Lately, education reform has gotten a bad name. This is largely because all efforts to improve our institutions of learning are suspected to be more Rhee-form than reform, with an emphasis on statistics over students, testing over tutoring, one-size fits all approaches as opposed to creating the kind of cultural change within our schools that will lead to their renaissance.

This is why, for me, it was quite literally a breath of fresh air when I recently was introduced to Steve Edwards, CEO of Edwards Educational Services. Edwards, who speaks so passionately about education that there is no doubting his sincerity, has built a model consulting practice on the premise that leadership skills are of paramount importance, safety, lowering dropout rates and student achievement go hand in hand, and building a relationship of “trust” between students, administrators and educators is key.

In summary, Edwards and his entire organization are so successful because as EES itself states, we can't apply “simplistic solutions to address complex problems…The educational system of each city and town must be structured and continually adjusted to meet the needs of its population, as well as the demands of society’s evolving dynamics.”

Adding to this, Edwards told me:

There are a number of indicators of student performance, of which testing is only one. It is considered 95% of the pie by those dominating many reform conversations today. It should be about 20%.

Let's not create conformity so kids do not learn to think. Let's not substitute rigidity for the ability to study data and demographics from local communities, and see what that tells us about which strategies will be most successful. Let's develop programs so teachers and students can learn to communicate and interact. Let's prioritize safety and achievement, and acknowledge the obvious relationship between them. Let's ensure there is teacher accountability, but not judge teachers based on results from one test, but on how they handle all of these important facets of the educational experience for our children.

If that sounds different than Rhee-form, that's because it is. Innovation should be about updating improving how we teach our children, not figuring out the best way to profit from it. Yes, change is necessary, no it doesn't need to come in the form of some Randian version of public schooling.

How do we know EES’ strategies work? Because even before he took his innovative student-centric approach national, Edwards displayed its effectiveness as principal of East Hartford High School in East Hartford, Connecticut for a decade, during which time he and the school were recognized by USA Today as national leaders in education innovation.

What happened during his tenure there? Only a 50% reduction in suspensions, over 50% drop in incidents of fighting, no student expulsions in seven years, a reduction in the dropout rate to under 1.8%, and increased graduation rates—all while improving scores on the standardized tests that are so all-important to Rhee's crowd.

More recently, from 2005 to 2008, Edwards Educational Services worked with 48 Toledo Public Schools. When compared to the 14 schools that did not work with EES, the results speak for themselves. EES's emphasis on creating a culture of collaboration and data-based decision-making led to an increase in achievement scores of over 60% among the 48 public schools they worked with, while the other 14% saw their achievement scores go up by just over 10%. I don't need Isaac Newton to explain to me that those numbers mean something.

In the years since, Edwards has learned what works on the ground level, joining The National Crime Prevention Council as vice president, to develop strategies to lessen youth, family, and community violence. Edwards also provided kids with the training, skills, and confidence they need as Vice President of Global Initiatives with 180-Degree, and a decade sitting on the Board of the National Dropout Prevention Center—all contributors to the development of the groundbreaking programs of Edwards Educational Services.

As if these results and strategic imperatives don’t speak for themselves, one need only look to a recent piece by Sarah D. Sparks in Education Week, entitled, “Study Links School Safety to Student Achievement, Relationships,” to see the power of The Edwards Approach:

School safety depends far less on the poverty and crime surrounding the campus than on the academic achievement of its students and their relationships with adults in the building, according to a new study of Chicago public schools.

Read the rest, it is well worth it.

I'm excited to be working with Edwards Educational Services in trying to achieve some pretty lofty goals, but I'm even more excited that in EES we have the answer to Rhee-form. And as you could have guessed, it’s real, it’s tangible, and it’s student-focused....REFORM.

