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September 30th, 2013

9/30/2013

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Don't worry, just because your neo-liberals and US/State Attorney General have not allowed justice in the subprime mortgage/foreclosure crisis and left you with an entire industry of real estate with compromised housing titles....they already have developed another way to get your money......INSURANCE AGAINST HOUSING TITLE CLAIMS CAUSED BY MERS AND FRAUD.




Regarding Basu's great urban migration:

The decision to start the great migration came in the 1980s when Reagan started the corporate empire-building/Ayn Rand style of globalization that has corporation as City State modeled from the Medieval/Renaissance days of the Merchant Class/Medici-style of social structure. This is the goal set by Reagan and the 1% of the time and indeed, Baltimore's Master Plan was written in the 1980s. The creation of government structures that centralized government power....as with the mayor having all the power and the use of quasi-governmental organizations to hide public policy writing. So, picture the City State with the mote and castle walls protecting the gentry and the peasants outside living subsistance lives with the gentry coming around annually taking much of the peasants wealth in 'taxes' and you see where these Baltimore and Maryland 1% are going. Now, I am not a raging right wing anti-tax Tea Party person.....I am a progressive democrat who loves to pay taxes for a strong social safety net and public services. What we have today are rising taxes....not for social services or public services but for corporate welfare and enrichment at the top. So, there is a problem with taxation but it has nothing to do with subsidizing the poor....it is subsidizing the rich. This is what City State Master Plans are all about!

The second reason for the great migration to create urban centers is that these urban centers are more easily protected from threats of terrorism or angry mobs of peasants. If you are going to be Visigoths looting the Treasuries at home and around the world....you will make people angry and will need to protect yourself! Wall Street is now the most heavily securitized city in world history-----and they are home of the Visigoths....see the connection? There is nothing wrong with coming to the city to live as I am a lifelong city dweller. The problem is when the city is captured politically and socially and when it is the only game in town as all business and development happens there. People forced to come to get work....people forced to come because they cannot afford transportation....TOO MANY 'FORCED' HAPPENING!

As we heard Fraser Smith give his 'political analysis' of the Casino and the revenue expenditures....which by the way is true of the Baltimore Casino....all revenue is going to that one zone of development and in Baltimore that of course is the same 'Enterprise Zones' having received all the revenue these few decades. This is public money captured to the same areas of development ----the City State with the peasants outside the castle walls wasting into impoverishment as public assets disappear, employment in their communities disappear, and the peasants are made to rely strictly on the charity of patrons. THIS IS THE MARYLAND/BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT PLAN.

This too was the reason for the subprime mortgage fraud that targeted these very urban areas----movement of all urban real estate to the 1% for control of castle residency. Believe me, you may be able to afford to live in the city now if you have a good job, but if this continues and reaches the goal of Manhattan, you will not and that can be in just a generation if left unchecked. So, your children and grandchildren will become those peasants outside the castle walls. THIS IS THE GOAL THAT BASU JUST WILL NOT SHARE WITH YOU! HE IS WITH THE BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT CREW SO HE KNOWS!

What the immediate concern for most should be is that all of that foreclosed property probably is tainted with the MERS titling fraud as Maryland's subprime mortgage fraud hit Baltimore hard and the MERS process was created right here in the Washington suburbs to compliment the Wall Street bunding of these fraudulent mortgage loans. MERS laundered house titles over and over and over and over.....with the goal of generating tons of money from fees for doing just that. Lawyers and accountants scored big in this fraud -----committing fraud themselves to do this. The problem is that none of these title transfers that happened over and over and over again were legal registered with title agencies and now, many of these hundreds of thousands of homes in Maryland alone do not have titles with a clear ownership. Since it was all illegal anyone who was in this process at any stage has as much title to that house as the other. Now, much of the foreclosures went these few years to large investment firms now operating development corporations....this is what the FED QE was all about and they will take anyone to court who challenges their title to a property and they have the money to do so. No problem for the rich. It is the middle-class who are being called to come to Baltimore to buy a subprime foreclosure who may very well be hit with these ownership challenges....often from the same people who committed the fraud .....and they will not be able to afford to fight it in court. OH, MY, THERE GOES MIDDLE-CLASS ASSETS YET AGAIN!

The subprime mortgage fraud settlement from two years ago was just a parking ticket start to getting trillions back in fraud. Maryland still has billions coming back just from this subprime loan fraud. The terms of the settlement of $1 billion that Maryland Attorney General Gansler made required the hiring of lawyers to handle the legal aspects of just this one issue with MERS and house titling. There should be a process in place with the state attorney's office to make sure all these subprime loan titles are free and clear. THERE HAS BEEN NOTHING DONE BY GANSLER TO DO THIS. RATHER, HE IS SENDING ALL OF THE MONEY FROM THE SETTLEMENT BACK TO THESE INVESTMENT FIRMS AND DEVELOPERS TO SUBSIDIZE DEVELOPMENT OPERATION COSTS. There will be challenges as these same people who created this fraud and participated in the multiple turnovers of the property just need to wait until these blighted homes are rehabbed to come in and claim ownership....AND THEY WILL.

This is the problem. The solution is to get rid of your incumbent allowing all of these illegal action occur. DO YOU HEAR YOUR POL SHOUTING OUT AGAINST ALL OF THIS? I don't hear anything. So, run and vote for labor and justice candidates in all elections coming up. If your labor and justice organization is not running candidates.....they are not working for you and me. IT WILL NOT BRING CHANGE TO SIMPLY WORK ON THIS HOUSE BY HOUSE,....IT HELPS, BUT IT IS NOT A SOLUTION!


Mortgage-Title Fraud: A National Catastrophe
Oct 8 2010, 04:03  |  includes: BAC, JPM BOOKMARK / READ LATER X Bookmark Save this article to continue reading from your iPad Get the app »

It is impossible to overstate the severity of the real estate crisis in the United States which has been caused entirely by the reckless fraud of the nation’s largest banks – the Wall Street Oligarchs. We now have mortgage-fraud being openly acknowledged by the banksters, and on a scale never before seen in human history.

We have a single individual with JP Morgan (JPM) openly admitting that she and her team committed more than 18,000 acts of fraud per MONTH, while one Bank of America official admitted that she personally committed 7,000 to 8,000 acts of fraud monthly. Regular readers will recall that in a recent commentary I reported on two, separate anecdotes where the Bank of America attempted to foreclose on properties which did not even have mortgages.

In that same commentary, there was also an anecdotal report from a Florida lawyer who specializes in foreclosure proceedings, who stated that he regularly encountered (so-called) judges who were rubber-stamping these foreclosures without even looking at the documents. The lawyer also reported that one particular judge had already written her judgments (confirming foreclosure) before the foreclosure trial started.

We thus have the following chain of events, a Wall Street bank pushes a stack of 18,000 foreclosures in front of a small group of clerks (who make convenient patsies), and tells them they have to clear this many documents every month – knowing that it is impossible to process that volume and still follow mandatory legal procedures.

Stacks of these foreclosures are then pushed before judges. In the case of Florida, they are being processed by judges called out of retirement. Many of these people are likely no longer allowed to operate motor vehicles. These past-their-prime judges then rubber-stamp these fraudulent foreclosure documents, without even looking at them – effectively stealing the home from the homeowner through the coordinated fraud being committed by Wall Street banks and the U.S. government.

This is the sort of systemic horror-story which we would expect to hear coming out of some tiny, Third World country, with a ‘two-bit’ legal system – not from the Leader of the Free World. The crime-waves being confessed to by JP Morgan and Bank of America follow similar (if not worse) admissions by Ally Financial (GMAC’s mortgage subsidiary).


___________________________________________

Please do not allow these same neo-liberals who allowed all this massive fraud to move forward and now keeps us from getting justice set people up for yet more fraud down the road!




Foreclosure Fraud Cases: Banks and Mortgage Servicers Have an Achilles Heel, Title Problems Related to MERS

Posted By Larry Tolchinsky on August 2, 2011  Florida Law

One consequence of a Wrongful Foreclosure case, relates to the issue of clear title: the banks and mortgage lenders may not have it to convey to a buyer of the property.

As we all know, title to real estate is recorded in our public records because being able to trace the ownership chain of property is very, very important in the transfer of real property.  In Florida, land records can become history lessons because the land can be traced back — just like those family tree commercials on TV – to owners who lived hundreds of years ago.

Even today, there are land documents that document a Florida property’s ownership back to the days when the land was under Spanish rule, as well as that of England (England got part of Florida from Spain in exchange for Cuba as part of the treaty after the Seven Years’ War in the mid-1700s).   Florida land title isn’t wanting for its paperwork.

What is Title?

Each state in the United States has a long-established public records system that protects and documents the land within its borders.  Older land records are handwritten; for a period of years they were typed; now, many states record title via computerized systems with the older records scanned and organized via microfiche.

The land records are used to establish “title” to a piece of real property, or who has the legal right to own, use, possess or hold other rights in that piece of land (for example, mineral, water, or air rights).  The records are evidence of “title,” which is a legal determination based upon state law. The law of land title protects owners from someone stealing their property, squatting on their property, or even pillaging it (deforesting, etc.).

Sometimes when there is a controversy over who has title to or who has the right to sell a piece of land, it becomes a legal issue which is sometimes settled by a “quiet title” action.  Here is where the Foreclosure Fraud cases come into play:  the banks and/or mortage lenders may not have the ability to provide a buyer of the land with documentation that gives the selling institution clear title under Florida law.

MERS Created Chaos in Longstanding, Traditional Public Record Land Title Documentation


As Richard Zombeck pointed out in the Huffington Post this week, MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration System) was set up by banks to streamline their ability to foreclose on homes throughout Florida and elsewhere.  Problem was, MERS apparently didn’t bother to follow the public record standards established under the state law.  They didn’t file their documents in the land records, among other things.  From HuffPo:

advocates and activists have long argued that mortgages transferred via the MERS system but not recorded with local registries of deeds are invalid and that land titles on thousands of homes are “clouded”. Homeowners with clouded titles could find it impossible to sell or refinance their properties without going to court to clean up problems.

Massachusetts Attorney General Announces Investigation Into MERS – A Really Big Quiet Title Investigation

This week, the Attorney General for the State of Massachusetts announced that Massachusetts will be investigating MERS and whether or not every single loan that went through its processing actually resulted in a cloud on title — which boils down to that state gearing up one big, big quiet title investigation.  If MERS did not follow Massachusetts state laws about protecting legal title during the transfer of the property, then the title is clouded — which most believe will be the case in an overwhelming number of cases.

What About Florida Land Titles?  Florida AG Bondi Can Act – And  So Can the Florida Homeowner

No word yet on what the Florida Attorney General will do: will Florida follow in the footsteps of Massachusetts?  It’s not clear. However, nothing stops an individual Florida citizen from protecting their rights to his or her land or any property they intend to purchase.  The first step?  Gathering all the land records that reference the property which can be found at the county public records department.  They are open to everyone.

Or, a homeowner or prospective buyer can hire an experienced real estate attorney versed in title issues and foreclosure fraud antics to advocate on their behalf.  Land title disputes and quiet title lawsuits can be complicated and stressful.  The complexities of legal title are why title insurance exists today and why their are title insurance attorneys.

_____________________________________________

Don't worry, just because your neo-liberals and US/State Attorney General have not allowed justice in the subprime mortgage/foreclosure crisis and left you with an entire industry of real estate with compromised housing titles....they already have developed another way to get your money......INSURANCE AGAINST HOUSING TITLE CLAIMS CAUSED BY MERS AND FRAUD.



After Foreclosure, a Focus on Title Insurance


Posted on11 October 2010.


By RON LIEBER
Published: October 8, 2010  Stop Foreclosure Fraud.com

When home buyers and people refinancing their mortgages first see the itemized estimate for all the closing costs and fees, the largest number is often for title insurance.

This moment is often profoundly irritating, mysterious and rushed — just like so much of the home-buying process. Lenders require buyers to have title insurance, but buyers are often not sure who picked the insurance company. And the buyers are so exhausted by the gauntlet they’ve already run that they’re not interested in spending any time learning more about the policies and shopping around for a better one.

Besides, does anyone actually know people who have had to collect on title insurance? It ultimately feels like a tax — an extortionate one at that — and not a protective measure.

But all of the sudden, the importance of title insurance is becoming crystal-clear. In recent weeks, big lenders like GMAC Mortgage, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America have halted many or all of their foreclosure proceedings in the wake of allegations of sloppiness, shortcuts or worse. And a potential nightmare situation has emerged that has spooked not only homeowners but lawyers, title insurance companies and their investors.

What would happen if scores of people who had lost their homes to foreclosure somehow persuaded a judge to overturn the proceedings? Could they somehow win back the rights to their homes, free and clear of any mortgage? But they may not be able to simply move back into their home at that point. Banks, after all, have turned around and sold some of those foreclosed homes to nice young families reaching out for a bit of the American dream. Would they simply be put out on the street? And then what?

The answer to that last question may depend on whether those new homeowners have title insurance, because people who buy a home without a mortgage can choose to go without a policy.

Title insurance covers you in case people turn up months or years after you buy your home saying that they, in fact, are the rightful owners of the house or the land, or at least had a stake in the transaction. (The insurance may cover you in other instances as well, relating to easements and other matters, but we’ll leave those aside for now.)



_______________________________________________
The Great Recession is indeed the cause of this multi-generational housing.  The reasons of course are that people's retirement, savings, houses, and health care were stolen during the past decade of massive corporate frauds that move tens of trillions of dollars of public wealth to the top earners from these middle/lower class families all by fraud.  Experts say this is the grandest looting of society in human history.  As we watch neo-liberals working with republicans to cut all kinds of public and social programs to pay for the damages from that fraud...$16 trillion in debt could all be paid for by recovering corporate fraud..foreclosure fraud is left without justice taking people's homes, pension fraud having taken 1/2 the value of pensions and 401Ks..all losses caused by fraud..and health care fraud that has taken 1/2 of entitlement spending each year for these few decades..trillions lost to Medicare and Medicaid from fraud that has yet to be recovered.  Now, health reform covers the losses to Trusts from fraud by cutting patient access to health care and raising costs to people through co-pays and deductibles...all because of health fraud.

So, this family simply needs to vote for labor and justice and get rid of corporate neo-liberals so we can get busy with Rule of Law and recovering their life's savings and personal wealth!  We will see this reverse as people catch on!



3 generations, 1 roof: Multigenerational households on the rise in Howard County


By Pete Pichaske 2:27 p.m. EDT, September 16, 2013  Baltimore Sun

A giant blue tarp is flapping in the summer breeze on top of the two-story addition workers are building on their Sykesville house, and in the backyard, three generations of Beares are explaining why they decided to join the latest trend in household arrangements: multigenerational living.

“We were in a four-bedroom house, just the two of us,” says Paul Beares, 69. “We didn’t need a four-bedroom house anymore. We needed to downsize.”

“And we wanted to upsize,” says son David, 37, noting that he and his wife, Abby, had a third child last summer and not much extra space in their small Annapolis home. “Also, we were living in Annapolis, and our business is in Columbia. The drive stinks.”

“We wanted to be in Howard County,” says Abby, who grew up in Columbia. “And we wanted a place with some land.”

“My dad lived with us for a while,” says Paul’s wife, Susan, 66. “In fact, we’ve all had that three-generation experience, and all saw how it could work.”

“I like it that we’ll be able to see them (her grandparents) every day,” says Alivia, 8, joining the conversation. “They’ll be here to baby-sit us if Mommy and Daddy go out. And Babba (her grandfather) is around to help with the house.”

The Beares’ circumstances dovetail with the mutual needs and desires that multigenerational households can satisfy, but the family is hardly unusual in opting for this sort of arrangement. Not anymore.

Driven by a variety of factors -- the uncertain economy, the rising tide of young adults returning to live with their parents, a growing immigrant population with a strong multigenerational household tradition, a growing senior citizen population and increased interest in aging in place -- the number of such households is on the rise.

The ‘comeback’

A 2010 Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends study found that the number of Americans living in a household that included at least two adult generations rose from 28 million in 1980 to 49 million in 2008.

Noting that such extended families were common until World War II but declined in the ensuing few decades, the study concludes: “The multi-generational household has mounted a comeback.”

Statewide figures reveal the same trend, with the number of Maryland households with three or more generations increasing from 88,923 in 2000 (4.5 percent of all households) to 108,934 in 2010 (5.3 percent of all households), according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Earlier figures for Howard County are not available, but the 2010 census found 4,163 such households in the county, 4 percent of the total, and those who keep an eye on such trends say multigenerational living is becoming more popular here as well.

“We’ve probably seen a lot more of it over the past 20 or 30 years,” says Dayna Brown, administrator of the county Office on Aging. She credited the increase mainly to people living longer and an increased desire of the elderly to age in place -- stay in the community rather than move to an assisted-living facility. To do that, she says, many rely on family caregivers, such as adult children.

“It’s growing,” agrees architect Karen Pitsley, owner of Transforming Architecture, a residential design firm based in Highland. Pitsley says she is fielding more and more requests to design second-floor master suites, in-law suites and other additions that will accommodate families combining resources under one roof.

“A lot of people in Howard County are looking for houses that will allow that,” she says. “With all the baby boomers hitting their 60s and 70s, there’s a much greater need for this now.”

While many cite the increasing numbers of elderly and the so-called “boomerang generation,” Michael Rendall, director of the Maryland Population Research Center and a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, says economic forces are largely behind the move to multigenerational housing.

“The Great Recession is the root cause of the phenomenon,” he says. The trend is driven by the difficult job situation facing the younger generation, he says. But by pooling resources, both the younger and older generations are helped by the trend.

Rendall predicts that as the economy improves, the trend toward multigenerational households will reverse.

Others are not so sure.

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September 29th, 2013

9/29/2013

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Do any Maryland residents know that this important process is happening regarding education? Who will be the one's that comment?

Your local school should be creating public forums for the parents of students and community to discuss and write comments about these important issues but there is nothing being said in Maryland.

GO TO YOUR LOCAL SCHOOL AND TELL THE PRINCIPAL THAT YOU WANT THESE FORUMS ORGANIZED AND VOICES FROM EACH SCHOOL HEARD!




CODE OF MARYLAND REGULATIONS
TITLE 13A
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
OPPORTUNITY FOR PUBLIC COMMENT


In accordance with State Government Article, §§10-130—10-139, Annotated Code of Maryland, the Maryland State Department of Education is currently reviewing and evaluating the follow chapters of COMAR Title 13A:

Subtitle 01 STATE SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 13A.01.01 State Board of Education 13A.01.02 State Superintendent of Schools 13A.01.03 State Department of Education 13A.01.04 Public School Standards 13A.01.05 Appeals to the State Board of Education
Subtitle 02 LOCAL SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 13A.02.01 Local Boards of Education 13A.02.03 Local Administrative and Supervisory Staff 13A.02.04 Tobacco-Free School Environment 13A.02.05 Maintenance of Effort 13A.02.06 General Financial Aid to Local School Systems 13A.02.07 Annual Audits of Financial Statements and Federal Awards 13A.02.08 Recognition of Employee Organizations 13A.02.09 Closing of Schools
Subtitle 03 GENERAL INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAMS 13A.03.01 Standards for Kindergarten Programs 13A.03.02 Graduation Requirements for Public High Schools in Maryland 13A.03.04 Test Administration and Data-Reporting Policies and Procedures 13A.03.05 Administration of Home and Hospital Teaching for Students
Subtitle 04 SPECIFIC SUBJECTS 13A.04.01 Programs in Technology Education 13A.04.02 Secondary School Career and Technology Education 13A.04.03 Driver Education Programs 13A.04.04 Religious Education 13A.04.05 Education That is Multicultural 13A.04.08 Program in Social Studies 13A.04.09 Program in Science 13A.04.10 Program of Instruction in the World of Work Competencies 13A.04.12 Program in Mathematics 13A.04.13 Program in Physical Education 13A.04.14 Program in English Language Arts 13A.04.16 Programs in Fine Arts
13A.04.19
Program in Cosmetology 13A.04.20 Program for Barbers
Subtitle 05 SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAMS 13A.05.01 Provision of a Free Appropriate Public Education 13A.05.02 Administration of Services for Students with Disabilities 13A.05.03 Programs of Adult Education 13A.05.04 Programs for Library Media Services 13A.05.05 Programs of Pupil Services 13A.05.06 Programs for Migrant Education 13A.05.07 Programs for Non-English and Limited-English Proficient Students 13A.05.08 Approved Paid Work-Based Learning Programs 13A.05.09 Programs for Homeless Children 13A.05.10 Automated External Defibrillator Program in High Schools
Subtitle 06 SUPPORTING PROGRAMS 13A.06.01 Programs for Food and Nutrition 13A.06.02 Prekindergarten Programs 13A.06.05 School Supplies and Equipment 13A.06.06 Safety Equipment 13A.06.07 Student Transportation
Pursuant to the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) Work Plan submitted to and approved by the Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive, and Legislative Review, MSDE will evaluate the need to retain, amend, or repeal any provisions of these regulations based on whether they:
• Continue to be necessary for the public interest?
• Continue to be supported by statutory authority and judicial opinion?
• Are obsolete or other appropriate for amendment or repeal?
• Are effective in accomplishing their intended purpose?

The Maryland State Department of Education would like to provide interested parties with an opportunity to participate in the review and evaluation process by submitting comments on these regulations. The comments may address any concerns about the regulations. If the comments include suggested changes to the regulations, please be as specific as possible and provide language for the suggested changes.

Comments should be directed to Anthony L. South, Executive Director, Office of the State Board of Education, 200 West Baltimore Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201-2595, by fax to 410-333-6033, or by e-mail to StateBoard@msde.state.md.us. Comments must be received by January 31, 2014.
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September 27th, 2013

9/27/2013

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REMEMBER, THE PROBLEM WITH HEALTH COST IS MASSIVE HEALTH INDUSTRY FRAUD AND PROFITEERING.....IT IS NOT WITH PEOPLE'S ABILITY TO PAY.  MEDICARE AND MEDICAID HAVING LOST 1/2 OF OF FUNDS SPENT TO FRAUD EACH YEAR-------TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS COMING BACK TO ENTITLEMENTS ALONE!



ALL OF MARYLAND'S NEO-LIBERALS ARE PUSHING THIS AND THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF PROFIT-MAKING WILL BE FELT THE MOST IN A CORPORATE MARYLAND.

WE NEED TO VOTE OUT NEO-LIBERALS-----RUN LABOR AND JUSTICE TO REVERSE THIS MESS AND TO GIVE UNIVERSAL CARE FOR ALL-----it is easy-peasy!



The entire public health sector is being privatized into private non-profits that will hide all of what is happening with public health money......Medicare and Medicaid and public grants.  Private non-profits do not provide oversight and we already know there is rampant abuse of patients and fraud throughout the health care system with these reforms. LOW COST SIMPLY MEANS LESS ACCESS TO CARE AND LESS CHOICE IN DOCTORS.

Below you see how this 'health market' is shaking out with Wall Street expecting huge profits as public money hits health businesses giving less care and quality-----AND HIGH PROFITS!  What can be better than having people paying for premiums and not be able to afford to access care?  Much of this will be public money that could have gone to a simply expansion of an improved UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE!



Here we go......Illinois, like Maryland is now a raging corporate neo-liberal state....see why we had Obama in the 2008 election disguised as a progressive?---and all neo-liberal states are dismantling public health by privatizing to private non-profits controlled by the wealthy in each area.  When public health is made into private non-profits there is no public oversight and no transparency.  This is necessary when most people will be denied health access and all kinds of fraud and corruption hit the health industry harder than in the past....if losing more than 1/2 of health spending now can get worse.

Take a look at this video.....


"A Dismantling Of The Human Services System"

From today's Sun-Times piece on the looming state budget cuts:

In some cases, [human service providers] have been told to expect a 50 percent reduction in dollars from Springfield. "It really is a dismantling of the human services safety network right now in Illinois," said Tony Paulauski, executive director of ARC of Illinois, an advocacy group for the disabled.

Gov. Quinn's press conference is still happening as I write this, but it appears that the Department of Human Services budget is facing a reduction of about 20 percent -- on top of the comparable cuts included in last year's budget.  Check back later for a more details as we pick apart the Quinn administration's plan.

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AS WE SEE HERE...QUALITY OF CARE IS FALLING AND REGULATORS AND OVERSIGHT ARE BEING DISBANDED......THIS IS NOT WHAT A FIRST WORLD HEALTH SYSTEM LOOKS LIKE!  Everyone in Baltimore knows how Baltimore Board of Estimates does its competitive bidding!


Critics Question Medicare's Competitive Bidding Program, Set to Begin Saturday
Written by Rachel Fields | December 28, 2010


 As Medicare's Competitive Bidding Program gears up for its Saturday launch, critics renew their warnings that the program will put patients in jeopardy, according to a Press-Enterprise report.

CMS will implement the program in nine metropolitan statistical areas during its first round. CMS hopes that these areas will start to see savings of up to 30 percent on certain durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and supplies beginning Jan. 1.

The government says the process is a necessary change to a program marked by wasteful spending and fraud, according to the report. But critics say the program will close businesses or force suppliers to cut staff, and that Medicare and Medicaid have cut rates so low that winning bidders can't afford to provide the services they promised. Critics fear patients will ultimately suffer when contracts are awarded to financially unstable business who cannot meet patient needs.

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At a time when nurses are taking on doctor's duties in these health systems and health care is filling with foreign workers being sent to low-income and elderly care.....they are removing all of the regulators and oversight that held health care providers and staff accountable.


Dissolution of California Board of Registered Nursing Raises Patient Safety Concerns
Written by Jaimie Oh | February 01, 2012

Critics are speaking out after an October veto by Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown led to the formal dissolution of the state's Board of Registered Nursing, which went into effect this year, according to a California Watch report.

The nursing board, which has been in existence for more than 100 years, investigated complaints against nurses and also processed applications for new nurses. Gov. Brown vetoed a bill that would have extended the nursing board's existence until 2016, citing the proposal "would dramatically expand pension benefits for […] board investigators" and makes "no sense fiscally and flies in the face of much needed pension reform," according to a statement.


As a result of the veto, the state's Department of Consumer Affairs was granted authority to oversee the dissolved board's everyday operations. The move has sparked criticism from former members of the nursing board, including the former president Jeannine Graves. Ms. Graves argues the board's disbanding is a disservice to the public as well as nurses, who are entitled to due process if they are accused of any misconduct.

