Friday, October 22, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Obama: Angel of Death
In 2010, Colorado will mark the beginning of the end of the culture of death. The first state to legalize abortion, will fittingly be the first state to banish it.
Teachers Fight Release of Data
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten is also president of NY State's largest local affiliate, the United Federation of Teachers in New York City.
From The Wall Street Journal
By Barbara Martinez
The New York City teachers union is fighting the release of data that tries to gauge the effectiveness of 12,000 of its members, saying the measuring system is too flawed to make teachers' names public.
The city Department of Education was set to release the data Wednesday, spurred by public-records requests from news organizations, including The Wall Street Journal. But the United Federation of Teachers threatened a lawsuit, and the DOE delayed its plans. A DOE spokeswoman said that unless a court interferes, the city intends to make them public Friday.
The reports attempt to measure the progress that students in fourth through eighth grades make under a teacher by comparing their state test scores in math and English in a given year with the previous year.
The "value-added" data is a source of deep controversy in New York and in other districts nationwide. In New York City, the value-added scores of teachers are determined using a complex formula that attempts to take into account various factors outside of the teacher's control, such as poverty, class size and student disabilities. The reports compare the teachers to other teachers with similar students.
Proponents of disclosing the data say that parents have a right to know whether their children's teachers consistently move students forward. But critics argue that the science for figuring out how much a teacher affects a student—despite attempts to account for outside factors—is still too new to trust with wide-scale dissemination.
"There isn't a reliable value-add system anywhere on this planet," said union President Michael Mulgrew. He said he isn't opposed to developing such a system, but the current one produces scores that aren't ready to be publicized with teachers' names. He said of 20 value-added reports teachers have sent him, 13 had errors, such as listing pupils not in the class.
The DOE said there has only been a smattering of complaints, and they have been quickly resolved.
Mr. Mulgrew also found fault with basing the data on test scores, which the state this year acknowledged were flawed. In addition, the union provided a 2008 letter from a DOE official that promised that in the event a public-records request was made for the data, "we will work with the UFT to craft the best legal arguments available to the effect that such documents fall within an exemption from disclosure."
Natalie Ravitz, DOE's spokeswoman, said the agency does "not believe that any of the exemptions" under the records law "apply in this matter, which is what we told the UFT. But that will be for a judge to decide."
Mr. Mulgrew said the UFT will likely seek an injunction Thursday to prevent the disclosure.
The DOE used value-added data this year for the first time to help determine whether to give a teacher tenure. For some teachers, the DOE has up to four years of annual student test data on which to build a value-added score. Only 12,000 of the city's nearly 80,000 public-school teachers have such scores because they teach math or English to fourth through eighth graders. Testing begins in third grade, which provides a baseline score.
"Nobody is saying that value-added estimates tell the full story," said Timothy Daly, president of the New Teacher Project, a Brooklyn group that helps districts nationwide, including New York, recruit teachers. But it is "far more useful" than the current practice of "using one or two brief classroom visits by an administrator marking a checklist as an evaluation system."
Still, even proponents of value-added systems said publishing teacher names makes them nervous. "There are a lot of benefits to this approach, but the science of the methodology at this point isn't where it should be to attach teachers names to it," said Douglas Ready, a professor at Columbia University's Teachers College.
Write to Barbara Martinez at Barbara.Martinez@wsj.com
By Barbara Martinez
The New York City teachers union is fighting the release of data that tries to gauge the effectiveness of 12,000 of its members, saying the measuring system is too flawed to make teachers' names public.
The city Department of Education was set to release the data Wednesday, spurred by public-records requests from news organizations, including The Wall Street Journal. But the United Federation of Teachers threatened a lawsuit, and the DOE delayed its plans. A DOE spokeswoman said that unless a court interferes, the city intends to make them public Friday.
The reports attempt to measure the progress that students in fourth through eighth grades make under a teacher by comparing their state test scores in math and English in a given year with the previous year.
The "value-added" data is a source of deep controversy in New York and in other districts nationwide. In New York City, the value-added scores of teachers are determined using a complex formula that attempts to take into account various factors outside of the teacher's control, such as poverty, class size and student disabilities. The reports compare the teachers to other teachers with similar students.
Proponents of disclosing the data say that parents have a right to know whether their children's teachers consistently move students forward. But critics argue that the science for figuring out how much a teacher affects a student—despite attempts to account for outside factors—is still too new to trust with wide-scale dissemination.
"There isn't a reliable value-add system anywhere on this planet," said union President Michael Mulgrew. He said he isn't opposed to developing such a system, but the current one produces scores that aren't ready to be publicized with teachers' names. He said of 20 value-added reports teachers have sent him, 13 had errors, such as listing pupils not in the class.
The DOE said there has only been a smattering of complaints, and they have been quickly resolved.
Mr. Mulgrew also found fault with basing the data on test scores, which the state this year acknowledged were flawed. In addition, the union provided a 2008 letter from a DOE official that promised that in the event a public-records request was made for the data, "we will work with the UFT to craft the best legal arguments available to the effect that such documents fall within an exemption from disclosure."
Natalie Ravitz, DOE's spokeswoman, said the agency does "not believe that any of the exemptions" under the records law "apply in this matter, which is what we told the UFT. But that will be for a judge to decide."
Mr. Mulgrew said the UFT will likely seek an injunction Thursday to prevent the disclosure.
