Monday, June 17, 2013

'S' Blogs

English: First Capital Connect 317342 and National Express 317653 at Cambridge railway station's southern bay platforms. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

4max (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sandra Guzman
http://www.sandraguzman.com/

Sardonicky
http://kmgarcia2000.blogspot.com/

Nice sidebar RSS updates

Saving Ethical Journalism
http://savingethicaljournalism.blogspot.com/

site created by journalists who are concerned about plagiarism, aggregation, scraping and content misrepresentation on the Web

infrequent posts

Say No To Corporate America
http://saynotocorporateamerica.blogspot.com/

Popular Posts

Schools Matter
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/

NOTICE: On April 22, 2013, SM merged with @the chalkface. Find us at our new home: atthechalkface.com.

Perhaps Team Obama should have a second look at its decision to put corporate foundations in charge of U. S. education policy. Just perhaps there is something to be learned from a hundred years of academic research that the corporate drones have summarily dismissed. From the LA Times editorial page:

. . . .Prodded heavily by reform groups, many of which receive funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, states and school districts have in some cases taken the use of students' scores to extremes that have no grounding in research, making them count for half or more of a teacher's rating, or hastily concocting tests to measure unmeasurable subjects — and then applying the results to teachers. The most mocked example is Ohio's extensive new exam in physical education, which includes measuring whether students' movements while skipping are adequately smooth.

In 2010, California was denied $700 million in federal Race to the Top funds, largely because it declined to require that student test scores be linked to teacher ratings — something the Obama administration had demanded in return for the money, even though there was little if any evidence that the scores had value as indicators of a teacher's work.

Anonymous1:15 PM

Education "reform" isn't about improvement, it's about corporate takeover...they will not rest until they've taken every dollar out of every Publicly owned enterprise, those with no money will cease to exist as soon as possible (like public libraries...already being massively defunded so as to facilitate their demise and close a door to Free self-education.) The Gates foundation is evil, it's main concerns are profits for it's corporate friends like Rupert Murdoch and his education testing and data collecting companies, also evil is the Walton (Walmart) foundation, Jeb Bush's education foundation(forgot the name, but if a Bush is involved...sorry, thy are self-serving, not my heroes....) Speak Out, Speak Up, Be Loud...they are part of the "too big to fail" crowd, they have gotten enough of our public money...Stand Up and Stop Them Now!

Screw You Guys, I'm Going Home
http://employeeatty.blogspot.com/

Sidebar Law Blog RSS

So What Did I Miss?
http://sowhatdidimiss.blogspot.com/

Most recent post Jan 2012 ( missed quite a bit )

Southern Man
http://southernmanblog.blogspot.com/

stalker
http://hatewatchhallofshame.blogspot.com/

Stop The Tennessee Pipeline!
http://www.notennesseepipeline.org/

Kinder Morgan Avoids Federal Taxes

This January article from Bloomberg News puts in perspective the recent $41,000 donation Kinder Morgan made to keep Milford Beach open in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. Milford Beach was due to close because of the federal government sequester.

Since Kinder Morgan bought Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. last year, TGP hasn't paid federal taxes due to subsidies for pipeline companies. TGP effectively avoided paying 36 percent of their revenue to the federal budget. This is the kind of corruption that contributes to the deficit we're in and the reason cuts to our Park Service happened in the first place.

Congress Denies $1.5 Billion With Favor to Pipelines

By Zachary R. Mider - Jan 15, 2013 12:01 AM ET

For more than 60 years, the Tennessee Gas Pipeline has linked natural-gas wells in Texas to customers in the north. Until last year, it paid federal corporate income taxes on its earnings, setting aside $107 million in 2011 alone.

Then in August, Houston-based Kinder Morgan (KMP) Energy Partners LP bought the pipeline.

Because of a little-known subsidy that annually costs taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, Tennessee Gas’s bill dropped to zero and stayed there.