Another former public member of the board, Richard Rice, who served as a former senior adviser to then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, also criticized the board's dissolution. He argued the move put a stop to the board's ongoing policy work, including more robust legislation that would require nursing schools to teach clinical and classroom skills, according to the report.

However, state government officials said although the board has been dissolved, its work is still being done.

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In Maryland, hospitals have at their entrance that if you are brought in and do not have the right insurance.....they will stabilize you and ship you out.  What we are seeing all across the country is patient dumping,......ALL DONE FOR HEALTH INSTITUTION PROFIT! 

THIS WILL GET UGLY FOLKS!


Vanderbilt University Medical Center Faces Allegations of Patient Dumping
Written by Molly Gamble | September 25, 2013

  Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt University Medical Center is facing claims of patient dumping after it allegedly discharged an uninsured patient prematurely, according to a Tennessean report.

A lawsuit working its way through Nashville's circuit court claims VUMC discharged a patient two weeks after he underwent surgeries that saved his legs, which were injured in a motorcycle accident.

The patient, Patrick Miller, was sent Nov. 5, 2010, but returned to VUMC two days later "with an infection so severe that his right leg had to be amputated above the knee," according to the report.

The suit claims VUMC engaged in patient dumping, or prematurely discharging Mr. Miller in light of his uninsured status for economic reasons, according to the report.

VUMC spokesperson John Howser told The Tennessean the hospital consistently runs at or near patient capacity and that VUMC provides more than $370 million a year in uncompensated care, according to the report.

Vanderbilt lawyers have denied deficient care for Mr. Miller or patient dumping, and they have asked for the case to be dismissed. Lawyers also said Mr. Miller's surgery was "very complex" due to the severity of his injuries, according to the report.

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We all know how predatory corporations are now----profit-driven health care will be ruthless and people will die!

ASC's are small offices that are allowed to perform minor surgeries that have been done in hospitals.  They are pressured to do the work as cheap as possible because quantity is necessary for profit!  WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL RESULT?

HEALTH CARE REFORM IS ALL ABOUT MAKING HEALTH INSTITUTIONS MOST PROFITABLE....SENDING ALL THE COSTLY PATIENTS TO THESE SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS NEEDING SHORTCUTS TO STAY PROFITABLE?  REALLY?



Moody's: ASCs to Benefit From Declining Hospital Inpatient Surgeries

Written by Bob Herman  September 24, 2013

  As hospitals continue to record stagnant or falling inpatient surgery procedures, ambulatory surgery centers will see their volumes increase, according to a report from Moody's Investors Service.

Patient utilization in hospitals, especially for elective surgeries, has decreased significantly over the past five years for several reasons. Millions of Americans lost health insurance due to rising unemployment, and those with insurance have been forced to pay more of their healthcare costs through high-deductible health plans.

In addition, private payers, Medicare and Medicaid have been looking for ways to reduce their own costs, and consequently, they have turned to lower-cost ASCs for surgeries. On average, ASCs are reimbursed 57 percent of hospital rates for similar procedures.

Moody's found that from 2007 through 2012, hospital same-facility inpatient surgery cases dropped 0.22 percent per year, on average. At ASCs, same-facility inpatient surgery cases grew between 0.5 percent and 1 percent.

Moody's analysts said the 5,000-plus ASCs in the United States will continue to record growth in surgery cases this year and more years going forward. In particular, the large for-profit ASC companies like AmSurg, Symbion, Surgical Care Affiliates, Surgery Partners and United Surgical Partners International — which together own 14 percent of the ASC market — will fare the best because they can leverage economies of scale and attract more physician joint ventures, which could provide a "steady supply of patient referrals," according to the report.


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This is what we have been shouting for two years now.....the costs are low because you won't be able to access.  So, you will pay a premium for insurance and then not be able to access anything other than preventative care.

REMEMBER, BABY BOOMERS PAID INCOME AND PAYROLL TAXES FOR DECADES ALL USED TO FUND MEDICAL ADVANCES WE HAVE TODAY.....WE PREPAID HEALTH ACCESS!



Lower Health Insurance Premiums to Come at Cost of Fewer Choices

By ROBERT PEAR Published: September 22, 2013


WASHINGTON — Federal officials often say that health insurance will cost consumers less than expected under President Obama’s health care law. But they rarely mention one big reason: many insurers are significantly limiting the choices of doctors and hospitals available to consumers.

From California to Illinois to New Hampshire, and in many states in between, insurers are driving down premiums by restricting the number of providers who will treat patients in their new health plans.

When insurance marketplaces open on Oct. 1, most of those shopping for coverage will be low- and moderate-income people for whom price is paramount. To hold down costs, insurers say, they have created smaller networks of doctors and hospitals than are typically found in commercial insurance. And those health care providers will, in many cases, be paid less than what they have been receiving from commercial insurers.

Some consumer advocates and health care providers are increasingly concerned. Decades of experience with Medicaid, the program for low-income people, show that having an insurance card does not guarantee access to specialists or other providers.

Consumers should be prepared for “much tighter, narrower networks” of doctors and hospitals, said Adam M. Linker, a health policy analyst at the North Carolina Justice Center, a statewide advocacy group.

“That can be positive for consumers if it holds down premiums and drives people to higher-quality providers,” Mr. Linker said. “But there is also a risk because, under some health plans, consumers can end up with astronomical costs if they go to providers outside the network.”

Insurers say that with a smaller array of doctors and hospitals, they can offer lower-cost policies and have more control over the quality of health care providers. They also say that having insurance with a limited network of providers is better than having no coverage at all.

Cigna illustrates the strategy of many insurers. It intends to participate next year in the insurance marketplaces, or exchanges, in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Tennessee and Texas.

“The networks will be narrower than the networks typically offered to large groups of employees in the commercial market,” said Joseph Mondy, a spokesman for Cigna.

The current concerns echo some of the criticism that sank the Clinton administration’s plan for universal coverage in 1993-94. Republicans said the Clinton proposals threatened to limit patients’ options, their access to care and their choice of doctors. THEY ARE RIGHT!

At the same time, House Republicans are continuing to attack the new health law and are threatening to hold up a spending bill unless money is taken away from the health care program.

In a new study, the Health Research Institute of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the consulting company, says that “insurers passed over major medical centers” when selecting providers in California, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee, among other states.

“Doing so enables health plans to offer lower premiums,” the study said. “But the use of narrow networks may also lead to higher out-of-pocket expenses, especially if a patient has a complex medical problem that’s being treated at a hospital that has been excluded from their health plan.”

In California, the statewide Blue Shield plan has developed a network specifically for consumers shopping in the insurance exchange.

Juan Carlos Davila, an executive vice president of Blue Shield of California, said the network for its exchange plans had 30,000 doctors, or 53 percent of the 57,000 doctors in its broadest commercial network, and 235 hospitals, or 78 percent of the 302 hospitals in its broadest network.

Mr. Davila said the new network did not include the five medical centers of the University of California or the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center near Beverly Hills.

“We expect to have the broadest and deepest network of any plan in California,” Mr. Davila said. “But not many folks who are uninsured or near the poverty line live in wealthy communities like Beverly Hills.”

Daniel R. Hawkins Jr., a senior vice president of the National Association of Community Health Centers, which represents 9,000 clinics around the country, said: “We serve the very population that will gain coverage — low-income, working class uninsured people. But insurers have shown little interest in including us in their provider networks.”

Dr. Bruce Siegel, the president of America’s Essential Hospitals, formerly known as the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems, said insurers were telling his members: “We don’t want you in our network. We are worried about having your patients, who are sick and have complicated conditions.”

In some cases, Dr. Siegel said, “health plans will cover only selected services at our hospitals, like trauma care, or they offer rock-bottom payment rates.”

In New Hampshire, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, a unit of WellPoint, one of the nation’s largest insurers, has touched off a furor by excluding 10 of the state’s 26 hospitals from the health plans that it will sell through the insurance exchange.

Christopher R. Dugan, a spokesman for Anthem, said that premiums for this “select provider network” were about 25 percent lower than they would have been for a product using a broad network of doctors and hospitals.

Anthem is the only commercial carrier offering health plans in the New Hampshire exchange.

Peter L. Gosline, the chief executive of Monadnock Community Hospital in Peterborough, N.H., said his hospital had been excluded from the network without any discussions or negotiations.

“Many consumers will have to drive 30 minutes to an hour to reach other doctors and hospitals,” Mr. Gosline said. “It’s very inconvenient for patients, and at times it’s a hardship.”


State Senator Andy Sanborn, a Republican who is chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said, “The people of New Hampshire are really upset about this.”

Many physician groups in New Hampshire are owned by hospitals, so when an insurer excludes a hospital from its network, it often excludes the doctors as well.

David Sandor, a vice president of the Health Care Service Corporation, which offers Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, said: “In the health insurance exchange, most individuals will be making choices based on costs. Our exchange products will have smaller provider networks that cost less than bigger plans with a larger selection of doctors and hospitals.”

Premiums will vary across the country, but federal officials said that consumers in many states would be able to buy insurance on the exchange for less than $300 a month — and less than $100 a month per person after taking account of federal subsidies.

“Competition and consumer choice are actually making insurance affordable,” Mr. Obama said recently.

Many insurers are cutting costs by slicing doctors’ fees.


Dr. Barbara L. McAneny, a cancer specialist in Albuquerque, said that insurers in the New Mexico exchange were generally paying doctors at Medicare levels, which she said were “often below our cost of doing business, and definitely below commercial rates.”


Outsiders might expect insurance companies to expand their networks to treat additional patients next year. But many insurers see advantages in narrow networks, saying they can steer patients to less expensive doctors and hospitals that provide high-quality care.

Even though insurers will be forbidden to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions, they could subtly discourage the enrollment of sicker patients by limiting the size of their provider networks.

“If a health plan has a narrow network that excludes many doctors, that may shoo away patients with expensive pre-existing conditions who have established relationships with doctors,” said Mark E. Rust, the chairman of the national health care practice at Barnes & Thornburg, a law firm. “Some insurers do not want those patients who, for medical reasons, require a broad network of providers.”




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September 26th, 2013

9/26/2013

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ALL OF MARYLAND DEMS ARE NEO-LIBERAL.....ALL THE CURRENT CANDIDATES FOR NEXT ELECTION ARE NEO-LIBERALS....

WHERE ARE THE LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES IN MARYLAND ELECTIONS!



The goal of education reform corporatizes US universities and K-12. The 1% think they are going to make emigrants of our children and grandchildren by keeping unemployment high and government debt out of site with one economic crash after the other. Remember, when empire-building in the UK in the 1800s families lived abroad all their lives working for the crown! This is where neo-liberals want to take the US and starving education in order to state the need for revenue-raising is leading to this. So, here we have NYU....with Wall Street and Manhattan right around the corner expanding overseas to attract the Best of the Best to bring to the US. They cannot fund student aid domestically, but allow corporations not paying taxes in the US to fund scholarships abroad giving families little options for higher ed. THIS IS DELIBERATE AS THEY WANT TO MAKE US EMIGRATE FOR JOBS.

THIS IS WHAT O'MALLEY IS DOING IN MARYLAND AS WELL. CUOMO AND O'MALLEY ARE NEO-LIBERALS.


Budget shortfalls at all levels of government are created by massive corporate fraud and the solution is reinstating Rule of Law and recovering all that fraud to government coffers making funding of education easy! STOP ALLOWING NEO-LIBERAL DNC CHOOSE YOUR CANDIDATES....RUN LABOR AND JUSTICE IN ALL ELECTIONS TO STOP THIS INSANITY!


Remember, a thriving first world democracy that was the US in the 1950-1970s worked because corporations were held accountable and workers earned strong wages and had benefits.....making them able to consume and fuel the economy.  We need to downsize these global corporations by simply reinstating Rule of Law bringing back corporate fraud and laws giving higher wages and Universal Health Care to free worker's money for consumption. 

THE 1% WANT TO KEEP DOMESTIC WORKERS IMPOVERISHED AND EARN ALL THEIR PROFITS OFF OF CONSUMPTION ABROAD.


For Some NYU Students, A Sweet Deal To Study ... In Shanghai

by September 25, 2013 3:10 PM 7 min 49 sec


New York University in Shanghai is the first Sino-U.S. joint university. Here, a student speaks with an NYU staffer on Aug. 11.

Liu Xiaojing/Xinhua /Landov First-year college student Stephanie Ulan, from Queens, N.Y., had her sights set on New York University, in the heart of Manhattan's Greenwich Village.

She got her wish — sort of.

At first, the school offered her a generous scholarship but told her and her father they'd still have to take out big loans.

"My father is 62 years old," says Ulan, who plans to major in international relations. "There was a big scene and he flipped out and he was, like, 'I can't do that.' "

“ A scholarship that's worth about $228,000. How can you turn that down?

- Ron Ulan, father of a first-year American student at NYU Shanghai

Then, NYU made her a better offer — but only if she attended NYU's new Shanghai campus, where she'd applied as an afterthought by clicking a box on an application. The deal: tuition, room, board and even reimbursement for her plane ticket to Shanghai.

"I was a little bit flabbergasted," says Ron Ulan, Stephanie's dad, who works as a computer programmer with the New York City Police Department.

Ron, who says he lives check to check, calculated the savings over four years.

"A scholarship that's worth about $228,000," he says. "How can you turn that down?"

And ultimately, that's how Stephanie Ulan found herself among the students at this month, when classes opened at the first Chinese-American, joint-venture university.

The NYU Shanghai campus aspires to educate a new generation of students who can speak English and Mandarin and navigate U.S. and Chinese culture.

For Students, A Variety Of Perks


For many first-year students like Ulan who are willing to take the plunge, there is an added benefit: huge tuition breaks.

Stephanie Ulan, an 18-year-old from Queens, N.Y., wanted to go to New York University in Manhattan. But after the school offered her free tuition at its Shanghai campus, she headed for China.

Frank Langfitt/NPR Although money was a big factor in her decision, Ulan says she's glad she came to China, because she's stretching herself in ways she never would have back home. While her friends at American universities talk about partying every night, Ulan says she's often focused on more basic needs.

"I need to find someone who speaks Chinese, because I want to eat lunch today," says Ulan, 18, who adds that she's determined to learn the language.

Ulan wasn't the only U.S. student at the campus to get financial aid. Half a dozen others with whom NPR spoke said they got either huge discounts or free tuition.

Why is NYU Shanghai being so generous?

Ron Ulan thinks it's because the school wants to attract quality students to a new program. Jeff Lehman, the vice chancellor of NYU Shanghai and the former president of Cornell, puts it a bit differently. He says the school was able to offer huge scholarships with the help of private donors, including Chinese interested in reforming the country's education system.

"We've benefited from tremendous philanthropic support," says Lehman, speaking from his office on the leafy campus of East China Normal University, NYU's joint-venture partner in Shanghai. "As we prove ourselves, I very much hope that kind of support will translate into the creation of a great endowment."

The inaugural class of 300 is nearly split between Chinese and international students, including 90 from the U.S. Every foreign student rooms with one from China.

The attraction for Chinese students is getting a Western education without leaving home or draining their parents' bank accounts. The Shanghai government pays roughly two-thirds of their $45,000 annual tuition bill.

Yang Xiran, who grew up in southwestern China's Sichuan province, says she came to NYU Shanghai to get away from the country's rote style of learning and to engage with professors.

The university is currently located on the leafy campus of East China Normal University. Next year, NYU Shanghai will move to a 15-story building in the city's financial district.

Frank Langfitt/NPR "[At NYU] the teachers want you to be involved in the class more," she says. "They want you to ask, 'Why?' In my high school, the teacher just kept talking."

Cai Xingyang, from neighboring Jiangsu province, finds the classrooms at NYU Shanghai much freer than traditional Chinese ones.

In the first week, students discussed politically sensitive topics such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising. When Cai tried to address the subject in a presentation in her Chinese high school, her teacher stopped her and told her to never bring it up again. Cai did get to make a presentation to her high school class, but she had to change the topic to something less controversial: food.

One thing Cai finds challenging is the language. All classes at NYU Shanghai are taught in English.

"Sometimes, I just can't understand all the things my classmates and professors said and I do practice listening every day," says Cai, who estimated her comprehension at about 70 percent.

Some faculty back in New York worry that NYU — which also has a campus in — has , straining resources. Rebecca Karl, a faculty senator and China scholar, says that as professors head overseas to staff other campuses, NYU New York suffers.

"In the senate committees I'm in, the complaints have been persistent about Abu Dhabi," she says, "particularly from such places as the Economics Department, which has had trouble finding people to teach the large intro courses here in New York because their professors are going abroad."

Lehman says Shanghai has minimal impact on New York. Of the 50 faculty this year, he says, only 15 are from the Manhattan campus and only three of them are in Shanghai for the entire year.

Shanghai, NYU Stand To Gain

Richard Vedder, who runs the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a Washington think tank, says schools like NYU face some big challenges these days. He says with students balking at high tuition and endowment growth slow, schools like NYU are looking to other countries.

"I think there's a financial motive," he says. "They want to have a top, national reputation — and they do have a good reputation — but they don't have the resources or the historical prestige that the Harvards have."

So, Vedder says, schools like NYU have to look overseas "to expand [their] franchise and also to make some money."

What does Shanghai stand to gain from the partnership?

For one thing: prestige.

NYU is widely respected. Shanghai's Pudong district government is giving the school rent-free use of a 15-story building — estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars — in China's Wall Street, Lujiazui.

Yu Lizhong, chancellor of NYU Shanghai, says the school will help the image of Lujiazui, which, despite its towering architecture, has yet to become the hub city planners envisioned.

Yu, who also served as president of East China Normal University, says the partnership with NYU can help improve and reform China's oft-criticized educational system.

In fact, he says, it's already happening. When prospective students used to interview at East China Normal, they would sit and wait with nothing to eat or drink. After watching NYU's more gracious approach, Yu says East China Normal — known as ECNU — changed.

"Now, ECNU also prepares some tea, coffee, and some dessert for the student, to make them comfortable, to [feel] respected," Yu says.

That may sound small, but it's meaningful change. In China's hierarchical education system, a prospective student is seen as a supplicant, not a consumer.

Of course, NYU Shanghai has far bigger goals. They include building an undergraduate student body of 2,000 and developing a sustainable way to fund the fledgling school.


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See why Americans can't afford universities? The professors and Deans are now Executives and CEOs.

PLEASE VOTE NEO-LIBERALS OUT SO WE CAN REVERSE THESE CORPORATIZATION POLICIES!


NYU Gives Loans for Executives' Vacation Homes

June 18, 2013  Inside Higher Ed
New York University is breaking new ground in compensation for higher ed executives and star faculty members by providing loans for vacation homes, The New York Times reported. President John Sexton received $1 million in loans for a home on Fire Island, while others have received assistance to buy second homes in other prime vacation areas. The article notes that many colleges provide homes for presidents, and some institutions in places like New York City -- where housing is expensive -- provide housing assistance for many others. But the article says that help for second homes is "all but unheard-of in higher education."

John Beckman, a university spokesman, told the Times: "The purpose of our loan programs goes right to the heart of several decades of sustained and successful effort at NYU: to transform NYU from a regional university into a world-class research residential university." The loans help attract and retain talent, he said.

Among the critics of the practice quoted in the article was Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, a former president of George Washington University who has been a defender of high salaries and benefits for higher education leaders. "That’s getting to be a little too sexy even for me, and I have a good sense of humor about these things," he said. "I don’t think that’s prudent. I don’t mind paying someone a robust salary, but I think you have to be able to pass a red-face test."


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If you look at the expenses US universities have today much of it involves marketing, recruiting, and building unneeded student activities ALL TO RECRUIT FOREIGN STUDENTS.  All of this expense is at the expense of student financial aid and grants for domestic students.  THIS IS WHAT O'MALLEY HAS DONE TO MARYLAND SCHOOLS AND WHAT ALL OF THE CURRENT CANDIDATES FOR GOVERNOR WILL DO AS WELL.

Education reform is about handing public education over to corporations and our universities are far along in that regard.  Maryland's #1 ranking in Education Week.....a school privatizing group with Bill Gates....is for just this.  This is also what the market-based Immigration reform is all about...a pathway to bringing more and more immigrants who will take top leadership positions in business and do it more cheaply than a US grad.  The expectation is that US students/grads will go overseas to school and work if they want a degree and job.

OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY?  REALLY?

Talk Turns to Agents
September 20, 2013 By Elizabeth Redden


TORONTO – Two years ago, a proposed change to National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) policy on the use of commissioned agents in international student recruitment was a subject of intense debate. A session on this subject at NACAC’s annual conference on Thursday was, however, notable largely for the lack of drama.

There were references to bad practices and predatory behaviors, but for the most part the discussion centered around questions of a technical nature – questions regarding clarification on language and the like – and of first steps for institutions that choose to engage commissioned agents internationally if and when NACAC lifts its long-standing ban on the practice. 

The NACAC Assembly will vote on Saturday as to whether to do just that, in the culmination of what’s been a more than two-year-long process. In 2011, NACAC proposed a revision to its Statement of Principles of Good Practice clarifying that the association’s ban on incentive-based recruitment, which U.S. law bars in the case of domestic students, applies in overseas contexts as well. After being flooded with comments, however – more than 300 of them – NACAC formed a Commission on International Student Recruitment, which this past summer issued a report recommending that the association allow, but discourage, the use of commissioned agents in international recruitment, and that it hold universities that do choose to use agents to high standards around issues of accountability, integrity, and transparency. At the same time the commission recommended continuing NACAC's mandatory ban on the use of incentive-based compensation in domestic student recruitment.  OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY?  REALLY?

It's hard to say with certainty what the muted atmosphere surrounding Thursday's discussion of the commission's recommendations foretells for Saturday's vote, but Inside Higher Ed's own surveys, conducted this year by Gallup, have documented a shift in attitudes toward this topic. In 2011, the majority of admissions directors (65 percent) backed NACAC's then-draft policy banning the use of commissioned agents in international recruiting, while this year the majority (58 percent) support the new draft policy permitting the practice. No doubt helping to bring about the change in views is the fact that a growing number of U.S. universities -- NACAC members -- are now openly using agents: the proposed policy is thus in some ways catching up with the practice.

Fifteen of the 28 members of the commission were on hand to discuss the recommendations and answer questions on Thursday. Throughout the session they straddled the line they drew in the report, reiterating that it is possible to responsibly and ethically work with commissioned agents, while warning of the dangers involved in doing so. Although members of the commission did not reach consensus on whether per-capita compensation of agents is to blame for abuses such as misrepresentations by agents to students and institutions, the majority of members believed that the practice "tends to compound the likelihood of such problems occurring."

"There's no question that the issue of protecting students was foremost in everyone's mind," said Mark Sklarow, chief executive officer of the Independent Educational Consultants Association.  "The important task for us was [determining] is there something inherent to incentivized compensation that makes it impossible? I think if you look at the recommendations, #2 says that it's not best practice to do this. You've got to give serious thought to doing it, because there are difficulties and you've got to approach it the right way. And I hope people take that item #2 very seriously. You should not enter into this until you're sure that you're protecting the best interests of students. That's gotta be first."

"I just want to make sure we know where we've been and where we're going," said Jim Miller, a former NACAC president and retired admissions director at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. During the commission's deliberations, he said, members learned that "there were folks dealing with agents well and that there were real problems with some agent behavior and relationships that led us to go from a complete ban, which had been the case, to saying, 'OK, there are some ways you can do this, it's fraught with challenges, but if you do it with transparency and accountability, we are comfortable that it's an allowable practice.' So we've moved from no one can, to you can if you do it responsibly."

"If this passes the Assembly on Saturday we will go from a ban to an allowance with those provisions, and then we can work out the details," Miller continued. "If we don't get it through the Assembly on Saturday, then we've got the ban."


Among the details that came up during the session was how the language of "domestic" and "international" students included in the commission's recommendations applies to NACAC member institutions based outside the U.S.  Members of the commission acknowledged that they did not address this issue specifically in their report, but said that the association's newly formed International Advisory Committee will be continuing to tackle questions such as these in the year ahead. 

"This is the first step of many," said Douglas L. Christiansen, the vice provost for enrollment and dean of admissions at Vanderbilt University.



____________________________________________
Below you see that a majority of people are shouting out against this education reform....from all walks of life.  Do not allow states like Maryland that have captured media not letting its citizens know that most do not support this reform keep you from shouting out and holding politicians accountable.

NEO-LIBERALS ARE VOTING FOR THESE BAD EDUCATION POLICIES.  REMEMBER, WE DO NOT NEED TO DO IT FOR THE FUNDING.....WE HAVE MASSIVE CORPORATE FRAUD YET RECOVERED THAT WILL FUND ALL!

This goes for K-college!

June 18, 2013 Special Edition TOP STORY Thousands Sign New Education Declaration Calling For New School Policies

Jeff Bryant Sign the Education Declaration


A Declaration With Broad Support

Released last week by the Education Opportunity Network, in conjunction with the Opportunity to Learn Campaign and the Institute for America’s Future, the Declaration received widespread attention from national and local outlets.

Reporting from her blog at The Washington Post, Valerie Strauss wrote, “The document offers a progressive approach to school reform that includes ensuring that teachers are properly trained and respected, that opportunities to learn for all students are paramount and that  learning must be ‘engaging and relevant.’”

The Chicago grassroots parent activist group PURE said the Declaration “demonstrates that the message of true education progressives is becoming clearer and more unified.”

At the progressive blog site Daily Kos, long-time classroom teacher Kenneth Bernstein wrote, “Increasingly people are coming together to oppose what has been the thrust of educational policy, and to try to reclaim and reinvigorate public education.” Bernstein called the Declaration “an important step in that direction.”

From the website of the Tucson Citizen, local blogger called the Declaration “an answer to the conservative ‘education reform’ movement,” and the document “signals the growing strength of progressive educators at a time when the public is growing skeptical of the endless high-stakes testing.”

At The Huffington Post, Richard Eskow said the Declaration was an answer to “the Wall Street crowd” that “wants us to think of education in terms of means – which usually means finding ways to spend less – rather than ends.  But when it comes to education, the ‘ends’ are our children.”