Cliff Schecter's on Twitter, Follow him @cliffschecter

They need to beat him like a rented mule. Shame on him, and shame on the spineless Democrats who let this mean old snake go home to take a nap and then rolled over for his blackmail, adjourning for the weekend and letting desperate families hang:

Retiring Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) late Thursday launched a one-man crusade to block an extension of unemployment and COBRA insurance benefits, vowing to allow the benefit programs to expire Sunday unless Democrats agreed to pay for them with unused stimulus funds.

Bunning’s quixotic pursuit of deficit offsets at the potential expense of payments to unemployed or uninsured citizens enraged Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and other Democrats, who vowed to keep the chamber in session until Bunning relents or collapses.

Yes, last night the brain-addled Bunning complained about missing a college basketball game, and responded "Tough sh*t" when Sen. Jeff Merkley begged him to drop his opposition.

A senior Democratic leadership aide said Durbin would ask for unanimous consent to pass the extensions without Bunning’s payment scheme every half hour for the foreseeable future. “We’re going to keep doing it until we break him,” the aide said.

Break him, huh? David Waldman:

So they had him to the point where he was shouting obscenities on the Senate floor and decided... to let him go home for a good night's sleep.

Awesome!

He probably slept a hell of a lot better than the Kentuckians who are out of work and depending on those benefits, I can tell you that. No word on whether Senate Democrats actually tucked him in.

This morning, the fight resumed, presumably after a nourishing breakfast which some of those Kentucky families would probably have liked to have had themselves. The unanimous consent request to pass the extension was made, Bunning objected, gave a short speech, and then suggested the absence of a quorum, which you may recall is often used as a stalling tactic to avoid conducting an actual filibuster.

[...] UPDATE: Never mind! The Senate appears to have adjourned for the weekend. Bunning has won for the day, and Durbin's threat has shockingly failed to materialize at all. The extent of Bunning's punishment: he missed prime time TeeVee last night.

Oh, and when the DSCC calls you for a donation? Refer them to this. You can also let Sen. Bunning know how much you appreciate his politicking over benefits for the neediest in the worst economy since the Great Depression. Flood his offices with faxes and phone calls.

In a segment of a wide-ranging interview, available here, former New York Govenor Eliot Spitzer gives his impression of the effectiveness of Barack Obama's first year in office and advises the Democratic leadership in Congress that the key to the mid-term elections is to give voters a clear and unequivocable Democratic candidate to re-elect, rather than a frightened, ineffectual politician moving to the right for expediency's sake.

While Spitzer's shine has been tarnished by his peccadillos, his own clear-eyed view of the party and reform are difficult with which to argue. Sadly, inside the Beltway, I don't think this message is getting through, so I'm laying it out clearly now for our friends in DC to show their bosses.

Wouldn't you prefer an unapologetic defender of Democratic Party values (who does not get all the legislation passed due to the political gamesmanship) over someone who will get legislation passed, only by watering it down and capitulating to demands to accomodate the Right?

Wednesday, Senator Bernie Sanders became the first to introduce a universal health care bill on the floor of the Senate. (see above video) While he eventually withdrew the bill after Republican delaying tactics, my hat is off to the Independent Senator from Vermont. He has always stood up for the people of his state and the country and he has big brass ones!

Now, Bernie has said that he will not vote for the current bill. More from The Hill:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said late Wednesday that he cannot support the Democrats' healthcare reform legislation in its current form.

Asked by Fox Business Network's Neil Cavuto asked Sanders if he could support the compromise bill. The senator replied "I’m struggling with this. As of this point I am not voting for the bill. And here’s why."

Sanders, who favors a single-payer healthcare system, said that he has informed the White House and Democratic leadership of his position.

"As of this moment. I am going to do my best to make this bill a better bill, a bill that I can vote for but I’ve indicated both to the White House and the Democratic leadership that my vote is not secure at this point," he said.

Sanders words come as Democratic leaders are now facing heat from the left over several compromises made in order to attract centrist votes. Read on...

