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The Washington Post ran an article highlighting warnings about the budget deficit from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It would have been helpful to inform readers that the IMF completely missed the $8 trillion housing bubble, the collapse of which collapsed the U.S. economy, leading to the worst downturn since the Great Depression.
This background would be helpful to readers in assessing the importance of the IMF's warnings.
The report obtained by The Star-Ledger compared 2010 standardized test scores for charter schools against district schools. The scores were from grades 3 through 8, and 11th grade. That data is contained in a report expected to be released today by the state Department of Education.Bob Braun, the Ledger's fine columnist, reminds us that we must look at the charter numbers with a jaundiced eye. The report -- later issued by Christie -- did little more than prove "that the charter schools best able to exclude the neediest students got both the highest test scores," which is something charter critics have long argued. If the best students can migrate away from urban schools, it has a residual effect on the schools left behind.
The newspaper analysis shows 76 percent of charter school eighth grades outpaced performance in their districts in language arts, for example, as did 68 percent of fourth-grade classes in language arts, and 58 percent of fourth-grade classes in math. At the high school level, 69 percent of schools outperformed district classes in the language arts portion of the high school proficiency exam, and 54 percent outdid district classes in math.
There are about 73 charter schools operating in New Jersey now, most in urban areas, serving varying grade levels.
School choice—that’s the latest ticket to "equal educational opportunity," according to the governor. Finally, a solution that won’t require children to be with other children who don’t look like them. A solution that won’t require a lot more money or state effort.Addressing the failings of poor schools will take far more of a commitment of resources than we seem willing to provide and it will mean addressing the long-standing racial, ethnic and class segregation that has plagued this allegedly liberal state. But then, no one seems to be all that concerned with fixing things for he poorest of the poor.
But it’s not helping, either. It’s just further isolating the neediest children. Charters enroll far fewer very poor children with educational problems than do the traditional schools.
And, while a few charters might be helping a small number of inner-city children, their test scores, like those of traditional schools, still lag behind the rest of the state.
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| The view from our front window. |
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| The pool is about 5 feet tall. Gives you some perspective. |
Mr. Immelt will be chairman of the new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness that Mr. Obama intends to create by executive order. In a statement issued shortly after midnight, Mr. Obama said he wanted the council to “focus its work on finding new ways to encourage the private sector to hire and invest in American competitiveness.”Immelt said that the panel will include a broad range of economic players, including labor, but it is unclear what role the people who actually do the heavy lifting will have. It seems unlikely, for instance, that the panel or the president will do much if anything to address the serious power imbalance that has developed in recent decades between labor and management or the decline in union membership that has plagued workers for years, an imbalance highlighted in a column by David Leonhardt in yesterday's Times (and the focus of an upcoming column by me in The Progressive Populist). The "basic structure of the American economy," which has led to three jobless recoveries in the last 20 years, is "an important factor," he says -- and one made all the more devastating by the imbalance of power between labor and management.
Relative to the situation in most other countries — or in this country for most of the last century — American employers operate with few restraints. Unions have withered, at least in the private sector, and courts have grown friendlier to business. Many companies can now come much closer to setting the terms of their relationship with employees, letting them go when they become a drag on profits and relying on remaining workers or temporary ones when business picks up.I'm hoping that Immelt and his panel can help, but unless labor has more than a token seat at the table I just don't expect much to happen.
Just consider the main measure of corporate health: profits. In Canada, Japan and most of Europe, corporate profits have still not recovered to precrisis levels. In the United States, profits have more than recovered, rising 12 percent since late 2007.
For corporate America, the Great Recession is over. For the American work force, it’s not.
The percentage of the unemployed who have been out of work for 27 weeks or longer edged up last month to 44.3 percent, about the same level as a year ago. Other indicators, such as the length of the average work week, remained stagnant.All told, one in six Americans is either unemployed (either actively seeking jobs or having given up) under-employed. The brutal reality is everyone knows someone who is out of work, whether it is a former co-worker, a friend, a neighbor or a relative, and most of us know many.
Here’s the real question: Will a court under siege buy into the governor’s political views about spending or will it find the collective nerve to tell Chris Christie his oath of office requires him to obey all constitutional mandates, including the one to maintain a thorough and efficient school system?
It’s simple: Without the justices’ permission, the governor’s budget, adopted by the Legislature, cut $1 billion from a school aid formula the court, just a year before, ruled constitutional if funded. To cut that billion, Christie—and lawmakers—had to make choices.
Like not raising taxes on rich people. A political choice.
there is a place for fiscal responsibility. But there is also a place for moral responsibility. Those who created the mess should shoulder the burden of cleaning it up. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid did not create this crisis, war profiteering and Wall Street speculation did. So before any working family sacrifices, the first demand should be that the profiteers and the speculators pay for their crisis.