Eskow, who is affiliated with one of the sponsors of the Declaration, noted, “A lot of well-intentioned people get taken in by cynical agendas like this, especially when the other side isn’t being heard. That’s where the “Declaration” comes in. It says that ‘Education is a public good.’ A public good is something that is, or should be, available to all without exception, like clean air, drinkable water, and the national defense.”

Eskow’s words resonated throughout the progressive blogosphere as his post was quickly picked up by the websites Nation of Change and Truthout.

Despite the waning of the school year, the Declaration comes at an opportune time.

America’s Education Spring Rolls On

As The Nation’s John Nichols recently said on MSNBC, what is transpiring in the nation’s public schools “is a mess.”

Huge rallies protesting governance of public schools have taken place in the state capitals of New York and North Carolina.

In Michigan, supporters of public education will rally on June 19 to “reject the corporate, profit-motivated takeover of public schools, massive school closures, and meaningless high-stakes testing.”

In Pennsylvania, a rally is in the works at that state’s capital to protest massive education cuts, including a “Doomsday Budget” in Philadelphia that prompted layoffs of nearly 4,000 school staff.

The fight for public education is flaring in rural areas as well – at least in Tennessee, where families and students are fighting school cuts and consolidations.

And in Texas, a parent-led movement against out-of-control standardized testing came to a head last week when governor Rick Perry signed a bill reducing the amount of testing.

These protests against education mandates are not going away. At the website for The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, there is a running timeline with the latest news on the movement, and new links are added every week.

A Positive Way Forward

The Education Declaration to Rebuild America comes at a time when lawmakers in Washington, D.C. continue to fret over education legislation – the rewriting of No Child Left Behind – that will likely go nowhere and please no one.

Writing at The National Journal, Kevin Welner – the director of the National Education Policy Center and a signatory of the Declaration, wrote, “Perhaps our senators haven’t yet noticed, but their constituents don’t much care for No Child Left Behind. Perhaps they haven’t noticed all the protests against excessive testing and school closings.”

Noting that the Declaration he signed had “in just one day … garnered more than 10,000 signatures,” Welner concluded, “Let’s hope that during the summer recess [the senators] have a chance to speak with parents, students and teachers – people who will ask the fundamental question: Why continue failed policies?”

There is a more positive way forward. Sign the Education Declaration to Rebuild America and help advance that.


Sign the Declaration Yes, I’m committed to providing our children the education they deserve.
I’m signing the Education Declaration to Rebuild America.


For too long, our policymakers have engaged the nation’s schoolchildren in a grand experiment, with frequent testing, incentive programs and top-down mandates that promised much but delivered little.

Today, leading academics, policymakers and educators have come together to demand an education spring embodied in An Education Declaration to Rebuild America.

This declaration (below) represents a strong critique of our nation’s current course on education – and an outline of a positive new direction focused on opportunities and supports for students. Add your name and forward this to friends so that we can grow this movement for real education reform based on what America needs and our children deserve.

Click here to add your name


PLEASE REVIEW THIS LIST OF GOOD OBJECTIVES AND THINK TO YOURSELF.....IS THE EDUCATION PROGRAM IN MY SCHOOL MEETING THE OBJECTIVES BELOW?


An Education Declaration to Rebuild America

Americans have long looked to our public schools to provide opportunities for individual advancement, promote social mobility and share democratic values. We have built great universities, helped bring children out of factories and into classrooms, held open the college door for returning veterans, fought racial segregation and struggled to support and empower students with special needs. We believe good schools are essential to democracy and prosperity — and that it is our collective responsibility to educate all children, not just a fortunate few.

Over the past three decades, however, we have witnessed a betrayal of those ideals. Following the 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, policymakers on all sides have pursued an education agenda that imposes top-down standards and punitive high-stakes testing while ignoring the supports students need to thrive and achieve. This approach – along with years of drastic financial cutbacks — are turning public schools into uncreative, joyless institutions. Educators are being stripped of their dignity and autonomy, leading many to leave the profession. Neighborhood schools are being closed for arbitrary reasons. Parent and community voices are being shut out of the debate. And children, most importantly, are being systemically deprived of opportunities to learn.

As a nation we have failed to rectify glaring inequities in access to educational opportunities and resources. By focusing solely on the achievement gap, we have neglected the opportunity gap that creates it, and have allowed the resegregation of our schools and communities by class and race. The inevitable result, highlighted in the Federal Equity and Excellence Commission’s recent report, For Each and Every Child, is an inequitable system that hits disadvantaged students, families, and communities the hardest.

A new approach is needed to improve our nation's economic trajectory, strengthen our democracy, and avoid an even more stratified and segregated society. To rebuild America, we need a vision for 21st-century education based on seven principles:

  • All students have a right to learn. Opportunities to learn should not depend on zip code or a parent's abilities to work the system. Our education system must address the needs of all children, regardless of how badly they are damaged by poverty and neglect in their early years. We must invest in research-proven interventions and supports that start before kindergarten and support every child's aspirations for college or career.

  • Public education is a public good. Public education should never be undermined by private control, deregulation and profiteering. Keeping our schools public is the only way we can ensure that each and every student receives a quality education. School systems must function as democratic institutions responsive to students, teachers, parents and communities.

  • Investments in education must be equitable and sufficient. Funding is necessary for all the things associated with an excellent education: safe buildings, quality teachers, reasonable class sizes, and early learning opportunities. Yet, as we've “raised the bar” for achievement, we've cut the resources children and schools need to reach it. We must reverse this trend and spend more money on education and distribute those funds more equitably.

  • Learning must be engaging and relevant. Learning should be a dynamic experience through connections to real world problems and to students' own life experiences and cultural backgrounds. High-stakes testing narrows the curriculum and hinders creativity.

  • Teachers are professionals. The working conditions of teachers are the learning conditions of students. When we judge teachers solely on a barrage of high-stakes standardized tests, we limit their ability to reach and connect with their students. We must elevate educators’ autonomy and support their efforts to reach every student.

  • Discipline policies should keep students in schools. Students need to be in school in order to learn. We must cease ineffective and discriminatory discipline practices that push children down the school-to-prison pipeline. Schools must use fair discipline policies that keep classrooms safe and all students learning.

  • National responsibility should complement local control. Education is largely the domain of states and school districts, but in far too many states there are gross inequities in how funding is distributed to schools that serve low-income and minority students. In these cases, the federal government has a responsibility to ensure there is equitable funding and enforce the civil right to a quality education for all students.


Principles are only as good as the policies that put them into action. The current policy agenda dominated by standards-based, test-driven reform is clearly insufficient. What's needed is a supports-based reform agenda that provides every student with the opportunities and resources needed to achieve high standards and succeed, focused on these seven areas:

  1. Early Education and Grade Level Reading: Guaranteed access to high quality early education for all, including full-day kindergarten and universal access to pre-K services, to help ensure students can read at grade level.

  2. Equitable Funding and Resources: Fair and sufficient school funding freed from over-reliance on locally targeted property taxes, so those who face the toughest hurdles receive the greatest resources. Investments are also needed in out-of-school factors affecting students, such as supports for nutrition and health services, public libraries, after school and summer programs, and adult remedial education — along with better data systems and technology.

  3. Student-Centered Supports: Personalized plans or approaches that provide students with the academic, social, and health supports they need for expanded and deeper learning time.

  4. Teaching Quality: Recruitment, training, and retention of well-prepared, well-resourced, and effective educators and school leaders, who can provide extended learning time and deeper learning approaches, and are empowered to collaborate with and learn from their colleagues.

  5. Better Assessments: High-quality diagnostic assessments that go beyond test-driven mandates and help teachers strengthen the classroom experience for each student.

  6. Effective Discipline: An end to ineffective and discriminatory discipline practices, including inappropriate out-of-school suspensions, replaced with policies and supports that keep all students in quality educational settings.

  7. Meaningful Engagement: Parent and community engagement in determining the policies of schools and the delivery of education services to students.


As a nation, we're failing to provide the basics our children need for an opportunity to learn. Instead, we have substituted a punitive high-stakes testing regime that seeks to force progress on the cheap. But there is no shortcut to success. We must change course before we further undermine schools and drive away the teachers our children need.

All who envision a more just, progressive and fair society cannot ignore the battle for our nation’s educational future. Principals fighting for better schools, teachers fighting for better classrooms, students fighting for greater opportunities, parents fighting for a future worthy of their child’s promise: their fight is our fight. We must all join in.





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September 25th, 2013

9/25/2013

0 Comments

 
STOP ALLOWING ALL OF YOUR PUBLIC ASSETS BE STOLEN BY NEO-LIBERALS WORKING WITH CORPORATE INTERESTS TO HAND ALL THAT IS PUBLIC OVER TO CORPORATE PROFITS!  FROM SCHOOLS TO PENSIONS; FROM WATER AND SEWER TO TRANSPORTATION....

ALL MARYLAND AND BALTIMORE POLS ARE NEO-LIBERALS, NOT DEMOCRATS!



Below you see the financial industry just as strong and predatory as always.  Absolutely nothing has been done to reign them in and they have super-sized their wealth while tens of trillions of dollars in corporate fraud are left to be recovered.

Moody's and S & P are two stock rating agencies that were ground zero for the massive subprime mortgage fraud.  They and MERS allowed the hundreds of millions of subprime loans be laundered through Wall Street and delivered all over the world.  We were supposed to see change in how stocks are assessed because, as anyone would know.....the entity being assessed can easily pay off the assessor.  NOTHING HAPPENED AND NOW MOODY'S IS TELLING YOUR POLITICIAN THAT THE PUBLIC PENSIONS THAT LOST 1/2 THEIR VALUE BECAUSE OF FRAUD NOW NEED TO BE CUT AGAIN.

Remember, it was City and State Comptrollers who sent public pensions into the stock market out of the safety of bonds in 2007......just so they could be used to buoy big banks.  That is why so many are now attached to Citigroup and Bank of America....the two banks most involved in the subprime  mortgage fraud.  THIS WAS PUBLIC MALFEASANCE AND HAS YET TO HAVE UNIONS/PUBLIC JUSTICE TAKING THIS TO COURT TO RECOVER LOSSES.

Comptrollers sent these pensions and the rating agencies provided the fraudulent high ratings.  MOODY'S SHOULD HAVE ITS ASSETS SEIZED AND GIVEN TO PENSION FUNDS TO RECOVER THE 1/2 OF VALUE LOST.  If your politicians are not shouting for this justice.....they are neo-liberals and need to go!

THERE IS NO STATUTES OF LIMITATION WHEN A GOVERNMENT SUSPENDS RULE OF LAW.....WE HAVE TIME TO DO THIS!

The damages from massive financial fraud of tens of billions of dollars?  $22 trillion.  WALL STREET OWES AMERICANS LOTS OF TRILLIONS!

Five years ago today, Lehman Brothers went bankrupt.

Instantly and inevitably, the house of cards otherwise known as Wall Street collapsed.

But after getting bailed out by the American taxpayers, Wall Street is doing just fine.

The people of Main Street? Not so much.

Here are some numbers to think about this Sunday morning.
  • Amount the crash cost the U.S. economy: $22 trillion
  • How much everyone would get if that $22 trillion were divided equally among the U.S. populace: $69,478.88  JUST FOR DAMAGES
  • Assets of the four biggest banks in America — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wachovia/Wells Fargo — when they were “too big to fail” in 2008: $6.4 trillion
  • Assets of those four banks today: $7.8 trillion
  • Of the 63 former Lehman Brothers employees identified by a bankruptcy examiner as being aware of an accounting scheme Lehman used to mask its true finances, number who are employed in senior financial services positions today: 47
  • Number of the 25 banks responsible for the bulk of risky subprime loans leading up to the crash that are back in the mortgage business: 25
  • Chances that an American voter thinks that regulating financial products and services is “important” or “very important”: 9 in 10
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What?  Moody's does not recommend recovering massive fraud to bring pensions back to the black!  Rather, they are telling your pol to cut pensions more to make up for the losses from corporate fraud!


Moody's Proposes Making Pension Liabilities a Bigger Factor in Bond Ratings Posted

By Liz Farmer | September 19, 2013


States and localities with big pension liabilities could see changes to their overall bond rating if new rules proposed this summer by Moody’s Investor Service are adopted.

Moody’s is proposing giving more weight to pension liabilities and other long-term debts in its overall scorecards for rating general obligation (GO) bonds. The agency would increase the weight to 20 percent from 10 percent and decrease the weight for economic strength to 30 percent from 40 percent. Weights for governance and management (20 percent) and financial strength (30 percent) -- the other two factors in the way Moody’s scores its GO ratings -- would stay the same. The step by Moody’s is just the latest in what has become a marathon of changes by various organizations in recent years that aim to place a bigger emphasis on pensions’ effect on fiscal health.

Interested parties and stakeholders have until Oct. 14 to submit comments to Moody’s.


In its methodology paper, Moody’s noted that debt burden trends are an indicator of a population’s capacity to absorb additional obligations. In the event that a local government’s capital needs are great, this may foretell future financial distress. Thus, a bigger weight should be given to such burdens when considering an overall GO rating. Moody’s said in a release that it chose to reduce the weight on economic health because it recognizes that some local governments are either unwilling or unable to capitalize on the strength of their local economies (i.e., a city may not be able to raise taxes because of anti-tax sentiment).

But municipalities with a large unfunded liability may not necessarily see their rating automatically fall under the new rules, Moody’s said. “We recognize that funding levels naturally will rise and fall as retiree activity diverges from actuarial assumptions, as benefits change, or as investment returns fluctuate. In the case of an unfunded pension liability, Moody’s will examine the reason that it has arisen and the entity’s ability and willingness to address it over a reasonable period of time, which is broadly defined to encompass the working life of the beneficiaries so that liabilities are not passed onto a succeeding generation."

Want more finance news? Click here.

Only if such an analysis showed a pattern of underfunding annual pension contribution requirements, would a large unfunded liability “be viewed as a negative credit factor because it is a claim on resources that reduces financial flexibility,” Moody’s said.

Moody’s maintains GO ratings or issuer ratings for approximately 8,200 local governments: 2,960 cities, 864 counties and 3,362 school districts.

The methodology change, if kept intact, should bring more attention to dangerous unfunded liabilities earlier on in a municipality’s downward spiral and potentially help retirees, said Frank Shafroth, director of George Mason University’s Center for State and Local Government Leadership. He pointed to cities that have declared bankruptcy like Central Falls, R.I., where retirees had to give up half their pension income, and Detroit, where Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has said pension cuts will be part of the restricting plan, and said that retirees have far less leverage in bankruptcy than out of it. If cities have more consequences for bad pension finance local officials may be more inclined to right the ship while it’s still feasible.

“We all have a human responsibility to protect these people,” Shafroth said.
  HE SAID AFTER MASSIVE FRAUD TAKES 1/2 OF PENSION VALUES IN 2008!

The methodology proposal comes after a change Moody’s made earlier this year to the way it calculates pension liabilities. In April, Moody’s announced it would adjust pension debt using a long term bond index rate, a discount rate that would likely result in rates of return smaller than the 7 to 8 percent assumption over 30 years that most governments use in calculating their pension liabilities. The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) has also taken steps that have the effect of highlighting unfunded liabilities previously hidden in government financial reports. Beginning this year, net pension obligations must now be included as a liability on governments’ balance sheets. Governments should also use what GASB considers a more reasonable discount rate – one that more accurately reflects the current rate of return (generally between 3 and 6 percent for most funds) rather than the higher, historic rate of return.
________________________________________________
Remember, I have been telling you for two years there is an economic crash coming that will be bigger than 2008 and it will be the bond bubble? THAT IS WHY YOUR NEO-LIBERAL HAS USED CREDIT BONDS AND TIFs .......TO BREAK THE PUBLIC BUDGETS!

So, in Baltimore we have to go to court to stop a $1 billion school building fund that will cause massive harm to the public schools in the city and cost residents billions in higher interest rates than is being sold to the public now.  THIS IS PUBLIC MALFEASANCE I TOLD THE CITY SOLICITOR......

YES, HE SAID, IT IS!
What happens when this bond deal happens after a massive economic collapse?  The state/city defaults on its share of the funding.....the investors simply by a CDS for the bonds that will crash....and interest rates will climb from near 0 to 2-3%.  That represents billions of dollars in financing only.  Remember, it was O'Malley's claim to fame that he tied the city and state with billions of dollars through Wall Street financial instruments during the financial frauds of the 2000s....this is a new decade.

Stocks are about to plunge, Wells Fargo warns
By Alex Rosenberg | CNBC – Fri, Sep 20, 2013 7:24 AM EDT

Gina Martin Adams is sticking to her guns.

The Wells Fargo strategist has been bearish on stocks all year, even as she watched the S&P 500 (^GSPC) add 21 percent. And on Thursday's " Futures Now ," Adams reiterated her call that the index would close out the year at 1,440.

"Our target is based on fundamentals," Adams insisted. "We're basing our target on typical valuation measures, given the level of interest rates and also on earnings forecasts. And that's why our target is relatively low."

In fact, "low" is somewhat of an understatement. Adams' target implies that the market will drop 16 percent in little more than three months, erasing everything that stocks gained after the year's first day of trading. This makes her one of the lone bears on the Street.


So what could produce such a dismal fourth quarter for stocks? First of all, Adams is highly skeptical about the rally that the market has enjoyed thus far.

"It's all about emotion at this point. The entirety of the S&P 500's increase this year has come via the multiple," Adams said. "It's been simply through the amount that investors are willing to bid up the value of the future earnings stream."

Indeed, the S&P 500's price-earnings multiple has risen from 17 on Jan. 1 to nearly 20. That means the market has largely been rising due to investors' willingness to pay more for those earnings.

Adams goes on to argue that the recent rise in Treasury yields could put an end to this inclination.

"The multiple is one of the most valuable components" of the rally, and "typical drivers of the multiple are interest rates." So despite the fact that yields have cooled off recently, "simply the fact that we moved from 1.6 [percent] on the 10-year Treasury rate to now the 2.7 [percent] range is a potential tremendous shock over the next six months," Adams contended.

Adams believes that stocks haven't yet digested the rate rally. "Stocks tend to follow rates over time," she said. "Typically, when you get a 100 basis point [or 1 percent] move in Treasury rates, you get a contraction on the P/E multiple on stocks of about a full turn. That, by itself, implies you get something of a 10-percent-plus correction in stocks."

And while the Fed's decision that it wouldn't slow its rate of asset purchases has driven the market to yet another all-time high this week, Adams doesn't believe the surprising announcement will ultimately make a difference.

"Unless bonds can actually rally substantially with the so-called Fed bid, and the Fed is able to manipulate yields significantly lower, the damage has been done, and I think the cat is quite frankly out of the bag."

Couple the rise in rates with slow earnings growth, and Adams believes the market is in for a very tricky fall.

"We're going to have to face the music come October," she said.

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Below you see a package that any raging corporate politician would love.....what wonderful movement of public schools into private hands!   Aren't they clever!  It is true they have made an absolute mess of our schools.,...school choice and Teach for America does that.  BUT THESE AMBITIOUS POLS WANT TO HAND OUR SCHOOL BUILDINGS OVER TO WALL STREET BECAUSE THE GOAL IS TO MAKE EACH SCHOOL A PRIVATE BUSINESS!  What better way than to load the schools with tons of debt just as the economy is ready to crash!

HOW FULL OF MALFEASANCE AND FRAUD!


Remember, we can rebuild all schools in Baltimore and more by simply recovering billions in financial fraud still owed Baltimore by Wall Street.  These pols say....NO...WE PREFER TO HAND BILLIONS MORE OF DEBT AND INTEREST RATE PAYMENTS TO WALL STREET PROFITS!


Rebuilding schools, rebuilding BaltimoreThousands are choosing city life; if we build better schools, they will stay

February 04, 2013|By Tom Wilcox, Wes Moore and Tom Bozzuto

Over the last 10 years leaders from the private, public and nonprofit sectors have begun to transform Baltimore's approach to its future. Traditional public subsidies have given way to strategic investments and tough decisions, using market-based techniques to reform our schools, rebuild our population, and make our neighborhoods safe, clean, green and vibrant.

Now, the General Assembly must do its part to strengthen the city's future by passing legislation to reshape how the city makes improvements to its public school buildings. The city's plan is straightforward and achievable: act aggressively now to build or rebuild our school buildings and give every child in the city a welcoming school environment that will help engage them in learning.

It is a proposal that will help kids, create a stronger school system, bolster the city's prospects for growth and benefit the entire state.

Legislators must be reminded that Baltimore has already taken many hard steps to improve its educational system. A "choice" system gives middle and high school students the opportunity to "vote with their feet," with dollars following those students to the best-performing schools. A union contract sets a national standard for holding teachers and principals accountable for their students' performance. And focused initiatives have increased the high school graduation rate and the number of preschoolers who are "ready for school." And schools that fail to meet increasingly rigorous standards are being closed.

These steps and more show that our civic and private leaders are serious about creating great schools that will change the trajectory of inner-city youth while attracting the middle class families necessary to any city's success.

Now, the focus is on providing a physical environment in Baltimore schools comparable to that in schools across Maryland. The legislative proposal to revamp the school system's capital process would lead to major and accelerated improvements in our school buildings, benefiting kids, teachers, staff and families.

The school system has done its homework, commissioning a study that put a price tag on infrastructure needs in every school building in Baltimore, and it has developed a plan that would shutter buildings, cut or merge programs, and renovate or rebuild 136 buildings.

The city schools bond financing plan to rebuild its inadequate infrastructure may be the best opportunity that Baltimore has had in a generation to cement its revitalization. Under the plan, an independent entity would be created to borrow significant funding through a bond issue to jump-start much-needed capital improvements, and use state and local funding to repay the bonds. It's important to note that the plan requires no extra money from the state, just a commitment to stand by current annual commitments. The timing is perfect. Interest rates are low; construction costs are manageable.

This effort in the General Assembly must be viewed not simply as a bricks-and-mortar educational initiative. Rather, it is part of a comprehensive effort to push for major changes that can move Baltimore forward and restore the city's role as an economic engine for Maryland.

The signs of momentum are apparent, whether it's ongoing downtown development, the bustling rental market driven by young professionals' interest in city life, or the emerging high-tech economy fueled by robust educational, medical and federal institutions. Across the city, private sector initiatives such as Healthy Neighborhoods Inc. are reestablishing "middle neighborhoods" that have wonderful assets but need a boost to continue to strengthen.

The bottom line is that thousands are choosing city life. If we can improve the schools they will stay. These young people can, by themselves, fulfill Mayor Rawlings-Blake's modest goal of attracting or developing 10,000 new taxpaying citizens.

The nonprofit Teach For America already pledged to fulfill 10 percent of the mayor's goal by helping their teachers engage in neighborhood leadership opportunities as they develop lasting ties with our city.

Such commitments from the nonprofit sector must be met by similarly ambitious initiatives from the public sector that enhance city life and build a business-friendly environment.

We have pressing goals: reducing crime, building a better transportation infrastructure that supports employment opportunities, and fostering an energetic business environment. But perhaps overriding them all is the need for a strong school system that will attract new families and new employers.

There is more hard work ahead to capitalize on the educational progress already achieved, but we can take a major step forward right now by changing how we build our schools.

A quarter century ago, state leaders overcame a host of issues to finance and build not one but two stadiums, leading to the winning seasons we now celebrate. Surely we can come together now to give our youth and our city and state the future they deserve.

Tom Wilcox is President of the Baltimore Community Foundation. Wes Moore is a best-selling author and host on the OWN television network. Tom Bozzuto is Chairman and CEO of the Bozzuto Group. All are trustees of the Baltimore Community Foundation.






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September 24th, 2013

9/24/2013

0 Comments

 
Baltimore and Maryland teacher's unions should be front and center in organizing town halls on all these education policies.  Common Core and Race to the Top need to be included in these teacher's union public forums!


Do any Maryland residents know that this important process is happening regarding education? Who will be the one's that comment?



CODE OF MARYLAND REGULATIONS
TITLE 13A
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
OPPORTUNITY FOR PUBLIC COMMENT


In accordance with State Government Article, §§10-130—10-139, Annotated Code of Maryland, the Maryland State Department of Education is currently reviewing and evaluating the follow chapters of COMAR Title 13A:

Subtitle 01 STATE SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 13A.01.01 State Board of Education 13A.01.02 State Superintendent of Schools 13A.01.03 State Department of Education 13A.01.04 Public School Standards 13A.01.05 Appeals to the State Board of Education
Subtitle 02 LOCAL SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 13A.02.01 Local Boards of Education 13A.02.03 Local Administrative and Supervisory Staff 13A.02.04 Tobacco-Free School Environment 13A.02.05 Maintenance of Effort 13A.02.06 General Financial Aid to Local School Systems 13A.02.07 Annual Audits of Financial Statements and Federal Awards 13A.02.08 Recognition of Employee Organizations 13A.02.09 Closing of Schools
Subtitle 03 GENERAL INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAMS 13A.03.01 Standards for Kindergarten Programs 13A.03.02 Graduation Requirements for Public High Schools in Maryland 13A.03.04 Test Administration and Data-Reporting Policies and Procedures 13A.03.05 Administration of Home and Hospital Teaching for Students
Subtitle 04 SPECIFIC SUBJECTS 13A.04.01 Programs in Technology Education 13A.04.02 Secondary School Career and Technology Education 13A.04.03 Driver Education Programs 13A.04.04 Religious Education 13A.04.05 Education That is Multicultural 13A.04.08 Program in Social Studies 13A.04.09 Program in Science 13A.04.10 Program of Instruction in the World of Work Competencies 13A.04.12 Program in Mathematics 13A.04.13 Program in Physical Education 13A.04.14 Program in English Language Arts 13A.04.16 Programs in Fine Arts
13A.04.19
Program in Cosmetology 13A.04.20 Program for Barbers
Subtitle 05 SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAMS 13A.05.01 Provision of a Free Appropriate Public Education 13A.05.02 Administration of Services for Students with Disabilities 13A.05.03 Programs of Adult Education 13A.05.04 Programs for Library Media Services 13A.05.05 Programs of Pupil Services 13A.05.06 Programs for Migrant Education 13A.05.07 Programs for Non-English and Limited-English Proficient Students 13A.05.08 Approved Paid Work-Based Learning Programs 13A.05.09 Programs for Homeless Children 13A.05.10 Automated External Defibrillator Program in High Schools
Subtitle 06 SUPPORTING PROGRAMS 13A.06.01 Programs for Food and Nutrition 13A.06.02 Prekindergarten Programs 13A.06.05 School Supplies and Equipment 13A.06.06 Safety Equipment 13A.06.07 Student Transportation
Pursuant to the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) Work Plan submitted to and approved by the Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive, and Legislative Review, MSDE will evaluate the need to retain, amend, or repeal any provisions of these regulations based on whether they:
• Continue to be necessary for the public interest?
• Continue to be supported by statutory authority and judicial opinion?
• Are obsolete or other appropriate for amendment or repeal?
• Are effective in accomplishing their intended purpose?

