairs the powerful House Rules committee, and others. For an amendment like the Banks voucher amendment to be considered on the House Floor, it must first be deemed eligible by Chairman Sessions’s committee. The rules committee will meet early next week to determine which proposed amendments to the NDAA will be in order. ATPE members can click here to reach out to their members of congress on this issue. Stay tuned to Teach the Vote for additional updates next week.

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Below we see where YET AGAIN our US 99% of military staff our getting thrown under the bus ------this time creating those same SAVINGS ACCOUNTS for education that OBAMA did with our US 99% of WE THE PEOPLE-----we discussed in detail under financial public policy that these SAVINGS PLAN structures tied to VOUCHER PROGRAMS ends with global banking 1% deciding all that is education policy and how those SAVINGS ACCOUNTS are spent.  It ends our US Federal Department of Education FEDERAL FUNDING for our US K-12 sending hundreds of billions of dollars to each PUBLIC K-12 across the nation allowing those community public schools/teachers create classroom lesson plans.

'We stressed in our letter to Chairman Sessions that “the $2,500 voucher program created by HR 5199 would drain limited dollars from both the public school system in Texas as well the Federal Impact Aid Program, hurting the very military-connected students it purports to help.” '

We posted the WELCOME BACK KOTTER global banking 1% TV SHOW creating FADS indicating that KOTTER was that VIETNAM DRAFT DODGER------using college degree returning to the inner city schools all tied to avoiding going to war.

Back in 1960-70s when the entire nation was filled with ANTI-WAR protests by our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE----the protested war was widely known to be ILLEGAL ---US UNCONSTITUTIONAL as were continuous wars after that driven by global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS KNIGHTS OF MALTA TRIBE OF JUDAH.  So, baby boomers went to college having professors and lessons tied to HOLDING POWER ACCOUNTABLE-----HOW TO BE A CITIZEN.  There is nothing LEFTIST about teaching US RULE OF LAW AND US CONSTITUTIONAL AND FEDERAL LAW----that is the DUTY of all US public school teachers.

This was 1994---today the NDAA and Defense Department budget flipped the US DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION funding for US public schools and now place all school funding with DOD ----NOT AMERICAN.



Troops to Teachers


Program Overview


Background
Troops to Teachers (TTT) was established in 1994 as a Department of Defense program.


The National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2000 transferred the responsibility for program oversight and funding to the U.S. Department of Education but continued operation by the Department of Defense. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 provided for the continuation of the TTT Program.

Here is the CLINTON ERA response to getting rid of all those LEFTIST public university professors filled with ANTI-WAR----we want to emphasize to our US 99% of military citizens--------MOVING FORWARD back to DARK AGES 1000BC praetorian armies working for KINGS----it not the US military you signed up to protect the US sovereignty and its 99% WE THE PEOPLE RIGHTS.



Bennet Urges Expansion of Troops to Teachers in Final Defense Authorization Bill



December 06, 2011



Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet is continuing his push to expand the successful Troops to Teachers program, which would help our veterans extend their service to America in classrooms across the country.



Bennet, along with Reps. Thomas Petri (R-WI), Joe Courtney (D-CT) and Doris Matsui (D-CA), today urged leaders of the conference committee negotiating the final version of the FY2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and Senate and House Armed Services Committee leaders to include in the conference agreement an expansion of the Troops to Teachers program.


In their letter to Senate and House Armed Services Committee Chairmen Carl Levin and Buck McKeon and Ranking Members John McCain and Adam Smith, the members urged that the final bill include a provision they drafted and secured in the House-passed bill to allow more veterans to teach in Colorado's and America's schools and to streamline and improve the program by reducing red tape and expanding the scope of schools in which veterans can teach.


“With an increasing number of dedicated men and women transitioning from military service into civilian careers, we should remove any barriers to enlist their talents in the effort to teach our children,” Bennet and the members of Congress wrote in the letter. “More than one million teachers are set to retire in the next few years. Enabling districts facing shortages in hard-to-staff areas to participate in Troops to Teachers will help our students prepare to participate in a 21st century economy while helping our veterans successfully transition to civilian life and continue to serve our country.



Earlier this year, the Senate committee responsible for education approved Bennet’s Troops to Teachers measure as part of a larger bill. Bennet worked with Reps. Courtney, Petri and Matsui to draft and secure a similar provision in the House version of the NDAA. Today’s letter is part of their efforts to ensure the measure will be included in the final version of the NDAA, which a conference committee will negotiate, that will be sent to the President for his signature into law. 


The Troops to Teachers program, originally created in 1994, provides qualified troops with financial incentives to teach in the nation's neediest schools. Since the program was created, a majority of Troops to Teachers have been hired in seven states, including Colorado.



Despite the program's success, many men and women coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan are ineligible to participate in the current program because of certain restrictions, including requirement of six years of military service and limits on the number of schools eligible to participate in the program. In Colorado, many of the school districts located near military installations - where Troops to Teachers participants often prefer to teach - are excluded from participation because of these restrictions.


The provision is based on the bipartisan Post-9/11 Troops to Teachers Enhancement Act, which was introduced by Bennet and McCain and would make the Troops to Teachers program more accessible by reducing length of service requirements and expand the number of schools in which participants can qualify for a stipend toward the costs of becoming a teacher.
For more information on the Post-9/11 Troops to Teachers Enhancement Act, please click here.



The full text of the letter is included below.
Dear Chairmen Levin and McKeon and Ranking Members McCain and Smith:


We write to respectfully urge you to include key provisions related to the Troops to Teachers (TTT) program in the Conference Agreement of the FY2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).  Specifically, we urge you to include provisions that would expand the opportunity for veterans to participate in the program and increase the number of participating schools.


We, along with Senator McCain, introduced legislation to accomplish these goals - opening the program to veterans with four years of continuous active duty service and expanding the number of eligible schools where TTT participants can teach.  This language, along with a transfer of the program from the Department of Education to the Department of Defense, was added to the House NDAA legislation in an amendment sponsored by Reps Courtney, Petri and Matsui (see Sec. 548, H.R. 1540).  The amendment passed by voice vote as part of an en bloc amendment.

 
In the Senate, similar language was included in amendment #1318, sponsored by Senators Bennet and McCain.  Amendment #1318 differs from the House language in that it does not include a transfer of the program to DOD and it includes study language added to the Senate NDAA legislation during markup (see Sec. 1048, S. 1867).  Amendment #1318 was agreed to and included in a larger package of cleared amendments; however, the package was blocked from inclusion in the final bill for reasons unrelated to the TTT changes.


We understand that there has been debate regarding the transfer of the program to the Department of Defense.  The House and Senate bills differ on this.  Regardless of what the conference committee decides regarding the transfer, it is our priority that the changes mentioned above -- expanding the eligibility of the program to service members with four years of continuous active duty service and expanding the eligible schools where TTT participants can teach -- be included.  These changes are highlighted in the attached Bennet-McCain Amendment.  It is our understanding that there was no opposition to this amendment language.


With an increasing number of dedicated men and women transitioning from military service into civilian careers, we should remove any barriers to enlist their talents in the effort to teach our children.  More than one million teachers are set to retire in the next few years. Enabling districts facing shortages in hard-to-staff areas to participate in Troops to Teachers will help our students prepare to participate in a 21st century economy while helping our veterans successfully transition to civilian life and continue to serve our country.


Thank you for your consideration.
______________________________________________


MAO'S LITTLE RED BOOK------straight from US YALE AND HARVARD----this was GREAT LEAPING LIZARD MAO's 'constitution' for a nation of 99% of Chinese citizens being told that this book was TRUTH----LAW----CONSTITUTION all wrapped in one. What came from mouth of MAO----never TRUTH by myth-making and propaganda is what was taught in far-right wing, authoritarian, militaristic, extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXIST China. Here is global banking 1% FAKE NEWS BCC ----telling us this was a LEFTIST MILITARY CONSTITUTION.


THE LITTLE RED BOOK is simply our today's COMMONER CORE------COMMONER CORE lessons tied to global banking private military corporations will be K-CAREER MILITARY FOR ALL. This is HITLER YOUTHS-----it is MAO YOUTHS----and it is all FAR-RIGHT WING GLOBAL FASCISM.



When our US 99% of military veterans come back to civilian life to be teachers thinking that ANTI-WAR protesters were COMMI LEFTISTS hating our country-----they are shouting nothing but FAKE NEWS---MYTH-MAKING AND PROPAGANDA ----and are not tied to our US Constitutional history but a MILITARY LAW-----back in 1960s military law was held accountable to our US Rule of Law---US Constitutional rights and our military received a US wage and quality of life. NONE OF THAT EXISTS TODAY ----MOVING FORWARD simply kills those very freedoms, liberty, justice, pursuit of happiness for what our US 99% fought and died.
NOW, OUR US 99% OF RETIRED MILITARY ARE BEING TOLD TO TEACH MAO'S LITTLE RED BOOK TO OUR US 99% OF K-12.


'During China's "Cultural Revolution" it became virtually mandatory to own and carry one'....we see what today's OUR REVOLUTION for only the global 1% is tying its EDUCATION REFORM goals to.


Magazine
Who, What, Why: What is the Little Red Book?

• 26 November 2015

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell threw a copy of Mao's Little Red Book at George Osborne. What exactly is the tome all about, asks Jon Kelly.


"Let's quote from Mao" is not a remark that's commonly heard in the House of Commons, but McDonnell said he did so as a joke to draw attention to sales of British assets to the Chinese government. Picking it up, the chancellor replied mockingly that it was his shadow's "personal signed copy".


It's an icon of China and communism as well as a work of propaganda. More than a billion copies have been published, making the book, often wrapped in its distinctive vinyl cover, one of the most widely produced of all time. During China's "Cultural Revolution" it became virtually mandatory to own and carry one.


The Little Red Book - or, to give its full title, Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong - contains 267 aphorisms from the Communist Chinese leader, covering subjects such as class struggle, "correcting mistaken ideas" and the "mass line", a key tenet of Mao Zedong Thought. Included is Mao's famous remark that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun".

Originally produced in 1964 by the People's Liberation Army - an early version was titled 200 Quotations from Chairman Mao - it soon became a key feature of the leader's personality cult. The Ministry of Culture aimed to distribute a copy to every Chinese citizen and hundreds of new printing houses were built in order to achieve this. Mao himself reportedly liked its resemblance to books of quotations by philosophers such as Confucius.


LITTLE RED BOOK TO ALL CHINESE CITIZENS SOUNDS LIKE OUR US CONSTITUTION TO ALL US CITIZENS.