Hooray for Bernie! Any notion that killing the public option or the Medicare buy in provision is a "centrist" idea is ridiculous -- it is a far right position, and one that lies well outside the mainstream of America and the Democratic Party platform. Holy Joe Lieberman has been shoving his mug in front of every camera he can find to gloat about how much power he wields in this debate, so I am thrilled to see Sanders step up to the plate and make it known that not everybody on Capitol Hill is going to roll over for the insurance lobby.

The news in the last few days has continued the drumbeat of demoralizing events which started in the Bush administration, and with only a few hiccups has continued through the Obama administration. It is clear that Obama is, fundamentally, Bush's 3rd term.

First we have the health care "reform" debacle, where it has been confirmed that the White House pushed Harry Reid to accept Lieberman's ultimatum, not go to reconciliation. There will be no public option in the Senate bill. There will be no Medicare expansion. There will be no cap on yearly limits. What there will be is a mandate forcing people to buy insurance, some subsidies which can still leave people spending money they can't afford, and guaranteed issue of lousy plans (Plans where only 70% of the premiums have to be spent on care, for example.) Unless progressive Senators are willing to filibuster, or House progressives are willing to vote against en-masse, something very close to the Senate plan is what will pass, because as I noted some time ago, the White House's bottom line is that something, anything must pass, and conservative Dems are willing to kill the bill to make sure it doesn't actually threaten health industry profits in any way, shape, or form. (Thus why drug importation, which would cost Pharma money, will be made illegal.)

All of this was completely predictable. Furthermore the weakness of progressive and liberal legislators, is largely to blame:

Obama and the Democratic leadership's bottom line is they must pass some bill called "health care reform". Unless you threaten to take away their bottom line, they will take away anything that isn't progressives bottom line

This is Negotiation 101, and progressive legislators either don't understand it, or are spineless. As a result they, and Americans, have been rolled yet again. What is depressing about this is that it should be a surprise to no one, but apparently has surprised many.

It is also noteworthy that spending billions on turning brown people into a fine red mist (a.k.a. the Afghan war) is acceptable, but health care (a.k.a. saving actual American lives) is something which can't cost money. What an interesting--and clearly evil--set of priorities that reveals. I guarantee that real healthcare reform would save more American lives than the entire war on terror—assuming said "war" hasn't cost more American lives than it's saved, which is almost certainly the case.

Next we have what Glenn Greenwald is calling the creation of Gitmo North, in which people whom the government judges there is not enough evidence to convict, will be held indefinitely without trial. This is the very definition of tyranny. Any nation which does this is a nation of men, not laws. America has forsaken its fundamental premise and proved its degradation. Yes, this started under Bush, but as Obama embraces this, it because a bipartisan project and the new elite consensus. This is now something which has been confirmed as US policy which is extremely unlikely to change no matter who is in power.

Then we have bankers are giving themselves bonuses larger than the entire economy's GDP growth this year.

Continue reading »

I'm not feeling incredibly optimistic this morning. Sounds like the most conservative (and most expensive) version of this bill will make up the final version, and I don't see much to celebrate. Is it better to have a crappy bill - or no bill at all?

And why should those be our only options?

The fact is, the Democratic leadership lacks, well, leadership. They think constructing a stage set and acting out a scene that looks like they're leading on the public option is enough to placate the people who so desperately need their help. It isn't. They simply don't get it, and it will cost them:

From the liberal end, Burris repeated a threat made earlier: That if the public option is taken out, he's gone. "I won't vote for it," he said.

"You'll lose people on the left," confirmed Brown.

Reid, aware of the fine line he's walking, told reporters that Landrieu, Schumer and Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) are working on a compromise public option, perhaps something that 60 folks could support and save face.

That's what you don't understand, Harry. It's not about "face." But then, it's been so long since you had to worry about paying for your health care, I suppose it's too much to expect.