The Maryland State Department of Education would like to provide interested parties with an opportunity to participate in the review and evaluation process by submitting comments on these regulations. The comments may address any concerns about the regulations. If the comments include suggested changes to the regulations, please be as specific as possible and provide language for the suggested changes.

Comments should be directed to Anthony L. South, Executive Director, Office of the State Board of Education, 200 West Baltimore Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201-2595, by fax to 410-333-6033, or by e-mail to StateBoard@msde.state.md.us. Comments must be received by January 31, 2014.


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The only way this made national news was that a private individual at the meeting used her own video camera to film this incident and then released it to national press.  All of the local media present would have and some still are silent and would never have released this much information.

WE MUST DEMAND FREE MEDIA AND OPEN PUBLIC FORUMS IN ORDER TO RETURN TO A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY!




Robert Small, Maryland Parent, Arrested At School Meeting After Questioning Common Core (VIDEO)

The Huffington Post  |  By Hunter Stuart Posted: 09/23/2013 2:39 pm EDT  |  Updated: 09/23/2013 3:09 pm EDT

A Maryland parent was thrown out of a school meeting and arrested after questioning a new state-led education standards initiative. He has been charged with assaulting a police officer and disrupting a school function and could go to jail for 10 years if convicted. Amateur video of the incident has gone viral online over the past few days.

"I want to know how many parents here are aware that the goal of Common Core standards isn't to prepare our children for full-fledged universities, it's to prepare them for community college," 46-year-old parent Robert Small shouted Thursday night during a school meeting between parents, teachers and administrators that was held by the Maryland State Department of Education in Towson, a suburb of Baltimore.

His interjection was greeted with applause.

Small, who has two kids in the area's public schools, went on to briefly explain his opposition to the Common Core, an education initiative incentivized by the federal government and designed to "establish a single set of clear educational standards for kindergarten through 12th grade [students]," according to the initiative's official website.

An off-duty Baltimore police officer moonlighting as a security guard arrived to escort Small from the meeting. When Small didn't immediately follow the officer, the officer yanked him forcefully toward the aisle, prompting gasps from the audience.

"Parents, take control," Small says as he is led out of the room. As the officer pulls out handcuffs, Small can be heard saying, "I'm not an activist, I'm a parent. I have a right to speak."

The meeting, which was held in order to explain the Common Core to parents, according to The Baltimore Sun, was conducted in a format where school administrators selected pre-submitted questions from parents.

Small is charged with two misdemeanors: assaulting an officer and disrupting a school function, Baltimore County Police told The Huffington Post over the phone Monday.

Although Small does not appear to be touching the officer in the video, the police report says he "continued to yell and pushed the officer" once the pair was out of view of the camera, Baltimore police spokesperson Elise Armacost told HuffPost. "That is the basis for the assault charge."

Small faces up to 10 years in jail for the assault charge alone.

When contacted by The Huffington Post, the Maryland State Department of Education declined to comment, saying the incident fell under the local police department's jurisdiction. The Baltimore County Department of Education did not respond to our request for comment.

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Cortly Witherspoon and Sharon Black arrested at City Hall Activists sought meeting with Rawlings-Blake about police brutality
Brew Editors August 6, 2012 at 10:49 pm

Rev. Cortly “C.D.” Witherspoon, outside Central Booking, after arrest at Baltimore City Hall.

Baltimore police arrested two longtime political activists today and charged them with trespassing after they tried unsuccessfully to deliver a letter – about the closing of recreation centers and fire stations and alleged police abuses – to Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

Rev. Cortly “C.D.” Witherspoon, president of the local chapter of the Southern Leadership Conference, and Sharon Black, an organizer with the Baltimore All Peoples Congress, had been leading an afternoon rally of about 75 people outside City Hall.

According to Baltimore photographer and videographer William Hughes, the two were arrested after they refused to leave City Hall:

“I was there for the whole rally, which began at 3 PM at the Shot Tower. Then, they marched to City Hall, past Police H/Q. I saw Sharon and CD, inside the City Hall. They were trying to get permission to go up the Mayor’s Office. They were allowed up to the office and met with a rep. I was back outside by then.”

Activist Sharon Black being escorted to Central Booking today after being arrested at City Hall for trespassing. (Photo by William Hughes)

The mayor declined to meet with them and they insisted, according to their phone messages to the crowd outside, on a personal meeting. When they refused to leave, they were arrested.

Organizers have been talking in recent weeks about the letter they planned to send to Rawlings-Blake demanding “an emergency meeting” to talk about police-involved shootings in Baltimore, among other issues.

Among the cases of alleged misconduct they cited today was that of David Yim, a disabled man shot by police in April, and Thomas Threatt, whose beating during an east Baltimore jobs protest was captured on video.

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Maryland totally ignores Public meeting laws and as we see above want to eliminate even public comment at public forums.

Look at the law that gives a few hundred dollars in fine and public shaming.  These neo-liberals laugh at being outed at City Hall for illegal behavior so this is nothing.  Do you know that in Baltimore if you are late in paying 3 parking tickets the police will tow your car and fees will add up to hundreds of dollars?  Fines of over a thousand for standing up to shout out at a public meeting?

THIS IS BREAKING THE LAW......


Bill would toughen Maryland Open Meetings law enforcementMeasure would require fines, public shaming for improper meetings


April 13, 2013|By Erin Cox, The Baltimore Sun

New laws passed by the Maryland General Assembly late last week would put stricter penalties and an element of public shaming behind the state's open-meetings laws.

State lawmakers said public officials have been able to flout the rules without significant consequences.

"It has no enforcement whatsoever," said Del. Dan Morhaim, a Baltimore County Democrat who sponsored the bill to toughen open-meetings laws. "This is the first bill that actually creates some enforcement."

Maryland's public officials are barred from conducting public business behind closed doors, but the penalties for doing so in the past have been a rarely levied fine and a written notice that Morhaim said was often ignored.

The bill came out of a series of hearings this summer, during which a committee of state lawmakers found that sometimes officials take a written advisory about violations from the Open Meetings Compliance Board and "just throw it away."

Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for Gov. Martin O'Malley, said he is reviewing the bill.


The measure would increase fines for breaking the open-meetings law from $100 to $250. It would also require a public body to announce at its next meeting that the compliance board found it had broken the law. Each member of the group that violated the law would have to sign a statement acknowledging the misconduct.

Morhaim said he drafted the legislation before two Maryland institutions were separately accused last year of holding illegal meetings.

In one incident, the University System of Maryland's board signed off on the University of Maryland, College Park's move to the Big Ten Conference. In another, the Morgan State University Board of Regents voted to terminate the school president's contract — a decision it later reversed.

A Morgan spokesman has said school officials do not believe the vote violated the law. University System of Maryland officials acknowledged the breach but said that the group was "confused" and "overlooked" the law.

Those cases "drew a lot of attention to the fact that there are no teeth to our open-meetings laws," said Common Cause Maryland's executive director, Jennifer Bevan-Dangel.

Another bill passed by the legislature would require public officials to be trained on how to follow the open-meetings law.

That measure, introduced by Republican Del. Anthony O'Donnell, was praised by Common Cause and other watchdog groups.

"If citizens can't see the decisions that are made, they can't hold their elected officials accountable," Bevan-Dangel said. "And then voters can't make educated decisions at the polls if they don't know what their elected officials are doing."



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September 23rd, 2013

9/23/2013

0 Comments

 
SOCIAL DEMOCRATS LIKE MCGOVERN AND MARYLAND'S SHRIVER BELIEVED CORPORATIONS NEEDED TO BE GOOD CITIZENS WITH TAXATION AND REGULATION.  NEO-LIBERALS BELIEVE ALL REGULATIONS NEED TO GO AND ALL POLICY SHOULD MAXIMIZE CORPORATE PROFIT.


DON'T BE FOOLED BY NEO-LIBERALS CLAIMING TO BE LABOR AND JUSTICE!



Regarding the German elections and how that is relevant to US:

I stated before that DeutscheBank and Wall Street were the ones setting the stage for the 2008 crash with the fraudulent instruments that allowed PIGS finance ministers to hide sovereign debt and then load more and more and more debt to implode their economies using all that cash to fund tons of development by corporations owed by investment firms......just as in the US. The same is happening now with O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake with the tons of credit bonds and TIFs that mortgage government up to the ears just as the next economic crash is coming!

First I would let to point out that Marketplace how Marketplace not only mis-informs but deliberately manipulates the news to the public's detriment.....on the public's dime.

This is from a New York Times article on the German election.....

'The distinctions in their positions fall squarely into the two social groupings from which they spring: the Christian middle class in the case of the Christian Democrats, and the working class and trade unions for the Social Democrats'.

Marketplace correctly told us that business was voted out of government at all levels in these elections giving Social Democrats a strong position in forming the government.  What is called Social Democrats in Germany -----CENTER LEFT.  Center left is neo-liberals who are rampant corporate and profit pols....they are not Social Democrats and Marketplace made that mistake on purpose because of how US media portrays neo-liberals as center-left.  Confusing Americans as to Social Democrats and center-left neo-liberals is very important to this captured US political scene.  SOCIAL DEMOCRATS ARE LABOR AND JUSTICE FOLKS....80% OF THE US DEMOCRATIC PARTY.  We need the same election results here in America.  The difference....we have no public media giving real news so we must look for the information elsewhere as we fix our public news outlets!

SOCIAL DEMOCRATS ARE WINNING ALL OVER EUROPE!  WHAT THEY NEED TO DO FIRST-----RECOVER TENS OF TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CORPORATE FRAUD TO GOVERNMENT COFFERS!  Germany is ground zero for the fraud so they need to stop German government from using German taxpayers to pay PIGS debt and force banks to write-off debt!  TAXPAYERS SHOULD NOT BE PAYING GOVERNMENT DEBT CREATED BY MASSIVE CORPORATE FRAUD!


People must see by now that blowing up the US economy on mortgage fraud was a deliberate attempt not only to move money to the top but to give excuses to dismantle public programs and services. Neo-liberals from Clinton to now Obama are working with republicans for wealth and profit!


Destroying Social America
By Stephen Lendman on September 21, 2013 3:34 pm

  It’s on the chopping block for elimination. Initiatives began decades ago. Republicans, Democrats and Obama are in lockstep. They’re waging war on vital safety net protections.

In 1996, Clinton’s Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) became law. Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) ended.

Time limit harshness replaced it. Five years and out became policy. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) mandates it. States get diminishing amounts of federal funding.

Fixed block grants provide it. They’re pemitted to administer policy freely. They take full advantage during harder than ever hard times.

Join the Project Censored Newsletter Here! To qualify, recipients must work or train for jobs. Single mothers with small children are cheated. Millions are left on their own high and dry.

America is unprincipled. It’s shameless. It’s ruthless. Policy reflects neoliberal harshness. It’s hard right, soulless and uncaring.

It’s pro-war and pro-corporate. It’s anti-populist, anti-labor, anti-welfare, and anti-government of, by and for everyone equitably and fairly.

It supports the worst of imperial ruthlessness. Wealth, power, privilege and unchallenged global dominance alone matter. Let ‘em eat cake applies for all others.

Progressively things worsen. Policies reflect growing dystopian harshness. On September 19, The New York Times headlined “House Republicans Pass Deep Cuts in Food Stamps.”

Billions of dollars in vitally needed aid was slashed. Republicans voted to eliminate $40 billion over the next decade.

Become a Project Censored Supporting Member Today a Receive a Free Top 25 Censored Stories Book! Join Here. One provision requires adults between 18 and 50 without minor children to find work or be enrolled in job training. Otherwise benefits are denied.

A time limit is imposed. Three months and out was enacted. States can now extend benefits for recipients able to work or preparing to do so through training.

According to House Speaker John Boehner:

“This bill makes getting Americans back to work a priority again for our nation’s welfare programs.”

How he didn’t explain. America’s enduring a jobs crisis. It’s been ongoing for years. It shows no signs of ending.

Able-bodied workers can’t find employment. Most doing so don’t earn enough to live on. Both parties oppose enacting a living wage.

Republicans mandate work or train to do so or starve. Democrats and Obama are in lockstep. They differ only on timing. Rogue states operate this way.

The House measure also mandates testing recipients. It’s to assure they’re drug-free. It prohibits lottery winners from receiving benefits.

It’s the latest initiative targeting social America. Previous ones Obama approved included cutting:

• Medicare and Medicaid benefits;

• Pell Grants for college tuitions;

• federal wages;

• the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) to help impoverished families have heat in winter;

• the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP);

• community healthcare centers;

• nonprofit health insurance cooperatives;

• HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and other disease prevention programs;

• WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) grants to states for supplemental foods, healthcare, and nutrition education for low-income families;

• Head Start for comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income families with children;

• earlier Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (food stamp) Program (SNAP) aid for poor households;

• community development block grants for housing;

• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) first-responder funding;

• energy efficiency and renewable energy programs;

• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) clean/safe water and other projects;

• National Institutes of Health (NIH) medical research;

• the National Park Service;

• vital infrastructure and transportation needs; and

• other non-defense discretionary spending.

Further cuts Obama endorses benefit Wall Street, other corporate favorites, war profiteers, and other special interests. They do so at the expense of ordinary people losing out.

Increasingly they’re on their own sink or swim. Obama calls it “shared sacrifice.” Ordinary people sacrifice to let business and super-rich elites share.

Social America is on the chopping block for elimination. Austerity harshness assures it. Bipartisan complicity endorses it.

The latest measure targets food stamps. It’s a core safety net protection. Enacting the House measure means denying four million recipients vital aid they need straightaway. Millions more will be affected in out years.

Democrats and Republicans haggle over details and timing. In June, Senate Democrats cut $4 billion in food stamp aid over the next decade.

Doing so comes during protracted Main Street Depression conditions. Nearly 50 million Americans require SNAP aid to eat.

Democrats know cutting $4 billion is only for starters. Republicans want $40 billion. Compromise suggests they’ll settle for $20 billion. Perhaps more if Republican hardliners prevail. Either way, millions of needy recipients lose out.

Many more will ahead. Plans are to entirely shred America’s social safety net. Major Medicaid cuts are coming. They’re on top of previous ones.

Medicare and Social Security are targeted for elimination. It’s planned by handing over both programs to Wall Street profiteers.

Depriving needy recipients of healthcare, retirement income and food reflects how low America has sunk. Class war is official policy. Gaming the system for profits matters most.

The American dream is more illusion than reality. The criminal class in Washington is bipartisan. Rogues and crooks run things.

Gangsterism is official policy. Making the world safe for capital reflects it.

War on humanity is waged for dominance and profit. Ordinary people lose out everywhere. What can’t go on forever, won’t. According to a 19th century proverb:

“Only when the last tree has died and the last river poisoned and the last fish caught will we realize we cannot eat money.”

US policy reflects heart of darkness viciousness. Personal freedoms and general welfare are targeted for elimination.

Obama, Republicans and most Democrats endorse the worst policies planned. Disagreement’s only over timing.

Duplicitous scaremongering claims America’s going broke. Obama wants “fiscal discipline” restored. He supports cutting vital SNAP aid.

He calls Medicare the “big problem.” Its cost is “unsustainable,” he claims.

“Let’s not kid ourselves and suggest that we can solve this problem by trimming a few earmarks,” he said.

The “biggest cost drivers in our budget are entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, all of which get more and more expensive every year.”

“If we want to get serious about fiscal discipline – and I do – we will have to get serious about entitlement reform.”

Medicare and Social Security aren’t entitlements. They’re insurance programs. They’re funded by worker/employer payroll tax deductions. They’re contractual federal obligations to eligible recipients who qualify.

Obama repeats what he does best. He lies. He’s a serial liar. He’s a moral coward. He supports wealth and power.

He’s beholden to powerful monied interests. They own him. He spurns popular needs. He prioritizes letting them go begging on his watch.

He proposed massive Medicare cuts. In 2010, 2011, and last November he urged more. He’s waging class war on Americans.

He wants fundamental social benefits destroyed. He wants ordinary people hung out to dry. He wants them on own sink or swim.

His “fiscal discipline” mumbo jumbo is imposing it on the backs of ordinary people least able to survive on what he endorses.

At the same time, he handed trillions of dollars to Wall Street crooks and other corporate favorites. He spent trillions more waging war on humanity.

He’s turning America into a dystopian backwater. Poverty, unemployment, underemployment, hunger, homelessness and overwhelming human misery are at Depression levels.

Wealth is more than ever disproportionately concentrated. America’s 1% overwhelmingly controls it.

What do you call a nation spurning its most disadvantaged? A failed state reflects today’s America. It’s no democracy. It’s not beautiful.

It’s not the best of all possible worlds. It’s not what PR wizards want people to believe. It’s rogue state viciousness writ large.

Truman once said “(t)he buck stops here!” Obama bears full responsibility for the worst of policies he endorses.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.


_____________________________________________

This development that is happening in US cities is just the explosion of municipal debt that took down the public sector in Europe.  THEY ARE DOING IT ON PURPOSE AS WE HAVE $16 TRILLION IN DEBT AND ALL THE CUTS ARE COMING TO PUBLIC PROGRAMS.

Do not allow the media to confuse you with center-left with neo-liberals vs left with labor and justice.  The two are completely the opposite!




Friday, Sep 20, 2013 11:23 AM EST

Privatization fetishists resist reform, costing cities millions Proposed reform could add transparency and public input to such deals, but some like Rahm Emanuel aren’t interested

By Micah Uetricht
Local governments around the country are facing budgets deep in the red. And for some, the solution is to privatize city assets and services. But few large cities have pursued this agenda as aggressively as Chicago, where everything from tollways and parking meters, mental health care and public education, and even infrastructure funding itself has been turned over from public ownership into the hands of private corporations.

Now a proposed law in Chicago, backed by a coalition of community groups and unions, could slow the selling off of everything city-owned not already nailed to the floor. The Privatization Transparency and Accountability Ordinance (PTAO) is designed to help prevent abuses of privatization, and avoid the kinds of deals negotiated in the past that were intended to help close budget deficits but turned out to be massive boons for corporations and Wall Street while losing long-term revenue for the city.

The bill could serve as an example for cities around the country, and put a check on free market-minded politicians like Mayor Rahm Emanuel attempting to sell off as many public goods as possible. But despite support of a strong majority of the city council, the bill has sat in a forlorn committee where it has not moved since it was first proposed nearly a year ago. Emanuel seems to want the bill to stay buried, away from public debate, so the city’s privatization deals can remain largely unscrutinized.

–

Introduced in November, 2012, and backed by a coalition of unions and community and good government organizations, the PTAO would require the city of Chicago to engage in a multistep process involving the public before it privatized any asset or service.

The city would be required to conduct an independent cost-benefit analysis study; demonstrate at least 10 percent cost savings and prove that the economic benefits of privatizing an asset or service would outweigh the benefits of keeping it public; hold at least one public hearing on the deal; deliver an annual report for each privatized deal on costs and the state of services; require at least 50 percent of subcontracted workers reside within Chicago; and attempt to work with workers’ unions rather than steamrolling them.

The bill has been praised nationally by government watchdog groups. Donald Cohen, executive director of the Washington, D.C., privatization resource center In the Public Interest, says, “Chicago plays a key role in setting national standards for cities,” and the bill’s provisions could be instituted elsewhere.”

advertisementHenry Bayer, executive director of AFSCME Council 31, one of Chicago’s major public employees unions and a key backer of the bill, says the measures are “common sense.”

“There’s no good argument that we shouldn’t have transparency,” Bayer says. “The city over the years has done a lot of privatization, and they’ve never been required to demonstrate that they were actually saving any money, nor that the service levels were being maintained or improved. They just do it based on this false notion that if the private sector is doing it, it’s automatically more efficient than the public sector.”

Bayer’s union has been hit hard by the city’s privatization deals, begun by Mayor Richard M. Daley and massively accelerated by Emanuel. In her critical book on Emanuel, “Mayor 1%,” a meticulous dossier of the mayor’s privatization deals and other achievements at the head of the rightmost flank of the Democratic Party, Chicago journalist Kari Lydersen notes that even in his election speech in 2011, “without saying the words ‘union’ or ‘labor,’ [Emanuel] alluded to the looming battles” with public sector unions around privatization and budget cuts that began almost immediately.

One of the first was over the outsourcing of 34 union jobs at the city’s water department. The deal saved the city a paltry $100,000 (out of a $8.3 billion budget). And the work was outsourced to a company based in Tokyo, meaning the economic benefits would be reaped by a corporation in Japan rather than working class Chicagoans.

City council member Roderick Sawyer says the move “woke us up, to what could go on if we just let these deals go on unchecked.” His district, a middle and working class African American neighborhood on the city’s South Side, was hit hard by the layoffs.

“We hardly knew about it because it happened so fast,” Sawyer says. “A lot of them were members of my community. I found out their jobs were going out of the country, and they were going to get paid a lot less.”

Around the country, neighborhoods like Sawyer’s have been hit hardest by privatization. Historically locked out of high-paying private sector jobs, public sector jobs form the backbone of America’s black middle class; the wave of privatizations and downsizings in the public sector since the 2008 recession has sharply eroded those long-tenuous gains.

Sitting in the city council chambers after the water department announcement, Sawyer remembers thinking, “‘Why are we letting these privatization deals go through and we don’t have any oversight whatsoever?’” Citing potential ripple effects like foreclosures, Sawyer says, “We think we’re saving a couple dollars here or there, but getting rid of these jobs decimates our communities.”

In consultation with AFSCME, other city unions, and good government and community groups, Sawyer introduced the PTAO in November 2012. Thirty of the council’s 50 aldermen cosponsored the bill.

But before it could even be debated, a procedural move by an ally of Emanuel shifted the bill to the Rules Committee, where, in the words of columnist Ben Joravsky, “good legislation goes to die”–especially when a mayor wants it to stay dead.

The bill has remained there since November. Absent a committee chairperson and a majority of council members willing to vote to move the bill from committee and buck the mayor, who has issued no public statements on the bill and likely wants to continue passing privatization deals with no oversight, the bill will remain undebated–and privatization deals will continue unchecked.

–

Privatization of government functions and publicly-owned goods has become central to governance for both political parties. The underlying idea is the private market can manage goods and services cheaper, more effectively, and better than the government ever could–an idea politicians have run with. One wealthy conservative Atlanta suburb decided to privatize everything it does upon incorporation in 2005, leaving only seven employees for a town of 94,000; in 2010, Maywood, Calif. fired all city employees and outsourced everything. Democratic politicians like Mayor Cory Booker in Newark, N.J., and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa have privatized services like park restoration and zoos — moves praised by the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page.

“It’s an ideological wave,” says Evan McKenzie, lawyer and professor of political science at the University of Illinois-Chicago and author of two books on privatization. “[Politicians] try to argue that privatization is about sheer dollars and sense, that it’s cost benefit analysis. That’s hogwash.”

Countless privatization schemes have turned out to be disasters. In 1999, the city of Atlanta entered into what was then the largest privatization deal in the country, selling off the city’s water systems. The city broke their contract four years in after poor service and city residents’ water repeatedly turned brown–and the savings were far lower than projected. The state of Wisconsin privatized much of its department of transportation, only to discover through a 2009 internal audit that $1 million was wasted on the project, and 60 percent of the subcontracted jobs could have been done at a cheaper cost by state workers. In 2006, Indiana privatized its public benefits system, contracting IBM to process services like food stamps; three years later, after admitting the move was a failure and that service suffered tremendously, Gov. Mitch Daniels canceled the contract, costing the state $52 million immediately and $12 million later in payments to IBM.

“The losses are sometimes mind-boggling,” McKenzie says. “Once these deals are made, judges enforce them deals–and government stands to lose.”

And privatization inevitably leads to lower wages for workers, as the decent-paying and good benefits public sector jobs are replaced by contractors whose cost-effectiveness is based on cutting workers’ wages.

“Most of the people who say we need middle class jobs then turn around and spend most of their time figuring out ways to drive people out of the middle class,” says Bayer.

Few major American cities have led as aggressive a campaign of privatization as Chicago — and few have proven to be as spectacular a disaster. The city’s $1.4 billion parking meter privatization deal, negotiated under the city’s previous mayor, Richard M. Daley, and overwhelmingly approved by the city council in 2008, is known throughout the country as a botched privatization deal par excellance, shafting taxpayers, average citizens, and the city’s very ability to govern itself.

A group of investors led by Morgan Stanley won the bid, gaining near-total control of the city’s parking meters for 75 years at a fire sale price–according to one city council member’s projection, the deal was worth something more like $4 billion. Immediately, parking prices doubled or even tripled, with some zones become the most expensive in the nation; not long after, contract provisions emerged that actually required the city to pay the company for lost revenue during street festivals or parades, and bills for tens of millions of dollars were delivered to the city from the parking company. The money from the investors’ payment to the city, meanwhile, has almost entirely been spent.

So a Wall Street firm snatched a major city service for a steal, public coffers were drained of perhaps billions over the next three-quarters of a century, the city actually began receiving bills from a deal that was supposed to plug a budget gap, and average Chicagoans’ parking rates skyrocketed.

The parking meter deal is universally loathed in Chicago — even by Emanuel, though his publicly-expressed distaste has not squared with his actions as mayor — but it is far from the only such deal in the city. Chicago has become a national leader in selling off public goods. Richard M. Daley also privatized the city’s Skyway toll road (the first time any existing toll road in the U.S. had been sold off to private interests), the city’s parking garages (also to companies owned in large part by Morgan Stanley), and over a dozen other city services and assets.

–

The shoddy, damaging deals that enriched corporations while hurting Chicago and other cities and states might have been avoided with the institution of rules similar to the PTAO. For his part, Emanuel recently rejected a bid to privatize one of Chicago’s two airports, Midway International, after he said the received bids were not a good enough deal for taxpayers. (The political fallout of the parking meter likely weighed heavily on his mind.)

