Charter Schools Hoodwinking Hypocrisy

Mark Weber, who blogs as “Jersey Jazzman,” is earning his Doctorate in Research and Statistics while teaching in a New Jersey public school. He is a sharp critic of shoddy research, especially of charter schools’ fantastical claims.

In his latest post, he asks why CREDO, the charter-evaluating institute at Stanford University run by Macke Raymond, continues to use an invalid metric – one which has never been scientifically sound – to evaluate charter schools’ performance.

Journalists, who have little expertise in evaluating research claims, eagerly, though ignorantly, promote such unsound claims by writing things like School X produces an additional “number of days of learning.”

That happened most recently in Texas, where charter schools finally matched the test scores of public schools – aka so-called “failing schools” for which charter schools are supposed to be the rescuers.

Continue learning…
http://wp.me/p2odLa-hSK

The U.S. Economy In 6 Simple Pictures

Picture #1:

It’s fairly explanatory. American corporations are making profits hand over fist. They’re making more profit now, than before the “Great Recession.” In fact, they’re making more than DOUBLE from their lowest during that time.

Corporate Profits After Tax

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Historical Audio: Reagan supported increased wages & labor protection

Seems as if everything old is news again.

Of course, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

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GOP Panics As Audio Emerges Proving Their Hero Reagan Would Oppose Current GOP Policies

Author: Rika Christensen April 9, 2014 6:49 pm

A 1948 audio recording of Ronald Reagan shows that he would have opposed the GOP’s policies today. In fact, if the GOP actually knew anything about Reagan’s history, they’d wonder how he even ended up in the party to begin with. The right-wing lunatic fringe runs today’s GOP. Back when this recording was made, Ronald Reagan sounded far more like one of today’s liberal Democrats than a Republican. The difference is astonishing.

Ronald Reagan on the 1946 GOP’s plan to increase people’s real incomes:

“The profits of corporations have doubled, while workers’ wages have increased by only one quarter. In other words, profits have gone up four times as much as wages. And the small increase workers did receive was eaten up by rising prices, which also bored into their savings.”

Gee, that sounds an awful lot like what’s happening now. Soaring corporate profits should mean that workers’ wages go up, also. Instead, more people than ever live paycheck to paycheck, and fewer have any savings to speak of, let alone enough to pay six months of living expenses in case of an emergency. But the stock market has reached record highs several times. So everything’s cool, at least as far as the GOP is concerned.

Ronald Reagan on the “free market” and rising prices:

“High prices have not been caused by higher wages, but by bigger and bigger profits. The Republican promises sounded pretty good in 1946. But what has happened since then? Since the 80^th Congress took over? Prices have climbed to the highest level in history, although the death of the OPA was supposed to bring prices down through ‘the natural process of free competition.’”

So, even back then, the Republican ideal of the free market didn’t work the way they insisted, and Ronald Reagan could see that. These days, they still want the government to stay out. They want competition to work for lowering prices and creating jobs. However, the so-called “free market” that they want tends toward monopolies and/or price collusion, which both drive prices up. These two situations prevent new businesses from entering the market to compete, and hurt consumers and workers, while driving profits sky-high.

Ronald Reagan on working Americans:

You Wall Street Mother Fucking Sons of Bitches!

Brian Williams has reported Thursday, December 17, 2009 on the NBC Nightly News that,

“New York state finance officials said today Wall Street is on track to shatter all profitability records this year.

Profits came in at just under FIFTY BILLION dollars

– that’s profit for the first three quarters of 2009 –

and that is much more than was expected for the entire year,

and a stunning TWO-AND-A-HALF times more than the previous record set back in the year 2000.

Bonus payments for bankers and traders could be as much as FORTY percent HIGHER than last year.”

Download the New York State Comptroller‘s report – Review of the Financial Plan of the City of New York, December 2009,  Report 16-2010, by Thomas P. DiNapoli, New York State Comptroller –  here:

http://www.osc.state.ny.us/osdc/rpt16-2010.pdf

See NBC Nightly News video here:

http://www.videonewslive.com/view/404951/video_wall_street_sees_recordbreaking_profits

-AND-

here:

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/wall-street-sees-record-breaking-profits/60a1dyr