Where Is Black Outrage Over Atlanta Test Cheating Scandal?

By John W. Lillpop

Teachers and others in the education community in Atlanta have been charged with an unspeakable crime: Robbing children, mostly poor African-Americans, of the opportunity to gain insight into their progress, or lack thereof, in learning within the public school system.

 

Unbelievably, professional teachers and higher education officials, engaged in a monstrous conspiracy to deliberately falsify test scores to create the impression that certain schools were making progress in improving test scores.

 

As reported at the reference, this outrageous behavior has inflected enormous harm on the very students it purported to help: Poor, black students:

According to The New York Times, the scandal goes beyond cheating. Retired district superintendent Beverly L. Hall is among 35 Atlanta educators indicted by a Fulton County grand jury. Ms. Hall was charged with "racketeering, theft, influencing witnesses, conspiracy and making false statements." Ms. Hall reportedly earned more than $500,000 in performance bonuses. She faces up to 45 years in prison.

Ms. Hall has received considerable recognition for her achievements, which later turned out to be counterfeit. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan invited her to the White House. In 2009, The American Association of School Administrators named her superintendent of the year. It was a case of something being too good to check. Who doesn't want to see poor and minority children succeed in school? It appears these teachers cared more about themselves than the children. Even the reliably liberal and pro-public school columnist Eugene Robinson is disturbed. Writing in The Washington Post, Mr. Robinson says, "It is time to acknowledge that the fashionable theory of school reform -- requiring that pay and job security for teachers, principals and administrators depend on their students' standardized test scores -- is at best a well-intentioned mistake, and at worst nothing but a racket."
Mr. Robinson quotes Post education reporter Valerie Strauss, who has written that while there have been "dozens" of allegations of cheating around the country, "only Atlanta's has been aggressively and thoroughly investigated." Ms. Strauss wrote, "We don't really know" how widespread the problem might be. Isn't it long past time to find out?"

 

In the era of entitlement mania where 47 % of the population do not work or pay taxes, how in the hell is it possible to convince young folks to work hard and get a good education when Beverly L. Hall is paid $500,000 for implementing policies that make hard work and education meaningless?

 

Black children face difficult odds in today’s world. How does it in any way help these needy youth by covering up their true needs with fraudulent test scores?

 

And where is the rage from Reverends Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the Congressional Black Congress over the fraud which cheats young blacks?

 

Where is President Obama on this racist crime spree?

 

Why are black leaders not outraged that teachers and managers like Beverly L. Hall are, in effect, saying that black children are not bright enough to learn without cheating?

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-thomas-atlanta-teachers-20130406,0,6314475.story

Permanent Disability: The Only Hope for American Workers Under Obama?

By John W. Lillpop



America’s decline into a haven for those seeking income without the inconvenience of working gained momentum in March as the Obama Recovery continues to sputter and spin in the wrong direction.

Adding to the Obama-chaos, a most ominious sign surfaced: The number of people signing up for permanent disability nearly equaled the number of those who found gainful employment during March.

This disconcerting news was reported at the reference thusly:

Almost as many people signed up with the federal government's permanent worker disability program as got jobs in March, according to two sets of government data, continuing a troubling trend throughout the Obama recovery.

Last month, 81,804 workers left the workforce to join the Social Security Disability Insurance program. So far this year, nearly a quarter million workers have joined the program.

Over the past four years, 4 million left the workforce to go on disability. Even after accounting for those who dropped out of the program because of death or retirement, the ranks of the disabled have shot up more than 1.4 million under Obama.

Today, the ranks of the disabled number 8.8 million, and when you add in children and spouses, the number climbs to 10.9 million.

Economists generally agree that the anemic recovery under President Obama has driven legions of workers who have been unable to find work to seek out the SSDI program.

"When opportunities for employment are plentiful, some people who could quality for (disability insurance) benefits find working more attractive," the Congressional Budget Office noted in a recent report on the program, adding that "when employment opportunities are scarce, some of these people participate in the DI program instead."

Since the recovery officially started in June 2009, more than 9 million have dropped out of the labor force, either because they retired, gave up looking for work, or signed up with a program like SSDI. This year alone, the number of people who aren't in the labor force shot up 959,000.

As a result, the labor force participation rate, which measures the number of people working or actively looking to the entire working age population, has fallen to 63.3%, from 65.7% at the start of the Obama recovery. That's the lowest level for this indicator since 1978.

The concern about so many signing up for disability is that almost none ever end up returning to the workforce. It's a problem the even the White House has expressed concern about.

In an economic report issued in 2011 the administration noted because "workers on SSDI rarely return to the labor force," this can result "in a loss to society of the economic contribution those workers could have made."

Even more depressing, the number of Americans on disability is in addition to the nearly 50 million that are on food stamps, a number that has reached epedemic proportions since Barack Obama took office.

Thus, the Obama economy kills millions of jobs with higher taxes and reckless spending, and then aggravates the problem further by adding millions of the people it has displaced to the public dole through food stamps and disability!

ObamaNomics: A self-perpetuating cycle of economic ruin!

One last dreadful thought: As bad as the numbers are, the devastation can only grow worse as the Marxist poison known as ObamaCare becomes a reality.

When will this abuse of the American people end?

http://news.investors.com/economy/040513-650781-disability-surges-under-obama.htm#ixzz2PbHlueZA

Obama Voluntary Salary Cut Makes Mockery of “Fair Share”

By John W. Lillpop


Over the past four years, President Obama has spent an inordinate amount of time at the Bully Pulpit preaching about the responsibility of the rich to pay what he calls their “Fair share,” a progressive euphemism for class warfare, higher taxes,  and seizure of greater and greater amounts of private wealth by government for redistribution to Democrat Party constituents.