McKenzie says the move was the right one, but not enough. A thorough, transparent bidding process needs to be institutionalized.

“It can’t just be a matter of, ‘trust me, I’m an honest mayor,’” McKenzie says. “I hope that’s true, but it’s not enough. There have to be extensive safeguards put in place.”

Those safeguards are still sitting tight in the city council’s rules committee, leaving a piece of legislation of national importance stuck in limbo. Two requests for comment from the rules committee chair, Ald. Michelle Harris, went unanswered. But Ald. Sawyer says he is “fairly confident” the bill will move soon. He recently co-authored an op-ed with two other aldermen arguing the PTAO “deserves a full hearing.”

Without it, the only thing in Chicago standing between layoffs, wage cuts, worsening service, and the auctioning off of most of the city seems to be Rahm Emanuel’s benevolence.

“Cities across the nation are looking closely to see what kind of protections are put in place” around the selling off of public goods, Cohen says. With the PTAO, “Chicago would become a leader of taxpayer protection rather than a worst case scenario to avoid.”

Micah Uetricht is an assistant editor at Jacobin and a contributing editor at In These Times, who has written for The Nation, Al Jazeera America, and elsewhere. He is the author of Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity (Verso/Jacobin Books, 2014).

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THIS IS WHERE THE MONEY COMES TO FUEL THIS CITY DEVELOPMENT.....YOUR RETIREMENTS/PENSIONS, HOMES, AND HEALTH CARE.....This is the dismantling of social democracy by neo-liberals.

Actually labor simply needs to elect politicians that reinstate Rule of Law to bring back tens of trillions of dollars in corporate fraud that has tanked retirement savings and pensions, taken homes, and health care.  If you look at the development in downtown Baltimore, you see those very corporations and banks that stole public money through massive corporate frauds last decade now using it to build those Enterprise Zones full of affluent apartments and corporate buildings. 

That is your retirement money!  It is the pols in City Hall, Maryland Assembly, teaming with Obama and Congress to make sure your money is used to pay down debt created by fraud while these Visigoths are building away with it!  We wouldn't have this situation if Rule of Law recovered corporate fraud.  So, it is your labor and justice organizations who should be shouting loudly and strongly against this suspended Rule of Law and running good labor and justice candidates to bring back the fraud and


THEN, BABY BOOMERS WOULD BE ABLE TO RETIRE IN THE COMFORT THEY WORKED FOR!




Golden years grow dimmer as workers labor longer More workers plan to delay retirement since end of recession


Before the recession, Madie Green's home daycare was normally full. As parents lost their jobs and pulled kids out, the 55-year-old District Heights woman spent through her savings to keep up on her mortgage and auto payments.

Her business still hasn't recovered to what it once was, and now she's so worried about whether she'll be able to retire that she is expanding into an after-school program for elementary and middle school students.

Retirement seems more distant than ever.

"It's no longer the golden years," Green said.

These days, the sentiment is more common.

Though stock prices are rising, unemployment is falling and the economy is growing, more workers are choosing to stay in the labor force longer. The trend reverses decades of steadily falling retirement ages. During the recession, delaying retirement was spurred by job losses, salary reductions, depressed home prices and depleted savings. Now, workers anticipate smaller returns on their investments. Health benefits for retirees also are eroding even as costs are rising. Meanwhile, people are living longer, healthier lives — all of which adds to a need to work and save longer.

The share of workers nationwide aged 45 to 60 who planned to delay retirement soared to 62 percent last year, the Conference Board reported, up from 42 percent in 2010. Even in states such as Maryland that were not among the hardest hit economically, the share of workers planning to delay retirement jumped to 61 percent in 2012 from 40 percent in 2010.

Separately, analysts at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research found that about 40 percent of older Americans have delayed their planned retirement since the end of the recession.

Since the recession ended, "a lot of people spent more than they earned and had to continue to deplete their savings, and that makes them less prepared for retirement," said Gad Levanon, director of macroeconomic research for the Conference Board. "People were unemployed for a while, or worked part-time or got significant pay cuts and were unable to cover their expenses. Savings shrunk and made them more willing to delay retirement."

The Conference Board found that workers 45 to 60 who've lost a job, had a salary cut or saw their home decline in value are more likely than others to plan to delay retirement. But even workers who were not significantly hurt by the recession are more likely than before to plan to work longer. That trend held true across all ethnic, gender and income lines.

CareerBuilder found 60 percent of workers aged 60 or older planned to look for another job after retiring from their current company — up from 57 percent last year. About three quarters of respondents planned to work another one to six years, and more than one in 10 of 680 workers surveyed said they probably never would be able to retire.

On average, those who delayed retirement are waiting about one and a half years longer than they originally planned to leave their jobs, said Brooke Helppie McFall, an economist with Michigan's Institute for Social Research.

Many workers have lost too much value in savings and other assets or were forced to draw down on those assets, McFall said. A typical household lost about 5 percent of its total wealth between the summers of 2008 and 2009. The biggest asset for most people is their home, and housing prices still have not recovered pre-recession levels.

The recession exerted particular influence on the retirement plans of men 55 to 64, U.S. Labor Department statistics show.

"Their retirement is less secure than they had thought," said labor economist Heidi Shierholz, either because of a decrease in assets or a loss of a job that left a long-term income gap.

"More of them are in the labor force than there would be if the Great Recession hadn't happened," said Shierholz, with the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute, who compared Bureau of Labor Statistics pre-recession projections to actual employment figures.

Jeff Miller realized two years ago he would not meet his goal of retiring at 62.

A computer server engineer at a Frederick data center for Marriott International, Miller suffered losses in the value of his 401(k) and his home. Plus, he has seven more years to pay off a student loan for his son.

At 61, he expects to work at least six more years.

"I was hoping for 62, but that went out the window when the economy went south," Miller said. "And I couldn't have sold my house four years ago."



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Remember when the public works were public? Strong public sector jobs with benefits? This is an example of how privatizing to private contractors has filled the public works with fraud and corruption. Demand public sector be rebuilt with public works jobs. Neo-liberals are going to bring in global corporations to do these public work projects and that is not good for labor and justice!

STOP ALLOWING THE PUBLIC SECTOR TO BE GUTTED WITH PRIVATE CONTRACTING FULL OF FRAUD AND CORRUPTION!


This is an add for the Illinois Transportation build that is happening just as with Maryland.  How much do you want to bet that union leaders will come to us and shout that unions are not getting most of the work? This is a case where the private construction unions are working against public sector unions.

IT WILL HURT ALL WORKERS AS STRONG PUBLIC UNIONS MAKE STRONG UNION MEMBERSHIP!

Keep in mind that below is an ad coming from Rahm Emanuel....just like O'Malley.....a raging neo-liberal that works against labor and justice.  Do you really think there will be good jobs or exploitative jobs?


This is an opportunity for paid training, mentoring and union apprenticeships with the Illinois Department of Transportation leading to jobs!

This program is a partnership with Chicago Urban League, Austin Peoples Action Center, United Services, and Black Chamber of Commerce.

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0 Comments

September 22nd, 2013

9/22/2013

0 Comments

 
I'M MAKING THIS WEEKEND POST JUST BECAUSE I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING AS DISTURBING AS THIS COMMON CORE MEETING.  IT WAS SO CAPTURED AND MANUFACTURED IT SHOULD BE A CALL TO ARMS FOR EDUCATION ACTIVISTS.

My blog from Friday is below this article....


Regarding the Baltimore County Common Core meeting:

I wanted this second post to tell you the man who stood up to what was the worst example of capture in public meetings has been sent to jail for doing it.  This is standard Maryland policy now to drag people who speak out at public meetings so their voices can be heard off to jail to scare others.

This video has gone viral and shows the nation what is happening in Maryland under Governor O'Malley and neo-liberals in state and local government.  It should be a wakeup call to all labor and justice in both parties to shake these bugs out of the rug!

I have never seen such a disturbing performance as I did with Dance....he says 'I will do anything to advance my career' which is why he is in Maryland.


This is a republican review of a very bad meeting in Baltimore County on Common Core.  There have been no one from labor and justice fighting against these reforms in Maryland and that is whom these reforms hurt the most.  This lady writing the article is right.....Dance completely rephrased most questions at this forum.  My question was rephrased to WON'T NATIONALIZED EDUCATION BE BAD?  My question was this:

How is this centralization of education content to the hands of a few consistent with democratic education?

We all know the goal of education reform is to place children in front of computers to listen to canned online lessons from professors chosen by people at the top and these canned lessons distributed around the country.  We know that where Common Core may be OK for fact-driven courses like STEM is will take all democratic and social development out of history, social sciences, and art as regional teachings give individual opportunity to build its voice.  What the 1% are trying to do is capture all information disseminated in schools from K-college and that means people will not be citizens.  It also means that public schools having Common Core and its planned incremental learning for all will have underserved students who do not have the learning skills to catch up will fail out of the system and will go into what will become a shadow system that already shows signs of including special needs children.  ALL OF THIS IS CRITICAL FOR BALTIMORE PARENTS AND NONE OF IT IS SPOKEN.

I know that this reporter with a conservative view has different reasons for concern.  Centralized education and not liking the Federal government is one.  Now that the government is controlled by corporations this should concern all.  The underserved are not all black and Hispanic....we know that the republican centers fall into this category as well so this is a bad issue for both parties.

What is especially bad is that black education leaders are being made the faces of this reform that kills democratic education....equal opportunity.  I heard in Dr Lowery's voice after she was made to give the required answers to Dance's pre-altered questions-----she realizes she is being used by the 1% to do very bad policy.  I BET LOWERY WILL NOT ALLOW HERSELF TO BE USED AS THE FACE OF THIS REFORM!


EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: School Supers have parent arrested from Common Core meeting (Video)
 September 20, 2013

School Superintendents receive an F grade for Common Core meeting

Dr. Dallas Dance, Superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools, and Lillian Lowery, Maryland Superintendent, had the opportunity Thursday night to make minor amends at an MSDE-sponsored informational meeting after a three-plus year information blackout on Common Core, the new federal curriculum for Maryland schools.


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My blog today on Maryland's Education reform:

The Common Core State Standards are causing major discontent across the ideological spectrum. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has joined groups like the Republican National Committee, the American Association of Christian Schools, the Home School Legal Defense Association, Tea Party groups, public policy organizations, and parents across the country in expressing concerns about Common Core national standards and assessments.

ISN'T IT FUNNY THAT AT A BALTIMORE COUNTY MARYLAND EDUCATION PUBLIC FORUM WE WERE TOLD EDUCATORS PARTICIPATED IN AND EMBRACED COMMON CORE!


Regarding the Maryland Department of Education's public meeting on Common Core in Ruxton yesterday:

Did anyone know about the Common Core meeting in Ruxton yesterday? There is no reason you would as it was not advertised in Maryland media and I asked several parents from different schools here in Baltimore....no one knew of it. That would explain why there were very few people from Baltimore there and very few who weren't part of the Maryland Department of Education in the audience. It was a completely staged event made to be dis-information. IT IS INCREDIBLE. I had one person come to me after the meeting because she liked my comments who said I HAVE NOT SEEN ANYTHING LIKE WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MARYLAND. I MOVED HERE FROM SEATTLE AND IT IS FRIGHTENING TO SEE NO POLITICAL VOICES ALLOWED!

That was right on and it does not take a new-comer to Maryland to see this and this education meeting was a prime example!

What they wanted to do was simply allow a hand-picked panel tell an audience that all was well with Common Core in Maryland. No doubt that massive protests by parents, teachers, and tons of academic research saying ALL STINKS IN DENMARK was the motivation. They had a State PTA and a State award-winning teacher testifying that Common Core is OK for them.

Now, my last blog I showed an article written by academics not wanting Common Core and stating that educators had not participated in development but were brought in to witness the results....just as all public comment now entails. So, why do we have a leader of the PTA and a teacher testifying to its being OK? CAPTURE OF ALL POLITICAL ISSUES WHEN PUBLIC FORUMS ARE GIVEN. Remember, hating this education reform is a bipartisan issue....NO ONE LIKES IT.

There are a lot of testimonials from citizens across the country at this website below....check out what people are saying!


Archive for the ‘teachers against common core’

Dr. Gary Thompson to Deseret News: Let Readers Know the Truth about Common Core
Who’s Protecting Children from the Unintended Damages of Common Core?
Study the Common Core Money War
Bergen County, New Jersey: Resolution to Stop Common Core
Professors Provide Proof Georgia Math and English Standards Were Better Before Common Core


I was immediately concerned when I saw that there was to be no time at the microphone for public comment; rather one written question given to Superintendent Dance who would then simply choose which questions he would ask this staged panel. IT WAS STRAIGHT OUT OF A MUSSOLINI POLITICAL PLAYBOOK.

I handed in my one question after demanding there be public forums where the public speaks. When Dance started the question period he said to the panel.....REMEMBER THE ONE BIG QUESTION which queued their discussion. I would like to think that one big question was mine because although my question wasn't read....all of the talk from the panelists addressed the elements of my question. Before I talk about the propaganda handed the audience I would like to jump towards the end where a member of the audience tired of the canned answers from the panel and REALLY MAD at the parent representative in the PTA chair stood and shouted.....PARENTS DO NOT HAVE A VOICE. I AM FROM HOWARD COUNTRY WHERE THIS COMMON CORE HAS ALREADY BEEN INTRODUCED AND IT IS KILLING OUR EDUCATION.....IT IS BAD AND IT ONLY PREPARES OUR CHILDREN FOR COMMUNITY/CAREER COLLEGES. IT DELIBERATELY TAKES AWAY ALL ABILITY FOR CHILDREN TO COMPETE FOR ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION. He jumped up because he knew no one on this panel would say this as they were cannned and captured.....remember it was Howard County that is starting this bring your cellphone to school policy no doubt training children to be call center reps. Remember as well Howard County is Ulman of the Anthony Brown/Ulman ticket and they are great, big corporate and wealth pols!

Superintendent Dance called for the SPECIAL FORCES SECURITY GUARD....he was Arnold Schwartzenegger (forgive spelling I do not want to look it up) grabbing and dragging this parent out and throwing him against the wall as the parent shouted for people to stop being sheep and shout out and fight this. THIS MAN WAS RIGHT ON! Keep in mind....this is a public forum with no public input allowed.

I, of course used this disruption to shout out that Common Core was indeed bad; it lowers quality and reduces student's ability to grow as citizens as all areas that create dissent, questioning, and knowledge of democratic issues found in social studies, civics, and history are being shoved aside among many other things.

My one question said this.....whereas a Common Core might work for STEM classes that deal in fact, we know that to use Common Core on humanities, social sciences, and art is to co-op subjects that are steeped in individual experience, interpretation, and philosophy. Maryland Education chief Lowery admitted in her part of the discussion that they are writing Common Core for these subjects. She also defended the wholesale emphasis on Reading and math in Maryland schools as trickling down to other subjects.

My next point in the question went to the fact that the goal of education reform and Common Core is to create packaged lessons given to students in computer lessons written by hand-picked teachers/professors and distributed across the country. THIS IS THE GOAL AS IT PROVIDES THE CHEAPEST WAY TO EDUCATE AND CONTROL INFORMATION AND ELIMINATES SCHOOLS AS THE DEMOCRATIZING ELEMENT OF SOCIETY.

Indeed, that is what Superintendent Dance is known for....placing students in front of computers with computerized lessons. So, while the Maryland teacher of the year is trying to make it seem that teachers are not losing the ability to write and present their own material in meeting Common Core standards....we know that is not true. The objective is to move the teacher in the classroom to facilitator to these canned lessons and eventually there will only be an education tech that turns on the computer and does administrative work. THIS IS THE GOAL.

So, you have a Maryland PTA rep saying this is great for parents and students and a teacher saying it is great with her and the teachers she knows.....AND ANYONE THINKING DIFFERENTLY BEING MADE TO SHUT UP!

PROPAGANDA FOLKS.....THIS IS IT!

Then I talked with the media attending. The Baltimore Sun listened to me as did WBAL. Now, WBAL leans conservative right and the Baltimore Sun is simply says whatever those in power say. I wanted to make this point as I try to get media in Maryland to write anything critical of this education policy. We are told it will be moved forward even as states across the country are listening to their citizens and stopping Common Core implementation. The people writing this policy.....Stanford, Princeton, and Harvard with Bill Gates and Education Technology businesses mirror the institutions who wrote the last education reform in late 1980s/early 1990s that gave us students that cannot read and do math. This reform told teachers to take textbooks out of the classrooms as they stifled creativity and flooded lessons sold to schools created by Stanford et al and this reform told teachers to use calculators in math classes because students were not going to need to do math now that they could just push a button on a calculator. They then had Hewlett Packard flood schools with calculators. THIS IS WHAT KILLED AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION.....NOT BAD TEACHERS.

So now these same institutions want to make education just as bad for people wanting to return to democratic schools by making sure students learn just enough to be workers ------AS THE MAN DUG BY THE COLLAR OUT OF THE PUBLIC MEETING WAS SHOUTING....COMMUNITY COLLEGE EDUCATION. He is right. Remember, the rich see Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale......and Shangai, Peking, Hong Kong as providing education for leaders and the rest of Americans....the 90% that are public schools do not need to prepare to be leaders, whether in government or business. THAT IS WHAT THIS EDUCATION REFORM IS ALL ABOUT!

As I left this meeting after talking to all of the other people who did not get to speak but do not like what is happening I stopped to talk to two black Baltimore County education employees. You see, there were NO representatives from Baltimore....no education advocates for the underserved from Baltimore at this Baltimore regional meeting and these policies are going to hit the poor and special needs like bricks....IT WILL BE TREMENDOUSLY HARMFUL TO THE UNDERSERVED SO THAT IS WHY WE HAVE PEOPLE OF COLOR IN EDUCATION LEADERSHIP POSITIONS LIKE ALONZO AND HIS REPLACEMENT, LOWERY, DANCE....ET AL.

I asked these two what do they think of Baltimore City schools teaching to the test and only allowing reading and math to be the subjects....no recesses....lots of computer work and Teach for America. What do you think happens to these underserved students who do not have the learning skills to meet the current low MD standards when a higher standard that requires the student grasp concepts before they advance? These underserved students will fail once and twice and then be moved out of city schools and into special education/vocational schools and the Baltimore and Maryland Administrators will proclaim that test scores are rising because of Common Core and not because the at-risk students are out of the system.

Some will say what can we do to have strong classes if we do not cull the worst students? Keep in mind these poor scores are not only with the poor....MDs middle-class are as well. It will get worse, not better with students sitting in front of computers. When I went to school in the 1960s and 70s, people of color did just as well as I and graduation rates and achievement was the highest. This was in schools in the north. In Baltimore, rather than provide equal education and opportunity/access we saw education funding to black schools fail to come,.....lost to massive fraud and corruption. Schools were badly resourced and funded and teachers could only try to maintain discipline with no help in the classrooms. THAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH AT-RISK STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT NOT BAD TEACHERS AND THAT IS THE SOLUTION FOR ALL OF OUR SCHOOL CHILDREN!

Shake the bugs from the rug and get rid of these neo-liberals and neo-cons by running and voting for labor and justice in all elections so we can turn these policies around. We need a good Governor who appoints strong public school leaders and we need a Mayor who brings the school board back to the city and appoints strong public education leaders...GET OUT AT GET ACTIVE!

It is important to know that concern for Common Core is not only coming from the south were people don't like Federal involvement in anything...

IT IS ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY AS PEOPLE SEE IT IS A CAPTURE OF THE ENTIRE SYSTEM OF LEARNING AND WHAT PEOPLE LEARN BY CORPORATIONS!


Growing Angst Among LI Teachers, Parents About Common Core

Family & Parenting, School & Education, Local News
By Vickie Moller Published: August 23 2013

After Learning the results of the 2013 Common Core Tests for his school district's third through eighth graders, Superintendent Joseph Rella robo-called parents urging them ...

After learning the results of the 2013 Common Core tests for his school district’s third through eighth graders, Superintendent Joseph Rella robo-called parents urging them to attend an August 17 rally at Comsewogue High School to protest national Common Core standards and tests.

“Implementation and the testing associated with the Common Core is hurting our children,” Rella said according to the Heartland Institute. “I don’t know how I could possibly tell our kids 70 percent of you are failures… 70 percent of you are not college material.”

“If it can be fixed, fix it. If it can’t, throw it out, scrap it. Stop it, fix it, or scrap it,” Rella said in an address at the gathering of more than 2,000 people.

Yvonne Gasperino, president of Stop the Common Core in New York State, was also in attendance at the rally. SCCNYS has volunteers in 36 New York counties to spread awareness about the excessive testing and data mining associated with Common Core and what it labels “untested education reform that has an unknown price tag.”

Common Core, Gasperino pointed out “attacks the public schools, attacks the homeschoolers, attacks the private schools, and attacks the Catholic schools.” The mother of two also believes that special needs students are “being thrown under the bus” through implementation of Common Core.

Common Core “is going to address every facet of education if this is not stopped,” Gasperino pointed out. In education, “parents should have the choice—that is a private family matter, and no decision is right or wrong.”

Gasperino also finds the third-party involvement particularly troubling “The data mining is incredible,” she says. “I don’t know what worries me more: the loss of local control; the loss of accountability; that teachers are losing their creative ability to teach children; the loss of parental participation—who are we parents going to go to?”

And politicians are weighing in heavily on the issue as well. Assemblyman Al Graf (R,C,I-Holbrook) recently sponsored legislation (A.7994) in response to concerns about the federal Race to the Top and Common Core programs. In a statement, Graf confirmed that he is partnering with Senator Lee Zeldin (R,C,I-Shirley) in efforts to improve New York’s education system for students, parents and teachers.

“I look forward to working with Assemblyman Graf and the rest of our legislative colleagues to properly address parent, teacher and student feedback related to the Common Core program,” said Zeldin. “It is critically important for there to be effective testing to measure progress among New York’s schoolchildren. After session concludes, it is a priority of mine to meet with stakeholders in my district who would like to discuss their concerns.”

Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, an organization targeting data mining and privacy issues says, “We are most focused on organizing parent resistance in New York—which is now the only inBloom client to be sharing the personal student data for all students in the state—and we are actively working to ensure that the legislation passes this year,” she said. inBloom aggregates student information such as hobbies, Social Security Numbers, classes, and test scores.

inBloom is a nonprofit organization designed to make it easier for teachers, parents and students to get a clear picture of student progress. The organization is building what it terms technology “plumbing” to connect various tools and systems in use in schools today in order to provide all information in one place.

“Our schools and students are being set up to fail” when “teachers are being deemed ineffective using the results of Common Core tests, and schools are at risk of being closed or taken over by corporate-run charter schools,” says Kris Nielsen, a former teacher and author of Children of the Core.

“Now that we're becoming more successful at untangling the web of power and wealth and seeing the connections, it's becoming more apparent that we're fighting government and corporations from taking our children down paths we think are dangerous for them and our country,” Nielsen said. “It's becoming more important for us to fight together.”


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Dr. Gary Thompson to Deseret News: Let Readers Know the Truth about Common Core

Guest Post by Dr. Gary Thompson

Forward by Christel Swasey: Dr. Gary Thompson is a valiant defender of children, not only in his clinic, but also in the public square. He’s written and spoken extensively about the damages to children via Common Core testing and standards. See his previous writings here and here and here and here.

This week, Dr. Thompson took on a reporter at the Deseret News, calling his reporting on Common Core “a case study of deception and lies by omission.” He points out that the reporter has omitted key facts such as the biggest elephant-in-the-room: the fact that huge financial interests are driving the marketing of Common Core in Utah. Thompson points out that the reporter did no follow up to fact-check the School Improvment Network’s (Common Core proponents) claims that opponents of Common Core are “misled”.

Thompson points out that Deseret News readers deserve to know what’s motivating Common Core proponents who throw out accusations against those questioning Common Core: they’re defending their financial interests, tooth and nail. They fight the idea of allowing full and legitimate public debate about Common Core to happen. It’s their rice bowl.

But it’s OUR KIDS.

The fact remains that there are serious questions about Common Core that remain unexplored by the general public despite the fact that the Common Core standards, tests and data collecting now governs their children’s lives.

Below is a good citizen response to what he knows is media bias and propaganda the same as exists here in Maryland.


Dear Community:

I have no personal or monetary stake in the Common Core civil war unfolding all around us and gaining traction and attention nationwide. In fact, I have much to lose writing this post. First off, I have a clinic to run and manage that is not being managed while I waste an hour out of my day commenting on the latest Deseret News Article (“Survey Shows Parent Educator Support of Common Core” Benjamin Wood, September 13, 2013). Secondly, our clinic has a legal and ethical duty by law and practice not to produce misleading articles under the penalty of…well….not being able to feed our children. I am not a Common Core activist, I am not a member of the Tea Party, and we have previously announced our intention of getting out of the Common Core debate so that we focus on client care.

This, however, is different.

Pro or anti Common Core, I think we all as parents, taxpayers and citizens want to have accurate information on the subject so that we can all make independent choices regarding this very important issue. Considering what is at stake, having accurate, non-biased information is crucial. As a mainstream, well respected source of information, it is imperative that the Deseret News be a source of accurate and unbiased information when it comes to reporting what is going on in our public schools.

Unfortunately, the above cited article by Benjamin Woods of the Deseret News does not meet this criteria of accuracy and ethics. What Mr. Woods offered to parents in my community was simply a case study of “lies by omission.” Here is the definition of “lies by omission”:

“A “lie by omission” is a misrepresentation of fact when the failure to say something or to provide complete information would lead a reasonable person to an incorrect conclusion.”

As a local clinical community scientist, whenever I read information regarding the Common Core, I now only ask myself three questions:

1. Where are the references that support factual statements?

2. Are there any potential conflicts of interest or biases associated with the either the writer or the person being interviewed for the article?

3. What is this persons/organizations current or future financial stake in the issue presented?

In the case at hand, Deseret News does not provide one source of verification, reference or peer reviewed citations to support over 10 statements regarded as “factual” throughout the article. In addition, the subject being interviewed (Chet Linton) has multiple conflicts of interest not mentioned or reported by Mr. Woods, the biggest being a HUGE financial interest.