During the Cultural Revolution, in which millions were persecuted or killed, owning it "became a way of surviving", says Daniel Leese, professor of modern Chinese history and politics at the University of Freiburg. Paramilitary "Red Guards" mobilised by Mao to purify the Communist Party would check whether those suspected of bourgeois tendencies were carrying it or whether they could quote from it.


As the regime attempted to export its ideas as a form of "soft power", millions of copies were published in translation and sold abroad. It was taken up by Western radicals such as the Black Panthers and passed around as a samizdat text in the Warsaw Pact nations, where the USSR's split from China ensured it was banned.

INDEED, BLACK PANTHERS KNOWN TO BE WORKING FOR CIA/OLD WORLD KINGS KNIGHTS OF MALTA.


Mao's successor Deng Xiaoping disliked the book and tried to suppress it, says Leese, but this only served as a kind of "viral marketing". While its appeal today may be nostalgic or even kitsch, McDonnell's stunt may have temporarily boosted its British sales - since his speech, the Sun reported, left-wing bookshops have sold out of it.

LEFT WING STORES SOLD OUT OF FAR-RIGHT WING GLOBAL BANKING 1% CORPORATION GREAT LEAPING LIZARD MAO.  OH, REALLY????  YOU MEAN FAR-RIGHT WING STORES.

Quotations from the Red Book

• "Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
• "All reactionaries are paper tigers. In appearance, the reactionaries are terrifying, but in reality they are not so powerful."
• "A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery... A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another."

_____________________________________________

GREAT LEAPING LIZARD MAO's task was turning a peaceful, civil society into a MILITARY JUNTA societal structure that went with the global banking 1% NEO-LIBERAL/MARXIST structure where the global banking 1% getting extremely rich with NAKED CAPITALISM kept the 99% of Chinese citizens tied to CULTURAL REVOLUTION leaving them BEHIND.

The important public policy stance in this conversation was MAO taking Chinese society to a MILITARY JUNTA configuration creating what would be K-CAREER schools all geared to MILITARY as it was given the STALINIST no truth-telling PEOPLE'S LIBERATION ARMY.



'Originally produced in 1964 by the People's Liberation Army.....The best-known editions are the military versions covered in red plastic and shrunk to fit the pocket of an army uniform – hence the book's nickname in the west.'

That is the entirety of RACE TO TOP COMMONER CORE----with NDAA sending in military teachers to what will be global corporate campus SCHOOLS.

Our US 99% of WE THE FORMER MILITARY need to WAKE UP AND BE US CITIZENS------stop allowing these structures to MOVE FORWARD.

Mao's Little Red Book to get revamp


New version of Quotations from Chairman Mao, the world's second most published book, to hit Chinese shelves in November


Tania Branigan in Beijing


Fri 27 Sep 2013 10.54 EDT First published on Fri 27 Sep 2013 10.54 EDT

Chinese singers perform with their copies of the Little Red Book in hand in 1971. Photograph: Frank Fischbeck/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image


EVEN CHINA HAS ITS GLOBAL BANKING 1% FREEMASON STARS CREATING FADS!



It will not be especially little, and the cover will be only partly red. But a new version of the world's second most published book is due to appear on Chinese shelves, decades after it fell from favour with the end of Maoism.


The re-emergence of Quotations from Chairman Mao – better known as the Little Red Book – comes amid an official revival of the era's rhetoric. China's leader, Xi Jinping, has embraced Maoist terminology and concepts, launching a "mass line rectification campaign" and this week even presiding over a televised self-criticism session.


Only the Bible has been printed more often than the Quotations, which was a keystone of Mao's personality cult. A billion copies circulated in the Cultural Revolution – the population pored over it in daily study sessions; illiterate farmers memorised chunks by heart. In the west, translations were brandished by radicals.


But the political frenzy ebbed, and production of the Little Red Book had mostly stopped long before Mao's death; afterwards, as China embarked on reform and opening up, officials began to pulp copies. Later, in a more relaxed age, commercial reprints and introductions to his thought appeared, but no new editions of his works: "This has been a very sensitive topic," said Daniel Leese, author of Mao Cult and an expert on the era at the University of Freiburg.



The new version is due for release in November, just before the 120th anniversary of Mao's birth. Its chief editor, Chen Yu – a senior colonel at the Academy of Military Science – describes it as a voluntary initiative. "We just want to edit the book, as other scholars work on the Analects of Confucius… We don't have a complicated political purpose," said Chen.

But Leese suggested it was a "trial balloon" from Maoist sympathisers: "If they hadn't seen how the general tone towards the Maoist heritage had changed, I don't think they would have dared. This is party internal politics popping up in the public sphere."


Chen said his team of 20 had worked for two years on the project, under pressure from left and right. The title may not include the word "quotations", he said, and will be attributed to Mao Zedong instead of Chairman Mao because the former is more neutral.



The best-known editions are the military versions covered in red plastic and shrunk to fit the pocket of an army uniform – hence the book's nickname in the west.


Many knew the text well enough to cite quotes by page number; they became ideological weapons to be wielded in any political struggle. Under siege by Red Guards, the then foreign minister reportedly retorted: "On page [X] it says Comrade Chen Yi is a good cadre …"


But they also coloured even commonplace exchanges, as described by one historian: "Serve the people. Comrade, could I have two pounds of pork, please?"


This time the cover will be at most partially red, said Chen. The new book will draw on other compilations of Mao's sayings and writings, remove quotes wrongly attributed to Mao and correct those which have become distorted.


An "internal reference" version with limited distribution will run to double the length – 240,000 characters – and include "thoughts about the Cultural Revolution and other special events confirmed as wrong by the government", Chen said, so that people could study Mao comprehensively.


Leese noted that unlike other collections of Mao's thought, the Little Red Book covered his later years in power – which saw the purges of the Anti-Rightist Campaign , the Great Famine and Cultural Revolution.


Mao still occupies a place of honour in modern China. His body lies in state in Tiananmen Square; his portrait hangs from its gate; and his face gazes from banknotes. Others have appropriated his heritage in unexpected ways: "There is a whole industry of Mao's thought as managerial wisdom, much as became of Sun Tzu's Art of War," said Jeremy Paltiel, a Carleton University expert on the Communist party.


But the party has drawn a veil over the later years of Mao's rule since its 1981 resolution proclaimed that he was 70% right, 30% incorrect. The return to that period's terminology has confused and in some cases concerned observers.


"[Xi] might not be the initiator, but he certainly endorses it," said Joseph Cheng, a political scientist at the City University of Hong Kong.


Some perceive a tactical manoeuvre, designed to appeal to leftwingers estranged by the trial of Bo Xilai and concerned that financial and economic reforms will be unveiled at a key party meeting in November.


Others see genuine conviction: "Xi believes in Maoism. He wants to completely revive Mao's policy and he has already started it," said political scientist Zhang Ming.


That does not mean a return to class struggle or abandonment of the market. Rather, it is about the Great Helmsman as a guide for party leadership.

"It is not the same era any more," said Beijing-based historian Zhang Lifan. "He will not actually do exactly what Mao did. He just makes a gesture as if he will."
_____________________________

When we read in our US FAKE NEWS media outlets that global banking 1% BILL GATES AND ANNENBERG have suddenly decided that COMMONER CORE was not a success and its time to EDUCATE LOCALLY-----what they are saying is this: we have spent these several decades of OBAMA era installing all that ONE WORLD ONE TECHNOLOGY GRID internet needed to push our US students in front of computer screens----now they simply need to kill US TEACHING PROFESSIONALS----kill all those global banking 5% freemason/Greek TEMPORARY SMALL BUSINESSES------and bring in part-time temporary education techs as TEACH FOR AMERICA who will simply put online lessons in and plug US 99% of students in.



THE ONLY PEOPLE MAKING ONLINE LESSONS ARE GLOBAL BANKING 1%----NOTHING LOCAL.

All this called PEOPLE'S REVOLUTION in education reform to help those US 99% of poor----of workers----making girls equal to boys----it is SO DEMOCRATIZING say global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS KNIGHTS OF MALTA.

Feature
Network Infrastructure Requirements for Common Core Assessments

Will your district pass the test?
Andrew Dyrli Hermeling
District Administration, March 2013
2/4/2013



Network infrastructure at the Forsyth County (Ga.) Schools has allowed districtwide use of wireless devices, brought in by students or provided by the district, and desktop computers, as students at Vickery Creek Elementary School work on a project.The Partnership for the Assessment of College and Career Readiness (PARCC) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SMARTER Balanced) are developing the next generation of assessment tools in line with Common Core. And both consortia are developing online assessments that will replace traditional paper tests.


As Bailey Mitchell, chief technology and information officer at the Forsyth County (Ga.) Schools, states, “the new online assessments are going to require a lot of computer hardware and connectivity to enable the provision of Common Core.”


To meet these minimum requirements, district leaders are going to have to assess their bandwidth capabilities, their operating systems, the speed and number of machines required for testing, the quality and coverage of their wireless network, and both student and faculty familiarity with software and the digital testing environment.

Minimum Bandwidth Requirements

In May 2012, State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) released “The Broadband Imperative,” a paper that addressed these upcoming infrastructure needs. In it, SETDA designed bandwidth benchmarks for schools, setting the minimum requirements at 100 Mbps per 1,000 students and staff by the 2014-2015 school year and 1 Gbps per 1,000 students and staff by 2017-2018.


Schools need to include day-to-day operational bandwidth in their estimates concerning what is required just for testing, SETDA states. Classrooms that use digital teaching techniques, such as streaming audio and video feeds or virtual conferencing, along with administrative functions, such as Voice over IP (VoIP) telephone solutions, will continue to use bandwidth even as portions of the school are engaged in assessment.


Mitchell adds that district leaders must understand the unique broadband requirements that come from running so many educational devices, such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones on one network.
Recommendations

At the 2012 SETDA Leadership Summit, Carol Mosley, from Louisiana’s division of planning, analysis, and information resources, said that her state required that test administration be compatible with the Windows XP operating system. While online tests have been designed to be compatible with older operating systems, SETDA does point out that ideal testing environments will have the most recent operating system.


And while the minimum requirements for processing speed and RAM for testing machines varies from state to state, the state of Delaware, according to another SETDA report, “Technology Requirements for Large-Scale Computer-Based and Online Assessment: Current Status and Issues,” recommends that all future machines purchased for testing purposes have minimum specifications of a 1.3 GHz processor, 2 GB RAM, and an 80 GB hard drive.


Mosley, in her presentation, indicated that in their internal technology survey, Louisiana determined that their schools should have one machine for every seven students to ensure that testing is not slowed by machine availability.


