Obama’s War on Schools

The No Child Left Behind Act has been deadly to public education. So why has the president embraced it?


The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) mandated that 100 percent of students be proficient in reading and math by 2014. Any school not on track to meet this utopian goal—one never reached by any nation in the world—would face a series of sanctions, culminating in the firing of the staff and the closing of the school. As 2014 nears, tens of thousands of schools have been stigmatized as failures, thousands of educators have been fired, and schools that were once the anchors of their communities are closing, replaced in many cases by privately managed schools. NCLB turns out to be a timetable for the destruction of public education.

Because of the punitive character of the federal law, educators struggle to meet their testing targets. Many districts have reduced time for the arts, history, science, civics, foreign languages, physical education, literature, and geography. They devote more time to preparing students for the state tests in basic skills, which will determine the life or death of their schools. Some districts, such as Atlanta, have experienced cheating scandals. Some states, such as New York, lowered the passing mark on their tests to increase the number of students who were allegedly proficient.

Standardized-test scores can provide useful information about how students are doing. But as soon as the scores are tied to firing staff, giving bonuses, and closing schools, the measures become the goal of education, rather than an indicator.


Read more at Newsweek

Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%

Americans have been watching protests against oppressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet in our own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret.

It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all boats. That response would be misguided. While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. For men with only high-school degrees, the decline has been precipitous—12 percent in the last quarter-century alone. All the growth in recent decades—and more—has gone to those at the top. In terms of income equality, America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride. Among our closest counterparts are Russia with its oligarchs and Iran. While many of the old centers of inequality in Latin America, such as Brazil, have been striving in recent years, rather successfully, to improve the plight of the poor and reduce gaps in income, America has allowed inequality to grow.

Read More at Vanity Fair

From 'The Binding Returned'

The five-fold Doors

may be gained

through the Path of Water

by the man without form

through the Path of Life

by the man of compassionate heart

through the Path of Fire

by the man of courageous will

through the Path of Earth

by the man who assumes the burden

through the Path of Air

by the man who sees the vision

or through the Binding of the World and Underworld

by the Man of All Paths

The new Littoral Combat Ships, the U.S.S. Freedom and Independence

The $645 million Freedom arrived in the fleet in late 2008; the Navy commissioned its $704 million cousin Independence in January 2010. They’re the first of 20 more LCSs that will cost the Navy at least $450 million per ship through 2015.

It looks to me like it was designed to solve the only current clear and present maritime danger to American shipping – the pirates operating in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Not!

US Navy website for the USS Independence

The X-37B

It is sad to note that while NASA surrenders the ability to put men and women into space to the Russians and the Chinese, the US government still thinks it has the money to build the X-37B to do no telling what.

Read more at www.wired.com

The weather in Langkawi 28 March 2011

Phuket weather radar from
http://www2.tmd.go.th/radar/pkt240.php

and the Thai Meteorological Department

Web Site Development

I have once again completely destroyed my website in an attempt to improve it. Creating nothing, when you don't know what you're doing, or what you want to do, or have have any desire to turn yourself into a brand, takes up valuable time that should be spent writing.

The real payoff comes at the end of the day when you try to upload your brilliance to the net – from a place where there is no real internet connection. I can't get a 1 Kb file to FTP. I don't know if the problem is here, the ether in between, or at my hosts end. But when it takes hours to upload little arrow GIF files, the fun disappears.

Kindle Edition of The Binding Returned

The Binding Returned is available as a Kindle eBook.

How to write a novel

I wish I knew an easier way than the 'slow and steady'. Since 'The Binding Returned' is labeled 'Fantasy' that means it's disposable genre-fiction. It will be read in a few hours, and then maybe people will look for the next book in the series.

All that matters is that there is a next book in the series, not the fact all I seem to manage is about 500 words a day.

The Binding Returned released

The Binding Returned is now available at:

The Binding Returned



and can also be found at Amazon by searching by the title:

The Binding Returned

or by the author name:

Jeffrey Morrow Miller

www.amazon.com


I hope you manage to find it.