The Deseret News published the results of a survey from a private citizen from a private company. That in and of itself is fine. The following is what Deseret News & Mr. Wood omitted from their article:

Mr. Linton, a executive at the “School Improvement Network” is a unabashed, cheerleading supporter of Common Core with a obvious financial stake regarding the final outcome of Common Core…

…in summary, Deseret News published results of a “survey” and a subsequent “fact based article” that pretends that there is support for Common Core by teachers and parents based on and validated by the following flawed sources:

1. A private corporation that has a contract with the State of Utah education complex that is probably worth several millions of dollars.

2. An interview of a young executive from this same company who is probably receiving a hefty salary from the company.

3. The company that produced the survey has a very prominent link on its web page to private Common Core training items that it sells and distributes nationwide.

4. Allowing the subject of the article to bash opponents of Common Core as “misled” without naming who the opponents are (other than the psychologically manipulative link to “Republicans”) failing to interview the referenced “misled” people, and failing to provide one shred of data that supports the conjecture that Common Core opponents are, in fact, “misled.”


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ISN'T IT FUNNY THAT AT A BALTIMORE COUNTY MARYLAND EDUCATION PUBLIC FORUM WE WERE TOLD EDUCATORS PARTICIPATED IN AND EMBRACED COMMON CORE!

Maryland teachers are under tremendous pressure not to speak out against this education and fear losing their jobs! We need parents and communities to come out and support teachers to make it safe for all to protest!


Union Leader: Put Stakes Associated with Common Core Tests on Hold
Brittany Corona

May 12, 2013 at 6:00 am

(23)

Jesse Nemerofsky/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom

The Common Core State Standards are causing major discontent across the ideological spectrum. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has joined groups like the Republican National Committee, the American Association of Christian Schools, the Home School Legal Defense Association, Tea Party groups, public policy organizations, and parents across the country in expressing concerns about Common Core national standards and assessments. AFT president Randi Weingarten addressed her home state of New York last week calling for a delay in the stakes associated with Common Core assessments.

Weingarten argued that teachers are not adequately prepared to implement Common Core, and that at the present time, attaching high stakes to the Common Core assessments will cause more harm than good. “The fact that the changes are being made nationwide without anything close to adequate preparation is a failure of leadership, a sign of a broken accountability system and, worse, an abdication of our moral responsibility to kids, particularly poor kids,” Weingarten stated.

The union head proposed at least one year of field testing for the standards, as a matter of responsibility. She claimed that teachers and parents “must be a part of this.”

Weingarten addressed her home state of New York because, in her words, “they simply don’t get it in Washington.”

Weingarten’s statement acknowledges it is the parents and local leaders within the states who will bear the burden of Common Core. Parents have the most at stake over the education of their children, and should have a seat at the table when it comes to establishing the content taught in local schools. This is precisely why groups from across the spectrum are fighting against the centralization that Common Core represents. It strips control from the people who have the most at stake in the education endeavor: parents and taxpayers.

“Adopting Common Core national standards and tests surrenders control of the content taught in local schools to distant national organizations and bureaucrats in Washington. It is the antithesis of reform that would put control of education in the hands of those closest to the student: local school leaders and parents,” writes Heritage’s Lindsey Burke.

There are a variety of reasons to be concerned about the Common Core standards. One of the strongest reasons to oppose is that responsibility over what children are being taught should remain in the hands of the parents and local school leaders, and Common Core national standards are a threat to that very basic principle.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post mischaracterized the American Federation of Teachers’ position on the Common Core standards. This post has been corrected to reflect the organization’s position.


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If you are moving towards an autocracy the first thing that goes is strong public education....that is what makes democratic principles strong after all!

ALL OF THIS CORPORATIZATION OF UNIVERSITIES AND NOW PRIVATIZATION OF K-12 DOES THIS!


Professors Join the Precariat Almost half of college instructors are part-time and struggle to piece together enough work to pay the bills.

(PHOTO: CREATIVA/SHUTTERSTOCK)
September 16, 2013 • By Lisa Wade •

While the stereotype of the college professor might still be an elbow-patched intellectual cozied up in an office, it might be more accurate to place him in his car. A new report from the American Association of University Professors finds that more than 40 percent of college instructors are part-time, often driving from campus to campus to cobble together enough classes to enable them to pay rent. These types of employees far outnumber tenured and tenure-track faculty, who make up less than a quarter.

This data suggest that the term “precariat” applies well to a significant proportion of college and university professors. Coined by economist Guy Standing, the term is meant to draw attention to the economic fragility of many lower wage workers in today’s labor market. It’s a combination of the word “precarious” and “proletarian,” a word that is used to refer to the working class under capitalism.

Part-time faculty count as part of the precariat because their jobs are contingent (renewed semester to semester), low paid, and bring little or no benefits. Let me put it this way. I just finished my first year as a tenured professor after six years on the tenure track. I teach five classes. An adjunct at a public research university would have to teach more than 23 classes to earn my salary (average pay is $3,200/class); someone teaching at community colleges would have to teach more than 33 (at $2,250/class). Of course, my salary also reflects research and institutional service, but my hourly wage is obviously far out-of-proportion to that of part-time faculty. Plus I get a wide range of benefits; adjuncts usually get nothing.

When government funding of higher education shrinks, colleges and universities respond by cutting corners where they can. Hiring adjuncts is one way to do that. It’s important to remember, then, that funding cuts hurt not only students; they also hurt jobs.
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September 20th, 2013

9/20/2013

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The Common Core State Standards are causing major discontent across the ideological spectrum. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has joined groups like the Republican National Committee, the American Association of Christian Schools, the Home School Legal Defense Association, Tea Party groups, public policy organizations, and parents across the country in expressing concerns about Common Core national standards and assessments.

ISN'T IT FUNNY THAT AT A BALTIMORE COUNTY MARYLAND EDUCATION PUBLIC FORUM WE WERE TOLD EDUCATORS PARTICIPATED IN AND EMBRACED COMMON CORE!



Regarding the Maryland Department of Education's public meeting on Common Core in Ruxton yesterday:

Did anyone know about the Common Core meeting in Ruxton yesterday?  There is no reason you would as it was not advertised in Maryland media and I asked several parents from different schools here in Baltimore....no one knew of it.  That would explain why there were very few people from Baltimore there and very few who weren't part of the Maryland Department of Education in the audience.  It was a completely staged event made to be dis-information.  IT IS INCREDIBLE.  I had one person come to me after the meeting because she liked my comments who said I HAVE NOT SEEN ANYTHING LIKE WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MARYLAND.  I MOVED HERE FROM SEATTLE AND IT IS FRIGHTENING TO SEE NO POLITICAL VOICES ALLOWED!

That was right on and it does not take a new-comer to Maryland to see this and this education meeting was a prime example!

What they wanted to do was simply allow a hand-picked panel tell an audience that all was well with Common Core in Maryland.  No doubt that massive protests by parents, teachers, and tons of academic research saying ALL STINKS IN DENMARK was the motivation.  They had a State PTA and a State award-winning teacher testifying that Common Core is OK for them.

Now, my last blog I showed an article written by academics not wanting Common Core and stating that educators had not participated in development but were brought in to witness the results....just as all public comment now entails.  So, why do we have a leader of the PTA and a teacher testifying to its being OK?  CAPTURE OF ALL POLITICAL ISSUES WHEN PUBLIC FORUMS ARE GIVEN.  Remember, hating this education reform is a bipartisan issue....NO ONE LIKES IT.

There are a lot of testimonials from citizens across the country at this website below....check out what people are saying!

  Archive for the ‘teachers against common core’   

Dr. Gary Thompson to Deseret News: Let Readers Know the Truth about Common Core
    Who’s Protecting Children from the Unintended Damages of Common Core?
    Study the Common Core Money War
    Bergen County, New Jersey: Resolution to Stop Common Core
    Professors Provide Proof Georgia Math and English Standards Were Better Before Common Core


I was immediately concerned when I saw that there was to be no time at the microphone for public comment; rather one written question given to Superintendent Dance who would then simply choose which questions he would ask this staged panel.  IT WAS STRAIGHT OUT OF A MUSSOLINI POLITICAL PLAYBOOK.

I handed in my one question after demanding there be public forums where the public speaks.  When Dance started the question period he said to the panel.....REMEMBER THE ONE BIG QUESTION which queued their discussion.  I would like to think that one big question was mine because although my question wasn't read....all of the talk from the panelists addressed the elements of my question.  Before I talk about the propaganda handed the audience I would like to jump towards the end where a member of the audience tired of the canned answers from the panel and REALLY MAD at the parent representative in the PTA chair stood and shouted.....PARENTS DO NOT HAVE A VOICE.  I AM FROM HOWARD COUNTRY WHERE THIS COMMON CORE HAS ALREADY BEEN INTRODUCED AND IT IS KILLING OUR EDUCATION.....IT IS BAD AND IT ONLY PREPARES OUR CHILDREN FOR COMMUNITY/CAREER COLLEGES.  IT DELIBERATELY TAKES AWAY ALL ABILITY FOR CHILDREN TO COMPETE FOR ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION.  He jumped up because he knew no one on this panel would say this as they were cannned and captured.....remember it was Howard County that is starting this bring your cellphone to school policy no doubt training children to be call center reps.  Remember as well Howard County is Ulman of the Anthony Brown/Ulman ticket and they are great, big corporate and wealth pols!

Superintendent Dance called for the SPECIAL FORCES SECURITY GUARD....he was Arnold Schwartzenegger (forgive spelling I do not want to look it up) grabbing and dragging this parent out and throwing him against the wall as the parent shouted for people to stop being sheep and shout out and fight this.  THIS MAN WAS RIGHT ON!  Keep in mind....this is a public forum with no public input allowed.

I, of course used this disruption to shout out that Common Core was indeed bad; it lowers quality and reduces student's ability to grow as citizens as all areas that create dissent, questioning, and knowledge of democratic issues found in social studies, civics, and history are being shoved aside among many other things.

My one question said this.....whereas a Common Core might work for STEM classes that deal in fact, we know that to use Common Core on humanities, social sciences, and art is to co-op subjects that are steeped in individual experience, interpretation, and philosophy.  Maryland Education chief Lowery admitted in her part of the discussion that they are writing Common Core for these subjects.  She also defended the wholesale emphasis on Reading and math in Maryland schools as trickling down to other subjects.

My next point in the question went to the fact that the goal of education reform and Common Core is to create packaged lessons given to students in computer lessons written by hand-picked teachers/professors and distributed across the country.  THIS IS THE GOAL AS IT PROVIDES THE CHEAPEST WAY TO EDUCATE AND CONTROL INFORMATION AND ELIMINATES SCHOOLS AS THE DEMOCRATIZING ELEMENT OF SOCIETY.

Indeed, that is what Superintendent Dance is known for....placing students in front of computers with computerized lessons.  So, while the Maryland teacher of the year is trying to make it seem that teachers are not losing the ability to write and present their own material in meeting Common Core standards....we know that is not true.  The objective is to move the teacher in the classroom to facilitator to these canned lessons and eventually there will only be an education tech that turns on the computer and does administrative work.  THIS IS THE GOAL.

So, you have a Maryland PTA rep saying this is great for parents and students and a teacher saying it is great with her and the teachers she knows.....AND ANYONE THINKING DIFFERENTLY BEING MADE TO SHUT UP!  

PROPAGANDA FOLKS.....THIS IS IT!

Then I talked with the media attending.  The Baltimore Sun listened to me as did WBAL.  Now, WBAL leans conservative right and the Baltimore Sun is simply says whatever those in power say.  I wanted to make this point as I try to get media in Maryland to write anything critical of this education policy.  We are told it will be moved forward even as states across the country are listening to their citizens and stopping Common Core implementation.  The people writing this policy.....Stanford, Princeton, and Harvard with Bill Gates and Education Technology businesses mirror the institutions who wrote the last education reform in late 1980s/early 1990s that gave us students that cannot read and do math.  This reform told teachers to take textbooks out of the classrooms as they stifled creativity and flooded lessons sold to schools created by Stanford et al and this reform told teachers to use calculators in math classes because students were not going to need to do math now that they could just push a button on a calculator.  They then had Hewlett Packard flood schools with calculators.  THIS IS WHAT KILLED AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION.....NOT BAD TEACHERS.

So now these same institutions want to make education just as bad for people wanting to return to democratic schools by making sure students learn just enough to be workers ------AS THE MAN DUG BY THE COLLAR OUT OF THE PUBLIC MEETING WAS SHOUTING....COMMUNITY COLLEGE EDUCATION.  He is right.  Remember, the rich see Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale......and Shangai, Peking, Hong Kong as providing education for leaders and the rest of Americans....the 90% that are public schools do not need to prepare to be leaders, whether in government or business.  THAT IS WHAT THIS EDUCATION REFORM IS ALL ABOUT!

As I left this meeting after talking to all of the other people who did not get to speak but do not like what is happening I stopped to talk to two black Baltimore County education employees.  You see, there were NO representatives from Baltimore....no education advocates for the underserved from Baltimore at this Baltimore regional meeting and these policies are going to hit the poor and special needs like bricks....IT WILL BE TREMENDOUSLY HARMFUL TO THE UNDERSERVED SO THAT IS WHY WE HAVE PEOPLE OF COLOR IN EDUCATION LEADERSHIP POSITIONS LIKE ALONZO AND HIS REPLACEMENT, LOWERY, DANCE....ET AL.

I asked these two what do they think of Baltimore City schools teaching to the test and only allowing reading and math to be the subjects....no recesses....lots of computer work and Teach for America.  What do you think happens to these underserved students who do not have the learning skills to meet the current low MD standards when a higher standard that requires the student grasp concepts before they advance?  These underserved students will fail once and twice and then be moved out of city schools and into special education/vocational schools and the Baltimore and Maryland   Administrators will proclaim that test scores are rising because of Common Core and not because the at-risk students are out of the system.

Some will say what can we do to have strong classes if we do not cull the worst students?  Keep in mind these poor scores are not only with the poor....MDs middle-class are as well.  It will get worse, not better with students sitting in front of computers.  When I went to school in the 1960s and 70s, people of color did just as well as I and graduation rates and achievement was the highest.  This was in schools in the north.  In Baltimore, rather than provide equal education and opportunity/access we saw education funding to black schools fail to come,.....lost to massive fraud and corruption.  Schools were badly resourced and funded and teachers could only try to maintain discipline with no help in the classrooms.  THAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH AT-RISK STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT NOT BAD TEACHERS AND THAT IS THE SOLUTION FOR ALL OF OUR SCHOOL CHILDREN!

Shake the bugs from the rug and get rid of these neo-liberals and neo-cons by running and voting for labor and justice in all elections so we can turn these policies around.  We need a good Governor who appoints strong public school leaders and we need a Mayor who brings the school board back to the city and appoints strong public education leaders...GET OUT AT GET ACTIVE!



It is important to know that concern for Common Core is not only coming from the south were people don't like Federal involvement in anything...

IT IS ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY AS PEOPLE SEE IT IS A CAPTURE OF THE ENTIRE SYSTEM OF LEARNING AND WHAT PEOPLE LEARN BY CORPORATIONS!


Growing Angst Among LI Teachers, Parents About Common Core

Family & Parenting, School & Education, Local News
By Vickie Moller       Published: August 23 2013

        After Learning the results of the 2013 Common Core Tests for his school district's third through eighth graders, Superintendent Joseph Rella robo-called parents urging them ...

After learning the results of the 2013 Common Core tests for his school district’s third through eighth graders, Superintendent Joseph Rella robo-called parents urging them to attend an August 17 rally at Comsewogue High School to protest national Common Core standards and tests.

“Implementation and the testing associated with the Common Core is hurting our children,” Rella said according to the Heartland Institute. “I don’t know how I could possibly tell our kids 70 percent of you are failures… 70 percent of you are not college material.”

“If it can be fixed, fix it. If it can’t, throw it out, scrap it. Stop it, fix it, or scrap it,” Rella said in an address at the gathering of more than 2,000 people.

Yvonne Gasperino, president of Stop the Common Core in New York State, was also in attendance at the rally. SCCNYS has volunteers in 36 New York counties to spread awareness about the excessive testing and data mining associated with Common Core and what it labels “untested education reform that has an unknown price tag.”

Common Core, Gasperino pointed out “attacks the public schools, attacks the homeschoolers, attacks the private schools, and attacks the Catholic schools.” The mother of two also believes that special needs students are “being thrown under the bus” through implementation of Common Core.

Common Core “is going to address every facet of education if this is not stopped,” Gasperino pointed out. In education, “parents should have the choice—that is a private family matter, and no decision is right or wrong.”

Gasperino also finds the third-party involvement particularly troubling “The data mining is incredible,” she says. “I don’t know what worries me more: the loss of local control; the loss of accountability; that teachers are losing their creative ability to teach children; the loss of parental participation—who are we parents going to go to?”

And politicians are weighing in heavily on the issue as well. Assemblyman Al Graf (R,C,I-Holbrook) recently sponsored legislation (A.7994) in response to concerns about the federal Race to the Top and Common Core programs. In a statement, Graf confirmed that he is partnering with Senator Lee Zeldin (R,C,I-Shirley) in efforts to improve New York’s education system for students, parents and teachers.

“I look forward to working with Assemblyman Graf and the rest of our legislative colleagues to properly address parent, teacher and student feedback related to the Common Core program,” said Zeldin. “It is critically important for there to be effective testing to measure progress among New York’s schoolchildren. After session concludes, it is a priority of mine to meet with stakeholders in my district who would like to discuss their concerns.”

Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, an organization targeting data mining and privacy issues says, “We are most focused on organizing parent resistance in New York—which is now the only inBloom client to be sharing the personal student data for all students in the state—and we are actively working to ensure that the legislation passes this year,” she said. inBloom aggregates student information such as hobbies, Social Security Numbers, classes, and test scores.

inBloom is a nonprofit organization designed to make it easier for teachers, parents and students to get a clear picture of student progress. The organization is building what it terms technology “plumbing” to connect various tools and systems in use in schools today in order to provide all information in one place.

“Our schools and students are being set up to fail” when “teachers are being deemed ineffective using the results of Common Core tests, and schools are at risk of being closed or taken over by corporate-run charter schools,” says Kris Nielsen, a former teacher and author of Children of the Core.

“Now that we're becoming more successful at untangling the web of power and wealth and seeing the connections, it's becoming more apparent that we're fighting government and corporations from taking our children down paths we think are dangerous for them and our country,” Nielsen said. “It's becoming more important for us to fight together.”


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Dr. Gary Thompson to Deseret News: Let Readers Know the Truth about Common Core 

Guest Post by Dr. Gary Thompson

Forward by Christel Swasey: Dr. Gary Thompson is a valiant defender of children, not only in his clinic, but also in the public square. He’s written and spoken extensively about the damages to children via Common Core testing and standards. See his previous writings here and here and here and here.

This week, Dr. Thompson took on a reporter at the Deseret News, calling his reporting on Common Core “a case study of deception and lies by omission.” He points out that the reporter has omitted key facts such as the biggest elephant-in-the-room: the fact that huge financial interests are driving the marketing of Common Core in Utah. Thompson points out that the reporter did no follow up to fact-check the School Improvment Network’s (Common Core proponents) claims that opponents of Common Core are “misled”.

Thompson points out that Deseret News readers deserve to know what’s motivating Common Core proponents who throw out accusations against those questioning Common Core: they’re defending their financial interests, tooth and nail. They fight the idea of allowing full and legitimate public debate about Common Core to happen. It’s their rice bowl.

But it’s OUR KIDS.

The fact remains that there are serious questions about Common Core that remain unexplored by the general public despite the fact that the Common Core standards, tests and data collecting now governs their children’s lives.


Below is a good citizen response to what he knows is media bias and propaganda the same as exists here in Maryland.

Dear Community:

I have no personal or monetary stake in the Common Core civil war unfolding all around us and gaining traction and attention nationwide. In fact, I have much to lose writing this post. First off, I have a clinic to run and manage that is not being managed while I waste an hour out of my day commenting on the latest Deseret News Article (“Survey Shows Parent Educator Support of Common Core” Benjamin Wood, September 13, 2013). Secondly, our clinic has a legal and ethical duty by law and practice not to produce misleading articles under the penalty of…well….not being able to feed our children. I am not a Common Core activist, I am not a member of the Tea Party, and we have previously announced our intention of getting out of the Common Core debate so that we focus on client care.

This, however, is different.

Pro or anti Common Core, I think we all as parents, taxpayers and citizens want to have accurate information on the subject so that we can all make independent choices regarding this very important issue. Considering what is at stake, having accurate, non-biased information is crucial. As a mainstream, well respected source of information, it is imperative that the Deseret News be a source of accurate and unbiased information when it comes to reporting what is going on in our public schools.

Unfortunately, the above cited article by Benjamin Woods of the Deseret News does not meet this criteria of accuracy and ethics. What Mr. Woods offered to parents in my community was simply a case study of “lies by omission.” Here is the definition of “lies by omission”:

“A “lie by omission” is a misrepresentation of fact when the failure to say something or to provide complete information would lead a reasonable person to an incorrect conclusion.”

As a local clinical community scientist, whenever I read information regarding the Common Core, I now only ask myself three questions:

1. Where are the references that support factual statements?

2. Are there any potential conflicts of interest or biases associated with the either the writer or the person being interviewed for the article?

3. What is this persons/organizations current or future financial stake in the issue presented?

In the case at hand, Deseret News does not provide one source of verification, reference or peer reviewed citations to support over 10 statements regarded as “factual” throughout the article. In addition, the subject being interviewed (Chet Linton) has multiple conflicts of interest not mentioned or reported by Mr. Woods, the biggest being a HUGE financial interest.

The Deseret News published the results of a survey from a private citizen from a private company. That in and of itself is fine. The following is what Deseret News & Mr. Wood omitted from their article:

Mr. Linton, a executive at the “School Improvement Network” is a unabashed, cheerleading supporter of Common Core with a obvious financial stake regarding the final outcome of Common Core…

…in summary, Deseret News published results of a “survey” and a subsequent “fact based article” that pretends that there is support for Common Core by teachers and parents based on and validated by the following flawed sources:

1. A private corporation that has a contract with the State of Utah education complex that is probably worth several millions of dollars.

2. An interview of a young executive from this same company who is probably receiving a hefty salary from the company.

3. The company that produced the survey has a very prominent link on its web page to private Common Core training items that it sells and distributes nationwide.

4. Allowing the subject of the article to bash opponents of Common Core as “misled” without naming who the opponents are (other than the psychologically manipulative link to “Republicans”) failing to interview the referenced “misled” people, and failing to provide one shred of data that supports the conjecture that Common Core opponents are, in fact, “misled.”




_____________________________________________________


ISN'T IT FUNNY THAT AT A BALTIMORE COUNTY MARYLAND EDUCATION PUBLIC FORUM WE WERE TOLD EDUCATORS PARTICIPATED IN AND EMBRACED COMMON CORE!


Maryland teachers are under tremendous pressure not to speak out against this education and fear losing their jobs!  We need parents and communities to come out and support teachers to make it safe for all to protest!

Union Leader: Put Stakes Associated with Common Core Tests on Hold
Brittany Corona

May 12, 2013 at 6:00 am

(23)

Jesse Nemerofsky/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom

The Common Core State Standards are causing major discontent across the ideological spectrum. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has joined groups like the Republican National Committee, the American Association of Christian Schools, the Home School Legal Defense Association, Tea Party groups, public policy organizations, and parents across the country in expressing concerns about Common Core national standards and assessments. AFT president Randi Weingarten addressed her home state of New York last week calling for a delay in the stakes associated with Common Core assessments.

Weingarten argued that teachers are not adequately prepared to implement Common Core, and that at the present time, attaching high stakes to the Common Core assessments will cause more harm than good. “The fact that the changes are being made nationwide without anything close to adequate preparation is a failure of leadership, a sign of a broken accountability system and, worse, an abdication of our moral responsibility to kids, particularly poor kids,” Weingarten stated.

The union head proposed at least one year of field testing for the standards, as a matter of responsibility. She claimed that teachers and parents “must be a part of this.”

Weingarten addressed her home state of New York because, in her words, “they simply don’t get it in Washington.”

Weingarten’s statement acknowledges it is the parents and local leaders within the states who will bear the burden of Common Core. Parents have the most at stake over the education of their children, and should have a seat at the table when it comes to establishing the content taught in local schools. This is precisely why groups from across the spectrum are fighting against the centralization that Common Core represents. It strips control from the people who have the most at stake in the education endeavor: parents and taxpayers.

“Adopting Common Core national standards and tests surrenders control of the content taught in local schools to distant national organizations and bureaucrats in Washington. It is the antithesis of reform that would put control of education in the hands of those closest to the student: local school leaders and parents,” writes Heritage’s Lindsey Burke.

There are a variety of reasons to be concerned about the Common Core standards. One of the strongest reasons to oppose is that responsibility over what children are being taught should remain in the hands of the parents and local school leaders, and Common Core national standards are a threat to that very basic principle.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post mischaracterized the American Federation of Teachers’ position on the Common Core standards. This post has been corrected to reflect the organization’s position.




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If you are moving towards an autocracy the first thing that goes is strong public education....that is what makes democratic principles strong after all!


ALL OF THIS CORPORATIZATION OF UNIVERSITIES AND NOW PRIVATIZATION OF K-12 DOES THIS!

Professors Join the Precariat Almost half of college instructors are part-time and struggle to piece together enough work to pay the bills.


(PHOTO: CREATIVA/SHUTTERSTOCK)

September 16, 2013 • By Lisa Wade •

While the stereotype of the college professor might still be an elbow-patched intellectual cozied up in an office, it might be more accurate to place him in his car. A new report from the American Association of University Professors finds that more than 40 percent of college instructors are part-time, often driving from campus to campus to cobble together enough classes to enable them to pay rent. These types of employees far outnumber tenured and tenure-track faculty, who make up less than a quarter.



This data suggest that the term “precariat” applies well to a significant proportion of college and university professors. Coined by economist Guy Standing, the term is meant to draw attention to the economic fragility of many lower wage workers in today’s labor market. It’s a combination of the word “precarious” and “proletarian,” a word that is used to refer to the working class under capitalism.

Part-time faculty count as part of the precariat because their jobs are contingent (renewed semester to semester), low paid, and bring little or no benefits. Let me put it this way. I just finished my first year as a tenured professor after six years on the tenure track. I teach five classes. An adjunct at a public research university would have to teach more than 23 classes to earn my salary (average pay is $3,200/class); someone teaching at community colleges would have to teach more than 33 (at $2,250/class). Of course, my salary also reflects research and institutional service, but my hourly wage is obviously far out-of-proportion to that of part-time faculty. Plus I get a wide range of benefits; adjuncts usually get nothing.