And a third paper, “Getting Ready for Online Assessments,” written by Digital Learning Now!, urges district leaders to move beyond compliance. “Minimum requirements are just that—the bare minimum technical specifications needed for the technology to work,” the paper states. “It is critical that districts plan not for the minimum, but for what is needed to deliver a high-quality learning and assessment experience for students and teachers.”


Network Quality and Coverage

While ideal broadband rates may meet SETDA’s benchmarks, old wireless routing devices, less than ideal Wi-Fi coverage due to poorly placed routers, and outdated local network infrastructure can all hinder a network’s robustness. Thus, extensive network broadband verification, with multiple speed tests in various locations within a school building, needs to take place to ensure that the network infrastructure is up to speed, according to SETDA, in their report titled “Technology Readiness for College and Career Ready Teaching, Learning and Assessment.”


Student and Faculty Familiarity

Online assessments allow test writers to engage students beyond the fill-in-the-bubble methodology that has dominated standardized assessment in the past, experts have said, as noted in the technology readiness SETDA report These are not going to be the same multiple-choice tests that are simply delivered on computers as opposed to on paper.


Although Virginia is not implementing Common Core, the Department of Education has developed a strategic plan that parallels that of the SETDA recommendations. Sarah Susbury, director of the office of test administration, scoring, and reporting for Virginia, analyzed the success of Virginia’s online testing preliminary implementation. And it was clear that states should focus on training and practice testing so that students and faculty are familiar with the testing environment before taking the official assessment, Susbury adds.


And as the “Getting Ready for Online Assessments” report states, “schools should make testing environments as close to learning environments as possible. Districts should therefore plan for the type of technology they need to deliver digital learning experiences that students are demanding.”


Network Infrastructure Solutions

Organizations, such as Education Superhighway, assess4ed.net, and SMARTER Balanced, provide bandwidth speed testers for educators who want to make sure they are meeting minimum bandwidth requirements. Similarly, according to Mitchell, the Consortium for School Networking has launched a leadership initiative, called the Broadband Knowledge Center, to provide schools with easily accessible broadband information.


SETDA recommends that schools purchase local caching software that can alleviate some of the bandwidth demands on schools that may have trouble upgrading to a robust network due to finances, and consider testing on wired devices, like desktops or wired laptops, as wireless coverage can be uneven, especially in larger school buildings.


Susbury indicates that Virginia has begun providing professional development so that faculty can become familiar with new online testing methods.


District Implementations

The first step for a district is to investigate what sort of support is provided by its state. The Georgia Department of Education, for example, runs a statewide network that helps augment Forsyth County’s needs for internet connectivity, says Mitchell. And the district has been able to leverage federal e-Rate funds to discount what they need and keep costs down, he adds. District leaders worked closely with network provider Comcast to negotiate for a network that has bandwidth that can be adjusted as needed. “You could describe it as a district network and internet connection that has a volume knob. We can initiate needed increases without having to buy costly updates,” Mitchell says.


The increase in bandwidth will be the result of a transition from print-centric classrooms to digitally-rich classrooms that include wireless devices, integrating audio and video feeds, and the inevitable acceptance of student smartphones and tablets, he adds.


Diana McGhee, director of technology at the Ft. Thomas (Ky.) Independent Schools, also emphasizes the value of controlling bandwidth. “By employing Microsoft’s Threat Management Gateway network security software, we are able to reduce the amount of data streaming from sites such as YouTube and Netflix during online assessments to provide the greatest bandwidth possible for students as they take the test,” McGhee says.


WOW!!  NO WONDER MICROSOFT AND APPLE EARNED HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS THESE SEVERAL YEARS OF RACE TO TOP COMMONER CORE.

This is especially important considering the Ft. Thomas district’s Bring Your Own Device policy. Regulating bandwidth access during test time ensures that those who need the bandwidth can receive it. And to make sure that bandwidth is not lost within the network infrastructure, the district’s six buildings are fibered in a wide area network (WAN) which provides them with a 10 Gbps connection to their network core. Such a fast connection is important as testing requires communication with a central and secure server.


The district began its network upgrades during the 2009-2010 school year and financed more than $200,000 toward the endeavor with a five-year lease, meaning that their final payment will be due during the 2013-2014 school year.


“Such a payment plan is a perfect way to make an extensive network upgrade feasible for your district,” McGhee concludes. “With proper planning and budgeting, any school district can do what we’ve done.”

Global banking 1% knowing our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE are fighting against all of OBAMA era policies from AFFORDABLE CARE ACT-----to TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT----to COMMONER CORE RACE TO TOP----so they are rebranding these same policies as we stated with NEW NAFTA being TPP-----this switching gears is simply MOVING FORWARD RACE TO TOP COMMONER CORE.

THINK LOCAL while all our local government is tied to US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES which allow only global corporate campuses control education because these several years have killed our US public schools and made them CORPORATE CAMPUS SCHOOLS.

The only way to SWITH GEARS in stopping MOVING FORWARD killing our strong US public schools is to get global banking 1% out of our US LOCAL ECONOMIES. Here in Baltimore that is in fact global hedge fund corporation JOHNS HOPKINS ----being OLD WORLD KINGS KNIGHTS OF MALTA AND TRIBE OF JUDAH----as too Bill Gates/Bloomberg.

CAN'T STOP MOVING FORWARD? OH, REALLY?

Politics & Policy

School Reformers Switch Gears


“Think local” is the hot idea among influencers like the Gates Foundation that once favored top-down initiatives like Common Core.


Andrea Gabor
‎September‎ ‎04‎, ‎2018‎ ‎7‎:‎00‎ ‎AM


For two decades, the prevailing wisdom among education philanthropists and policymakers has been that the U.S. school system needs the guiding hand of centralized standard-setting to discipline ineffective teachers and bureaucrats. Much of that direction was guided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has spent billions since 2000 to influence both schools and education policy.

But as schools open this year, top-down national initiatives based on standardized testing and curricular uniformity are in retreat.

Last fall, the Gates Foundation ended its support for a $575 million, six-year teacher-effectiveness project; the initiative had failed to meet the foundation’s goals to “dramatically improve student outcomes,” according to a recent study commissioned by the foundation.

Two dozen states started backing away from the Gates-backed Common Core State Standards not long after they were first embraced in 2010 (though many of these states retained “key elements” of the standards, according to a 2017 report by an education organization the foundation helps fund.) Earlier, the foundation acknowledged that “many of the small schools” that it invested in — the foundation’s first major education initiative — “did not improve students’ achievement in any significant way.”



Now, the foundation seems to be stepping back from sweeping national initiatives in its bid to remake education. In the coming years, its K-12 philanthropy will concentrate on supporting what it calls “locally driven solutions” that originate among networks of 20 to 40 schools, according to Allan Golston, who leads the foundation’s U.S. operations, because they have “the power to improve outcomes for black, Latino, and low-income students and drive social and economic mobility.”

If Gates hews to its new plan, it will mark a significant change from the top-down approach that characterized not only the recent work of the foundation and the continuing focus of other education-minded philanthropies, but also government policy. Think of "No Child Left Behind," the 2001 federal program dictating that all children achieve “grade level” by 2014; schools that failed to reach that mandate risked being closed, though, in practice, the U.S. education department granted states waivers from the most onerous requirements.



Or "Race to the Top," the initiative


 to be stepping back from sweeping national initiatives in its bid to remake education. In the coming years, its K-12 philanthropy will concentrate on supporting what it calls “locally driven solutions” that originate among networks of 20 to 40 schools, according to Allan Golston, who leads the foundation’s U.S. operations, because they have “the power to improve outcomes for black, Latino, and low-income students and drive social and economic mobility.”

If Gates hews to its new plan, it will mark a significant change from the top-down approach that characterized not only the recent work of the foundation and the continuing focus of other education-minded philanthropies, but also government policy. Think of "No Child Left Behind," the 2001 federal program dictating that all children achieve “grade level” by 2014; schools that failed to reach that mandate risked being closed, though, in practice, the U.S. education department granted states waivers from the most onerous requirements.



Or "Race to the Top," the initiative of President Barack Obama’s administration that offered cash to states that adopted the common-core curriculum and tied teacher evaluations to standardized test scores.


The Gates Foundation’s pivot represents an
acknowledgment that when it comes to education reform, local experiments “done with, not to schools,” as Golston puts it, appear to be more promising than grand initiatives.

The foundation’s new strategy bears a striking resemblance to an undertaking that took root in New York City nearly 50 years ago, during the financial crisis of the 1970s. At the time, the legendary teacher Deborah Meier, who would later become the first educator to win a MacArthur Foundation genius award, helped spark a small-school renaissance that came to encompass well over 100 schools throughout the city.


In the early 1990s, the Annenberg Foundation offered Meier $25 million to develop four independent school-network organizations. The idea was that small schools work best if they are supported by links to like-minded schools and can share knowledge and funding. Although political changes curtailed the impact of the Annenberg-funded networks, most survive to this day.

One mini-network that emerged during the Annenberg years caught the Gates foundation’s attention: the Julia Richman Complex, a largely self-governing group of small public schools on the east side of Manhattan that share a building previously occupied by a defunct high school of that name. The foundation declared the complex a success and started to put up small schools across the country like so many tract houses in the midst of a real estate bubble. While some did well, many went bust. Eventually, the small-school strategy was written off as a failure and Gates abandoned it.


One reason: The foundation failed to heed the warning of Ann Cook, the founder of the Julia Richman Complex: “Small is necessary, but insufficient” for success, she said at the time.
What she meant was that the Julia Richman schools, like other networks of successful schools, had developed a unique culture, including essential training and pedagogical practices, that wasn’t obvious to would-be imitators.


One of the longest-lived networks from the Meier era was the New York State Performance Standards Consortium, a network of about 30 high schools to which some of the Julia Richman schools belong. The consortium

schools won state exemptions from standardized testing and require students instead to produce ambitious final projects, which demand a distinctive teaching approach focused on guiding students to pursue their own research and learning. Many of these schools also give teachers unusual influence in administration and curriculum decisions — a system that works because new teachers typically undergo rigorous training and because turnover is low.

During Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s final term ending in 2013, New York City’s education department launched its own networking experiment, allowing schools to select teams of expert consultants in areas such as budgeting and special-education regulations and pay for them with their own funds (Bloomberg also had given principals control over their budgets). In the most successful cases, principals banded together with like-minded colleagues and schools, learning from each other. If they were dissatisfied, they could change networks. (Bloomberg is the owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Opinion.)


Although they were championed by some of New York City’s best principals, the networks were dismantled by Bloomberg's successor, Mayor Bill DeBlasio.



