Archive for December 4th, 2006
At 10:20 PM it was snowing like a bitch. As I’m writing this, the rate of snowfall is increasing. While I was poking my head out the front door to take a picture, an amazing sight was presented to me. The parking violation’s douche bag was still driving around in his little white pickup truck at this hour. He probably gets triple time pay for tagging parking violators during periods of snow.
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Governor Pataki is secretly negotiating with the State Legislature and may approve a raise for them in exchange for approval on projects that would aid his presidential aspirations.
Mr. Pataki and lawmakers have agreed to convene a special session in mid-December, ostensibly to hammer out an agreement on a civil confinement bill for sexual predators. Sources say talks between the governor and legislative leaders in the lead-up to the session have already extended far beyond that issue, and involve pay raises, an expansion of charter schools, judicial appointments, an appointment to the board of the City University of New York, and possibly an agreement on a plan to build Moynihan Station.
“They’re dealing. How close or far apart I don’t know, but they’re dealing,” said a source familiar with the legislative negotiations.
I am completely in agreement with Pataki on the need for more Charter Schools, however, this quid pro quo method of bargaining must stop. Projects need to be evaluated on their own merits.
Eliot Spitzer, not surprisingly, is encouraging the bargaining efforts.
Sources say Governor-elect Spitzer is encouraging Mr. Silver to negotiate. By approving a pay raise, Mr. Pataki would also be doing a favor for Mr. Spitzer, who ran a campaign pledging to clean up state government and has said he is opposed to giving lawmakers a salary hike. If Mr. Pataki does not act, Mr. Spitzer would be under pressure to grant lawmakers a raise in two years, a move that could taint his image as government reformer.
(read the rest from The New York Sun)
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Beginning today, the United States government will begin an unprecedented data-mining program on 10’s of millions of U.S. travelers.
Washington, D.C. - An invasive and unprecedented data-mining system is set to be deployed on U.S. travelers Monday, despite substantial questions about Americans’ privacy. In comments sent to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked the agency to delay the program’s rollout until it makes more details available to the public and addresses critical privacy and due process concerns.
The Automated Targeting System (ATS) will create and assign “risk assessments” to tens of millions of citizens as they enter and leave the country. Individuals will have no way to access information about their “risk assessment” scores or to correct any false information about them. But once the assessment is made, the government will retain the information for 40 years — as well as make it available to untold numbers of federal, state, local, and foreign agencies in addition to contractors, grantees, consultants, and others.
“The government is preparing to give millions of law-abiding citizens’ risk assessment’ scores that will follow them throughout their lives,” said EFF Senior Counsel David Sobel. “If that wasn’t frightening enough, none of us will have the ability to know our own score, or to challenge it. Homeland Security needs to delay the deployment of this system and allow for an informed public debate on this dangerous proposal.”
More from the A.C.L.U.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@dcaclu.orgWASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union today condemned an unprecedented new program for generating terrorist ratings on tens of millions of travelers, including American citizens, maintaining those ratings for 40 years, and making them available throughout the government.
Continue Reading “Government Assault on U.S. Citizens’ Privacy” »
The headline from today’s Buffalo News states:
The gap between public and private school students’ achievement grows wider as the students move up in grades. From my point of view, it was evident, even without testing, that private schools do a better job educating students. The town I grew in had a Catholic school that only went to grade 8. The vast majority of those students transferred to the public high school rather than traveling a distance to the nearest Catholic high school. There was always a disproportionate share of the former Catholic school students ranked at the top of my class.
Across Erie and Niagara counties, about 25,000 children - 12 percent of all pupils - attend private schools. Eight out of 10 are in a Catholic school. Of the rest, Christian fundamentalist schools account for the largest number. Lutheran, Jewish, Islamic, Baptist, Seventh-day Adventist and nonreligious schools account for the rest.
It is a shame that not all parents are able to make the choice to send their children to a private school. That could be changed with a system of vouchers or tax credits used to pay for education. That would create competition among schools for students. The competition would raise the bar of educational instruction and weed out the public, and private, schools that are doing a poor job. It would not cost the taxpayers any more money. Most European countries have this type of choice available and the students from those countries consistently out-perform public school students in this country.
“A common complaint is that the [private schools] oftentimes will only keep the kids who are better able to be successful in the school setting,” said Donald A. Ogilvie, superintendent of Erie 1 Board of Cooperative Educational Services. “I’m not sure if that’s true.”
What is certain is that public schools serve a fairly large population of children with disabilities - usually at least 10 percent of the total. Private schools may serve pupils with milder disabilities, but if a child needs outside services, such as physical therapy, the child has to get those services from a public school.
The argument that public schools are needed to serve the disabled students doesn’t hold water. If parents had the choice to apply their educational dollars to private schools, schools would be created that address the needs of all students. It is only the monopolistic government controlled schools systems that keep disabled students in under-performing schools.
Private schools are not required to hire certified teachers. The state does not keep track of how many teachers are certified in private schools, as it does for public schools. In many of the better private schools, principals say all of their teachers are certified.
Salaries in the private sector generally are one-third to one-half what they are in the public schools. Teachers are drawn to the private schools for other reasons.
The fact that private schools are not required to hire certified teachers shows that government regulations do not work. Teachers in private schools are held accountable by their results. It is a natural system of performance based employment that doesn’t suffer under the weight of restrictive regulations and counter-productive union contracts. The goal of private schools is to educate the students, not provide protectionist union contracts with benefits and job guarantees that place education 2nd on the hierarchy of priorities.
It is just plain wrong that parents in the United States of America are do not have the freedom to choose a school for their children. The lack of choice flies in the face of the principles our country was founded upon. Currently, the amount of money spent by New York State to educate one student is almost equal to the tuition for a student to attend Nichols School. The government is forcing everyone to pay Cadillac rates for public school education but only providing subcompact car performance.
Cindy Locklear has analyzed and explained the 2007 budget spending amendments by Lynn Marinelli, et al. The democrats have balls. Even in the face of a hard control board, they managed to add jobs and needless spending to the budget. It must be nice to spend other people’s money with no regard for the financial consequences.
THIS WILL MEAN THE AVERAGE COUNTY TAX RATE WILL BE INCREASED TO THE 2006 LEVEL OF 4.94 PER THOUSAND BY VIRTUE OF THE DEMS AMENDMENTS. While it is the same rate as experienced in 2006 it is an increase over the Admin’s proposal for 2007.
Btw; none of this reflects the Dem’s requirement that the County Exec pass a resolution in January to increase funding to Tourism by another $500K.
Meanwhile, we must also keep in mind that the net increases to the General Fund mentioned above, include the creation of a ’sales tax contingency’ account also totaling $3,250,000 which is “ONLY TO BE UTLIZED IN THE EVENT THAT ACTUAL SALES TAX COLLECTIONS ARE LOWER THAN THE PROJECTED EXECUTIVE BUDGET 2007 SALES TAX REVENUE” (see New Budget Resolution #69). This was done in contemplation of the Comptroller’s forewarning of a “lower than anticipated increase in sales tax”. So, because the county share of the budget comes in large part from sales tax revenues, what this really looks like then is a preemptory shift of budget bloat to property owners.
I am glad I voted against this “Reality”.