When government funding of higher education shrinks, colleges and universities respond by cutting corners where they can. Hiring adjuncts is one way to do that. It’s important to remember, then, that funding cuts hurt not only students; they also hurt jobs.


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September 19th, 2013

9/19/2013

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PLEASE GO TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS BLOG TO READ A REALLY WELL-RESEARCHED STUDY OF HEALTH FRAUD.  IT SHOWS HOW SO MUCH OF ENTITLEMENT MONEY WAS LOST TO FRAUD AND NOW WE ARE WATCHING AS NEO-LIBERALS AND REPUBLICANS FIGHT TO DENY ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE FOR MOST PEOPLE!


Wouldn't it be better if O'Malley simply reinstate Rule of Law and follow the public money that is supposed to give health care to the poor and mentally ill, to the old and young and end the massive fraud that takes 1/2 of all taxpayer money sent for health care in these groups?

Maryland has a history of underfunding all social programs and then allowing what little it sends to be lost to fraud and corruption.  Whether the poor dying 20-30 years earlier than others from lack of access to care or whether Veterans who have to deal with a VA hospital worst in the nation, you can bet that mental health facilities are grossly underfunded and unable to operate.

Do you hear a repeated pattern in all administrative issues regarding the government in MD?  Remember, MD is one of the richest states in the nation so it is not the lack of funding....it is the lack of funding making it to the operation before it goes into someone's pocket....ergo, the wealth inequity in the state.

We need MD citizens to shake these corporate pols out of the rug..they are only working for wealth and profit.  A democrat does not allow these conditions to be systemic at huge expense to the people.  Whether repub or dem....incumbents need to go!  Rule of Law needs to be reinstated in MD so fraud and corruption in the state stops the short-changing of social programs and undermines quality of life for everyone!



Below you see an area of Maryland that has a high number of working class and poor and you know why patient numbers are down....they cannot gain access to hospital care but instead are being treated in clinics and by home health care. 

Salisbury hospital laying off 58; offering buyouts Peninsula Regional Medical Center says it is treating fewer patients

By Andrea K. Walker, The Baltimore Sun 2:17 p.m. EDT, September 18, 2013

Peninsula Regional Medical Center announced Wednesday that it will lay off 58 employees and offer buyouts to 130 as the number of patients it treats declines.

The employees who lose their jobs will be offered severance packages and the opportunity to apply for other jobs at the Salisbury hospital, the company said in a statement.

Peninsula Regional on average has 66 fewer patients in the hospital a day than last year. The medical center is licensed for 288 beds and expects that number to decrease to 250 within the next two years. The hospital was licensed for 363 beds four years ago.

Maryland has recently eliminated 703 licensed beds, including 406 in the past two years, the hospital said.

Peninsula Regional also said that it lost $4 million in lost revenue from Medicaid cuts as a result of federal sequestration. It also said that hospital rate increases approved by the state's Health Cost Services Review Commission have not kept up with inflation, also putting pressure on revenue.

Patient declines are occurring as more people are getting outpatient care rather than at a hospital where they stay overnight, hospitals officials said in the statement. Hospitals will soon be designed for the critically ill, complex surgeries and emergency care, Peninsula Regional officials said.

Peninsula Regional is among other hospitals, including
Johns Hopkins Bayview and the University of Maryland Medical Center, that has cut staff in recent months.

_______________________________________________

Across the nation we are seeing a disturbing fall in level of care and staffing as the health industry moves to profit over care with no regulation.
These neo-liberals are working to throw Medicare and Medicaid into these private health systems that will leave most unable to pay for quality caregivers and with no nursing homes.....you will get what they send to your home!

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Elder Abuse by In-Home Aids a Growing Problem

Jul 16, 2008 | Parker Waichman LLP

Elderly people who want to avoid nursing homes often employ in-home aids to help meet their day-to-day needs.  However, in many cases, the in-home aid industry is unregulated, and advocates for the elderly say that this situation has led to a growing number of cases of elder abuse, neglect or fraud in which home caregivers take advantage of the elderly.

A district attorney in San Diego County, Calif. told The Wall Street Journal that  he prosecuted at least 25 home caregivers in the past year, mostly for stealing from elderly clients.  Another, from Lake County, Calif., told the Journal that about 80 percent of his office's 74 prosecutions of elder abuse in the past year involved home aides.

In-home care has been touted as a way to keep older people  happier and healthier, and at a lower cost, than they would be in a nursing home. 
According to The Wall Street Journal, it costs Medicaid program about $6,000 per person per year for home care, versus about $20,000 for care in a nursing home.  About 1.6 million people are employed in home care, split about equally between those who provide basic health services, and those who provide housekeeping, cooking and nonmedical help.

Of the two types of aids, health aids are often certified nursing assistants who face licensing requirements and other regulations.  However, most in-home elder abuse cases involve non-medical aids, who require no special licensing, and are loosely regulated.

According to The Wall Street Journal, in California, Florida, Connecticut and at least 19 other states, nonmedical aides don't have to be licensed or pass a criminal background check to get a job. In other states where employment agencies are required to do some type of checks, applicants with criminal records can slip through the cracks, some research has found.

The problem goes deep.  A recent study sponsored by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services conducted at Michigan State University screened 214,167 people who held or sought jobs working with the elderly, including home care, in that state between April 2006 and November 2007. Of those, 5,462 had criminal histories that should have disqualified them.   Michigan is one of the states that does require background checks of caregivers for the elderly, but as the study shows, that requirement clearly doesn't go far enough.

Consumers seeking in-home help for an elderly loved should ask an employment agency exactly what a prospective caregiver has been screened for, and require at a minimum a state police criminal background check.  Those hiring on their own can also request a background check from state police, and references should always be checked.

____________________________________________


Who are getting the growing share of home health care worker jobs? Immigrants who have no labor protections and have their wages stolen.  What Wall Street wants is to have the elderly at home with no access to what we now know as retirement communities because no one will be able to afford them.   We are seeing the elderly now being told not to come to the hospital with symptoms that are not immediately treatable. 

NATIONAL LABOR UNIONS MUST TAKE THIS LACK OF ENFORCEMENT TO COURT TO PROTECT DOMESTIC WORKERS AS WELL.


News Release WHD News Release: [09/17/2013]
Contact Name: Jennifer Marion or Jason Surbey
Phone Number: (202) 693-5795 or x4668
Email:
marion.jennifer.r@dol.gov or Surbey.Jason@dol.gov
Release Number: 13-1922-NAT


Minimum wage, overtime protections extended to direct care workers by US Labor Department Nearly two million home health and personal care workers to benefit


WASHINGTON — Fulfilling a promise by President Obama to ensure that direct care workers receive a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a final rule today extending the Fair Labor Standards Act's minimum wage and overtime protections to most of the nation's workers who provide essential home care assistance to elderly people and people with illnesses, injuries or disabilities. This change will result in nearly two million direct care workers — such as home health aides, personal care aides and certified nursing assistants — receiving the same basic protections already provided to most U.S. workers. It will also help guarantee that those who rely on the assistance of direct care workers have access to consistent and high-quality care from a stable and increasingly professional workforce.

"Many American families rely on the vital services provided by direct care workers," said Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez. "Because of their hard work, countless Americans are able to live independently, go to work and participate more fully in their communities. Today we are taking an important step toward guaranteeing that these professionals receive the wage protections they deserve while protecting the right of individuals to live at home."

"Direct care workers play a critical role in ensuring access to high-quality home care that many people need in order to remain healthy and independent in their communities, and they should be compensated fairly for this important work," said Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius. "We will continue to engage with consumers, states, advocates and home care providers in the implementation of this rule to help people with disabilities, older adults and their families receive quality, person-centered services."

The home care industry has grown dramatically over the last several decades as more Americans choose to receive long-term care at home instead of in nursing homes or other facilities. Despite this growth and the fact that direct care workers increasingly receive skills training and perform work previously done by trained nurses, direct care workers remain among the lowest paid in the service industry. There are an estimated 1.9 million direct care workers in the U.S., with nearly all currently employed by home care agencies. Approximately 90 percent of direct care workers are women, and nearly 50 percent are minorities.

Today's announcement extends minimum wage and overtime protections to all direct care workers employed by home care agencies and other third parties. Fifteen states already extend state minimum wage and overtime protections to direct care workers, and an additional six states and the District of Columbia mandate state minimum wage protections.

"The department carefully considered the comments received from individuals who receive home care, workers, third-party employers and administrators of state programs that support home care," said Laura Fortman, the principal deputy administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, the agency that administers and enforces the FLSA. "In response, the final rule provides increased flexibility, and gives programs sufficient time to make any needed adjustments. Together these changes will allow the rule to better meet consumers' needs while better protecting direct care workers."

The final rule also clarifies that direct care workers who perform medically-related services for which training is typically a prerequisite are not companionship workers and therefore are entitled to the minimum wage and overtime. And, in accordance with Congress' initial intent, individual workers who are employed only by the person receiving services or that person's family or household and engaged primarily in fellowship and protection (providing company, visiting or engaging in hobbies) and care incidental to such activities, will still be considered exempt from the FLSA's minimum wage and overtime protections.

The rule will be effective Jan. 1, 2015. The Department of Labor has created a new web portal with interactive web tools, fact sheets and other materials to help families, other employers and workers understand the new requirements. These, along with information about upcoming webinars on the rule, are available at www.dol.gov/whd/homecare/.

  • Read this news release en Español.
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This is what we knew would happen....when they say people will be covered they do not tell you the level of care you will receive and it is startling some of the basic care that will not for Medicaid.  Remember, most low-income people are on Medicaid.

Medicaid programs vary in coverage of preventive care, report says

Existing Medicaid beneficiaries have largely been left out of the health reform movement when it comes to preventive services that can ward off cancer, heart disease and other potentially deadly diseases, according to a new study by researchers at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS).

The study, which appears in the July issue of Health Affairs, notes that under the Affordable Care Act most private insurance plans, Medicare and Medicaid expansion programs are required by law to cover a full range of crucial preventive services such as screening tests for colorectal cancer, high blood cholesterol, HIV infection, and diet counseling that can prevent obesity. But state Medicaid plans are not required to cover such care for adults already enrolled in Medicaid—and this report suggests that those adults will not have access to the full range of preventive services.

"Preventive services save lives by detecting diseases before they can progress," says lead author Sara Wilensky, PhD, JD, special services faculty for undergraduate education in the Department of Health Policy at SPHHS. "Why should some Medicaid beneficiaries be left out when it comes to coverage for this kind of care?" Screening mammograms, colonoscopies, cholesterol screenings and other preventive services are aimed at staving off health problems early on rather than trying to provide costly health care for established and hard-to-treat disorders, she said.

Wilensky and her co-author Elizabeth Gray, JD, a research associate at SPHHS, reviewed Medicaid policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia from June 2012 through November 2012. The initial review looked at all publically available information on coverage of preventive services. After that first review, the researchers then contacted state Medicaid officials to fill in any missing information about coverage for this population.

The researchers found that most states do not cover all of the preventive services recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel that looks at preventive care and offers guidelines for health plans and providers. In addition, it was often difficult to discern exactly which services were covered by Medicaid programs based on the vague language used by many programs. The report highlighted some serious gaps in coverage. For example, while most states provided coverage for screening mammograms, not all Medicaid programs offered such care to existing beneficiaries. In fact, three states don't cover preventive mammograms for this population at all—a shortfall that could mean low-income women will go without the test, the authors said.

The analysis also says that states appear to rarely cover other types of preventive care for breast cancer for those at high risk. Only 11 state Medicaid programs, for example, make it clear that they will pay for breast cancer susceptibility testing for the BRCA1 gene that increases the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. And just three states explicitly cover chemoprevention for such beneficiaries. This medication can be used to lower the risk of breast cancer, a disease that kills about 40,000 American women every year.

"The Affordable Care Act guarantees millions of low-income Americans access to mammograms, colonoscopies and other lifesaving preventive services, but that assurance does not extend to people who currently have Medicaid coverage," said Chris Hansen, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN), the advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society and one funder of the study. "States have a responsibility to ensure that all people in Medicaid have access to preventive care for a life-threatening disease such as cancer."

The authors of the study also say there is wide variation in coverage of tests for sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and the test for the HIV virus that causes AIDS. And in some states STD screening is limited to family planning visits, a restriction that means people visiting the doctor for some other reason or those who are not eligible for family planning services may not have coverage. Going without this screen, increases the risk that an infected person will not receive treatment and could unknowingly spread a disease to others, Wilensky said.

Many of the preventive services evaluated by the study, such as screenings for early signs of heart disease, depression or diabetes, were either not covered or it was unclear if they would be paid for by Medicaid. In some cases, state Medicaid officers said that the preventive services would be paid for only if deemed "medically necessary." But Wilensky says that these terms should not be used together because medically necessary tests are for instances when a provider has a reason to suspect an established health problem, while preventive tests are crucial in detecting an emerging problem in an otherwise healthy, asymptomatic person.

Such confusion could leave providers wondering if preventive services will be covered by Medicaid, says the report. In the end, providers may simply fail to provide care if they are uncertain about Medicaid coverage and/or payment for their services, the authors said.

"By lowering risk factors such as high blood pressure and cholesterol, Americans can reduce their risk of heart disease or stroke by as much as 80 percent," said Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association, which also helped fund the study. "Evidence-based screenings play an essential role in identifying and reducing these factors. Without Medicaid coverage of preventative screenings and services, we could fall behind in the battle against the nation's No. 1 and No. 4 killers."

The authors conclude that there are many opportunities to increase the coverage of preventive services for this population. For example, managed care plans could choose to cover services that end up saving lives even if not required by state Medicaid programs. In states that do not clearly spell out covered preventive services or require providers to follow a specific standard of care, providers could choose to follow the guidelines of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Alternatively, Congress could step in and give existing Medicaid beneficiaries the same coverage of preventive services as most other Americans enjoy under health reform, the authors point out.



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Below you see a well-researched paper on health fraud.  Notice that the amount of fraud back in 1998 was $250 billion a year.....THAT WAS BEFORE CORPORATE FRAUD WENT ON STEROIDS IN THE 2000s


'It is clear to see why Americans consider this the biggest cause, when health care fraud was estimated to cost approximately $100 billion to $250 billion per year in 1998, or 10 percent to 25 percent of total health care spending'


Emily Fisher
April 2008

ABSTRACT
Health care fraud is an important and visible factor associated with increasing health care costs in the United States. Medicare and Medicaid contribute to a vast majority of those cost sand therefore must be heavily scrutinized. This thesis will investigate the types of fraud, who commits them, and why the health care system is more susceptible to fraud. More specifically, the problems and complications of current fraud investigation for Medicare and Medicaid are examined. This thesis will then evaluate how successful these initiatives were in reducing health care fraud and explore new suggestions for preventing health care fraud in the future.


INTRODUCTION
As elections approach Americans are hearing more and more about health care reform, and what needs to be done to fix the ailing health care system. The main problem candidates are trying to address is the dramatic increase in health care costs that are causing the number of underinsured and uninsured patients to increase across the country. Many different factors are related to the increase in health care costs. This paper will focus on health care fraud and abuse, and more specifically health care fraud and abuse within the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
Health care fraud is an important and visible factor associated with increasing health care costs, because there is no positive side to it. Some of the other factors that increase costs, such as better technology, have positive implications, but health care fraud is only viewed as a drain on health care resources. Health care fraud and abuse costs the United States an estimated 110 billion dollars a year (Caldwell 1997). Because health care fraud has played such a vital role in increasing the cost of health care it has gained a lot of attention from the government and the United States people. In the 1990’s the Clinton administration began a health care reform campaign and focused a lot of resources on stopping and, furthermore, preventing health care fraud within the Medicare and Medicaid programs. This paper will investigate those reforms, and evaluate how successful they were in reducing health care fraud. This paper will also address some of the many different types of fraud, who commits them, why the health care system is vulnerable to fraud, the problems and complications of current fraud investigation, and explore new suggestions for preventing health care fraud in the future.



THE IMPACT OF FRAUD ON RISING HEALTHCARE COSTS


Since the 1960’s health care costs have risen from 28 billion dollars per year to an estimated 1.9 trillion dollars per year in 2004 (Snapshot, 2006). That rise in cost accounts for an average of 6,300 dollars per person per year spent on health care, compared to 3,600 dollars per person per year in 1994 (Snapshot, 2006). This substantial increase in cost causes a problem for most Americans because average income has not increased as steadily as health care costs, leaving many Americans unable to afford or access health care (Effect, 2007; Snapshot, 2006). The “health care cost inflation invariably exceeds growth in the economy as a whole” (Sage, 1999). Many factors have contributed to the dramatic increase in health care costs such as a cultural preference to focus on expensive treatment instead of preventative measures, technological advances, the ability to live longer thus using more resources, medical malpractice, and healthcare fraud.
Factors Increasing Health Care Costs
The first cause of rising healthcare costs is related cultural values and patient preferences. When it comes to health care, it seems like Americans are always looking for a quick fix. As obesity rates increase, Americans turn to easy ways to lose weight immediately, like liposuction or gastro bypass surgery, instead of focusing on changing their diet and increasing their activity. Americans celebrate beating cancer, and call those who do heroes, but very rarely stop to consider the lifestyle choices that may have contributed to the disease. People do not choose to get cancer, but in many cases, like most diseases, lifestyle choices play a big factor. Americans do not consider the possibility that expensive chemotherapy, radiation treatments, and possibly the whole disease itself may have been prevented if in some cases a person wore sunscreen, smoked less, drank less alcohol, ate healthier or stayed physically active. Instead of changing

unhealthy lifestyles and focusing on preventing disease, Americans continue to come up with innovative and often expensive ways to fix things. Because American culture continues to value expensive retrospective medicine instead of preventative medicine, health care costs will continue to increase.
The need to compete and have more innovative technology is also a contributing factor to the dramatic rise in health care costs. In the United States healthcare is treated like any other billion dollar business, and each facility strives to provide the best care. In order to provide the best care each facility spends a large amount of money each year purchasing new top-of-the-line equipment. They do this even though the equipment they are replacing is still useful and efficient and in some instances are still being paid off. Providers spend millions of dollars purchasing and advertising their new-top-of-the-line equipment in order to win consumers. The problem is that as each provider spends millions on every new piece of technology available they have to charge the consumers more to pay for their new technology. If healthcare facilities would collaborate more, costs would be less. Instead of each facility in the area competing for market domination in their cardiovascular department by spending millions of dollars on new innovative equipment, one could focus on oncology, while the other focuses on cardiovascular. Collaboration would decrease the need for each facility to have every single piece of new innovative equipment, put the focus back on the patient, instead of the competition, and decrease costs for all involved.
New technology does not only increase costs, it also makes it possible for people to live longer. The result is that the longer a person lives the more health care they need to maintain a normal quality of life. As a person ages their health care needs encompass more types of procedures, more types of physicians, their healthcare becomes more expensive, and their procedures and physician visits become more frequent. As a person ages they need more health

care, and even with government assistance they are often unable to pay for it. They are unable to afford healthcare, because most are unable to work, and often live their last 20 years or so in retirement, only earning small amounts of money from retirement funds and possibly the government. This is a huge problem, because the population who needs the most health care are the least able to afford it. We are beginning to see this trend as the baby boomers reach retirement. According to the American Academy of Family Physicians in 2000 there were 354,000 uninsured people 65 years and older in the United States, and that number is expected to grow (Surprising, 2004).As the growing number of elderly struggle and are unable to find ways to pay for the health care that they need the number of people who are uninsured or underinsured increases.
As the number of uninsured or underinsured Americans increase the cost of health care for all Americans increases. Even though uninsured and underinsured Americans can not afford health care, they still seek treatment in the emergency room, where federal law requires treatment under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). The cost of their treatment is often expensive; because being treated in the emergency room usually is more expensive in general, and their condition may be more serious because they were unable to afford to see the doctor earlier in order to prevent their condition from worsening. Because the uninsured and underinsured can not pay for treatment in the emergency room and the law requires they are treated, the cost of their treatment is shifted to those who do have insurance or already pay for care out of pocket, which further increases the costs of health care for everyone else.
Another reason that health care costs are increasing is that medical malpractice insurance for physicians is on the rise. In order for physicians to practice they must have medical

malpractice insurance. Medical malpractice insurance is then used to pay for negligence or other claims against the doctor. As more and more people collect medical malpractice money, the rates rise, and as the rates rise for the physicians prices for the patients rise as well. Some states, such as Indiana, have enacted laws limiting medical malpractice claims to reduce the burden of litigation on medical practice. These laws have helped, but some physicians fear being sued for malpractice. To protect themselves from possible lawsuits, they make very conservative recommendations and utilize additional health care procedures. Over-utilization of unnecessary procedures further leads to an increase in health care costs.
Like the other factors discussed above, health care fraud also contributes to the increase in health care costs. Health care fraud can be committed many different ways by any person involved with the health care system. Since most Americans are involved with the health care system, whether they are providing health care, or consuming health care, most Americans have the opportunity to take advantage of the system and commit fraud. In 2003, Blue Cross Blue Shield released a survey stating that out of $1.7 trillion spent on health care, $85 billion of that was lost to health care fraud (Blue, 2004). That $85 billion dollars was essentially stolen. Health care fraud is the most obvious and often the most upsetting factor that has increased health care costs.



Health Care Fraud Defined


Out of all of the factors mentioned above, Americans believe health care fraud is the most significant reason for the rise in health care costs (What, 1997). It is clear to see why Americans consider this the biggest cause, when health care fraud was estimated to cost approximately $100 billion to $250 billion per year in 1998, or 10 percent to 25 percent of total health care spending

in 1998 (Liberman and Rolle, 1998). It is estimated that 25 cents of every dollar being spent on health care are supporting fraudulent practices, and that a family of four pays as much as 1,400 dollars per year on health care fraud related costs (Liberman and Rolle, 1998). Health care fraud has been one of the fastest growing U.S. criminal activities of the last decade. Many criminals are abandoning credit card fraud, drug trafficking and other dangerous activities in favor of the safe, lucrative arena of health care fraud (Allmon, 2005; Coccia, 1997; FBI, 1995). Given the surge in health care expenditures, it is not surprising to find an increase in the number and complexity of schemes devised to steal from the health care system (Morris, 1993). With so much money at stake it is essential for the American people and the government to explore the reasons why the health care industry is at risk for fraud, how they can minimize the occurrences of fraud, and take positive steps to prevent fraud related costs in the future.
Health care fraud has become a main stream issue (Kalb, 1999). Because of this, the government has spent the last ten years focusing on investigating health care fraud with the goal of decreasing its occurrence, and they continue to initiate new policies, and investigative bodies to deal specifically with health care fraud. Health care fraud is a critical issue for the government for many reasons. First off, the government is the principal payer of health care, and health care fraud is a waste of taxpayer money. “Elimination waste, fraud, and abuse is one of the few steps about which “disparate political ideologies can agree” (Sage, 1999). Secondly, they are in charge of regulating the health care system. Finally, they are entrusted with protecting the American people from criminals. Because of these reasons the government has dedicated many resources towards researching and investigating fraud, and how it occurs with the hopes of identifying new ways to fix the problem.

The National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association (NHCAA) has defined health care fraud as: “an intentional deception or misrepresentation that the individual or entity makes knowing that the misrepresentation could result in some unauthorized benefit to the individual or the entity or to some other party (Offen, 1999). This definition encompasses a broad range of activities. Through studying health care fraud cases from the past investigators have been able to define the specific types of fraud that are committed most often, and have attempted ways to stop them from happening. Research has also suggested that the health care industry is more vulnerable to fraud than most other industries, because the medical field is complicated and the lay person does not understand it, and the regulations that govern the health care industry are constantly changing and ambiguous.
Why the Health Care Industry is Vulnerable to Fraud
The Complexity of Medicine
As medicine becomes more technological, payment methods more ambiguous, and health policy becomes more complex, the average American often find themselves left in the dark. Because of this confusion, the health care industry is highly susceptible to fraud. Most Americans know very little about medicine, which procedures match which diagnosis or how insurance works. Until recently, the patient-doctor relationship was completely unbalanced. The doctor told the patient what to do, and the patient trusted the doctor completely without questioning the doctor’s treatment method. People had very little exposure to medicine, so they did not have any other option besides trusting the doctor (Sultz and Young, 2006).
With globalization and the internet, the doctor patient relationship has changed. Doctors are not the only ones with the answers anymore. Now, people can research symptoms on

WebMD, get a second opinion from an online doctor, or chat about different treatments with other patients who have experienced the same illness. Even with all of these new resources it is suggested that the average patient still ‘has neither the knowledge nor inclination to question a doctor’s recommendations” (Morris, 1993). The patient is weak and vulnerable, and just wants to feel better, so the doctor is able to take advantage of this. The physician is able to run pointless tests, try ineffective treatments, prescribe useless medications, and recommend the use of unnecessary equipment while charging it all to a third party payer who is oblivious to the “true” necessity of these things. Medical professionals are responsible for committing 72 percent of health care fraud (Stats, 2001).


The Ambiguity of the Payment System

The rules governing the coverage and reimbursement of medical services are ambiguous and always changing, which makes the rules confusing for all involved. In 1993 the Medicare program had 34 different carriers that administered Part B of the program, and each different carrier had the authority to set there own guidelines for coverage and reimbursement (Morris, 1993). The number of carriers administering the Medicare program has only increased, adding more complications and confusions for medical providers, and making excuses easier for those intending to abuse the system.
Sometimes medical providers are unaware of the mistakes they make. On the other hand, because of the confusion providers who intend fraud often rely on the excuse that it was an accident, and the government has limited means to prove otherwise. “Many billing disputes involve complex and ambiguous issues. Government suffers from what economists call “information asymmetries.” In other words, in many cases, and especially those involving coding, the government can find it hard to distinguish among proper billing, minor mistakes, and

a deliberate effort to skim off small extra payments from a large number of claims” (Stanton, 2001). Medical providers need better training on the correct ways to code, how to read the guidelines, and/or they need to have more options to hire an office administrator who has been trained in coding, third party payment systems, and reimbursement guidelines.