Today, the Gates Foundation’s K-12 strategy is run by Robert Hughes, the former president of New Visions for Public Schools, one of the four network organizations that had shared in Meier’s Annenberg-financed project.
The biggest challenge for the foundation, which is accustomed to funding megaprojects and rigorously measuring them, will be to see beyond the data to the organizational culture that makes the best schools and networks work.




Nor has the foundation completely relinquished grand, top-down reforms. It just joined The City Fund, an ambitious new plan by a group of education-focused philanthropies to introduce a sweeping new initiative across “every city” in America that would, among other things, give them an expanded role in developing and running charter schools in arrangements that often limit local governance. So far the group has amassed $200 million — $10 million from the Gates foundation.

___________________________________________

To rebuild our strong US PUBLIC SCHOOLS K-UNIVERSITY we must remove all global hedge fund corporations from our Baltimore City Hall-----since all of Baltimore City Council/mayor and Baltimore City Maryland Assembly pols installing FAR-RIGHT WING GLOBAL BANKING 1% policies while running as 'LEFT DEMOCRATS' -----we will see these 5% freemason/Greek players simply continue MOVING FORWARD COMMONER CORE.

'Nor has the foundation completely relinquished grand, top-down reforms. It just joined The City Fund, an ambitious new plan by a group of education-focused philanthropies to introduce a sweeping new initiative across “every city” in America that would'


We discussed in detail how all US cities deemed FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES had local city council's pass policy pretending to be HELPING PUBLIC SCHOOLS------THE CITY FUND -----when in fact it traps all school funding to the hands of global banking COMMITTEES.  Not our local 99% WE THE PEOPLE but more 5% freemason/Greek player black, white, and brown simply MOVING FORWARD COMMONER CORE.

Here in Maryland we have watched as Baltimore is used to kill LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICTS-------as all funding from MARYLAND/BALTIMORE CITY/FEDERAL FUNDING for our public K-university goes to global corporations and not to each public school meeting the requirements of US CONSTITUTIONAL AND FEDERAL EDUCATION EQUAL PROTECTION/OPPORTUNITY.

'Today, the Gates Foundation’s K-12 strategy is run by Robert Hughes, the former president of New Visions for Public Schools, one of the four network organizations that had shared in Meier’s Annenberg-financed project'.

Above we see ANNENBERG is partnered with GATES being those global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS killing our US public K-university.   Below we see a NY high school principle attaching his student's to COMMONER CORE knowing these students are receiving MYTH-MAKING AND PROPAGANDA rather than a REAL PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION.



'"I don’t think I’ve ever seen a collection of resources for teachers as organized as the one New Visions has put together. The multitude of reading and writing strategies organized in one place has saved me hours of searching. The curriculum not only provides ideas and suggestions for how a lesson could work, but it also contains differentiated activities.”


— Kevin Shult, Assistant Principal at Martin Van Buren High School in Queens Village, NY'

New Visions Social Studies Curriculum

Are you struggling to find high quality, free resources that you can use with your high school social studies students? Having trouble finding materials that improve literacy skills or align with new and evolving state standards?  


New Visions for Public Schools has developed full scope and sequence curricular frameworks designed for the Global History and Geography I and II courses and the U.S. History course. The curriculum integrates rich primary and secondary texts, maps, images, videos, and other reputable online sources into materials that meet the New York State K-12 Social Studies Framework’s objectives and provide students an opportunity to improve literacy skills by focusing on thinking critically while reading, writing, and speaking like historians. 


We understand that teachers may use resources differently, so we have created and curated high-quality Open Educational Resource (OER) materials available in Google Docs; we encourage teachers to make their own copies of resources and thoughtfully modify to make them useful for their individual needs. 


Not sure how to start using the curriculum? Check out our getting started section.
Can’t find what you’re looking for? Use the resource search to sort materials by standards, type, keywords, and more!

___________________________________________

Our US public schools unfunded cannot afford SOCIAL STUDIES BOOKS but our students are told these ONLINE LESSONS are QUALITY ----remember, social studies is where our US history, political science, geography, and economics is taught.

We are sure KEVIN SHULT is a global banking 5% freemason/Greek player and he is receiving SHAREHOLDER earnings for embracing these global corporate COMMONER CORE corporate lessons.  We are sure that this global banking 1% corporate school is hiring TEACH FOR AMERICA corporate teachers just trying to start careers outside of teaching.  The entire pathway from local school administration---to our local community school administration---to our classroom lessons have been captured these several years of OBAMA by the COMMONER CORE structures.

So, now our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE are being told global banking 1% has decided COMMONER CORE was not working.  What global banking 1% are saying---is all those global banking 5% freemason/Greek players given TEMPORARY small education businesses pretending to be local lesson writers are now out of THAT JOB.


  This is the question for our global banking 5% freemason/Greek players---you keep allowing all these OLD WORLD DARK AGES policies to MOVE FORWARD because you are allowing yourselves to be tied to being a SHAREHOLDER which very soon will not be the case at all---5% players are going under the bus.


Q&A with Kevin Shult, New Visions Global History Curriculum Pilot Teacher
December 2, 2015 | By Kevin Shult


The New Visions Global History Curriculum is currently being piloted by 90 teachers across 32 high schools in New York City. The curriculum, which spans two academic years and culminates with the New York State Regents Exam in Global History (a requirement for a Regents or Advanced Regents diploma), comprises a common scope and sequence of lessons, along with formative and summative student assessments. Participating teachers collaborate through structured professional development sessions and cycles of feedback. The curriculum integrates online resources, including primary and secondary sources, images, video, and maps into student-facing curricular materials and provides students a opportunities to think critically, and to read, write and speak like historians.



Below you will find a Q&A with Kevin Shult, a Global History teacher in his ninth year at Hillcrest High School in Jamaica, NY, who is now in his second year participating in the pilot. Kevin’s primary focus this year is to assist 15 teachers at his school with implementing the New Visions Global History curriculum pilot in the classroom. Kevin was recently tapped to be part of the pilot’s new Teacher Advisory Board, which provides strategic guidance in shaping curriculum resources and the future direction of the pilot.


Q: How or why did you become involved in the pilot?
Over the Summer of 2014, a friend sent me an argumentative essay rubric that mirrored many of the skills I already taught in class. After a little digging, I found this rubric was attached to the New Visions Global History curriculum pilot, which really piqued my interest. During the first few months of the 2014-2015 school year, I wasn’t an official member of the project yet but I corresponded often with the pilot leaders inquiring how they could help bring some of these tools into my  classroom. Soon after, I was asked to join the pilot team and additional teachers from my school were invited prior to the start of this school year.
Q: What has been your biggest challenge in teaching Global History? How has this program helped you address this challenge?
The biggest challenge is consistently finding ways to make lessons fresh and exciting for my students and myself. The pilot has opened my eyes to new source documents I’ve never used, such as The Records of the Grand Historian from ancient China and John Green’s CrashCourse videos, as well as a database of reading and writing strategies that help me reach students of all levels. At the start of each unit, I’ve introduced an activity that allows me to assess student comprehension of academic and content vocabulary. Within minutes, I can find out which students need support on vocabulary and which terms we will need to emphasize as documents are introduced throughout the unit. This early start into vocabulary creates in-class discussions, allowing students the time to make personal connections to historical terms and learn from one another. I’ve seen students use vocabulary more in their responses both verbally and written as a result.
Q: How are the curriculum pilot materials different than other curricula you have tried?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a collection of resources for teachers as organized as the one New Visions has put together. The multitude of reading and writing strategies organized in one place has saved me hours of searching. The curriculum not only provides ideas and suggestions for how a lesson could work, but it also contains differentiated activities. Everything is Common Core aligned with reading and writing strategies worked into each unit. These amenities, along with the PDs, are rarely found in present-day curriculums, especially free curriculum programs.
Q: How have the Professional Development workshops helped you with implementing the curriculum?
The PD events have given me the ability to sit and think through how I would teach a unit to my students. The best part of each event is that dozens of other teachers are doing this at the same time, allowing creative minds to come up with new and exciting ways to bring Global History alive. For example, annotation is a skill we teach our freshman in the first two months of school. After taking a workshop designed to build comprehension among ELL and Special Ed students using pre-, during-, and post-reading strategies, I found a way to differentiate annotation techniques. Rather than use YDC’s annotation rubric for all my students I have implemented Vaughn and Estes’ INSERT (Interactive Notation System for Effective Reading and Thinking). Using INSERT improves the level of engagement in class without writing extensive notes. The pilot allowed me to work through the new strategy with instructional specialists and other teachers before I implemented it in class.
Q: What units or lessons plans are you most excited about and why?
I enjoy bringing history to life for my students, so things that will open their eyes in amazement or disgust always bring a smile to my face. I was a big fan of last year’s activities revolving around Machiavelli's The Prince, which required students to identify previously studied rulers and cite evidence from their time in power to determine if they ruled in a way Machiavelli would have approved of. I turned the class into a courtroom and students played leaders under cross examination. This year I’m collaborating with our Humanities class to compare Dante Alighieri’s philosophy of government as read in The Inferno to Machiavelli’s The Prince.                                                       
Q: How do you think this curriculum will help you in preparing students for the Regents exam?
The majority of my students have difficulty writing thematic essays, which is a big component of the Regents exam. The curriculum provides a ton of opportunities for teachers to not only assign a writing assignment, but strategically provides skill-based writing lessons grounded in historical issues within each unit. One of the first skills tested freshman year, writing thesis statements, can be found in the first unit. The Deconstructing DBQ prompts activity helped students establish a purpose for reading documents and writing DBQ essays. The curriculum’s supplemental materials provide teachers with a myriad of opportunities to differentiate reading and writing for students of all levels. 
Q: Why did you encourage other teachers at your school to join the pilot? How did you go about encouraging them to participate?
The pilot is packed with Common Core activities and includes new topics from the NYS and NYC Scope & Sequence, something our teachers had not been able to leverage before. Last year I shared some activities and writing strategies with my department, along with the pilot website, and a number of teachers started to ask me how they could get involved. This year our school is running the pilot in all freshman Global History classes and the instructional specialists have welcomed them with open arms. The teachers like the support network the pilot provides and have already shared best practices within the department.
Q: What role have you played in supporting your fellow teachers in the pilot? What feedback have you received from them since joining?
I draw upon my teaching experiences to serve as a resource and mentor for teachers in my school. Each week, I work with teachers to review the pilot curriculum and help differentiate content for our diverse student population. I send out newsletters after each PD to update teachers on the pilot and share new resources with them whenever time allows. Many teachers enjoy the diversity of the source documents and the ability to mix and match activities that are already differentiated for students. 
Q: What feedback on the curriculum have you offered to the New Visions instructional coaches? How has your feedback been acted upon?
Each pilot teacher has the ability to provide commentary, ask questions, or suggest edits to any part of the curriculum, which is easy to do since all of the resources are available using Google Apps for Education. Prior to teaching I was an editor for a financial news company, so the majority of my feedback was grammatical along with suggestions on how to improve the format of student-facing materials. The curriculum instructional specialists, who are managing the pilot, are open to any feedback as long as it improves the end result and they act on any suggestions brought to them rather quickly.
Q: What advice do you have for other Global History teachers interested in the pilot resources?
Check out the curriculum website at www.globalhistory.newvisions.org and don’t be afraid to get in contact with the curriculum instructional specialists, Timothy Lent (tlent@newvisions.org) or Kameelah Rasheed (krasheed@newvisions.orgundefined). I started the pilot on the outside looking in and a year later was chosen to be part of their Teacher Advisory Board. We’re always looking for feedback and ways to improve the pilot. Your suggestions could help hundreds of other teachers and their students across the state. All it takes is an email to get started.