It is of the same moral fabric as the Cypriot bank thievery, sans the transparency!

Obama’s dubious commitment to both deficit reduction and fair share thinking have not profited from his recent propoganda that he is voluntarily returning 5% of his income to the Treasury as a symbol of solidarity with other government workers and the American people.

Five percent, Mr. President?  

You are paid an annual salary of $400,000 and you are willing to part with all of $20,000 to share in the pain which your policies are causative?

Are you serious, sir?

Why not a “fair share,” sir, on the order of say 50 percent, or a cool $200,000?

Surely you and Michelle can afford it?

Admittedly, you may have to cut back on golfing dates with Tiger Woods, or take fewer, less ostentatious vacations.   Perhaps the girls would learn the true meaning of sacrifice by attending public, rather than costly, private schools?

How about putting a damper on Michelle’s extravagant expenditures on clothing, trips, and other personal luxury?

You see? Just as with the taxpayers’ money, It CAN be done, provided one has the will to try!

One Word Retort to the Google Easter Day Blasphemy!

By John W. Lillpop

Google’s tin-ear assault on the most Holy religious holiday in Christendom (Easter) in favor of heralding the birthday of a leftist union organizer (Cesar Chavez) of little note or importance, has spawned an epidemic of wailing and gnashing of teeth within the Christian community.

Many of the indignant Faithful are organizing protest marches, writing letters to the editor, and boycotting California fruit to send a message, loud and clear, to the Google Doodle savants who work in ivory towers on the Google campus in the God-forsaken Bay Area.

Relax, brothers and sisters!

A simple, one-word retort will suffice to put the Googleites in their place:

The word?  BING!

And so it is!

More Important on Easter Sunday: Resurrection of Jesus Christ, or Birth of Cesar Chavez?

By John W. Lillpop


One is arguably the most beloved, well-known, and memorialized figure in human history. The other is a somewhat ordinary man, known for advocating on behalf of farm workers in California.

The former is, of course, Jesus Christ, known for voluntarily shedding his very blood for the salvation of all of human kind from sin. Christians believe Jesus to have been God incarnate, the most pure, precious, loving being to have ever walked on the face of earth.

The later was, by all accounts  a decent, spiritual man and devout follower of Jesus Christ during his life.  However, Cesar Chavez is not remembered as being deity or God incarnate, except by a very small number of extremists sulking in the vineyards of California!

So, on Easter Day, whom should be the central figure? Jesus Christ or Cesar Chavez?

An ALL TOO EASY proposition for the overwhelming majority, but not for dunderheads in charge of doodles at Google.

As reported at the reference:

Google is taking heat for its Easter Sunday doodle – that cartoon modification of its logo that changes from day to day.

Today, (Easter Sunday) the middle letter is a round portrait of the late migrant farm labor union leader Cesar Chavez.

Like many such doodles, it comes on the birthday of the subject. Mr. Chavez was born March 31, 1927 in Yuma, Arizona.

But appearing on Easter – one of the holiest days for hundreds of millions of Christians around the world – the Chavez Google doodle has set off a mini-storm of protest, including (inevitably) in the twitterverse.

Some examples:

“Unbelievable! Their true colors are showing! Yahoo here I come!”
“Damn Google…. No Easter wishes from those Atheists.”
“A huge BOOO!! to Google for making their holiday doodle about Cesar Chavez's 86th birthday instead of Easter (celebrated by over a billion).”
“I've got nothing against Cesar Chavez, but even Chavez was a Catholic. I doubt he'd want Google to recognize him on Resurrection Day.”
“Better a dead lefty, them a risen Lord.”
“Google uses Caesar Chavez on Easter instead of using something Easter related? Okay, I'm switching to Bing.”
Apparently confusing Cesar Chavez with Hugo Chavez, the late president of Venezuela, one wrote: “Google can't celebrate Easter but can celebrate a dictator's birthday?!”
But there’s been more thoughtful comment as well, unlimited by the snappy 140-character Twitter format – much of it alluding to Chavez’s own Christian religion
“Google’s odd choice should remind us that whatever one thinks of Chavez’s politics, they are impossible to understand apart from his belief in the resurrected Christ,” writes Matthew Schmitz, deputy editor of First Things, an ecumenical journal published by The Institute on Religion and Public Life.
“As a Christian, Chavez believed that the first revolution had to be a revolution of the soul, which meant that personal sacrifices were demanded – not just of the oppressor, but of the oppressed,” writes Mr. Schmitz. “For Chavez, social reform was never merely external. Without peace of spirit and purity of heart, there was little point in pursuing justice. Collective bargaining, just wages, shorter workdays: for Chavez none of these made sense outside the fact of his risen Lord.”
Although Chavez has been gone for 20 years, he continues to be remembered as an important figure in US history.

          Cesar Chavez Day, is a state holiday in California, Colorado, and Texas.

President Obama has proclaimed March 31 as “Cesar Chavez Day” and designated the 105-acre “Cesar E. Chavez National Monument” in Kern County, California farm country.

         Mr. Obama’s campaign rallying cry – “Yes, we can!” – echoed the UFW’s “Sí, se puede.”

Leave it to Barack Obama to denigrate the most important day in Christian history in order to pander to Hispanic voters, illegal aliens, and labor unions!

Shame on both Barack Obama AND Google!

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2013/0331/Google-takes-Easter-heat-over-Cesar-Chavez-doodle?nav=87-frontpage-entryNineItem