Limited Knowledge on Fraud

The United States only began to focus on health care fraud control in the past fifteen years. Because of this, experts know very little about health care fraud control as a science or an art. There are not many available experts for guidance in the field, causing us to always act after the fact, and most times too late to have the effect necessary (Sparrow, 1996). Until recently, there have not been any generally accepted fraud audit field standards, leaving investigators to make it up as they went along. The only thing that investigators really knew how to deal with was internal corruption (employee embezzlement), rather than outside corruption (criminal attacks) (Sparrow, 1996).
Fraud Investigators Limited Medical Knowledge
Another problem investigators have is challenging health care professionals. Investigators are often some kind of law enforcement who have very little experience in the medical field. When investigators find themselves challenging respected health care professionals they feel greatly disadvantaged (Sparrow, 1996).


Acceptable Targets

The United States health care system is very complex and part of what makes it so complex are the private third party payers, insurance companies. Insurance companies are often viewed as rich, greedy, exclusionary corporations out to take advantage of the working class

American (Sparrow, 1996). Often times because of this view, insurers are regarded by significant segments of the population as socially acceptable targets for fraud (Sparrow, 1996; Coccia 1997).
Fraudulent Techniques and Who Commits Them
Although fraud between medical professionals and patients is suspected to be the most common type of fraud, it is not the only type. Fraud exists in many areas of the health care system. It is estimated that health care facilities, such as hospitals and prompt care centers, are responsible for 8 percent of health care fraud, patients are responsible for 10 percent, while the remaining 10 percent are still unknown (Datawatch, 2000). However, it is suggested that health care fraud committed by patients/consumers is increasing as the number of underinsured and uninsured Americans increases (Farber, 1997)



Who Commits Health Care Fraud?

As the health care system expands, becomes more complicated, and involves more people, the acts of fraud committed also continue to become more complicated, involve more

people, and encompass many different sectors of the health care system. In order to decrease health care costs, fraud must decrease as well. It is important that we understand the types of fraud that have been committed in the past, so that we may initiate ways to stop those same kinds of fraud from happening in the future. In order to understand how the most common types of fraud are committed, one must recognize how medical professionals and health care facilities are reimbursed for their services. In most cases a patient does not pay for a service directly. Most payments to medical professionals and health care facilities are made by a third party payer, whether it is private insurance or a government program like Medicare. The third party payers and the health care providers have come up with a system made up of a series of numbers and descriptors which are used for reimbursement among many other things (Liberman and Rolle, 1998). This system is known as “coding”. Coding is very complicated, and encompasses more than 500 groups that include more than 3,500 medical procedures and 12,574 diagnostic codes (Liberman and Rolle, 1998).


Upcoding

Upcoding occurs when a healthcare provider claims a code that legitimizes a higher reimbursement level than they actually provided (Liberman and Rolle, 1998). Upcoding is very easy to accomplish, and difficult to detect. All a physician has to do is embellish a patient’s diagnosis to justify higher payments from both the patient and the third party payer. It is easy to do, because the patients and the payers know very little about medicine and what the correct diagnosis should be. Upcoding accounts for an estimated 22 percent of health care fraud (Datawatch, 2000).

Phantom Billing


Phantom billing happens when providers are charging for services not actually provided to patients (Liberman and Rolle, 1998). Phantom billing can happen two different ways. The first way happens when a physician codes that a patient has received a procedure, but does not provide the service. This type of fraud is simple to accomplish, because many patients are unaware of what they are billed for and third party payers often do not share the details with the patients. The second type of phantom billing takes place when a physician codes a procedure for a non-existent patient. This activity occurs frequently in home care and nursing homes. For example, a nursing home could submit claims for a patient who had died. Phantom billing accounts for an estimated 34 percent of health care fraud (Datawatch, 2000).

Bogus Billing

Bogus billing takes place when a billing code is altered to cover services that are not supposed to be covered (Liberman and Rolle, 1998). Many providers do this when new drugs and experimental treatments are not yet covered under Medicare or private insurance. Instead, of coding them properly they code them as a similar drug or procedure that they know is currently covered and will be paid for by a third party.
Unnecessary Services
Billing unneeded services happens most in ambulatory care facilities (Liberman and Rolle, 1998). Routine blood tests, urinalyses, and radiographs can be categorized as unnecessary billing when a patient does not need them, or they are perfectly healthy. These cases are sometimes hard to prove, because physicians can claim they were just erring on the safe side. Billing unneeded services accounts for an estimated 18 percent of health care fraud (Datawatch, 2000).

Double Billing


Double billing/unbundling occurs when duplicate bills are sent to the same payer or when the bills are sent to different payers (Liberman & Rolle, 1998). Double billing accounts for an estimated 4 percent of health care fraud (Datawatch, 2000).
Pharmacy Fraud
Pharmacy fraud can take place along two distinct lines. The first instance takes place when a generic brand of drugs is dispensed to a patient while the payer is charged for the brand name, which is more expensive. The difference can then be pocketed. Secondly, a pharmacy can fill prescriptions paid for by a third party, buy them back from the patients, and then sell them to other patients at a higher price (Liberman and Rolle, 1998). Pharmacy fraud accounts fro an estimated 8 percent (Datawatch, 2000).


Types of Fraud Committed:

Physician Defense to Health Care Fraud:
Because medical providers are responsible for 72 percent of health care fraud, there are many resources dedicated to the defense of physicians. These resources are often from the view point of physicians, and should be examined to offer a better understanding of why and how unintentional fraud is committed, and how it can be minimized.
Most physicians claim that the coding system is complicated and confusing, even to those who are supposed to be experts. It is suggested that many physician practices are busy and sometimes physicians erroneously code a service. They feel that they should not be blamed, because they were trained in medicine not in coding. Physicians also think that it is unreasonable to hold the physician responsible for the coding mistakes of employees. Physicians also feel as if they are treated as if they are guilty until proven innocent instead of the other way around. They feel like they have no chance to correct their error, before they are prosecuted (Friedman, 1996).
Even if they have a chance to defend themselves, some physicians feel it is still unfair because the government has a massive fraud enforcement program that has access to far more resources than they do leaving them at a disadvantage to defend themselves (Sage, 1999; Stanton, 2001). Physicians also have very little information to use for their defense. Because physicians are very busy and pressed for time, they often only write brief notes describing what was done for a patient and why in the medical record. So if they are prosecuted all they have as evidence is the chart with notes on it, and they see so many patients that they may not be able to remember exactly why they did what they did (Friedman, 1996).

THE PROBLEM: HEALTH CARE FRAUD WITHIN MEDICARE/MEDICAID


Many Americans who are unable to afford health care rely on the government for assistance through programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare and Medicaid are government assistance programs introduced in the 1965 through the Social Security Act. The goal of both programs is to supply and finance a range of medical benefits to specific populations of Americans who can not afford health care. In 2003 Medicare and Medicaid were responsible for financing 26.3 percent of health care in the United States (Grayson, 1998). Because, these government programs serve so many people and provided a significant portion of funding in the health care field, they are often targeted for fraudulent behavior. In 2004 Medicare and Medicaid estimate that 14 percent of their health care costs were spent fraudulently (Grayson, 1998). Since these programs spent about 2 trillion dollars total on healthcare, about 90 billion dollars were spent fraudulently (Allmon, 2005). In comparison, credit card fraud, widely perceived to be a huge problem, results in annual losses of 788 million dollars annually in 2004 (Allmon, 2005).
Health care fraud is a massive problem for the entire health care system, not just government programs such as Medicaid and Medicare. But because of the large amount of money lost fraudulently every year through the Medicare and Medicaid programs the government has taken notice of the issue, and begun to make attempts along with other private entities to minimize and abolish its occurrence. The Department of Justice has declared health care fraud to be its second highest priority, following violent crimes (Kalb, 1999). In the past fifteen years the government has spent millions of dollars fighting health care fraud. The governments have committed millions of dollars more to fighting health care fraud in the future, new agencies have been created as well as new policies, and new ideas are always in development.
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Medicare/Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Legislation
One of the first noticeable attempts at minimizing health care fraud came in 1996 through the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The act was passed with the goal of decreasing expenses to the Medicare and Medicaid programs through various reforms, and by focusing on reducing the occurrence of fraud and abuse in the government health care programs (Faddick, 1997). Through these reforms the government wanted to gain more tools for detecting and weapons for fighting fraud and abuse, recover money that had previously been spent fraudulently, and produce settlements (Faddick, 1997).
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was created under good intentions, but from a practical perspective it has some problems. The new programs initiated under the HIPAA come with a substantial price tag. In 2002 the new initiatives cost an estimated 310 million dollars, without any sunset provisions for the future, which means the programs and costs of the programs have no definite end. HIPAA also has the potential to harm many health care providers by producing the unintended consequences of fewer settlements, more court battles, and the entanglement of the innocent in the intricacies of the governments new and very broad punishment tools (Faddick, 1997; Stanton, 2001).
HIPAA represents one of the most expansive programs the government has ever initiated to fight fraud and abuse in the health care system (Stanton, 2001). Specifically HIPPA focuses on fighting fraud and abuse proactively. HIPPA does this through these three major programs: the Fraud and Abuse Control Program, the Medicare Integrity Program, and the Beneficiary Incentive Program. HIPAA also amends the permissive exclusion provisions, provides certain minimum exclusions periods, expands the scope of civil monetary penalties, instructs the

Secretary to issue advisory opinions, protects certain risk-sharing arrangements from illegal anti-kickback penalties, creates new crimes relating to health care fraud, and establishes a national data base to house reports of adverse actions relating the delivery of health care services (Faddick, 1997).
The Fraud and Abuse Control Program was created through HIPAA to coordinate federal, state, and local health care anti-fraud enforcement programs. This program focuses on conducting investigations, financial and performance audits, inspections, and evaluations; and maintaining a public database, establishing and modifying safe harbors, and issuing advisory opinions. Specifically this program establishes a procedure to solicit recommendations at least annually, to publish proposals to modify existing procedures and add new safe harbors, and to issue special fraud alerts. This program is jointly administered by the Attorney General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services. It is funded through the Medicare Hospital Insurance (Part A) Trust Fund. Fines, penalties and other fraud and abuse recoveries also aid in funding this program (Faddick, 1997). So far this program has been successful at convicting health care fraud offenders, and collecting fines. Between 1997 and 2006 this programs has collected more than $10.4 billion in fines and restitution returned to the Medicare Trust Fund (United States. Dept. of Health, 2007) . Since this program began it has saved taxpayers more than $38 billion, and has increased convictions and other successful legal actions by more than 240 percent (Comprehensive, 1999).
Created though HIPAA the Medicare Integrity Program gives the Department Health and Human Services (HHS) the right to contract with private companies to perform fraud and abuse detection, cost report audits, provider payment determinations, and utilization reviews. The program also is in charge of providers, beneficiary, and public education; and developing a list of

durable acceptable medical equipment. This program is also administered by the Secretary of HHS, and funded by the Medicare (Part A) Trust Fund (Faddick, 1997). In 1997 alone, this program returned $14 for every $1 spent, and saved taxpayers an estimated $7.5 billion (Comprehensive, 1999).
HIPAA created the Beneficiary Incentive Program to entice Medicare beneficiaries and others to aid in identifying fraud and abuse. The program offers incentives such as monetary payments to beneficiaries who provide information that leads to monetary recoveries or other criminal or civil sanctions under the Medicare Program. This program has had some trouble with efficiency, because it struggles with a way to encourage beneficiaries to report incidents of fraud and abuse against the Medicare Program without reporting frivolous or irrelevant information. In order to encourage Medicare beneficiaries to be responsible for monitoring their own health care for fraud and abuse, this program provides each individual with an explanation of benefits for every item or service Medicare pays for. Then if an individual finds a discrepancy and reports it and that report leads to at least 100 dollars in recovery from the provider, they may receive a monetary reward (Faddick, 1997).
All of these programs aim at reducing fraud and abuse throughout the health care system. They increase the tools used for investigating fraud and abuse by unifying resources; setting standards; educating the providers, beneficiaries, and the public; working together with external entities; and by encouraging users of health care to get involved. HIPAA also discourages fraud and abuse by expanding the reasons and opportunities for penalties, increasing the amount of civil monetary penalties, increase prosecution and charges of criminal offenses, and by increasing the likelihood of exclusion from Medicare and Medicaid Programs (Faddick, 1997).

The Medicare and Medicaid Patient Protection Act


(Anti-Kickback Statute) was another statute created by the government to decrease fraud and abuse. This statute prohibits providers from knowingly and willfully paying or receiving any payment directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly, in cash or kind, in exchange for prescribing, purchasing, or recommending any service, treatment, or item for which payment will be made by Medicare, Medicaid, or any other federally funded health care program (Bennett and Medearis, 2003; Kalb, 1999). Violations of the Anti-Kickback Statute can receive up to $25,000 fines, 5 years in prison, or both. In order to convict a provider the government must prove that a provider solicited or received payments, the payments induced a referral related to a government program, and the transaction was knowingly and willfully entered into by the provider. Conviction under the Anti-Kickback Statute is often difficult, because the government must prove that the defendant acted with specific intent (knowingly and willfully). The program also protects against relationships that could result in conflicting interests, such as: discount arrangements, incentives given to providers, payments for services, and the practices of manufactures giving gifts and other business courtesies (Bennett and Medearis, 2003; Kalb, 1999).
The problem with this statute is that kickbacks are not specifically defined, which means that technically anything a provider receives from a manufacturer may be considered a kickback, even box of donuts or a pizza from a pharmaceutical company. This issue is being addressed presently by the American Medical Association (AMA). AMA suggests that providers only accept gifts that primarily benefit patients, such as educational materials (Bennett and Medearis, 2003; Kalb, 1999).



Another statute created to minimize fraud and abuse in the health care system was the False Claims Act. The False Claims Act is the most important law enacted by the federal government to enforce fraud and abuse legislation (Kalb, 1999; Stanton, 2001) The False Claims Act (FCA) has penalties for inaccurate billing practices and laws concerning false statements and overpayments, which penalize organizations that make false statements to the government or fail to return overpayments (Shane, 2000). If convicted of violating the False Claims Act, the government can receive up to three times the amount billed, and fines up to $10,000 for each false claim. These claims can be brought against any government contractor by the government or a private citizen. The act also includes qui tam provisions, which allows private citizens the right to file a lawsuit on behalf of the government and receive a monetary reward (up to 15%) from the recoveries (Bennett and Medearis, 2003; Cady, 2007; Kalb, 1999; Stanton, 2001). These types of provisions that encourage whistleblowers are important especially when addressing types of fraud like upcoding or bogus billing. Upcoding and bogus billing are hard to prove, because if caught providers can claim “honest mistake” (Stanton, 2001). Therefore, this type of fraud is best proven by the testimony of an insider (whistleblower), such as the billing clerk, who can outline the scheme and illustrate the provider’s fraudulent intent (Morris, 1993; Cady 2007, Stanton, 2001).

The Prescription Drug Marketing Act (PDMA) prohibits the sale or trade of drug samples. It was created by the government to correct abuse by individuals who repackage, distribute, and sell sample drugs that often resulted in misbranded and contaminated products. Violation of the PDMA can result in up to 10 years in prison, and fines of up to $250,000 (Bennett and Medearis, 2003). Due to the broad definition of “drug sample” these cases are often complicated and hard to prove.

Government Organizations Responding to Health Care Fraud


The government has committed numerous organizations to investigating health care fraud. A few of these organizations are: the U.S. Department of Justice (through the Criminal Health Care Fraud Division and the Civil Health Care Fraud Division), the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and state Medicaid fraud control units (Shane, 2000). These organizations along with the programs, listed above, and other internal anti-fraud programs such as corporate compliance programs have helped minimize fraud and abuse to an extent.
In 1998, alone, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) obtained 322 criminal convictions, up from 105 in 1993, and recovered $480 million in fines, recoveries, and restitutions, representing $13.65 for each dollar spent on the actual investigation. In the same year the state Medicaid Fraud Control Units, secured 683 convictions and recovered $42.8 million in fines, restitution and overpayments. Meanwhile, the Office of Inspector General in the Department of Health and Human Services, recovered $5.4 billion in fines, settlements, restitutions, and other recoveries involving federal health programs, and excluded 3,021 individuals and entities from government programs (Kalb, 1999; Sparrow, 1996).
The conviction and recovery amounts continue to increase, as investigators understand more about fraud, and the public is educated further. From 2001-2005 the FBI alone recovered $3.8 billion in restitutions, $477 million in recoveries, $1.11 billion in fines, and $102.8 million in seizures (United States Dept. of Justice, 2005). In 2006, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) recovered $2.2 billion in judgments and settlements, and $378.4 million in recoveries (United States Dept. of Health, 2005). In 2000, the Health Insurance Association of

America revealed that 58 organizations responding have saved a total of $232 million through internal anti-fraud efforts, and had a return on investment of $11 saved for every dollar spent. Since 1994 the Federal Bureau of Investigation has quadrupled the number of health care fraud investigators, causing them to obtain 560 federal convictions for health care fraud, and recoveries around $290 million in 2001 (Stats, 2001). From 2001-2005 the FBI had 4,952 convictions, and 2,775 indictments (United States Dept. of Jusitce, 2007). As government organization continue to find success with health care fraud recovery they continue to increase the size and budget of the investigation units, with hopes of further recoveries made.
SUGGESTIONS TO PREVENT HEALTH CARE FRAUD
These programs and statutes have unified federal efforts to minimize fraud and abuse, encouraged education, given more tools to use for investigation and prosecution, and increased penalties and punishments for fraudulent behaviors, but it is not enough. It seems like all of these organizations have done a decent job of recovering money spent fraudulently, and they have done so with a reasonable cost to recovery ratio. However, recovering fraudulent money is not enough. Only 4 percent of fraudulent claims have been recovered or identified before payment (Allmon, 2005). It is important to anticipate weak spots in the health care system where fraud is likely to occur and continue to monitor and build in new ways to effectively prevent fraud and abuse from happening in the future.
As our health care system evolves and gets more convoluted the ways that fraud are committed evolve and become more complex. The health care system we have is mostly run by computers with minimal or no scrutiny of suspicious claims (Grayson, 1998). Often times because of this, once a computers fraud warning is triggered it is often too late to catch the

criminal. Most criminals simply disappear with their loot or even more troubling start more innovative schemes under different names and addresses (Grayson, 1998). Some new suggestions for preventing fraud are to implement a measurement program, use more human scrutiny of payment records and claims processes along with innovative deception detection software, encourage the use of corporate compliance programs, and involve consumers in the fight against health care fraud.
One way in which we can aim to prevent fraud from occurring is to implement more human scrutiny in the inspection of payment records and the claims processes. Many of the computer programs out there now are not able to detect some things that a trained human eye can. Often times the computer programs that are able to detect fraud as well as the human eye, are either too complicated or to expensive to be a practical purchase. Better detection technology is in the future, but while we wait we should increase training for individuals in fraud detection, coding, etc. and implement more individuals to inspect cost reports, payment records, and claims processes (Grayson, 1998).
Some of the new software systems being introduced to fight health care fraud are: advanced analytics software, decisioning technology software, and predictive modeling software. Advanced analytics software can scan million of records in seconds, comparing every transaction or claim with defined patterns, behaviors, and billing norms (Allmon, 2005). This software will be able to detect if there is any unusual service or payment pattern at a certain location. It will be able to tell if a certain physician charges a patient twice for the same service, if a physician seems to be doing too many mastectomies, etc. Decisioning technology software is being used by some private insurance companies to reduce fraudulent losses, improve productivity, and bottom-line results (Allmon, 2005). This software does analysis of data such as medical records

and claims, in order to find “errors”. It then converts the data into actionable results, and gives each provider or entity a score based on the rate of “errors”. Then claims adjusters, fraud investigators, case managers, and other personnel can focus their review on claims with the highest likelihood of fraud, abuse, or error (Allmon, 2005). This system if used correctly can also help providers, who are unintentionally making errors by showing them where there errors are and how to correct them before they are accused of fraudulent behavior. The most advanced type of software uses predictive modeling, a statistical technique that analyzes historical claims and claims-related data to predict the risk of fraud for each claim or behavior (Allmon, 2005). This type of software is able to detect fraud more accurately over time, thus giving organizations a better opportunity to catch fraud, abuse, and erroneous claims prior to payment and before losses mount. All of these software programs could be used to catch fraudulent activity before claims are paid. This software is important, and has the potential to drastically minimize the amount of money lost to fraud, because once claims are paid the time, effort, and costs of trying to recoup losses rise exponentially (Allmon, 2005).
Compliance programs are another way that many organization are trying to combat health care fraud. Health care compliance programs aid an organization in detecting and fixing health care fraud internally. They do this by creating a series of internal controls and measures to ensure that an organization is following federal, state and local statutes and regulations governing the federally funded health care programs (McKessy and Saner, 1998). More specifically, a compliance program may include: legal reviews of contracts and operating procedures, directives and training for employees, procedures for reporting violations of your specific compliance plan and/or government regulations, and monitoring and auditing mechanisms to discover violations (McKessy and Saner, 1998). In many cases compliance programs establish new positions for

corporate compliance officers to educate employees, develop standards of conduct, and monitor “high- risk” areas. Usually compliance programs also include an anonymous hotline to allow employees to report potential problems, and along with that there are policies requiring no retaliation to encourage reporting (Shane, 2000). Compliance programs are often successful, because they can be designed and/or customized by each individual organization to address their individual needs (Cantone, 1999). Furthermore, having a compliance program in place may help if the government does target a specific organization. Because a compliance program forces an organization to document their efforts to follow the law, it may help avoid criminal prosecution and exclusion from the federal health care programs, and provide an argument for lighter fines and penalties if a mistake is made (Cady 2007; Cantone, 1999; McKessy and Saner, 1998;). Overall compliance programs are very useful to prevent health care fraud. The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) have supplied resources like: the “Compliance Programs for the Small Group Practice” booklet, an employee educational program plan, packets of research and survey information on compliance in physician practices, a website dedicated to creating compliance programs, and a monthly compliance newsletter called the “Physician Practice Compliance Report”, that can be used to create compliance programs (McKessy and Saner, 1998). Many other organizations, including the federal government, have also developed resources for organizations to use to create their own compliance programs.
One aspect of health care fraud prevention that is not mentioned enough is the consumer’s role. Consumers need to get involved with there health care, beyond just going to the doctor and taking their medicine. They need to be educated on their insurance plan, how much they pay, the proper names of their ailments, and they need to keep track of the services they receive and why they receive them. Consumers can serve as important allies in the fight against

health care fraud as well. Some recommended methods for consumers to use to identify and reduce fraud are (Liberman and Rolle, 1998):
1.
Be wary of telephone solicitors who promise free checkups, testing, or medical equipment.
2.
Be cautious about rolling labs and health fairs, especially when a battery of tests is administered as opposed to a specific test.
3.
Do not provide a detailed medical history or sign multiple insurance forms that assign automatic reimbursement authority to a provider.
4.
Be skeptical when someone offers a free treatment. A provider may promise to waive part of the bill and suggest that the insurance company will cover the remainder of the cost. This may be untrue.
5.
Review all medical bills closely. Any billing discrepancies should be promptly reported to the clinician who provided the service.
6.
Do your research. Research each health agency contacted. Try to identify a provider who has been operating for at least five years, licensed by the state, certified by Medicare, and accredited by JCAHO.
7.
Report suspected fraudulent acts to proper authorities.



CONCLUSION
There has been some progress made toward minimizing health care fraud and abuse through government statutes and programs, and better education. However, as more money continues to be spent on health care more criminals will be attracted, and more fraud will be committed. As more people commit health care fraud, more complex types of fraud will be created. The best way to prevent health care fraud in the future is to address these issues now, and in order to do so Medicare and Medicaid must spend the money on the new deception detection technology along with hiring and training more fraud investigators. They must continue to research all aspects of health care fraud, train providers, and physicians in the correct way to code claims, and other parts of the claims process, continue to involve the public in their

health care, and pass legislation forcing every provider of health care to have and annually update a compliance program.
First, every step in the claims process needs to include regularly updated preventative deception detection software, in order to stay ahead of the new fraud techniques. Even though these programs are not able to detect everything, they have a good chance of flagging irregularities if linked with the national data base and alert system, created by the Fraud and Abuse Control Program. Along with the new technology we must also increase the number of fraud investigators in every aspect of the claims process, so that the irregularities that the deception detection technology flagged can be checked by trained investigators, and dealt with correctly. It is important that we update preventative deception detection software and hire and train more fraud investigators to achieve maximum success.
Secondly, we need to continue research of fraudulent activities, who commits them, why and how in order to continue to minimize their occurrence. The federal government should create a National Fraud Research Center to be in charge of funding and performing fraud research throughout the country, and training all of the FBI’s Fraud Investigators. The research center could be easily funded by the money that is returned from fraud convictions.
The National Fraud Research Center can also be responsible for accomplishing my third recommendation to prevent health care fraud: better education for everyone involved in the health care system. In order to better train providers, physicians, and administrators the National Fraud Research Center could hold mandatory conferences and training sessions throughout the country that each must attend in order to keep their licenses current. They could also pass legislation that forces physicians with a certain amount of patients to hire a certified

administrator who can then be responsible for all of the coding, billing, and claims. In order to educate the public legislation could be passed requiring insurance companies to hold public training sessions on how to read their specific summary of benefits. The National Fraud Research Center could also begin some kind of campaign to educate the public on health care fraud’s importance, and how they can aid in the fight against it.
Finally, the federal government needs to pass legislation forcing every provider of health care to have and annually update a compliance program. The legislation at a minimum will outline what is necessary in each program, and if a corporate compliance officer is needed depending on the number of consumers a provider/physician serves. It will also force each organization to do an internal audit to address their weaknesses. Compliance programs have been proven successful, and are relatively inexpensive. They have many benefits for the providers as well as the federal government, and should be easily initiated with all of the resources already available.
Throughout this paper it has been proven that fraud is a huge factor contributing to the growing cost of health care in the United States. If it continues more and more Americans will be unable to afford the health care that they desperately need. In order to stop fraud, it is imperative that the United States government and the citizens of the United States take an active role in pursuing more effective ways to identify and prevent fraud. If we all work together it is possible to control rising health care costs, and fighting fraud, through the ways mentioned above, is a good first step.

Works Cited
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    Cindy Walsh is a lifelong political activist and academic living in Baltimore, Maryland.

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