________________________________________



Our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE and new to US immigrants allowing themselves to attach to being SHAREHOLDERS these few decades were setting themselves up to LOSE IT ALL. When we speak to 5% freemason/Greek players slowly losing all of what was being called dividends----pretending they are million dollar shareholders to hook other of our 99% of citizens to what is a global banking CASINO----then we see how to FIX OUR ECONOMY. We READ in US national FAKE NEWS media all kinds of divi...dends are being received by our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE investors---but that is not true. When you play in a CASINO ---the HOUSE allows a few dollars won---but ends cleaning that gambler out.

We KNOW our US banking and investments are criminal and corrupt----when we allow all of our LOCAL ECONOMY continued to be attached to these PONZI SCHEMES----as is MOVING FORWARD COMMONER CORE ---GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUS SCHOOLS---
THERE WILL BE NO MONEY---NO JOBS-----NO SAFETY NET TO PROTECT OUR US 99% OF CITIZENS AND NEW TO US IMMIGRANTS.

So, how can our local K-university teach our US 99% WE THE STUDENTS not to be VICTIMS of global banking 1% when the entire public K-university staff is invested in these PONZI SCHEME STOCKS?

FORBES of course would tell us DIVIDENDS ARE CAPITALISM AT IT'S BEST-------no, actually REAL left social progressive capitalism with OVERSIGHT, ACCOUNTABILITY, REGULATED BANKING is capitalism at its best.

'Dividends are capitalism at its best and it’s hard to believe they ever went out of fashion in a place with the instincts of the United States'.


Apr 6, 2014, 07:55pm


Get Rich With Companies That Pay Trillions In Dividends
Mark McSherry Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.


Markets I write about markets and companies


As so-called “momentum stocks” and other overvalued equities fall out of favor, the stocks of solid companies that pay regular dividends are once again proving attractive to investors seeking steady income from their portfolios.



For some bizarre reason, dividends fell out of fashion in the United States a few years back – but the amounts now being paid out in dividends mean the stocks that pay them are once again in big demand.

Dividends are capitalism at its best and it’s hard to believe they ever went out of fashion in a place with the instincts of the United States.

A recent report by Henderson Global Investors provided some juicy numbers. Last year alone, U.S. companies paid roughly $302 billion in dividends, up more than 50 percent from $197 billion in 2010.

Even better, Henderson said that in 2013, the world’s publicly traded companies paid $1 trillion in annual dividends for the first time. That's one thousand billion dollars just for holding the stock.



And get this: between 2009 and 2013, the world’s public companies paid about $4.4 trillion in dividends, Henderson said.
The no-brainer in all of this is that with companies around the world currently sitting on roughly $7 trillion of cash, according to Thomson Reuters data, the pressure from shareholders to keep paying the dividends is only going to get stronger.
Talk about an income. Get on board the dividend express. As a shareholder, you paid for your ticket. Now take the ride.
The great thing about dividends is that unlike stock buybacks, investors don’t have to sell the goose -- the stock -- that lays the golden eggs.





And get this: between 2009 and 2013, the world’s public companies paid about $4.4 trillion in dividends, Henderson said.
The no-brainer in all of this is that with companies around the world currently sitting on roughly $7 trillion of cash, according to Thomson Reuters data, the pressure from shareholders to keep paying the dividends is only going to get stronger.
Talk about an income. Get on board the dividend express. As a shareholder, you paid for your ticket. Now take the ride.
The great thing about dividends is that unlike stock buybacks, investors don’t have to sell the goose -- the stock -- that lays the golden eggs.




So which companies are the golden geese?
Looking forward, investors have to do their own research – the information is not hard to find – but Henderson spilled the beans on the best dividend payers of the last two or three years.
Last year, 20 companies were responsible for roughly $1 in every $6 paid in dividends – in other words, these 20 companies paid almost $169 billion between them in dividends last year.
Last year’s top 10 dividend payers were Royal Dutch Shell , Exxon Mobil XOM -0.69%
Exxon MobilXOM

$79.28
$-0.55(-0.69%)

As of 11/13/2018, 10:27am EST

,, HSBC, China Mobile, Vodafone Group, AT&T, Banco Santander and General Electric – who paid a collective $97.1 billion in dividends in 2013.

The next best 10 were Microsoft, BP, Chevron, Total, Johnson & Johnson, Nestle, Pfizer, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline and Procter & Gamble, who paid out $71.6 billion between them in dividends.

Last year, North American companies paid 37 percent of global dividends. Mainland European companies -- despite all the negative macroeconomic headlines about that continent -- coughed up 22 percent. UK corporates paid 11 percent of the total.

Emerging markets companies paid 14 percent of global dividends, Asia-Pacific paid 11 percent and Japan paid 5 percent.

By sector, financial companies paid the most dividends last year at $218 billion – about 24 percent of the global total.

Oil, gas and energy companies were the second biggest dividend payers in 2013, giving $125 billion to shareholders. Consumer basics companies paid $102 billion and telecommunication firms paid $82 billion.

For many investors who need a regular income, company dividends are becoming the “income” in their portfolios.

Not least because so-called “fixed income” investments like government debt (bonds) sometimes don’t pay much in the way of actual “income” -- because interest rates remain artificially low thanks to the prolonged intervention of, well, governments.

That’s a nice gig for governments – borrowing Biblical amounts of money on the cheap -- but for the investing public that lends the governments the money, these prolonged, ultra low interest rates are not likely to provide a comfortable retirement income.

So -- hello, dividends.


The Henderson report concluded: “Interest rates remain low, as do bond yields. Never has the need for income been greater … indeed, it will remain one of the major investment themes for generations."

“In recent years, equities have become a much more important hunting ground for yield. This is not going to change. The good news is that increasingly, the world over, companies recognize the need to provide investors with dividends.”

Amen to that.

____________________________________________


Who are those US citizens being pushed into COMMONER CORE RACE TO TOP global banking 1% corporate schools? Well, getting back to last week's NDAA-------the OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS KNIGHTS OF MALTA TRIBE OF JUDAH has made a priority of moving our US VETS into TEACH FOR AMERICA ------our GBLT into TEACH FOR AMERICA -----and AMERICORP is partnered with TEACH FOR AMERICA. Who is losing their pensions with no ties to SOCIAL SECURITY/MEDICARE? Our US military veterans----work...ing for US POST OFFICE now being privatized away.

So, this is yet another vocational pathway our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE are being pushed ---privatizing our US public schools feeling we are WINNING because we are getting STOCKS AND DIVIDENDS.
TEACHING COMMONER CORE killing all that is our strong US public education for a few CASINO HOUSE wins knowing the HOUSE ends taking all you have.

We want to remind our US citizens------the teaching profession has been tied to people entering our TEACHERS SCHOOLS because they have a PASSION and SKILL for teaching children. Global banking 1% is killing TEACHING as a profession filling our public K-university with BUSINESS MAJORS needing a job.




Teach For America
For Veterans Day, we’re recognizing five military veteran alumni who not only served our country in the military, but went on to serve in the classroom.

      Military Veterans A Lifetime of Service, in the Military and the Classroom
Meet a group of military veteran alumni who are serving their country once again by fighting educational inequity in their communities.
By The TFA Editorial Team
November 9, 2018


Veterans Day is a day dedicated to honoring military veterans for their courage, dedication, and service to this nation. Today, we’re recognizing five military veteran alumni who not only served our country in the military, but went on to serve in the classroom.These alums are school leaders, coaches, founders of nonprofits, and STEM teachers, all dedicated to using the lessons they’ve learned in the military to expand opportunities in the communities most impacted by educational inequity.


Toya Downs
Toya (TJai) Downs (Indianapolis ‘11)
United States Navy, Yeoman/E-4
Instructional Coach at Kindezi Academy
Toya realized that she wanted to become an educator while serving as a tour guide aboard the USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the United States. Teaching curious tourists about the ship’s many historical encounters gave her a preview into life as a teacher, she says.
After her time in the corps, Toya taught English language arts, as well as served as the middle school team lead, athletic and social-club coach, and grade-level lead, until 2018. She is currently an instructional coach at Kindezi Academy--a school within one of the greatest at-risk areas in Indianapolis--where she coaches third and fourth grade teachers in instructional and classroom management strategies.  
In addition to her instructional coaching, Toya also works with students in her community through her own nonprofit organization, called 9,000 Minutes, which teaches kids to value and advocate for educational equity. The organization also empowers students to overcome negative societal messages about their identities.
Toya is dedicated to fighting for long-term, systemic changes for all students who lack access to the same quality of teachers, instruction, resources as those with greater privilege. Her approach to leadership in education continues to be informed by her family’s expectations of excellence, along with the Navy’s core values: honor, courage, and commitment.


“Two of the most powerful tools one can access are books and a microphone, for both have the ability to spread truth and lies.”
Toya Downs 


Sharon Matamoros-Siu
Sharon Matamoros-Siu (Greater New Orleans ‘16)
E-3
Teacher at Lusher Charter School
During her time in the military, Sharon served as a Nuclear Electrician’s Mate during Operation Enduring Freedom. The military’s Nuclear Power Community is one of the most competitive and requires the highest standards of science and math skills, Sharon says, and for good reason: The men and women who serve in it are solely responsible for operating the nuclear reactors that power submarines and aircraft carriers.
In 2013, she transitioned into a career in education with a mission. Sharon immigrated to the United States in the mid-1990s as a child unable to speak English. But thanks to instruction and support of the teachers, Sharon quickly learned the language and grew comfortable in her new community. “Growing up, I felt safe at school,” she explains. But through her time at Teach For America, Sharon learned that not all schools provide students--especially English Language Learners--with an excellence education.
As a teacher, she wants to promote educational equity by creating a safe learning environment--like the one she received after coming to this country--for all students. Sharon credits the military for exposing her to the skills that she uses every day as STEM educator, including how to wire and read circuitry. As an educator at Lusher Charter School, a 2018 Blue Ribbon school in New Orleans, Sharon teaches an AP Statistics course and coaches the school’s robotics team. Through the robotics club, she’s exposed her students to emerging technology like 3D printers, VEXkits, and Raspberry Pi computers, giving her students a cutting edge introduction to the field of STEM.