The DOE used value-added data this year for the first time to help determine whether to give a teacher tenure. For some teachers, the DOE has up to four years of annual student test data on which to build a value-added score. Only 12,000 of the city's nearly 80,000 public-school teachers have such scores because they teach math or English to fourth through eighth graders. Testing begins in third grade, which provides a baseline score.
"Nobody is saying that value-added estimates tell the full story," said Timothy Daly, president of the New Teacher Project, a Brooklyn group that helps districts nationwide, including New York, recruit teachers. But it is "far more useful" than the current practice of "using one or two brief classroom visits by an administrator marking a checklist as an evaluation system."
Still, even proponents of value-added systems said publishing teacher names makes them nervous. "There are a lot of benefits to this approach, but the science of the methodology at this point isn't where it should be to attach teachers names to it," said Douglas Ready, a professor at Columbia University's Teachers College.
Write to Barbara Martinez at Barbara.Martinez@wsj.com
Ohio Democrat Threatens Pro-Life Leader with Jail
From Human EventsSBA List president Marjorie Dannensfelser
and Rep. Steve Driehaus
By Connie Hair
Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio) got himself into deep water when he took a principled stand to defend life earlier this year -- then buckled to his pro-abortion leadership to vote in favor of passing Obamacare.
The legislation passed by Democrats allows the use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortion on demand through government-run insurance plans.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of the Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List), is being threatened with possible jail time for informing voters that Driehaus voted in favor of taxpayer-funded abortion with his vote for Obamacare.
Read the rest of this entry >>
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Pope Names 24 New Cardinals
At his regular weekly public audience on October 20, Pope Benedict XVI announced his plan to elevate 24 new members to the College of Cardinals.
Confirming the expectations of Vatican journalists, the Holy Father announced that a consistory will be held on November 20. He named 20 prelates who will become voting members of the College of Cardinals. Four others who will receive a red hat in recognition of their long service to the Church, but because they are over the age of 80 they will not be eligible to participate in papal election.
The 20 new cardinal-electors will bring the total number of voting cardinals to 121—one above the normative maximum of 120. However the Pope has the authority to waive that maximum—as Pope John Paul II did in the past. The number will drop back down to 120 by January 2011, when the French Cardinal Bernard Panafieu, the retired Archbishop of Marseilles, turns 80.
The twenty new cardinal-electors will be:
- Archbishop Angelo Amato, the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints;
- Archbishop Fortunato Baldelli, the Major Penitentiary;
- Archbishop Raymond Burke, the American-born prefect of the Apostolic Signatura;
- Archbishop Raymundo Damasceno Assis of Aparecida, Brazil;
- Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, the president of the Prefecture for Economic Affairs of the Holy See;
- Archbishop Kurt Koch, the president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity;
- Archbishop Reinhard Marx of Munich;
- Archbishop Medardo Mazombwe, the retired Archbishop of Lusaka, Zaire;
- Archbishop Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa, Congo;
- Archbishop Francesco Monterisi, the archpriest of the Roman basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls;
- Coptic Catholic Patriarch Antonios Naguib of Alexandria, Egypt—the relator general for the current Synod of Bishops for the Middle East;
- Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz of Warsaw;
- Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, the new prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy;
- Archbishop Paolo Romeo of Palermo, Italy;
- Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don of Colombo, Sri Lanka;
- Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture;
- Archbishop Robert Sarah, the new president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum—the charitable arm of the papacy;
- Archbishop Paolo Sardi, the pro-patron of the Knights of Malta;
- Archbishop Raul Vela Chiriboga, the retired Archbishop of Quito, Ecuador; and
- Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, DC.
The four prelates who will be raised to the College of Cardinals, but ineligible to vote in a papal election because of age, are:
- Msgr. Domenico Bartolucci, the longtime director (now retired) of the Sistine Chapel choir;
- Msgr. Walter Brandmuller, the former president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences;
- Archbishop José Manuel Estepa Llaurens, the former ordinary for the Spanish military forces; and
- Archbishop Elio Sgreccia, the former president of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
Most of the Pope’s choices were expected, although the names of Archbishops Mazombwe and Vela were not often heard in the speculation prior to the papal announcement. Interestingly, both of these archbishops are already retired—although they remain eligible to take part in a conclave. Cardinal-elect Mazombwe, who is 79, will lose that eligibility next September.
Archbishop Marx will be the youngest of the new cardinals, and the youngest member of the College as a whole. Msgr. Bartolucci, who is 93, will become the 4th-oldest member of the College.
Among the prelates whose names are conspicuously absent from the list of new cardinals are two leading archbishops of the English-speaking world: Archbishops Vincent Nichols of Westminster and Timothy Dolan of New York. Both archbishops have succeeded cardinals who remain under the age of 80: Cardinals Cormac Murphy-O’Connor of Westminster and Edward Egan of New York. Vatican tradition weighs against the appointment of a new cardinal from any archdiocese whose former leader remains a cardinal-elector.
White House Insider: Coming Soon – Serious White House Scandal
We are very intrigued by the following story at NewsFlavor. A major scandal in an administration this arrogant and contemptuous of the Constitution seems inevitable and the perfect trigger for a not-so-civil war between the Clinton and Kennedy wings (Hillary and Obama) of the Democrat Party. Add the tinder of massive defeat in just under two weeks, and watch the conflagration.
White House Insider: Coming Soon – Serious White House Scandal | Newsflavor
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
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