Yes, this will eventually be good for the country and perhaps our grandchildren - but it won't do much to help the people who need help during these desperate times, and it's certainly going to hurt the Democrats in the midterm elections:

After announcing her intent to support a health care debate this afternoon, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) told reporters she thinks Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will soon have to choose between a triggered public option and no health care bill. She also says Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)--the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate one of its most fierce and vocal public option advocates--has been tasked as a point man on the issue.

"I believe it's going to be very clear at some point very soon that there are not 60 votes for the current provision in the bill, and that the leader and the leadership are going to have to make a decision and I trust that they will figure out how to do that," Landrieu told reporters.

Landrieu has been in negotiations with a number of centrist senators about a compromise that would eliminate the public option, except in states where insurance remains unaffordable. Interestingly, though, Schumer is playing a big role in that process.

"Senator Schumer's working on that. He's sort of been tasked as one of the point people," she told me. "He's been tagged as one of the point people to help negotiate that."

Schumer's involvement as a liaison between liberal and conservative Democrats puts the trigger issue in a new light. When Reid announced that he'd include his opt-out plan in the health care bill in lieu of triggers, many, including trigger-author Olympia Snowe, believed the compromise to be dead. But it now appears to be one of the central points of discussion between leadership and conservative Democrats as they try to find 60 votes for a reform bill.

It's half a victory, and a weak one at that.

Ah, the audacity of playing it safe! Obama clearly doesn't understand how positively this will affect people's lives, or he wouldn't be so lukewarm. The public option is polling well everywhere - including those conservative districts.

In fact, just about the only group not strongly supportive are the big contributors:

President Barack Obama is actively discouraging Senate Democrats in their effort to include a public insurance option with a state opt-out clause as part of health care reform. In its place, say multiple Democratic sources, Obama has indicated a preference for an alternative policy, favored by the insurance industry, which would see a public plan "triggered" into effect in the future by a failure of the industry to meet certain benchmarks.

The administration retreat runs counter to the letter and the spirit of Obama's presidential campaign. The man who ran on the "Audacity of Hope" has now taken a more conservative stand than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), leaving progressives with a mix of confusion and outrage. Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill have battled conservatives in their own party in an effort to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Now tantalizingly close, they are calling for Obama to step up.

"The leadership understands that pushing for a public option is a somewhat risky strategy, but we may be within striking distance. A signal from the president could be enough to put us over the top," said one Senate Democratic leadership aide. Such pleading is exceedingly rare on Capitol Hill and comes only after Senate leaders exhausted every effort to encourage Obama to engage.

"Everybody knows we're close enough that these guys could be rolled. They just don't want to do it because it makes the politics harder," said a senior Democratic source, saying that Obama is worried about the political fate of Blue Dogs and conservative Senate Democrats if the bill isn't seen as bipartisan. "These last couple folks, they could get them if Obama leaned on them."

But with fundamental reform of the health care system in plain sight for the first time in half a century, the president appears to be siding with those who see the Senate and its entrenched culture as too resistant to change. Administration officials say that Obama's preference for the trigger, which is backed by Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, is founded in a fear that Reid's public option couldn't get the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster. More specifically, aides fear that a handful of conservative Democrats will not support a bill unless it has at least one Republican member's support.

Getting the public option in the Senate bill makes it that much more likely that we'll be able to get it through conference, and not through the reconciliation process.

Sen. "I need 60 votes to do anything" Reid has lost the confidence of enough of us over his weak leadership that Progressive Change has decided to run ads letting Harry know that he better show some spine, or be prepared to be voted out. From the email going out to PCCC's membership:

Senate Majority Leader Reid is brokering a health care bill this week. But he seems ready to cave to a few corporate Democrats who want to kill a public health insurance option. We can't let that happen.

Our ad features one of Harry Reid's constituents, Nevada nurse Lee Slaughter. She has seen insurance companies cut off care to patients in need -- and says that in 2010, she will vote on only one issue: "I'm watching to see if Harry Reid is strong and effective enough as a leader to pass a public option into law."