“Education is a leveler. To me, service to my country means promoting equity and opportunity for all people. I am grateful to United States for the opportunities it has granted me, and I hope to continue serving this nation within the classroom.”
Sharon Matamoros-Siu 


Kevin Corrinet
Kevin Corrinet (Los Angeles ’07)
United States Army, Captain
Teacher at R.H. Dana Middle School
While in the military, Kevin learned how transformational fitness can be in developing leadership. These lessons eventually led him to create his school’s own CrossFit program.
Kevin graduated and earned a commission as an infantry officer from West Point in 2002. He later graduated from U.S. Army Ranger School, was deployed to Iraq for 12 months as a Stryker Platoon Leader and Company Executive Officer, and then served with The Honor Guard at Arlington National Cemetery.
After resigning his commission as a captain in 2007, Kevin chose to continue serving his nation in the classroom by joining Teach For America’s Los Angeles corps. Kevin taught eighth grade Algebra for three years in the Watts community. After his time in the corps, Kevin continued his career in education at R.H. Dana Middle School, located in the city of Hawthorne’s Wiseburn School District. And in 2013, Kevin left his math department to become a CrossFit P.E. teacher.
He created Wiseburn CrossFit, a nonprofit, school-based CrossFit affiliate that is fully embedded into Dana’s P.E. department, athletics program, and staff wellness plan. The 2,000-square-foot CrossFit facility on campus is available to sixth, seventh, and eighth graders each semester,
Wiseburn CrossFit’s goal is to give all students access to transformational learning experiences that promote lifelong fitness and leadership development, while using fitness as a way to improve academic achievement in schools.


“Watching my students give their all to improve themselves and to support each other, while never, ever quitting, is what inspires me to be the best leader and person I can be for them, day in and day out. I know our future is very, very bright!”
Kevin Corrinet 


Andrew Anderson
Andrew Anderson (Camden ‘14)
United States Army, Sergeant
Assistant Principal of Specialized Service at Mastery High School of Camden
Andrew joined the military after graduating from Rowan University, and was stationed at Fort Bragg North Carolina for two months before being deployed to Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne 4th BCT 2-321 FA.
“While I was deployed to Afghanistan, I was deployed with other young men and women who did not have access to an excellent education and who had to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test multiple times in order to pass,” Andrew says. “It impacted me greatly that know that they did not receive an education that allowed them to join the military without great personal effort.”
To Andrew, education is the key to pushing our country forward, and he knew that he wanted to do his part to make an impact on education in Camden, which was near where he went to university. In 2014, Andrew joined Teach for America as a supplemental ELA teacher in Camden.
Andrew loved teaching in Camden, a city now part of TFA’s New Jersey region. Upon completing his Masters in Special Education from the University of Pennsylvania, he joined Mastery East Camden Middle School as a teacher for students with lower-incidence disabilities, which are disabilities that occur less frequently in the general population than other disabilities types.
Andrew went on to become the assistant principal of specialized services for Mastery High School of Camden and East Camden Middle School in 2017. In his role, Andrew works to create comprehensive special education programming that meets the individualized needs of each student and ensures every student has an opportunity to go on to higher education and pursue their dreams.
This year, Andrew helped to create a year-long family engagement series for parents of students with specialized services, designed to educate them about post-secondary life and options for their children.
Andrew’s goal is to provide a world class education and services to all students with disabilities and English Language Learners in Camden. He finds motivation in the wise words of Malcolm X: “Education is an important element in the struggle for human rights. It is the means to help our children and thereby increase self-respect. Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today. “


“For eight years of my life, I wore a uniform to defend our country. Now, my work is protecting what I consider to be the most important civil right in our country: education.”
Andrew Anderson 


Julie Petway
Julie Petway (Metro-Atlanta ‘16)
United States Army, Specialist/E-4
Teacher at Burney-Harris-Lyons Middle School
Since joining Teach For America Metro Atlanta in 2016, Julie has been a passionate advocate for underrepresented students in gifted education and she continues to advocate for this population as a teacher at Burney-Harris-Lyons Middle School in Athens, Georgia. Julie credits her time in the military with providing her an excellent leadership experience, a commitment to her students, and the skills to accept challenges and find solutions in the classroom.
As a STEM enthusiast, Julie often attends NASA’s science conferences for teacher professional development. She has worked with NASA on a project focused on science teacher professional development. Julie uses the lessons and resources from these conferences to craft exciting STEM programs and lessons for her students, such as a NASA STEM Enrichment Cluster for her gifted students in middle school.
Under Julie’s guidance, her students have taken part in rigorous STEM competitions and have participated in National Geographic Explorer Classroom live-video events, where they’re given the opportunity to ask scientists questions about science, exploration, and conservation. To Julie, an education in STEM opens the door to so many career options, and she wants to do everything she can to make sure her students can access them.
“I remember knowing exactly what I wanted to grow up and be in middle school. I was never exposed to the countless number of STEM careers or STEM fields, so I followed in the footsteps of my parents like many children do,” Julie explains. “I not only want to advocate for my underrepresented students in gifted education, but I am determined to expose my students to the many different types of STEM career fields.”

_______________________________________



REAL left social progressives fight for strong US PUBLIC SCHOOLS and we fight for our 99% LABOR including our US military employees. We are not saying it is bad to hire our former military to be TEACH FOR AMERICA or to be that SCHOOL BUSINESS OWNER/PRINCIPAL tying our US public K-12 to global corporate COMMONER CORE and ONE WORLD ONE TECHNOLOGY ONLINE LESSONS-----we are shouting to all US 99% to please stop allowing the only JOBS, JOBS, JOBS be created having a goal of killi...ng US 99% WE THE PEOPLE.

Our US military employees have these few decades been cycled into careers as POST OFFICE no doubt being paid a strong public sector wage-----pensions----with no tie to Social Security/Medicare. Well, now that the bulk of our US POST OFFICE is ready to retire-----we discuss often how $20 trillion in national debt will kill all Federal, state, and local public sector pensions. Now, global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS KNIGHTS OF MALTA TRIBE OF JUDAH who could care less about those MILITARY EMPLOYEES -----are pushing them into the next CASINO LOSING GAME----TEACH FOR AMERICA.

We understand that many of what we call global banking 5% freemason/Greek players include our former US military employees.  This is what we need to ask----are you fighting to protect US SOVEREIGNTY AND 99% CITIZENS---or are you simply MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD for only the global 1% killing US sovereignty---our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE US Constitutional/Bill of Rights -----common law which protects our US military families as well?




Postal Service 'Unlikely' to Make Health and Pension Payments
A new report from the Government Accountability Office paints a pretty grim picture for the future of the postal service.
By Andrew Soergel, Senior Reporter Jan. 21, 2016

By Andrew Soergel, Senior Reporter Jan. 21, 2016, at 6:00 p.m.

A new report profiling the U.S. Postal Service's tenuous financial situation finds it "unlikely" that the government body "will be able to fully make its required retiree health and pension payments in the near future," ​and its mounting debts and liabilities could threaten its existence and taxpayers' wallets going forward.


A report published Thursday by the Government Accountability Office suggests the postal service's expenses "began consistently exceeding revenues in fiscal year 2007," which ultimately contributed to a net loss of $56.8 billion over the subsequent eight years.


"USPS is a critical part of the nation's communication and commerce, delivering 154 billion pieces of mail in fiscal year 2015 to about 155 million delivery points, and with more than 620,000 employees," Lori Rectanus, director of physical infrastructure issues at the GAO, said in a statement Thursday presented to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

"USPS, however, faces a serious financial situation and does not have sufficient revenues to cover its expenses, putting its mission of providing prompt, reliable, and efficient universal services to the public at risk."


Rectanus said the service's "unsustainable" deficits are likely to prevent it from providing

adequate compensation to retirees going forward. In fact, the GAO found that the USPS only paid $6.7 billion of the $12.6 billion in retiree health and pension payments that were due in fiscal 2015.  In last year's 10-K report, the service cited "declines in mail volume" and "statutory and regulatory restrictions" as reasons for defaulting on billions of dollars due to a USPS retiree health benefits fund.


Those payment requirements are expected to be restructured in fiscal 2017, which begins Oct. 1. But the department's expected payments will still total about $11.3 billion at that time, which is several billion dollars more than it managed to pay in the most recent fiscal year.


"Moreover, at the end of fiscal year 2015, USPS had about $125 billion in unfunded liabilities and debt, most of which were for retiree health and pension benefits," Rectanus said Thursday. "These unfunded liabilities and debt are a large and growing financial burden, increasing from 99 percent of USPS revenues in fiscal year 2007 to 182 percent of revenues in fiscal year 2015."


Rectanus concludes that these liabilities "may ultimately place taxpayers, USPS employees, retirees and their beneficiaries and USPS itself at risk." Sam Abbas, a senior analyst with the GAO, told U.S. News in an email that USPS retirees weren't impacted in the short term but that taxpayers could be on the hook going forward "if Congress wants these benefits to be maintained at current levels."


"Alternatively, unfunded benefits could lead to pressure for reductions in benefits or in pay," Abbas says.

That's not to say America's mail carriers should all unanimously panic. USPS saw revenue increase for the third consecutive year in 2015 while adding about 4,000 career employees to its payrolls, according to a recent report the service presented to Congress. And even though the Bureau of Labor Statistics in December issued a pessimistic employment outlook report for postal workers over the course of the next decade, suggesting the overall sector will contract by 165,000 positions, some critics have taken issue with the government's calculations.



Regardless, it's hard to ignore the service's current financial woes. Expenses have exceeded revenue at the USPS for nine consecutive years. But the service's relatively unique "pre-funded" health benefit system seems to be at least partially at fault.


Back in 2006, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act was passed, requiring the USPS to make regular payments into a retiree benefit fund. That fund, in essence, collects money from the USPS now to dole out in the future in the form of retirement and pension benefits. Abbas says the system protects the USPS "by not saddling it with bills later after employees have retired." ​ ​
Theoretically, the fund's existence helps protect the postal service in the event of a future downturn by ensuring it has at least some cash set aside for benefits in the event of an emergency. But in practice, the system hasn't

 the system hasn't done much for a service whose finances are already stretched thin. 


"We must pay today for benefits that will not be paid out until some future date," the USPS says on its website, noting that a traditional "pay-as-you-go" system would add $5.65 billion to its cash flows.


Critics of the legislation say the current pre-funding system, which essentially demands preemptive payments in excess of what's currently being demanded by USPS retirees, has actually exacerbated the service's financial situation. The National Association of Letter Carriers said in a release last year that the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act requirements are "the primary cause of red ink" and have "drained the postal service's cash reserves and caused it to reach its $15 billion borrowing limit with the U.S. Treasury."


"No other public agency or private enterprise in America is required to take on such a financially crippling burden as the pre-funding of future retiree health benefits," the statement said. "Because Congress has failed, as yet, to reform the pre-funding mandate (or to reduce its burden), the Postal Service has turned to a doomed cost- and service-cutting strategy that has the potential to drive business away."


Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., has introduced a bill aimed at patching up what the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act failed to achieve. Carper, who also spoke Thursday before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, said the new legislation will, among other things, "address health care costs at the postal service" that could help ease its retiree health burdens.


Should the legislation pass, Carper said the country "can still be optimistic about the future of the postal service" in spite of the recent slew of less than encouraging governmental reports.


"Working together, it's important that Congress provide some certainty to both postal employees and customers, and to ensure that taxpayers – along with all of the fiscal challenges we face as a country – are not saddled with shoring up a failing Postal Service," Carper said in a statement Thursday. "We can't afford to be here a year or more from now discussing how we can dig ourselves out of yet another postal crisis."

________________________________________________

We want to look back at education public policy to see how the strongest US public K-university was dismantled and made dysfunctional.  We speak often of defunding----of outsourcing and privatization----but as well the attack on TEACHING AS A PROFESSION started during the 1960s-70s as GOING TO COLLEGE TO AVOID THE DRAFT sent our US 99% of men who would not have considered a career in teaching into our US city public schools.

It's true, as women and an educator we have a bias. Teaching K-12 children has a long history of women being that PROFESSIONAL because women have thousands of years of understanding classroom needs of students----NOT EVERY WOMAN of course---but the career pathway for women in public K-12 and attending teaching schools was broken as men avoiding the draft headed to inner city schools.


'Going to College to Avoid the Draft: The Unintended Legacy of the Vietnam War

David Card; Thomas Lemieux
The American Economic Review, Vol. 91, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Hundred
Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association. (May, 2001), pp. 97-102'.

This is the problem----of course there are men having passion and skill in teaching children----when we use our US PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM as an ESCAPE HATCH ---the only route to another CAREER as during VIETNAM WAR and today forcing STEM grads into AMERICORP TEACH FOR AMERICA we are killing the structure of TEACHING PROFESSIONALS graduating from TEACHING SCHOOLS attending because they have TEACHING SKILLS.

This is AVOIDING THE DRAFT all over again---this time the end result will be elimination of US public K-university.


'I needed a teaching degree and read in a flyer that The Cleveland Board of Education was offering a three year Master’s Degree in Education as well as teaching jobs in the inner city. There was a need for male teachers as no one wanted to be with the poor.'



Confessions of a Vietnam War Draft Dodger (I)
Alan Rohn August 24, 2016 Leave a comment


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I think it’s time that I finally write and deal with this chapter of my life, Vietnam and me. This has been haunting me from time to time and that war has certainly changed my life even though I didn’t participate, I purposely avoided it. This is the story that I’m sure many others did as well but I have never spoken to one. Some were conscientious objectors, refugees in Canada or Sweden or even worse in prison. I did it in a very silent way keeping my thoughts to myself and by not participating in any anti-war demonstrations.

Vietnam was an issue that divided America especially in the families. My father believed in this war (he later changed his mind) and my opposition was a source of many discussions which usually led to quarrels. Four years earlier I had made my final decision to avoid the draft, I wrote him a letter which explicitly expressed my viewpoint about this dark chapter of American history. This was written in 1967

Now that I’m in the autumn of my life (born in 1946), approaching winter, I want to write this story hoping that others can read it and also say no to war. At the time of writing there are many who are running away from war and hopefully can find a place in this world where they can find love, peace and work. While I was growing up in the States, I never really understood or accepted the “American Way of Life. “ It seemed to be a harsh world, keeping up with the Jones earning the “buck “, buying a house to repaint it every four years. My father would spend his precious two weeks of vacation painting a side before scraping it and priming it. Mowing the grass or having a vegetable garden didn’t appeal to me, I thought a simpler lifestyle would be the answer for me. However, hanging over my head was the sword of Damocles ready to cut my head off because there was a draft which registered every male American. However, those with political pull like Clinton and Bush were not fighting in Vietnam.

What was this? Why could they avoid Vietnam and others like myself had to serve. When I graduated from High School I was 17 and the only way to stay out of the army, was to attend college. However, I felt too young with 17 and started to look at another year of High School but as a postgraduate in a boarding school. I had a gut feeling that I was too immature to start college at this age and I wanted another year of High School subjects to prepare me for higher education. I always thought boarding schools were better than most public and I was right. I wanted a real learning experience and it was great.

There was an intensive interaction not only with the teachers but with the students as well. I thoroughly enjoyed the learning process, we had small classes never larger than 6-8 students and great teachers, many who had already retired but their ability to teach was incredible, we were here to learn but we also had to pay for it which had a positive effect as well especially for those who were coming from low income families. Mr Gowen, my Physics teacher could explain and teach his subject matter. He was well over the retirement age, a fragile human being with a lot of patience. I liked him and he as well as others gave me an excellent start for higher education. Although it was a very strict and disciplined lifestyle, I didn’t care, I wanted to learn and to wrestle. I didn’t care about women and alcohol, the others did and some hid their bottles in the most bizarre places. However, there was a lady whose job was to “snoop” and make sure that our beds were made and rooms were cleaned. This had never been a problem for me, I always liked an orderly room.

It was here that I truly became aware of class difference. There were “richies” here, I was the poor kid but I was a happy one!

My parents weren’t amused with my decision to go to Cheshire Academy. It would cost them a lot of money but I was a wrestler and good enough to wrestle for their team on an athletic scholarship. However, I would have to wash dishes twice a day and this was all right with me. Wasn’t it the American dream to start as a dishwasher and end up as a ……………?

Wrestling was my asset, a great passion and school of life parallel to the conventional forms of education. I started wrestling when I was 13 and when I graduated from High School I had won several tournaments and was voted the Outstanding Wrestler of The Year. I loved this sport and as of writing I am still wrestling at a German club. I am coaching a young wrestler demonstrating my moves and how to get points in a fast way. Anyway my status of being a successful wrestler at Cheshire Academy boosted my status there, I ended up winning the Connecticut State Private School Championship by beating the top seeded

champion in a very close match that I am thankful for winning because my friend Dave coached me from the side lines and said stand up and escape. I did and won by this last point in the final 15 seconds of the match.

I had another great teacher at Cheshire. He taught us English composition and although he was mocked by many because he had thick lips (he was called the lip), I became interested in writing better. I knew that college would mean term papers and with his help and interest, I was able to formulate and write my thoughts in a simple but coherent fashion. I didn’t want a profound vocabulary, every day vocabulary was all right for me. I just wanted to write his essays for training and his assistance were valuable assets when I had to write and type term papers. In those days we had to research our information, footnote it and then type it. I was fortunate enough to learn typing in High School.


The Draft and Uncle StebbinsIt was here at Cheshire Academy in 1965 that I realized that America was getting itself deeper into war with North Vietnam. I started listening to folk music and the voices of Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger and Joan Baez slowly made me think about my potential “role” in this war. It was quite simple, either you volunteered, were drafted or became ineligible for military service. The easiest way of being ineligible was to continue further education which I did or marry! However, I knew that this was only a temporary way out, permanent would be the only solution.


I had an uncle called Stebbins who was a professional soldier. He was a First Star General who served under General McArthur in the Pacific Theater.


In fact he was the Aide de Camp to McArthur and was very fond of him. My uncle was an instructor at West Point Academy and asked me if I wanted to be admitted! It would have been a great option for my parents as my education would be paid by the government, 1 child less to pay for. I listened to his offer but rejected. He was quite disappointed but I knew that these West Pointers didn’t have much guerrilla war experience like their Sergeants did and that there were some shot in the back because they weren’t thinking of their own men, just orders from above. However, the possibility of wrestling for West Point would have interested me. They were strong believers in wrestling and one of my wrestling books was written by The Coast Guard Academy Coach.


Uncle Stebbins was disappointed when I said no. I secretly felt he always wanted someone in the family to follow his steps. He didn’t have a son but a daughter. He became a successful banker and was an avid Harley Davidson biker who often took trips with his fellow bikers. He was a small arms weapons fan and once showed me his collection. There were several Japanese weapons which he treasured, each one had its special story. . Although the education and wrestling possibilities at West Point were first class, I knew I had made the right decision. I would have to find another way to be permanently rejected by the military.



I had to get accepted by a college or university to avoid the draft and I applied to several colleges. I was accepted by two, Baldwin Wallace College and Wilkes College. I knew the Wilkes College wrestling coach as I had met him at a summer wrestling camp. He opened the admissions door for me but I didn’t want to be in Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania. It was a depressive area, a poor coal mining region. . I opted for Baldwin Wallace College which wrestled in the small College Conference Wrestling Division.(I won the Ohio Conference Wrestling Division in 1967.)


I knew that college would grant me another four years of being draft free. However, as the war escalated and the U.S. committed itself more and more, I began to realize that I would be drafted after my college days were over. It was during my junior year abroad program in Switzerland that I could look how the world was judging the U.S involvement in the Vietnam War. There were many demonstrations in Europe and that was in 1967-68. In fact I was in Paris in spring 1968 and experienced student riots against De Gaulle. Daniel Cohn-Bendit was one of their leaders. I had the feeling that a future home could be in Europe but I knew that this can only be if I’m ineligible for the draft. I was looking for options and a friend of mine suggested homosexuality. He openly admitted and his draft board rejected him. I didn’t feel comfortable with this thought because, firstly I wasn’t, and secondly, teaching in the primary school level interested me. I had been influenced by the Summerhill philosophy and A.S. Neill broadened my mind about teaching and I thought if I ever leave the U.S.; perhaps I could look at Summerhill and teach there. I needed a teaching degree and read in a flyer that The Cleveland Board of Education was offering a three year Master’s Degree in Education as well as teaching jobs in the inner city. There was a need for male teachers as no one wanted to be with the poor.