We know that Sen. Reid is concerned about his election next year. Polls show him trailing Republicans, and he's already running campaign ads. Our ad will remind him that for many voters back home, the public option is a make-or-break issue. Voters want Reid to fight for the public option and win -- not cave.

Keith Olbermann reports that Reid is "pushing back against progressives" and "setting expectations low." That's unacceptable. The public overwhelmingly wants the public option. Democrats control the government, with a huge 60-seat Senate majority.

This week is critical. We need Harry Reid to be a strong and effective leader right now. It has never been more important.

If you can, please help PCCC raise the funds to put this ad on the air.

...to vote! White lace and promises...

There are a bunch of votes still left to take in the Senate. How many, you ask?

Ezra Klein knows:

Louisville, Ky.: Ezra, can you shed some light on the process involved in moving the Health-Care bill through the Senate? I've heard bits and pieces about number of votes required, but would like some clarification about: voting to block filibuster in the Senate, taking the bill back to a joint Senate-House conference, then back to the floor for final vote. Would you expand on this? Thanks.

Ezra Klein: Sure. Next move is the Finance Committee vote on Tuesday: that requires a bare majority of the committee (I think that means 11 votes, but that's just memory). Then Reid and the Democratic leadership blend the HELP and Finance bills into one bill. That doesn't require any votes. Then the bill comes to the floor. It'll need 60 votes against a filibuster, and 51 votes in favor of the legislation.

Then we have to deal with the House bills. Do you have a headache? People are becoming very irritable in America. Haven't you noticed? The health-care debate and the economic situation is really, really making life miserable for most of America.

A kiss for luck and we're on our way...

Before the rising sun we fly...

So many roads to choose...

We start out walking and learn to run...

Man, I wish I knew which Democratic lawmaker said this:

We may strip out all the gives to industry in the predatory mortgage lending bill that the House passed last November, which hasn't budged in the Senate, and include that in the bill. There are other ideas on the table but they are going to be tough to work out before next week.

I also find myself drawn to provisions that would serve no useful purpose except to insult the industry, like requiring the CEOs, CFOs and the chair of the board of any entity that sells mortgage related securities to the Treasury Department to certify that they have completed an approved course in credit counseling. That is now required of consumers filing bankruptcy to make sure they feel properly humiliated for being head over heels in debt, although most lost control of their finances because of a serious illness in the family. That would just be petty and childish, and completely in character for me.

I'm open to other ideas, and I am looking for volunteers who want to hold the sons of bitches so I can beat the crap out of them.

Unfortunately, that kind of anger and cojones are few and far between in DC, and another lawmaker outlines how he sees it going:

Here's the industry's play: progressives will approach Nancy with ideas for reform, and she'll agree to push for their proposals, and she'll really mean it. Then industry lobbyists will go to Dennis Moore, Melissa Bean and a few other Democrats, and tell them how dire the consequences of the proposals would be, and that the members who understand how the economy works need to step up to stop Nancy and the crazy liberals from doing something rash. Then those Democrats will go to Steny and tell him how terrible Nancy's crazy ideas would be, and how we can't rush into something like that without much, much more thought. [..] The only way, our leadership will conclude, to get anything at all passed is to include nothing more than the inconsequential proposals that the lobbyists agreed to. Then we'll all go along because it would be wildly irresponsible not to act when we're staring over the brink of a complete collapse of world financial markets.

I'd diagram it for you if I had a chalkboard. I've seen the play again and again, and it always goes for long yardage.

The only defense for the play is for a significant group of Democrats to say they won't vote for any proposal that isn't unpalatable to industry, and mean it. It's a pretty high stakes game of chicken, but otherwise we come out of this with nothing but a $700 billion giveaway to a crooked industry.

Pathetic. Gutless. Bad for America. But watch it happen. If you haven't already, please take a few minutes to contact your representatives to tell them not to give President Paulson a blank check. Faxes and letters have more impact than phone calls, and as always, stay polite.