Teaching in the inner city interested me and I even wanted to live there but was advised by a resident not to. It wouldn’t be understood, so I lived close to it where the working class and low middle class resided. I felt very comfortable living in Cleveland Heights, an area called Coventry. Later my girlfriend’s children went to school there and were the only white children. I knew the Principal of the school and he told me that this was an enrichment for his school! My landlord was an Afro-American and he lived downstairs. I liked it here.

  ______________________________________________

WELCOME KOTTER was of course global banking 1% freemason STAR/TV series introducing FADS during the same program happening now as unfolded then-------KOTTER was of course that man getting the education degree and required to teach in US city public schools.

We see here 1970s-----this was the time as well when global banking 1% REAGAN identified our US universities as hotbeds of ANTI-WAR LEFTISTS.


This was global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS REAGANCLINTON's reason for attacking and making corporate our US public universities and K-12.




youtube.com
Welcome Back, Kotter Theme (Intro & Outro)
Aired on ABC for 4 seasons, Sept 1975 to May 1979. Theme by John Sebastian. Intro and outro with an extra verse.

We definitely do not blame the KOTTERS wanting to avoid the draft -----what we have failed to address since these 1970s era is restructuring our TEACHING PROFESSIONS back to citizens having SKILLS AS EDUCATORS.  PROFESSIONALS-----trained to be SCIENTISTS/DOCTORS/MUSICOLOGISTS---ET AL all have a skill set leading them to these professions. 

Today, we see the very same thing in AMERI-CORP/TEACH FOR AMERICA where our college grads in science and business just wanting a career are forced into US public K-12 teaching.

Ron Palillo, ‘Welcome Back, Kotter’ actor at 63


Mr. Palillo in character with fellow Sweathogs played by Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, John Travolta, and Robert Hegyes. –Abc/file 1978

By
Matt Sedensky
August 14, 2012

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Ron Palillo, the actor best known as the nerdy high school student Arnold Horshack on the 1970s sitcom ‘‘Welcome Back, Kotter,’’ died Tuesday in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. He was 63.
Mr. Palillo apparently suffered a heart attack at his home about 4 a.m., said Karen Poindexter, a close friend of the actor. He was pronounced dead at Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center.

Mr. Palillo was inextricably linked with the character he played from 1975 to 1979 on ‘‘Kotter,’’ the ABC situation comedy, in which the title character returns to his Brooklyn alma mater to teach a group of lovable wiseguys known as the Sweathogs. Horshack was the nasally teen who yelped, ‘‘Oooh, ooh,’’ and shot his hand skyward whenever Kotter posed a question.

he show was a ratings success and a pop cultural phenomenon, injecting smart-Alec phrases such as ‘‘up your nose with a rubber hose’’ into the mainstream and propelling costar John Travolta to stardom. But the series only lasted as long as a high school education and its end, for Mr. Palillo, brought difficulty.

He said he felt exiled throughout the 1980s, unable to find parts, sinking into depression, and rarely venturing from his apartment. When offers did come, he felt typecast as Horshack.
‘‘While I loved him — I really loved him — I didn’t want to do him forever,’’ he told the Birmingham News in 1994.
Ronald Paolillo was born April 2, 1949, in Cheshire, Conn., eventually dropping the first ‘‘o’’ from his surname. His father died of lung cancer when he was 10, and he developed a stutter. His mother thought getting him involved in a local theater might help.
He fell in love with the stage and overcame his speech impediment.
He attended the University of Connecticut and earned parts in Shakespearean productions before his big break.
When he auditioned for ‘‘Kotter,’’ he thought he would be passed over for others who had more of a tough-guy New York look. He said his dying father’s voice inspired his character’s trademark wheezing laugh, and he said Horshack tapped into feelings any teenager could relate to.


‘‘I think he was the smartest kid in school,’’ he told the Miami Herald in 2009. ‘‘He was giving up his aptitude in order to be liked. Then and now, that is a very common thing in teenagers.’’
Mr. Palillo went on to get a host of bit parts in shows from ‘‘The Love Boat’’ to ‘‘Cagney and Lacey’’ to ‘‘The A-Team,’’ and played himself for a time on the series ‘‘Ellen.’’ But ‘‘Kotter’’ remained his best-known acting part, and he focused on stage directing and writing.


His last act in life mirrored his most famous one, in a real-life classroom instead of one at the fictional James Buchanan High School. Mr. Palillo taught acting at G-Star School of the Arts, a high school in West Palm Beach. He was due to return for the school year Tuesday morning, Poindexter said, and classes were to resume next week.
Mr. Palillo leaves his partner of 41 years, Joseph Gramm; two brothers, and a sister. Poindexter said that while her friend might, at times, have resented the shadow Horshack cast over him, he remained fond of the character and knew the part was always more of a blessing than a curse.
He remained close to his costars, she said, and knew how closely fans related to the characters.
‘‘All of us have been or known one of those Sweathogs,’’ he told The Los Angeles Times last year.


_________________________________________

OBAMA era---as REAGAN era dismantled what was a strong pathway for 4 year and master's degree education professionals -----with AMERI-CORP opening our US public schools to anyone with a degree----STEM degrees in K-12 those STEM professionals simply wanting to start that SCIENCE CAREER.

Do we have a shortage of teachers? Well, if you count Baltimore City FORCING our public teachers' union administration and staff to QUIT in order to MOVE FORWARD COMMONER CORE RACE TO TOP-----...well, there is the shortage. We watched as KOTTER in his US city school never looked to be doing much teaching----the students made to look un-teachable. We have these few decades spoken quite often with our US city public K-12 teachers who deal with all kinds of student readiness to learn issues. The goals of BUSH ERA NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND-----were to end the public education promise of EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND ACCESS where the goals of K-12 were to help our US 99% of WE THE STUDENTS attain the highest level each individual child could attain---no matter A, B, C, D, or F. Our US city public school teachers here in Baltimore DID THEIR BEST under BAD CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA era PUBLIC EDUCATION POLICY.



Many STEM Teachers Don't Hold Certifications

Shortages force educators to teach subjects outside of their specialty areas.
By Jason Koebler, Contributor |June 8, 2011, at 8:00 a.m.

•  

Many STEM Teachers Don't Hold Certifications

• With teacher layoffs and staff shortages nationwide, some teachers are being asked to teach subjects they are not certified to teach.
  Roughly 30 percent of chemistry and physics teachers in public high schools did not major in these fields and haven't earned a certificate to teach those subjects, according to a new survey released Monday by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Half of earth science teachers are similarly unqualified.
  Tom Luce, CEO of the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) and a former assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Education, says that, oftentimes, a certificate to teach science isn't enough.
  "In our mind, a certificate doesn't necessarily mean somebody has content knowledge," he says. Although subject certification varies state to state, Luce says that taking one chemistry class in college might qualify a teacher to teach the subject. "If you don't have content knowledge then it's very difficult to not only teach the class, but it's virtually impossible to inspire somebody."
  According to the NCES study, which surveyed high school teachers during the 2007-2008 school year, fewer than half of chemistry and physics teachers majored in those subjects, and a quarter of math teachers don't hold math degrees. The problem extends to history, where less than two thirds of teachers hold a history degree. Conversely, 82 percent of English teachers, 90 percent of art teachers, and 95 percent of music teachers hold a bachelor's degree or higher in their field.
  Luce says the problem is most prevalent in middle school, where more than two thirds of math teachers aren't qualified to teach the subject, a 2007 report by the National Academies shows. Only 1 in 10 middle school physical science teachers have a degree or certification in the subject, according to the same report. "That's when you lose a kid's interest," he says. "They don't even want to try in high school because they think, 'I didn't like this in middle school.'"
  NMSI's UTeach science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) teacher training program has been heralded by President Obama. The program, operated in 22 universities, allows undergraduate students to earn a bachelor of science in math or science while earning a teaching certificate. A similar program by The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship foundation will train 450 STEM teachers in three states.
  But when districts need to fill teaching vacancies, they are often forced to take the best available option—which means a math teacher might be asked to teach physics, or a biology teacher might teach chemistry.
  [Learn how companies are promoting STEM education.]
  Luce doesn't blame the teachers. "Their principal comes to them and says 'Guess what, you're going to teach algebra next year.' Well, I'll put it very simply," he says. "You can't teach what you don't know."
  Linda Rosen, chief executive officer of Change the Equation, a STEM education advocacy group and former math teacher, agrees that districts are sometimes forced to choose from a small pool.
  "If a state or district is really down to the wire and school is fast approaching, they need an adult in that classroom. They're not just going to choose a warm body off the street, but they may give out emergency certification at that point," she says.
  Some districts are implementing mentoring and training programs led by highly trained teachers, and may pay for teachers to take classes in the subject they will be teaching. But in many poor school districts, both urban and rural, schools are facing teacher shortages.
  "Teaching in high-poverty, high-needs schools is not necessarily an appealing option," Rosen says. Even though many teachers may find themselves teaching outside their specialty, that doesn't necessarily mean they are bad teachers, she says, noting, "There are a lot of dedicated people who are trying their best."
  

_________________________________________


Welcome Back Kotter had global banking 1% creating FADS showing our US 99% WE THE US CITY PUBLIC SCHOOL students that BEING COOL was not listening to the teacher. At the same time as KOTTER was facing UP YOUR NOSE WITH A RUBBER HOSE students sure they were going nowhere-----global banking 1% raging FREEMASON STAR-----PINK FLOYD was making it COOL TO HATE OUR PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS.




'Another Brick in the Wall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Another Brick in the Wall" is the title of three songs set to variations of the same theme on Pink Floyd's 1979 rock opera The Wall'.



How did behavior in our US city schools deteriorate ----from being RIGOROUS, STRUCTURED graduating almost all students able to READ, WRITE, DO MATH? The culture of HATING our TEACHERS.

Notice all this global banking 1% freemason STAR FAD in 1970s followed our US FEDERAL CIVIL RIGHTS EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND ACCESS amendments ----Our US city 99% of citizens most targeted by cultural arts STARS.


Traduzione Another Brick In The Wall

We don't need no education

We don't need no thought control

No dark sarcasm in the classroom

Teachers leave them kids alone

Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone

All in all it's just another brick in the wall

All in all you're just another brick in the wall

We don't need no education

We don't need no thought control

No dark sarcasm in the classroom

Teachers leave those kids alone

Hey! Teachers! Leave those kids alone

All in all you're just another brick in the wall

All in all you're just another brick in the wall

"Wrong, do it again!"

"If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding

How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?"

"You! Yes, you behind the bike sheds, stand still laddy!"